Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 245-002
Date: Tuesday, April 6, 1971 at 9:20 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); White House operator; Mansfield, Michael J. ("Mike"); Kissinger, Henry A.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/245-002

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Good deal.
[0:11] Good.
[0:11] What do you got here?
[0:11] Let's show the box.
[0:14] I'm just going to lay it here.
[0:29] Thank you.
[0:44] I know they may, but I just don't know.
[1:05] I don't know.
[1:06] I don't know.
[1:16] We've talked before about doing a notification and stuff.
[1:37] You know, through Rogers and Laird.
[1:38] People just report to the station.
[1:39] You've got to talk to Rogers and Laird and have them notify their key chairmen.
[1:41] I think they should.
[1:50] They'll probably want to do it by the moment.
[2:07] Probably, yeah.
[2:07] If you talk about the end of October.
[2:09] You know, I purposely know that I'm checking just to be sure we're going to do it.
[2:30] I do know Scott and Porter are here.
[2:30] I think we ought to tell them this morning.
[2:31] I'll call Mike.
[2:32] Mike Mansfield, please.
[2:49] I think I know what I have.
[2:57] Egg.
[2:57] I have two girls.
[2:57] Egg goes to the speaker.
[2:58] Egg goes to the speaker.
[2:59] ... ... ... ... ...
[3:29] Hello.
[3:36] Hello.
[3:37] Hi Mike.
[3:41] I don't want to put you out in terms of your own schedule and that's why I'm calling you before I go to the other ring.
[3:54] I would like to meet with the Big Five to get a hold of you at 7 o'clock tomorrow night.
[3:56] If you're not already left, but if you're still on my office, I think 4 is going to be your night.
[3:58] Good evening, Senator.
[3:59] Oh, I see.
[4:15] All right.
[4:16] I'll tell you what I'll do with you.
[4:20] If you'd like to suggest this with you, one of the ones we have for you.
[4:23] We don't send anyone to send you a big box.
[4:25] We've got speakers.
[4:25] We've got a box.
[4:25] We've got a board.
[4:26] We've got the whole Scott, Scott part.
[4:27] Right, right, right.
[4:27] I'll tell you this.
[4:28] I would like to show you before I take the announcement what it's going to be.
[4:45] It's going to be close to the headline.
[4:46] Well, I'll tell you what the reason is.
[4:49] I'm not informing you.
[4:52] I'm not informing you.
[4:52] I don't want you to read it.
[4:53] I've got all sorts of comments.
[4:55] I'd like to read it all.
[4:55] 10, 30, 11, better.
[4:55] But I do want any comments.
[4:57] Suit your time.
[5:02] The only time I'm tied up, I'm tied up at 11.30, between 11.30 and 12.30.
[5:13] I'm going at a time when it's a revenue share.
[5:15] Come in at Southwest Gate and come to the EOP at one of our guys.
[5:16] We'll be downstairs and bring you up.
[5:17] You know, it's those officers you and I met before.
[5:20] All right, Mike.
[5:21] Are you going home?
[5:21] You're going to Florida.
[5:22] Right at East Yoke, I recall, where you go to other grounds.
[5:36] Uh-huh.
[5:38] And that opens my deal with the special snow here today.
[5:41] I'm going to kill you, Mike.
[5:41] Bye, and I'll see you then.
[5:42] And as I say, can we say that you and I just talked about our visit to Montana right now?
[5:44] I believe you.
[5:44] I got a little suspicious of Mike.
[5:45] Mike, you're talking to me.
[5:47] All right, Mike.
[5:48] Bye.
[5:48] Bullshit, Mike.
[5:49] I don't know what to say.
[5:51] Bye.
[5:53] I think I can.
[6:18] It's not Bob, but it's never been Bob.
[6:21] This thing over there.
[6:52] Here you go.
[7:21] I suppose to go to my daughter's school this morning.
[7:43] Oh, good.
[7:43] Right away.
[7:44] Just a minute.
[7:44] Well, don't let me hold you.
[7:48] Yeah, let me just a minute.
[7:49] I'm going to sit down.
[7:51] Is there anything to do at this point?
[8:14] I can't take a look right now.
[8:15] I've got to front pay hands.
[8:15] I don't know.
[8:17] I don't know.
[8:17] I don't know.
[8:17] I don't know.
[8:18] I don't know.
[8:18] I don't know.
[8:18] I don't know.
[8:19] I don't know.
[8:19] I don't know.
[8:23] Hello.
[8:50] Hello.
[9:00] There's some others in the state, but that's not the point.
[9:22] The question is, where are they going to be?
[9:23] There's very much time left, and we're going to have to investigate as much as we can.
