Conversation 283-018

TapeTape 283StartWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 9:30 AMEndWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 10:10 AMTape start time01:14:49Tape end time01:42:22ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob");  Bull, Stephen B.Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building

On October 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 9:30 am to 10:10 am. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 283-018 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 283-018
Date: October 6, 1971
Time: 9:30 am - 10:10 am
Location: Executive Office Building
The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman and an unknown person [Stephen B. Bull?].
Item for Peter M. Flanigan
Names
The unknown person [Bull?] left at an unknown time before 10:10 am.
News story
-The People’s Republic of China [PRC]
-State Department action
-Two-China policy
-William P. Rogers
-The President's PRC trip
-Henry A. Kissinger's preparation
The President's schedule
-North Carolina trip
-David N. Henderson
-Invitation
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[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 12/04/2017.
Segment cleared for release.]
Page | 18
White House Tapes of the Nixon Administration, 1971-1973
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
[Personal Returnable]
[283-018-w003]
[Duration: 54s]
Republican National Committee [RNC]
-Finances
-Debts
-Staff
-Airplane
-Fundraisers
**********************************************************************
Lloyd N. Cutler
-Common Cause
-Invitation to the White House
-Flanigan
-John N. Mitchell
-American Airlines
-Action
-Flanigan
The President's schedule
-Robert J. Dole
-Carl T. Curtis
-Jack R. Miller
-Corn prices
-Paul W. McCracken
-Robert P. Griffin
-Michigan politics
-Howard H. Baker, Jr.
-Busing in Tennessee
Campaign contributions
-Harry S. Dent
-Funding of local and regional campaigns
-Slush fund
-Past use
Page | 19
White House Tapes of the Nixon Administration, 1971-1973
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
-Baker
-Mitchell
Campaigns
-The President's role, stance
-Baker
-Griffin
-Michigan politics
-Mitchell
-Dole
-Michigan
-Busing
-Constitutional amendment
-Griffin
-Stephen J. Roth
-Racial problems
Campaign issues
-Busing
-Issue
-John D. Ehrlichman
-Constitutional amendment
-Mitchell
-Ehrlichman
**********************************************************************
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 12/04/2017.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[283-018-w001]
[Duration: 3m 46s]
Congressional Campaign Committee
-Rober J. Dole
-Peter Dominick’s handling of chairmanship
-Analysis of races
-Harry Dent; John N. Mitchell
Page | 20
White House Tapes of the Nixon Administration, 1971-1973
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
-Subcommittee for new House candidates
-Robert C. Wilson
-President’s opinion
-1956
-Donald Rumsfeld
-Chicago
-Possible role
-Appeal
-Robert Finch’s opinion
-Jack Kemp
-Robert H. Finch
-Robert C. Wilson
The President’s schedule/campaign
-Television shorts, radio shorts
-Murray Chotiner
-Endorsements
-Pictures with the President
-Incumbents
**********************************************************************
Photograph opportunities
-Southern Democrats
-Henderson
-Texas
-O[vie] Clark Fisher
-Incumbents
-Dent
The President's schedule
-John D. Ehrlichman
-Whittier, California
-Scheduling
-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR] trip announcement
-Unknown man in Chicago
-Reception
-Illinois state dinner
Page | 21
White House Tapes of the Nixon Administration, 1971-1973
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
-Ronald L. Ziegler
-Aldo B. (“Elbow”) Beckman
-Donald Oberdorfer, Jr.
-Ziegler’s press conference
-West Virginia
-Martinsburg
-John F. Osborne
-Kalispell, Montana
-The President's comment about trailer parks in Kalispell
-Camping
-Environmentalists
-Mansfield
Foreign policy
-Kissinger and Rogers
-Relationship
Economy
-Presentation
-John B. Connally
-McCracken, George P. Shultz, Herbert Stein, Arnold R. Weber
Scheduling of speeches
-7:30 pm start time
-The President's return from the PRC, Soviet Union
-Prime time speech
The President's foreign policy initiatives
-The PRC
-Barry M. Goldwater
-Charles W. Colson
-Ronald W. Reagan
-Comments on PRC initiative
-Robert H. Finch
-The President's qualifications for summit
-Play in news media
-Victor Lasky
-John A. Scali
-Goldwater
Page | 22
White House Tapes of the Nixon Administration, 1971-1973
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
Public relations
-Best sellers
-Promotion of pro-Nixon and conservative books
-Edith Efron
-Allen S. Drury
-Jeffrey Hart
-Hobart D. Lewis
-Possible campaign book
-Theme
Dole
-PRC trip
-Primary elections
The President's schedule
-Forthcoming PRC trip
-Bogota, Colombia
-Israel
-Trip to Latin America
-Persons traveling with the President
-Logistics Problems
-Soviet trip
-George W. Romney
-Michigan
-Peter G. Peterson
-PRC trip
-Summit
Unknown person
-Writing
Haldeman left at 10:10 am.

