On October 21, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 8:10 am and 12:06 pm. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 223-006 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
But I've been on a lot of your campaigns, and it's customary to talk only about programs in terms of opinion.
It's more important than what a man advocates, it's what he believes.
I'll be the first to ask you.
The best you can buy.
That's why I want to talk to you.
Because what he believes will determine how you will act.
You should rise to the future, which you're not currently before.
It's for the heart of American government.
is sure to affect every person in this land as this.
We must turn more power over to bureaucrats in Washington.
What is best for all the people?
Or do we want to return our power to the people and to their state and local governments?
I'm just getting around this issue.
Certain in the past generation, there were cases much power concentrated in Washington did much to help our people live in greater fairness and security and to enable our nation to speak and act strongly in world affairs.
I know the people is best expressed by the nation acting as one people.
I strongly support the use of effective federal action.
Nation of power can get to be a dangerous habit.
Government officials who get power over others tend to want to keep it.
And the more power they get, the more they want.
We all remember the ways to present to the citizens the growth of the Asian nation.
People can use the faceless machine called the federal bureaucracy.
I know.
My father tells the rest of the family what to do.
That's called paternalism.
A worker, he knows what is best for their future.
That is called paternalism.
In government, when a central authority in Washington tells people across the country how they should conduct their lives, that, too, is paternalism.
The voting of the man in charge may be to do what he sincerely thinks is best for them.
I don't like to be under anybody's control.
No.
No.
No.
No.
know what's good for them.
They have more faith in government than they have in people.
They believe that the only way to achieve what they consider social justice is to place power in the hands of a strong central government which will do what they think has to be done, no matter what the majority thinks.
For them, the will of the people is the prejudice of the masses.
They deride anyone who wants to respond to that will of the people as pandering to the crowd.
A decent respect for the practice of majority rule is automatically denounced as political expediency.
I totally reject this philosophy.
When a man sees more and more of the money he earns taken away by government taxation, and he objects to that, I don't think it drives the charge into selfishness with not caring about the poor and dependent.
When a mother sees her child taken from a neighborhood school, transported miles away across town, and she objects to that, I don't think it drives the charge her with bigotry.
My young people apply for jobs in politics or industry.
Mine that are exposed because they don't fit the sum of the miracle quarter despite their ability in the objective.
I don't think it is right to condemn those young people as insensitive or racist.
Young people oppose income redistribution and busting for the wrong people's reasons.
But they have their own means of regarding Americans who oppose them for the right.
I'm a good decent people stop letting themselves be bulldozed by anybody who presumes to be the self-righteous moral judge of our society.
There's no reason to deal with guilty about wanting to enjoy what you get and give it to her, about wanting your children in good schools close to home, or about wanting to be judged fairly on your own.
Those are not values to be ashamed of.
They are values to be proud of.
Those are values that I shall always stand up for when they come under attack.
We will change America for the better by attacking our real problems, not by attacking our basic values.
Public dialogue by respecting and not appealing the motives of the people that the written candidate will offer not to represent.
And we would all do well to take those ideas seriously.
We have achieved a high level of leadership throughout our history because we have put aside the notion of a leadership class.
The advantage of a superior education should result in a deep respect for, and never contempt for, the average person.
Does it mean that the President should read all the public opinion polls before he acts to follow the opinion of the majority now, right?
Of course not.
A leader must be one who can take a popular stand on their own.
He insists on imposing on the people his own ideas for how they should live their lives, and those ideas go directly contrary to the values of the people themselves.
He does not understand the role of a leader in a democracy, and when he does find it necessary to take on a popular stand, he has an obligation to explain it to the people, solicit their support, and win their approval.
In every presidency, there are moments of successful figures in standing in the balance room.
expression of confidence that the American people were vitally important.
It came toward the end of my first year in office.
I had declared that we were going to end our involvement in the war in Vietnam with honor.
The people had understood the difference between settlement and surrender.
As you may recall, the organized wrath of thousands of local demonstrators proposed that policy and sent it on Washington.
Commentators and columnists wondered whether we would witness what they referred to.
On the 3rd of 1969,
I pay before my fellow Americans a great apology.
Responsibilities dishonor the strength of our national character.
The silent majority of Americans, good people with good judgment, who stand ready to do what they believe to be right, immediately responded.
Their response was powerful, non-party, and unscathed.
They gave its consent, and the express will of the people made it possible for the government to govern successfully.
I have seen the will of the majority in action, responding to a call to responsibility, to honor, to sacrifice.
That is why I cannot rely myself on those who have victually scorned the will of the majority, who treat a matured people as children of the ordered about, who treat the property of the new majority, that is forming not around a man or a party, but around a set of principles that is deep in the American spirit.
The new American majority believes that each person should have more of a say in how he lives his own life, how he spends his paycheck, how he brings up his children.
The American majority believes in taking better care of those who truly cannot care for themselves so that they can lead lives of dignity and self-respect.
The majority believes in taking whatever action is needed to hold on to the cost of living so that everyone's standards of living can go up.
The majority believes in a national event second to none so that America can help bring about a generation of peace.
These are not the beliefs of sovereignty.
On the contrary, they are the beliefs of a generous and self-reliant people, a people of intellect and courage, whose values deserve respect from every segment of our population.
The nation's most perceptive journalist asked me what I thought it would be like to be a second-term president, free of government and the thought of another election.
Actually, he was asking one of the people's questions of all.
Would I do what I thought was best for the people?
For when I do what the people thought was best for themselves, they think this nation is basically the same.
Each question deserves a thoughtful answer.
In the years to come, when I return to office, I shall not hesitate to take the action I think necessary to protect and defend this nation's best interests, whether or not those actions meet the wide popular goal.
I believe in my life to shy away from making hard decisions which I believe are right.
At the same time, you can be certain of it.
on matters affecting basic human rights, on the way Americans live their lives and bring up their children.
I am willing to respect and reflect the opinion of the people themselves.
That is what democracy is all about.
In the next four years, as in the past four, I will continue to direct the global power away from Washington and back to the people.
In meeting our material needs, we must never overlook every American spiritual need for personal freedom.
Freedom is taken away from the individual and the neighbor of the people, the people who rule the country, not the land of quotas and restrictions.
It was all meant to be created equal, not the land that demands that all citizens become the same.
Above all, this is the land where an alien capitalism has no place at all, because we deeply believe in a system that derives its power from the consent of the government.
In this life, I have had faith in the ultimate wisdom of the people.
and of the values of fairness and respect and compassion that spring from the living American spirit.
As President, I shall never break that promise.