Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 215-001
Date: Tuesday, October 3, 1972 at 6:00 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Sanchez, Manolo
Recording device: Camp David Hard Wire
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/215-001
National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/651228666 (NAID 651228666)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Okay, it's out.
[0:03] Pretty hard to take.
[0:07] Kind of nice.
[0:09] Great spot.
[0:12] Tell her.
[0:12] You know, this idea, they said, is not really all in just for the most part.
[0:17] Live up here?
[0:17] Well, in a way, even.
[0:18] Live here, but you can... You can make a hell of a lot of use of it.
[0:24] You should, in a sense, live up here, and you should establish that pretty much now.
[0:30] You know, that you come and go.
[0:31] You commute back and forth.
[0:34] Watch his family.
[0:36] And, of course, they don't raise questions all the time.
[0:38] They don't say he's gone to camp, baby.
[0:40] That's where he normally is.
[0:43] Yeah, meetings here.
[0:44] You get a lot of that.
[0:46] But certainly in the middle of the week, I guess.
[0:49] You should always be around.
[0:51] Just be off Tuesday night and spend all day Wednesday here and not schedule anything Tuesday morning.
[1:12] Do them Thursday, and then you keep Friday clear so you can get off to Key Biscayne.
[1:17] Thursday should be the night for our dinners.
[1:20] And Monday, so that if you go to Key Biscayne, you can stay over Monday night.
[1:24] Stay over Monday and come on Monday night.
[1:27] Then say that you won't do it, but you have the opportunity.
[1:30] You just start to say, well, Thursday's the night to go to dinner or have an event or anything like that, or a reception or something.
[1:42] The interesting thing about this is they can only run a very light amount of questions other than just a straight trial heat.
[2:04] But I had asked about the various McGovern proposals to see what we got in Massachusetts compared to the country as a whole.
[2:12] dollars a year to every man, woman, and child.
[2:15] It's agree 38, disagree 49.
[2:18] Now that's nationally, it was 1670 sales.
[2:21] So that gives us more welfare.
[2:23] So welfare isn't good in Massachusetts, isn't as good in Massachusetts.
[2:28] We should cut our defense budget by $32 billion, even if it's by the Soviet Union.
[2:44] Okay, we should be on unconditional amnesty.
[2:47] 3360.
[2:48] Nationally, it was 2070, but 3360 is still damn strong against amnesty.
[2:54] That's right.
[2:55] So amnesty works for us there.
[2:57] Now, here's the interesting thing.
[2:58] Vietnam would draw our troops from Indochina immediately on faith that the North Vietnamese would release our POWs.
[3:04] 2960.
[3:06] Nationally, it was 3062, so it's the same.
[3:14] This is supposedly the big, well, we don't get hurt in this, probably.
[3:18] It's a telephone pole.
[3:19] No, no, no, no.
[3:20] I meant despite the influence of hard MIT and OPM.
[3:23] Right.
[3:24] Okay.
[3:25] But the point here is, it's two to one against withdrawal.
[3:32] When you throw the POWs in, that biases the question.
[3:35] And then it abuses just Dan Hawkins for some reason.
[3:39] Marijuana that you've legalized is $28.57.
[3:44] against it?
[3:44] Yep.
[3:47] Crazy.
[3:48] Why not run though?
[3:51] Why not run some very heavy ads in Massachusetts?
[3:55] We should.
[3:56] How does he do it?
[3:58] This is the thing.
[3:59] Do you hear about the ad we ran today?
[4:04] We hit it almost on the nose because we ran all of these.
[4:10] We ran the $1,000 legalized marijuana
[4:13] Give up, you know, go back to handling.
[4:17] So we hit all those points in the ad in Boston this morning.
[4:22] What we need is some positive stuff up there.
[4:25] Of course, you don't really still think we ought to take a crack at going up there?
[4:30] No.
[4:30] I don't think so either.
[4:31] Why run the risk?
[4:32] I don't think you ought to go in.
[4:34] But I think we ought to make the effort.
[4:38] Tell him to hit those results.
[4:47] They snapped it to him.
[4:48] That's fine.
[4:50] All right, sirs.
[4:53] Uh, well, you think Mr. Agnew is too conservative?
[4:56] No, sir.
[4:57] No, no, sir.
[4:58] Why not?
[5:00] Because he's a friend of your friends in the president.
[5:04] He's too conservative.
[5:05] Well, sir, because... You've got to work in the press.
[5:07] The press are disgusting liberals.
[5:09] Why do you work with the government?
[5:12] That's right, my lord.
[5:15] Forgive me, sir.
[5:16] I've told you many times.
[5:17] The press in this country will go to the end and destroy this country.
[5:23] That's what they're talking about.
[5:47] on this, but you might want to look into it.
[5:49] He said, I remember that in 60 to 62, when McGovern was running the Food for Peace program, that there were very heavy shipments of grain abroad.
[5:58] He said, you ought to look into how that was handled.
[6:00] He said, you might just find something interesting in that area.
[6:03] He said, if you do find anything, I would like very much to have the information.
[6:10] He also said that both Saidi and Potter made a point of how impressive the ceremony was this morning.
[6:16] My assault ceremony at Potter said all I can say is it's a hell of a lot better to sit and watch a ceremony like that than to watch a declaration of war.
[6:45] or something.
[6:46] No, he doesn't know what it is.
[6:49] It's just personal.
[6:52] Be reminded that you talked to him from Camp David a while back.
[7:00] On air now.
[7:24] I agree with you.
[7:25] He's for the guy.
[7:26] There's no question.
[7:28] He's not for us.
[7:29] But he gets, you know, he does find things that offend the office.
[7:35] And I think making the charge that this is the most corrupt administration in history is something that those guys just simply won't buy.
[7:43] They know that this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, even a slightly tinge of a corruption administration.
[7:52] They know, they know
[7:55] They don't like the Watergate, but they don't.
[7:57] They know that it's corruption.
[7:58] They know it's stupidity.
[8:00] And it was.
[8:01] It is.
[8:03] And they know there's no corruption in the Green Deal.
[8:05] They know that that's a, you know, it's, again, in a sense, stupidity.
[8:13] And they know that some of those columns play into it.
[8:18] But they know damn well that there's nobody in this administration and anybody who's even started to put a finger on who's made a nickel out of being here.
[8:28] And that's not true of any administration before.
[8:32] Including Eisenhower.
[8:38] Anyway.
[8:52] Yeah, that's right.
[8:58] Don't tell anybody, but take some decisions.
[9:02] Well, I think it's incredibly important.