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.

And of course, not accurate.
That's the other thing.
totally out of the hand, they know goddamn well that we've got to talk about the two-channel thing, and also the idea that we're talking about a lot of other, well, that was something, but there were some other, there's some things that we're going to talk about, and there's absolutely no foundation for that now.
I don't know if Craig puts that out, but I didn't put that on the ground.
Because it's just rogered, I think probably so.
What in the crisis would he do it for?
You think he's trying to trick you, doesn't he?
I wonder deep down if he is.
He just may have a feeling, you know, so bitter, you know, and jealous that he'd just like to see it fail.
Check me now that we've got the right thing on.
There's another thing.
But it's just totally irresponsible.
I don't think he consciously wants your China trip to fail.
I think he would like to screw up Henry's success in getting it put together.
I think he probably doesn't feel what he's doing.
That's the nature of going up the trip.
I think I wonder if we are
I was going over to that thing last night.
We're not going to go overboard anymore, are we?
I'm hoping the National Committee funds its debts and its airplanes and horses and staff and everything.
I realize it's better than it was, but they've gotten rid of the airplanes.
We are.
This is the main thing we need to do.
This day.
So I know that some of our people are ready to fund this thing.
Please, no.
It's great.
I guess we can raise it all right, but I just want to be sure we understand that the National Committee is not the focal point.
Okay, Bob, the Illinoisers understand it, too, that they're not doing very much to the National Committee.
And that, that our guys have to be with the same people that they're getting in between to let a law go to the hall.
I'm not going to be sure I got that name.
The name is Cutler.
It represents common cause.
Right, right.
He is never to be in that White House again.
Who is it that's brought him in?
Planting?
He's been in it.
Henry, I mean, Mitchell says a half of his time.
We got him in.
We turned him off.
We totally turned him off.
He represents a common cause.
We totally turned him off.
And also, I want some retribution on American Airlines.
Is that clear?
Hill Planting.
Hill Planting.
Hard nose.
Hard nose.
But I want his client.
I don't want them to get anything out of this.
because he's got to understand that we play this game tough.
There's a socialite around town.
I know there's somebody there.
And there's more I knew about Dole's second courtesy.
Jack Miller wanted to come in for a quarter crisis.
And I said, courtesy?
I said, I will not say no to any of your issues.
And I never did.
Curtis, you might have.
At some point, I don't mind having you come in.
It's not a goddamn thing to be done.
You can come in and probably crack it and say a little thing.
But Miller is not going to come.
Is that clear?
Yeah.
He's been up time and again.
But I just want to warn you.
I'm going to submit to a Miller event.
I'm going to have some things like that in the body group.
And this is what you want to come in.
It's really urgent.
We have 15 minutes with you on Michigan politics.
And, uh...
It's Dr. Spade.
And our paper apparently has the same credit on busting.
I see.
I see.
And, uh, we've got a... Harry did ask me today.
I called him to get some other things in general.
People want to know whether we're going to fund some of these campaigns.
I said, no.
And I said, right now, they've got to walk.
They were not going to...
We say no and stay with it.
We can't fund it.
We can't get in that business again.
We're not going to have a selection fund for a bunch of goddamn candles.
You may want to get into a position where we help to channel some money, but not the way we did it before.
No, sir.
No, sir.
We went down a bad trail there, and all it did was subsidize a lot of public relations agencies.
A lot of it went to do what we wanted done, but it isn't the right business for us to be in.
And insurance, hell, isn't for near life.
We need our own money for our own purposes.
We just can't do it.
How do we handle it?
How are you handling it?
Well, we just put them off.
We put Baker off months before, and we've made the point basically that other people
I think maybe we're going to have to have John Mitchell call in.
He'll have to say, I'll talk to you about politics.
