Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 280 › Conversation 280-014
Nixon, Ziegler & Bull on Supreme Court and John M. Harlan
Thursday, September 23, 1971 · 1:06 PM–1:16 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 12 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Ronald Ziegler and Stephen Bull to coordinate the administration's public response to the resignation of Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan. The participants discussed talking points for Ziegler's upcoming press briefing, specifically regarding the criteria for new judicial nominees, the timing of vacancy announcements, and how to deflect questions about geographical or political pressures. Additionally, the President provided guidance on managing inquiries regarding domestic conditions in the People's Republic of China, instructing staff to emphasize the limitations of U.S. intelligence on the matter.
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So in his general view, the thought is to do it at about 2.30, and I'll talk to the Attorney General about it.
Now, this one we can check with viewers to see.
Right.
Oh, I hope so.
All right.
All right.
All right.
I'm not sure if it applies, but I don't think it's the same criteria that applies to third-school migrants.
The same criteria applies to the government.
No.
It's philosophy, I'm not sure.
Strictly, certainly.
Yeah.
No, you can say.
No, we were not.
We did not expect.
We did not anticipate specific.
Well, actually, we expected it to be Monday, but I don't think we have to say that.
But we had no advance notice then.
We had no advance information.
When you received it today at 1230, I'm going to say, John, I was going to inform you as I arrived here.
Sure.
Because the letters came to him.
Sure.
I'm going to say the President asked me to do accounts of the students after this.
That's possible.
So I'm going to call especially for you to get to.
Sure.
Then they will ask the following questions.
First, they will say, well, how far along was the President getting the selection process for Mr. Justice Black?
Just say there that he's continuing with his deliberation on that.
Well, he recognizes the necessity to speak.
because the court is now being too short for the ball pressure, both in naming the nominee and in getting Senate confirmation.
On the other hand, he feels very important too.
I think that that factor must give way to the need for what's the best possible plan.
All right, and they all say you're trying to send them both together.
I don't have that information.
No, in fact, we can't.
No, I can't.
Now they'll say, will he submit, has the President submitted the list before Justice Black to the ADA?
No.
We haven't.
No.
Will the ADA be consulted?
Yes, the President has said that he will consult.
But they will not .
I was asked this morning, and I told you about it, because I haven't had the chance to check it, whether or not we can consult with members of Congress about what regulations are set up.
I said, I just didn't know what you were talking about.
Well, we, uh, the Attorney General actually, uh, consults with the, uh, I don't know who, but the Attorney General, of course, consults with the members of the judiciary.
And as a courtesy of course, the members of the Senate, of course, not a state, of course, not a state.
And he told the House and the Senate, not the House and the Senate.
By May, I'll say that you're welcome.
That's a qualified question.
Right.
So we don't get into that whole issue.
But that's the thing that makes it all good.
So I'll be asking about that, and I'm going to simply say it.
All right.
You can say that two years ago.
And also that we have in mind the possibility that one of those would be prepared for an eventual appointment with the Supreme Court.
I'm not, well this is one of the questions, I'm just not going to, I'm not going to discuss this under consideration.
Just say the present president told me.
Let's be good.
Because your appearance tonight follows
Now, just one other point.
On geography, I will say, I have a little levitation to geography.
I was talking about philosophy there.
Yeah.
Well, John, for example, not geography and not political considerations, for example, down the line, so you have to get the note that Berger and Black, the same state, Minnesota, state president, Kerry,
but you don't need to say that, no.
We are stuck with that.
I just say that, generally speaking, the president believes that the court should represent all sections of the society and all sections of the country, but the court is all over the other hand.
What I mean by New York is we don't take a man from New York and replace the man with a New Yorker.
I think we know no state has a lot.
I think we're probably better off not getting the job at all.
I think you're right.
When it happens, it happens.
That's right.
If there's pressure to go to the South, we can always at some point say, we're in pressure to do it.
We're in pressure to do it.
Well, as far as the sound is concerned, the whole panel will be answering on it.
So I can fiddle it around for a while.
And then they can say, well, this person's going to back up.
And we point, we point top, we point top.
It's clear.
And that's it.
That's all I can do.
And I'll host these other groups.
And I just work right here a little.