[9:25] We've been to the store twice, and a lot of your dear little boys, you know, have shared all over the place, and I haven't seen them say it that much.
[9:53] No.
[10:19] No.
[10:19] No.
[10:19] No.
[10:19] No.
[10:20] I'm totally honest with myself.
[10:46] I'm totally honest with myself.
[10:47] I'm a man.
[10:47] I'm a man.
[10:47] I'm a man.
[10:47] I'm a man.
[10:47] I'm a man.
[10:48] I'm a man.
[10:48] I'm a man.
[10:49] I just think it's a good idea.
[11:16] There's a different group, as I mentioned, and some of the different people like to take advantage of the genre.
[11:18] ... ... ... ... ...
[11:52] He's been going in today.
[12:15] His whole interest is maintaining the defense.
[12:16] And he's sure about the defense.
[12:17] But also, there's a lot of concern about what he's going to do.
[12:18] He's going to maintain the defense.
[12:23] That's real life.
[12:39] There's something off each time.
[12:44] ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
[13:15] Now, and that can also be the other thing is that we have to realize that more than a few of us are, as I have basically discovered, very weak, weak, and I don't want to call them weak.
[13:51] So,
[14:21] They can be strong in other ways, but not in this view.
[14:33] So, unless they have, unless they start, or some way, on the way back, they inherit enormous, strong constitutions, which would enable them to resist the wilds and their children.
[14:46] So, the part that I make is that we need to get ready to do the work that we need to do.
[15:15] We shall not rule over the country.
[15:38] We will not rule over the country.
[15:39] We will not rule over the country.
[15:39] We will not rule over the country.
[15:40] We will not rule over the country.
[15:41] We will not rule over the country.
[15:41] We will not rule over the country.
[15:43] I get back to the
[16:13] And they are not going to have the opportunity
[16:51] I want you to check back on the gate and see how you're standing.
[17:21] Oh, shit.
[17:43] Oh, shit.
[17:48] Oh, shit.
[17:48] Oh, shit.
[17:49] But what I'm getting at is this.
[18:20] I would not say this is the first test.
[18:50] When I say it was the third, and they couldn't learn, I would say it over the second.
[19:10] They couldn't learn after the third, and so forth.
[19:12] They had this great confidence that they were not going to be able to wrap themselves, and so forth.
[19:14] But they did not.
[19:26] I don't care who it is.
[19:42] I don't care who it is.
[19:43] He's the highest person.
[19:43] He's the highest person.
[19:44] He's the highest person.
[19:44] He's the highest person.
[19:46] I was watching this morning because it was a good chance just coming back, you know, for exactly this thing.
[20:07] I would be interested in what Henry's reading is because I suspect Henry gets more direct stuff.
[20:08] What they put on this guy's name because they feel that, of course, he listens to him.
[20:11] That's, yeah, available to him.
[20:12] Yeah.
[20:14] They don't want to argue about it.
[20:34] But I don't think, well, I don't know.
[20:36] I don't see any, even, I don't see the degree that November 3rd, the pre-November 3rd period was probably the worst.
[20:41] Oh, and really it was not against faith.
[20:41] Against faith was
[20:43] post-candidate, Cambodia itself wasn't.
[20:54] But I know I know, and I've been posted from Cambodia, so I can't say all of that.
[21:06] Not for the war reasons, but for the domestic and agrarian freedom, which is really more of an authoritarian thing.
[21:09] You see, I understand how the attitude now has been, at least right there this morning, totally positive on the basis of recognizing
[21:12] where the problem is, the thing that they're getting us to eat from some of the congressional parties.
[21:36] But our guys' attitude is not, we've got to do something about it, other than we've got to move into the earth and do the hell with it.
[21:38] That was one of the staff members' points, that it is a matter of what we do now.
[21:40] And Rumsfeld then hit in on that, all you're dealing with now is Congress is normal.
[21:42] Period.
[21:48] It's just their bad time of the month.
[21:52] They take January, February, March, instead of winter comes to an end.
[21:57] And before spring hits, Congress is.
[22:01] And that bench time, as I said, it's just Congress.
[22:02] It's every legislative body.
[22:03] It's a period of winter.
[22:05] They are all screwed up.
[22:06] And you've just got to ride it through.
[22:07] You should go back and look every year.
[22:08] It's always this way.
[22:08] And that's the only negative that really has been...
[22:11] They're concerned is not to let an evident start.
[22:36] There's a hell of a lot on the other side.
[22:55] McGregor hit that very hard.
[22:55] They were saying, McGregor, somebody make a point that you're lacking the backers, uppers, and downers, and they said that's true at all.
[22:58] Well, but last week, it was Senator Justice who said, you know, there must be a whole hell of a lot of health care.
