Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 281 › Conversation 281-056

Nixon alone in his EOB office on Supreme Court nominations and Lewis F. Powell

Thursday, October 21, 1971 · 5:55 PM–6:08 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 9 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President)Conversation281-056 on Tape 281 (tape position 04:22:18–04:31:03)StartThursday, October 21, 1971 at 5:55 PMEndThursday, October 21, 1971 at 6:08 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 281-056 ↗

AI Summary

President Richard M. Nixon spent this time rehearsing a speech and finalizing his public justifications for the nominations of Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court. Nixon emphasized his desire for appointees who would interpret the Constitution based on its original intent rather than through a political or social-engineering lens. He also issued strict instructions to his staff to prevent interruptions from individuals identified as Berger and Walsh during his final preparations.

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Position in tape: 04:22:18 – 04:31:03

part C, 37:51

281a.mp3
281b.mp3
281c.mp3

NARA Description

On October 21, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:55 pm and 6:08 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 281-056 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 281-56

Date: October 21, 1971
Time: Unknown between 5:55 pm and 6:08 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President rehearsed a speech.

[A transcript of the final broadcast of this speech appears in Public Papers of the Presidents,
Richard M. Nixon, 1971, pp. 1053-1057]

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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the difficulty of Rehnquist cases in 1947, but that goddamn Potter Stewart was 40 when they... Well, with their rights on the... 38 or something.
Very young.
Very young, and nobody raised a question about it.
They wanted a young man to help them.
Well, they need a young man.
They just have a normal standard.
They need a young man.
What?
They need a young man.
And Rehnquist will be there for 25 years?
Oh, we need somebody there for 25 years.
Right.
We...
It sticks them to it because they've been claiming that, and it's true, that the woman and the small friary were in a popular class or something like that.
We've got two.
Each one was first in this class.
To me, it would be a goddamn thing.
We've seen people right here.
That's right.
But on the other hand, for them...
Well, I think the fact that he was the head of the American Fire, the president of the American Fire Association, all of those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, September 23rd, September 17th.
What's the date?
What?
No, what day of the month?
September 23rd.
September 23rd.
September of what was one?
Yeah.
I don't say.
I don't have to change.
It says over the past two months.
It should be over the past month.
We'll give them a rough one and then they run it.
I mean, just so they can read it.
We type anything that has your writing on it.
We type so they'll know.
So they won't say they misunderstood it.
Well, like the end where you wrote something.
That we type out for them.
I don't give them this kind of a copy because I don't trust them with a paragraph of writing.
We'll give them the other copy.
This is a damn good speech.
It is.
It's an excellent one.
I wrote it in the middle of the night.
The difficulty is that I can't really get the speechwriters to...
I just don't put it in.
They're good, but they're not.
And they're practically just think what we had before.
We had nothing before.
We remembered Jesus Christ.
We didn't have anybody to write anything for no reason.
With real elements.
But now we've got Christ, Sapphire, Ken, and all of it.
You get it.
Your touch or something.
But this does make a difference, don't you think?
Yeah, that's great.
You can tell this is funny.
I can tell when I type.
I'll probably come over here afterwards anyway, and I'll have to talk to a couple of people.
I'm not going to take any calls afterwards because I'm trying to cut off murder.
I don't want to talk to Berger under any circumstances, and I'm not going to talk to Walsh under any circumstances.
Those two calls are not to come through.
Is that clear?
Well, I'll tell you the way I've done it.
I'm not going to have any calls come through.
I'll call out, but no calls are going to come through.
And I've told them to make all the calls to you.
But let me tell you, if Berger or Walsh call, just say, I'm sorry, he's out for dinner.
He had a dinner engagement tonight, and he had to rush right out, and I won't be able to reach him until around midnight.
Okay?
I do not agree with the president of the issue.
It would be a total repudiation of our constitutional system if judges on the Supreme Court or any federal court for that matter were like puppets on a string pulled by the president to a fight.
When I invited Chief Justice Berger, I told him that on the day that he was confirmed to the Senate, he could expect that I would never talk to him about a case pending in the Board of Court.