I'm hoping that they can't support too long.
One other point.
Yeah, sure.
I was asking about China and what's going on.
I've made very clear slides, but I don't know what's going on.
We of course have assessments, but we don't know what's going on.
I think that's the best position to take.
Henry actually got a call from China.
What we don't know what's going on.
We have numbers.
Okay, sir.
Thank you.
No.
Yes, sir.
And if I decide to do it.
I decided not to film that out there.
It's too late.
We've got nothing there for us.
Saturday night, 5 o'clock.
What do you think Saturday night is in California?
And also, here's the writing dress.
They'll get there.
They'll get there.
You're still going to do it?
Well, I don't know.
It's got to depend on how it drives through the day and the mood and so forth, how they feel.
I just may go in and talk to them.
It would be totally flexible.
I don't know what the mood is.
I don't know what it is.
I certainly wouldn't do anything.
Thank you.
NARA Description
On September 23, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 1:06 pm to 1:16 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 280-014 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 280-14
Date: September 23, 1971
Time: 1:06 pm - 1:16 pm
Location: Executive Office Building
The President met with Ronald L. Ziegler and Stephen B. Bull.
The President's schedule
Bull left at an unknown time before 1:16 pm.
Supreme Court appointments
-Ziegler’s press briefing
-John M. Harlan
-Resignation
-H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman's and John D. Ehrlichman's views
-Announcement
-Time
-Ziegler's call to John N. Mitchell
-Press briefing
-The President's statement on Harlan
-Harlan's career
-Appointments to Supreme Court
-Criteria
-Philosophy
-Strict construction of Constitution
-Advance notice
-Anticipating Harlan's resignation
-Harlan's health
-Advance information
-Letter from Harlan
-Resignation
-Time
-Announcement
-Hugo L. Black’s vacancy
-Selection process
-Appointment
-Supreme Court
-Vacancies
-Nomination
-Confirmation
-Nominees
-Names of nominees
-Sending names to Congress
-Information
-Date
-List of nominees
-Black's vacancy
-Consultation with American Bar Association [ABA]
-Veto power
-Consultation with Congressmen
-Mitchell's consultation with the Judiciary Committee
-House
-Senate
-Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
-Woman nominee
-Nominees
-Women
-Lower courts appointments
-Future appointments to the Supreme Court
-Justice Department
-Discussion
-Mitchell
-William O. Douglas
-Appointments of Justices
-Other Presidents
-George Washington
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
-Nominees
-Geographical considerations
-Political considerations
-Geographical considerations
-Minnesota
-Warren E. Burger
-[Harry A. Blackmun]
-Southern seat perception
-Black
-Selection process
-Representation of the country
-Nominees
-Geographical considerations
-Statement
-The South
-Process
-Politics
-Selection
-Richard H. Poff
-Mitchell
The People's Republic of China [PRC]
-Assessment of domestic situation
-Kissinger
-Call from Paris
-Chinese embassy
-Chou En-lai
-Mao Tse-tung
**********************************************************************
[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2014-017. Segment declassified on 04/29/2019. Archivist: MAS]
[National Security]
[280-014-w001]
[Duration: 21s]
People’s Republic of China [PRC]
-Assessment of domestic situation
-State of US intelligence
-Lack of hard evidence and numbers
-The President’s opinion
**********************************************************************
Forthcoming press briefing
-Questions
-News briefing
-The President's trip to the West Coast
-Time
-California
-Other events
-Question and answer session
Ziegler left at 1:16 pm.Also recorded on September 23, 1971
- 009-140 12:58 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 12:58 pm.
- 009-141 12:58 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and George P. Shultz talked on the telephone from 12:58 pm to 1:06 pm.
- 280-012 12:58 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 12:58 pm.
- 280-013 12:58 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, George P. Shultz, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:58 pm to 1:06 pm.
- 280-015 1:16 PM · 59 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:16 pm and 2:20 pm.
- 280-016 1:16 PM · 26 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:16 pm and 2:20 pm.
- 280-017 1:16 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:16 pm and 2:20 pm.
- 280-018 2:20 PM · 16 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, Manolo Sanchez, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:20 pm to 2:42 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 280-014, September 23, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/280-014 (accessed October 12, 2026).