Yeah, President Wong.
Yeah, he's going to stay away from these campaigns.
These political campaigns, you can't get into the end of it or what it would be.
Do this, and then you try to stay one step removed from the damn thing.
I'm handling the campaign.
Now, what is it, Howard, you want?
The same with Bobby Griffin.
There's a goddamn thing I can do for Griffin about Michigan politics.
Some photographs up there.
Bobby's a good man, but I don't want to get into it.
I have to get past all this, and I really want to get down to it.
I talk conventionally about it, conventionally, but here we think of the same thing.
Where we, in what we say, would be our conclusion.
According to Bob Dole, I don't think he's swimming high in the ocean.
You know, he's thinking of a constitutional amendment.
What was blasted that this judge brought, brought, certainly curious, oh, it's going on television now, defending his decision.
Sure.
And Griffin just hit out the other way.
He says if the election were held today, he'd get 65% of the vote.
It's all cranked up.
And he's probably right.
Because that's the Michigan.
Michigan is the kind of place with their racial problems where people would be scared shitless.
Bob, busing is a hell of a good issue for us.
But we can't do it simply by saying the president's against it.
We've got to do something about it.
You raised it already.
And I will.
Mitchell's working on that.
They get me to go on the Senate campaigns, and the respective bill was pointing out that it's really not doing anything.
It's just terribly misguided.
and so on.
And of course, there's a hell of a lot of races which are sleepers for us this time, because we won.
So I've asked Dan to get his study and bring it in.
Maybe it's right, exactly, I don't know.
Does anybody have any other view on it?
For God's sake, they think we ought to lie low.
No, nobody in the staff doesn't.
No, nobody.
It's awful.
Nobody wants us to lay low or to question the paper.
The question is, what can you most effectively do?
You've got to know the problem.
Oh, John, here he is.
He sees the politics now, you know, which
Many did not see it before.
We also suggested to Herbie Dent and the makers of the repercussions of this that he discussed with Mitchell, and they were bored of the idea of setting up a subcommittee of the Senate, of the House Campaign Committee, for new candidates.
Everybody agrees that Wilson's a disaster.
There's a total appreciation for the old candidate.
It's really charged.
Now, we've had this bomb going back to my memory in 1956.
We've got to get the son of a bitch out of there now to put it to Mitchell so that I guess we can put our interest in this case, you know.
Better candidates could help us.
Could help us some.
for the fight, but Bob Wilson, maybe just getting the committee out to the candidates in Chicago, that's an area where Rumsfeld could just be effective as hell.
Yeah, correct.
Really could.
Even if they could set it outside, but with his knowledge, the other folks.
Give Rumsfeld some of the franchise to really get out and recruit.
Set up and back it.
The biggest asset he's got is his sex appeal to other good types of people.
He has great, like Mitch does, he has great appeal to the kinds of people you want.
The Jack Kims and that kind of people.
That's right.
He's fired.
Don's the kind of guy that can sit down with a guy like that, like you used to do.
get him in a room and sit him down and take him to the mountain.
I could still do it if I had the time.
But you should.
But I must not get into that.
Because if I get in, how can I help support the Baskin's?
But Rumpstoke can get out in the country and call those people in, you know, in a little room.
Why don't you give Rumpstoke a little time to take a chance out of looking at these things and doing a few of those things?
so that Wilson doesn't come in with the hats.
Now, I have something else I want to tell you.
I want to anticipate this way in advance.
I am not this year going to do television shorts and all the rest and radio shorts and so forth that Chakra put me through last year.
Do you remember that?
I agree with you, but I don't think we ought to drag ourselves down with that issue.
I completely agree with you.
I think we could have simple endorsements, but I don't think my time should be used for it.
I'm not going to have him in the pictures.
Do you agree with that?
Uh, probably, although...
Except for incumbents.
Incumbents.
Incumbents, yes.
But now let me give you an example.
There are several Southern Democrats, like Henderson,
and others that I want to win, I do not want to support some jackass, Fisher and Texas and the rest, that have no chance.
Now we run through these goddamn idiots, and all of us, and don't let me hurt you, it does irritate me, and companies and all of you.
We've seen a lot of them.
Sure, sure.
They don't want you at all.
So may I suggest, we don't need to do this.
I don't know what you can do.
But maybe you have to do it.