In the case of both Chief Justice Berger and Justice Black, and in the case of the two nominees that I shall be sending to the Senate tomorrow, their sole obligation is to the Constitution and to the American people, not for the President to appoint them.
As far as traditional philosophy is concerned, it is my belief that it is the duty of a judge to interpret the Constitution and not to place himself above the Constitution or outside of it.
He should not twist or bend the Constitution in order to promulgate his personal, social, and political views.
This does not mean that judges who adhere to this philosophy will find that they always agree in their interpretation of the Constitution.
We have an excellent example of this in the record of two judges' debates, as I now have the duty to fulfill, Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Harlan.
When they retired from the court, most observers labeled Mr. Justice Black as a liberal and Mr. Justice Howell as a conservative.
I would say that both were constitutionalists.
It is true they disagreed sharply in many cases, but as I learned not only from reading their opinions over the years, but from appearing twice before them and arguing the case before the Supreme Court, both were great judges.
with a friggin' ability to ask questions that went to the heart of the matter before them, and then to make a decision based on their honest interpretation of the Constitution.
In the debate over the confirmation of the two individuals I have selected, it may be charged that they are conservatives.
This is true, but only in a judicial, not in a political sense.
During my campaign for the presidency, I pledged to nominate Supreme Court individuals who shared my judicial philosophy, which is basically a conservative philosophy.
Let me give an example of what that philosophy means.
21 months ago, Mr. Walter Lippman wrote, The balance of power within our society has turned dangerously against the peace forces, against governors, mayors, and legislators, against the police and the courts.
I strongly share this view.
Over the past ten and a few years, many cases have come before the court involving a delicate balance between the rights of society and the rights of defendants accused of crimes against society.
Honest and dedicated constitutional lawyers have disagreed as to where and how to maintain that balance.
As a judicial conservative, I believe some court decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces against the criminal forces in our society.
In maintaining the development balance between the rights of society and the defendants accused of crime, I believe the peace forces must not be denied the legal tools they need to protect the innocent from criminal elements.
I believe we can strengthen the hand of the peace forces without compromising our precious principle that the rights of individuals accused of crime must always be protected.
It is with these criteria in mind that I have selected the two men whose names I will send to the Senate tomorrow.
Everything that Louis F. Powell has ever taken, he has accomplished with distinction and honor, both as a lawyer and as a citizen.
Excellence has marked his career since his days as a student in Washington, D.C., where he was five-year captain, first in his class in law school.
Mr. Powell has practiced law and regimen since 1931, and accepted four years of distinguished service in World War II.
In his unique legal career, he has received virtually every honor his profession can bestow.
He has been president of the American College of Trial Law, the American Bar Foundation, the American Bar Association,
In that latter role, he provided leadership in the provision of legal services for the needy and for the revision of the standards of the administration of criminal justice.
Lewis Powell is from Virginia.
But like another great Virginian, Chief Justice Marshall, Lewis Jeff Powell is recognized by his legal colleagues throughout the nation as being a man who represents not just Virginia or the South.
He is first and foremost a great American.
William Rehnquist has been outstanding in every intellectual endeavor he has undertaken.
He was graduated from Sand Creek University by Alita Kaplan in 1948.

Also recorded on October 21, 1971

  • 012-049 5:42 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 5:42 pm.
  • 281-052 5:43 PM · 56 sec — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:43 pm and 5:50 pm.
  • 281-053 5:43 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:43 pm and 5:50 pm.
  • 281-054 5:43 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:43 pm and 5:50 pm.
  • 281-055 5:50 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:50 pm and 5:55 pm.
  • 012-051 5:52 PM · 33 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 5:52 pm to 5:53 pm.
  • 012-052 5:53 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 5:53 pm and 6:08 pm.
  • 281-057 5:55 PM · 48 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 5:55 pm and 6:08 pm.

All 128 conversations from October 21, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 281-056, October 21, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/281-056 (accessed October 28, 2026).