On August 20, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 6:25 pm and 9:45 pm. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 206-018 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
She's right here, if you want her.
Yeah.
See, I was just talking to her on the road.
She was apparently down the road on this walk back, because they're right out in front.
She's out talking to Manolo right out in front right now.
If you want her, I can catch her.
I think that
you gotta get the whole deal i'll start i thought about all the issues and so forth it can be truly said that by our issue
the United States unilaterally to reduce its strength, with the naïve hope that other nations would do likewise, regardless of the increasing danger of war in the world.
This would completely remove any incentive for other nations to agree to a mutual limitation on protecting farmlands, promising initiatives we have undertaken for them in arms to be destroyed.
The security of the United States and all the nations in the world rely upon us to be dangerous and friendly.
We have cut defense spending in our administration so that it contacts the laws of our second department and actual product in 20 years.
We should not spend more on events than we need, but we should never spend less than we need.
Spending what we need will cost us money.
Spending less than we need could cost us our lives.
None of us take risks for peace, and none of us never raise the security of the United States of America.
I pledge to you,
the security of America to the goodwill of our adversaries.
Those who hold this naive view do not know the real world.
We can negotiate limitations of arms if we have done so.
We can make agreements to reduce the nature of war if we have done so.
But what unchangeable rule of international policy is for negotiations between great powers you can only get something if you give something and have something to give in return.
But it's always
There is no such thing as a retreat to peace.
I follow America to extend the threshold of one of the most exciting and challenging years in the history of relations between nations.
We had an opportunity in our time to be the peacemakers of the world.
Because the world trusts and respects us.
Because the world knows that we use our power only to defend freedom, never to destroy it, only to keep the peacemaker brave.
A strong America is not the enemy of peace, it is the guardian of peace.
Even more important, it means that the enormous creative advantages of the American people and the Russian people and the Chinese people and other people in the world can be turned away.
This dividend is too often been described solely in monetary terms, how much money we could take out of the arms budget to supply to our domestic needs.
By far the biggest dividend, however, is that achieving our goal of a true and lasting peace would reflect the deepest aspirations of the American people.
Whatever mistakes our nation has made in the field of foreign policy, they have been mistakes of the heart.
We seek no dominion over any other people.
We seek the right to live in peace, not only for ourselves, but for all of humanity.
I read her diary tells a terrible story
see that other children
Behold our future, and the future of peace and order in our hands.
The voice of those who whine and whimper about our frustrations, who call on us to turn away, is not the voice of America.
Let us not turn away from greatness.
The chance America now has to lead the way to everlasting peace in the world may never come again.
With faith in God, faith in ourselves, and faith in our country, let us seize the moment and meet the challenge before it sets way.
I ask you, my fellow Americans, to join the Army Majority, not just in the cause of winning an election, but in working together to win a peace which our children, all the children of the world, will enjoy for generations to come.
It all fits together, I think, perfectly.
You've got everything, you've got all that there in a way that works.
You don't have to have all that.
Negative segment have to come after tanya before they close.
Because you build at such a high point with tanya, then you turn it up.
You need to make the point.
So I guess it has to come out.
I've tried it several years.
Well we've done it.
But that's.
But I think that's the way to do it, you know.
And if somebody makes the point you used it 12 years ago, so much the better.
So you did.
It's a point, it's a, that establishes it as a guiding principle to you that disappears over a period of time.
Makes some sense as compared to all that Bible stuff, which was, Billy's was terrible and Andrew's was bad.
some relationship.
Okay.
I think that I'm not going to.
We're going down there.
There's a soul left in Washington.
Thank you, everybody.
as opposed to yourself.