No, I'm not sure you do.
In the first place, pictures for incumbents, I think you do have to do it.
I don't think you can tell a house guy any of your pictures or the other guy.
I just don't think we do it.
Well, the reason you do it, those really are not valid pictures anyway, because those are people who don't have any working relationship with you.
Incumbents do.
Do you do it?
I just think we ought to have pictures for them.
He's where he wants to be.
You see the line.
I just want you to get into a hard-line position on all this stuff.
Because I can see you'll probably change that.
You'll probably, like at convention time, agree to do a skill shot with each other.
No, I will not do it with the candidates against the Southerners.
Now, that's the point.
I must not do that.
And everybody's got to understand that.
See, we've got Denton and those other guys racing around, and all of a sudden they're asking me about every golf man in the whole campaign.
And I guess I'll stay out of this.
I really have to keep my mind free of...
I've really got to do it.
John Ehrman and I actually will get the announcement of the Whittier thing should come about the 15th of this month, following on the announcement of the Russian trip.
On the 15th, another separate meeting should be approved.
Shortly on then, yeah.
The Russian announcement.
You know, back to the fact that it has a dramatic impact.
Yesterday, a Chicago guy was sitting in my header in the middle of a reception.
Your natural, my natural inclination to turn him down except for the fact that he was Chicago.
It depends on what the reception is.
It's a mental group.
You know, in that state, meeting somebody for a reception is all right, but if it's just meeting a thousand people, screw it.
See?
If we don't finish till 10.30, I don't finish until 10.30.
And you've done an awful lot for them by flying out there to eat.
Well, I know.
But if the reception is free, I mean, for a few, I don't know.
You know what I mean?
Just do the best you can.
But if it's people that we're going to bring to the White House anyway, you know, what are you going to do?
Well, if you do that, maybe do that instead of your Illinois State dinner.
If that really doesn't take them close, I don't know.
You know?
I guess probably our people have been talking already.
Somebody just found it out.
They told me last night on the way in.
All the press were already writing.
I saw them do something.
Yeah, they figured it out.
Sure.
Although Beckman figured it out.
And Oberdorfer had too.
And they quizzed Ron on it yesterday at the end.
It was just in the state.
Ron said, no.
And Beckman said, yes, it is.
And Ron said, no, this is West Virginia.
And Beckman said, yes, you did.
He had it all down.
He had changed planes at Martinsburg or whatever.
And you can make the story still in West Virginia.
And I think you should.
It's just a big story.
It's just a nice story.
Yeah.
Wow.
And it is significant.
It's one that rides along.
It is significant.
I'm sure it is.
You mentioned the hospital.
What's he referring to?
No.
No, the one thing he disliked and a couple others picked up was your remark about someplace along the trip, I guess it was in Kalispell, where you said you hoped they could develop some of that area so they could put trailer parks in.
and that a trailer park would be well done and be like a hotel, and the scenery's no good and people can't enjoy it.
It's terrible that you have to tear the parks.
That was the only specific negative.
He had some positive stuff on the other things, yeah.
We're on the right side of the trailer park.
Most of them who do it, do it in a trailer park.
They take their camper.
That's what I mean.
How many go and hike in?
Damn few.
Christ almighty, they don't do it.
Backpack, they're not very many.
Most of them put their kids in the car, and they put a trailer on the back end with the camping stuff in it.
What is it that motivates you?
It's just a feeling you want to screw, and it's true.
You know?
It's a point.
It's a point.
It's a point.
It's a point.
It's a point.
It's a point.
It's a point.
With regard to the presentation, I need to hold on for a minute.
One, you know, they're going to go ahead on the PC the next day.
I mean, the next day.
Yeah, there's work in the group tomorrow.
Work in various groups tomorrow.
It's lined up tomorrow.
Right.
It's going to be done by the cracker.
The cracker itself is signed.
I think that you've thought of it, but I think actually the news time thing is a very neat compromise.
Do you feel so or not?
Yes, I do have some second thoughts.
No.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's... Everybody that wants to hear it will hear it.
One can't say, well, it wasn't on at the time I heard it.
That's right.
I think he doesn't want to hear it if you haven't escalated it to that point.
Also, the 7.30 time works on this.
Hard luck.
Might be a goddamn good time for the future press conferences.
For some, I know.
I can come back to China where it'll be prime time.
Russia, that's different.
