Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 226 › Conversation 226-013

Nixon phone call with Harlow on White House reorganization and Melvin Laird

Friday, November 17, 1972 · 1:07 PM–1:15 PM ET · Camp David Hard Wire · 7 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Harlow, Bryce N.Conversation226-013 on Tape 226StartFriday, November 17, 1972 at 1:07 PMEndFriday, November 17, 1972 at 1:15 PMRecording deviceCamp David Hard WireSourceNixon Library record for 226-013 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon consulted with Bryce N. Harlow regarding the strategic reorganization of his administration and political operations for his second term. Nixon expressed his intent to move political functions out of the White House and into the Republican National Committee, proposing that Melvin Laird serve as his primary political operative to manage these activities. The two also discussed necessary staff changes, potential departures, and the importance of infusing new personnel into the administration to avoid the common pitfalls experienced by previous second-term presidencies.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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So, right?
How you doing?
It's that way, you know, they told me, I don't know what they're, they might not think you're talking to me, I can see they got all the absentees, but they say there's an uneven chance that we'll go over the 61.1.
I talked to Collin yesterday, he says he's praying for our two of them.
It's very close now, you know,
I think the absentees are all helping us, Bryce.
Yeah.
No, that hasn't been printed, but we're checking the secretaries of state.
Let me ask you one thing.
I'm seeing Mel today, you know, look over his plans.
He's announcing something.
He don't know what he's planning to do.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm going to move, now that I have this as a plan to do it, virtually all of the politics out of the White House into the National Committee, which I think is a good idea.
Would you know what I mean?
All of those PR people and everybody else, I mean, that kind of stuff ought to be done to the National Committee if the National Committee were worth a damn.
Have you ever heard of
The guy that rebuilt the conservative party.
Uh, the Laird conservative secretary defense has been very good in a very difficult time.
But defensive, he was politics lost, except during this campaign.
Now, let me draw a high to something I just think I kind of got on my own line.
Am I leading on there to say, no, you're a great politician?
I need it.
I need some committee.
I'm an actual chairman.
I have a salary of 75 plus, you know, it could be all the other things.
And we're going to go to work on building.
We're going to pull those damn Senate and House campaign committees and we'll open the whole trail of violence because that's not going to be organized.
Apparently there's a rock going down in the Senate probably to be a good man and maybe Jack Kevin of the House.
But, you know, Mel really ought to do something like that.
He'll be out there in the business.
He's going to be as fancy and happy to make money.
He doesn't have any money, does he?
That's right.
Mel's interested in his political career.
He could make something out of that job at this point.
Although the way I'm doing my political politics out of the White House is very densely, you can see all the rest.
My political man will be Mel Laird.
Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, oh, I would expect once a week, as a matter of fact, up until the time of the elections of 1974.
After that, then I sort of want to stay a step back a little bit.
I don't want to be involved in that.
Let it be today, and all the rest.
I don't know, but the point is, the whole point is that the whoever we got for this judgment had a hell of a job.
That's my point.
Because he's going to be the president's political man.
See?
All right.
Let me just, I just want to get some thought.
That's good.
I got the message.
I got the message.
We're reorganizing a lot here.
Some will stay, some will not.
And it's pretty tough, but you know what I mean.
Remember, I thought that in our time, in Eisenhower's reign, we made a mistake.
In fact, I'm looking over the history of the second term.
They all make mistakes and not, you know, we live by their administrations in the second term.
You know, you've got to get some blood in them, you know, in the trust.
We can't run the whole, I've made very significant changes to the staff, but I've got to keep some, you know, like the, like the Haldeman, I've got to keep the, you know, they don't, and it's very fortunate, Haldeman, Earlman, and also Hester, don't want to say indefinite, you know, any, but it's got, but the other people, it's me, it's us.
The bitch is leaving.
Her, her, uh, it's called her belief, yes.
He's shifting.
That church line, Don Rumsfeld.
Don ought to go back to the Senate, but he's decided to do it now.
You know, Don's real problem is making up his mind.
That's it.
That's it.
Five, six people.
Four, three, four, five, six, five, six.
It just depends on how he gets everything shut away so he gets everything shut off.
But he's putting up for it.
And we'll be very active on the political side, given, you know, legal and all that sort of thing.
We're not going to have another foundation, polling, just suburban and stuff.
All right?
So, no, we're not going to hurt anybody on our staff.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.

NARA Description

On November 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Bryce N. Harlow met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 1:07 pm to 1:15 pm. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 226-013 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 226-13

Date: November 17, 1972
Time: 1:07 pm - 1:15 pm
                                             -11-

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                                        Conversation No. 226-13 (cont’d)

Location: Camp David Hard Wire

The President talked with Bryce N. Harlow.

[See Conversation No. 153-46]

Also recorded on November 17, 1972

  • 153-043 12:50 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 12:50 pm and 1:04 pm.
  • 153-045 1:04 PM · 28 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone at Camp David from 1:04 pm to 1:05 pm.
  • 226-012 1:04 PM · 25 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 1:04 pm to 1:05 pm.
  • 153-046 1:07 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Bryce N. Harlow talked on the telephone at Camp David from 1:07 pm to 1:15 pm.
  • 153-047 1:15 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:15 pm and 6:20 pm.
  • 226-014 1:15 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:15 pm and 6:20 pm.
  • 226-035 1:15 PM · 1 min — unknown person(s) met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:15 pm and 6:20 pm.
  • 226-036 1:15 PM · 21 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:15 pm and 6:20 pm.

All 27 conversations from November 17, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 226-013, November 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/226-013 (accessed October 9, 2026).