[23:00] Now, the other thing is that I want to see leaders saying, when you get a check, you must go.
[23:04] Thank you.
[23:31] The point is that they're going to have to
[24:01] Fishers have faith now.
[24:14] You've got to support them on the court.
[24:23] But they don't.
[24:23] And we have to find out, see.
[24:24] We've got to find out what they do.
[24:25] If you're going to take them, you've got to show them.
[24:26] You've got to show them what they do.
[24:27] All right.
[24:27] All right.
[24:27] Good effort and so forth and so on.
[24:28] Another decision has come to be made.
[24:28] I don't want to do anything.
[24:29] Nothing.
[24:29] Nothing.
[24:32] I think the scallion is important.
[24:53] I don't want the scallion on him.
[24:56] I'd rather want him in a hawk.
[24:56] But anyway, he's a decent guy.
[24:57] Do you have an enemy couple with him?
[24:59] Well, since I haven't held a spot so long, I couldn't drop it before the guy was coming along.
[25:18] I'd rather have him wait for me.
[25:19] Well, if he comes on, then he's going to have to leave.
[25:20] And then if it's down, then I wouldn't know what's up, John.
[25:21] It's not going to be good for you at all.
[25:23] Yeah, it's not going to be good for you at all.
[25:24] But we obviously couldn't smoke that out.
[25:25] I don't think you can find that out.
[25:26] Because it was down all through the period he was thinking about coming in.
[25:28] True.
[25:35] Could be a little better now than it was then.
[25:36] I don't know how people do it.
[25:51] OK, let it go.
[25:51] Did we not get any of that instruction?
[26:10] Not much.
[26:10] I'm not sure it really got through.
[26:11] I established curiously that they got a bus sign for a while.
[26:14] I can't figure what the price is over this market up.
[26:35] I'll tell you what it is.
[26:38] You know what it is?
[26:38] It's a couple little blunts.
[26:39] It's hard to get through them when they're in space.
[26:40] And you watch retail sales.
[26:40] Retail sales is in the late Easter.
[26:41] It's been perilous.
[26:42] Actually, we're starting up now.
[26:42] But despite the Easter, they're up in New York.
[26:44] above last year and where they're at with the home furnishings.
[27:01] I saw the Chrysler report.
[27:03] Chrysler first quarter, we had a net profit of $10 million.
[27:04] We had a loss of $28 million or something last year to the first quarter.
[27:06] And they were, they put it in this play thing.
[27:07] So very optimistic.
[27:07] You're reading the signs.
[27:08] Home, home, home furnishings are up.
[27:09] No.
[27:09] The apparel things are very volatile.
[27:26] I'm sure people start buying hats and shoes for the kids.
[27:30] That could really push this thing going good.
[27:31] But I think there's something in the market, there's something that you don't know about.
[27:33] I don't know what it is.
[27:34] Are they buying cars there?
[27:35] Are they buying cars?
[27:35] Well, you generally feel that the staff does not all that.
[27:38] I don't know.
[27:38] I don't know.
[27:39] Less this time than any other time.
[27:57] You can get better each time.
[27:58] Just go around the circle.
[27:58] All right, Henry.
[27:59] When you finish your call, you can come over.
[28:00] I hope Henry's staying.
[28:01] You know, you've got your world around you, but you've got to know the spirit of it.
[28:08] He's so terribly, terribly hurt.
[28:21] I don't know how personal he is.
[28:22] He's not fucking Rogers these days.
[28:23] It's Laird.
[28:23] Laird, he's pissed off about.
[28:32] Laird, I was saying, so he is.
[28:33] There's a thing that Henry knows.
[28:33] There's a thing that Henry knows.
[28:34] There's a thing that Henry knows.
[28:35] That's nobody.
[28:43] That's really the problem.
[28:44] Nobody.
[28:45] Yeah.
[28:48] I mean, except for Chicago David, uh, Krigman, and, you know... Who?
[28:54] Yeah, name them.
[28:55] Who the hell?
[28:57] Of course, and all the rest, all the big shot assholes.
[28:58] None.
[28:59] None of them support us on anything.
[28:59] And, uh, that's why establishment names come off as goddamned lessons.
[29:01] I mean... Ron Gates comes off as...
[29:03] Put Nolan on there.
[29:10] I want about three guys like Nolan on the list.
[29:21] And they'll say, and they'll say, yeah, we've been doing this since the late 60s.
[29:23] And I'm, and it's not going on there.
[29:24] On the, the, the, buyout.
[29:24] Get those goddamn names of the bastards off there.
[29:25] I want some strong, right-wing bastards on there.
[29:26] Well, that helps.
[29:27] That helps.
[29:27] It's the most important thing.
[29:27] Okay.
[29:28] I agree.