Times when that's going to, we'll know when it's the big story.
A lot of the other times, you know, it isn't quite the big story.
It's a very interesting thing about the Cold War.
You get down to a slight cold war, totally.
Sometimes through, sometimes through, when frankly the guy who was supposed to be the great next to people won't open their goddamn ass.
I mean, it's something as close as possible.
Reagan, Reagan has been great.
I gave you that before, didn't I?
Yeah.
You know, the lines are very good, qualified because of his experience, qualified because he knows the Congress, qualified because he knows the subject, you know, he has his homework, he has his ability, you know, to talk about that he's met before, and he's met with more of our intergovernment than anybody else.
He knows this subject more deeply than any other, and he won't be taken in.
He knows that he's tough and strong and yet conciliatory and subtle.
I don't know, and I don't want that in a picture-lasting column, but I think that's something that a scallop might pump out.
It isn't just any column.
That's the thing you've got to just keep working all the time.
You take that?
Give that as a sort of...
And Goldwater does that often, well, you know, that's what gets out of the private gold's gallery.
This last thing that, that thing got next to this going instead of our, unless he had a little, you know, period, you know, yeah.
I must say that Goldwater's career is, is comparatively good.
They're coming around so much further than that.
So on the, on the best solar, thinking some of they are in from the U.S., best solar, I'm not limiting it to Techfront, you know, I think they'll,
Those are just total whippets.
I think that any book that we think has gone somewhat positive, let's try to get some Nixon books in that list.
I think we've just got an awful great number of people who have this 50% book in presence on the business list, and I just get them all.
So, we've got that one in control.
Well, yeah, that is John.
That one is...
I think it's got to be the name of the other...
Most of the others won't be out for that.
You can't do everything.
So we can perhaps lull around.
We can shift from that to the next one.
Sure.
The William Wilk Street that we've got there.
We've got Warren.
We've got Alan Curry.
That should be rather easy to push.
Well, yeah, it's already got a good point with the Wilk Street.
I don't expect the literary field is going to take a drive on that.
Jeff Marks is the one I think we may want to do the most pushing on it.
I haven't seen it, but Coleroy said that's the best one ever written.
And if it really is, then let's give it a hell of a ride and make it sort of a campaign book.
His theme is the Amazing Comeback.
I don't know what the title is.
I'm an actual gunman, too.
Um, uh... Yeah.
There's a lot of impossible, so many of them.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
There's a certain degree of interest in that machine, too.
Maybe you don't need anything.
Wallowing in idiotic attack.
When did he do that?
He didn't declare himself a candidate.
He said if you were a candidate, you would go into primaries after all.
I was amused by one little, just a small one.
I know you can see it's not cold, but it's not very cold.
So, factories, factories, that won't sink at all.
We have got dams.
We can be in the middle of the Panthers, the Wisconsin primary, the Michael and the China, but we don't stand doing it because of that.
That's the way it's been.
If I were going, if I were going, frankly, to Israel, Bogota or Israel, I'd look like, not this, this is too big.
If you do that Latin American thing, it ought to be done sooner.
Yeah, I know.
Sooner rather than later.
Or the end of the year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't want to start promising it now.
The game is too important.
That's right.
The game is just too goddamn important for me over there.
Absolutely.
You don't want to go as a purely selfish thing that doesn't need to be played.
They don't just think it's selfish, but it is.
That's right.
That would be something.
There's more people on the rest of the trip talking, but I don't think you're going to want to take
a lot more you just don't you don't have to go in the airplane they get there and they want to be in the meetings and they want to want to have you know what do they do so then we have them set up second scene tours for them or something travel around this country just having a couple cabin officers and so on unbelievable it's just believable just uh well for example bob at some extent is getting off here that's where i come off now
You shove them up to the platform and then you start the motorcade and they never get in their cars.
Goddamn Romney, we waited every motorcade in Michigan, in Detroit.
When you came out of the aircraft, you remember, you sat in the car for about five minutes.
Out in the rain, quiet.
Couldn't get Romney out of the car.
And Peterson.
They just, they're lost.
They don't know how to work.
You put an advance man on and they won't move.
It's a general feeling as the...
doing the right going now.
How's the feeling?
It's great for somebody, isn't it?
He's great.
You know,
Here's somebody that he could write for over there.
He's always got one of them.
A couple of them.