{"conversationCode":"284-011","tapeNumber":284,"conversationNumber":11,"identifier":"37-wht-conversation-284-011","startDateTime":"1971-10-06T20:00:00.000Z","endDateTime":"1971-10-06T20:05:00.000Z","startDate":"6-Oct-1971","startTime":"4:00 PM","endDate":"6-Oct-1971","endTime":"4:05 PM","dateCertainty":"certain","timeCertainty":"certain","participants":"Nixon, Richard M. (President); Safire, William L.;","description":"On October 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:00 pm to 4:05 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 284-011 of the White House Tapes.","locationCode":"EOB","recordingDevice":"Old Executive Office Building","latitudeEstimated":38.897567,"longitudeEstimated":-77.039147,"chronCode":2,"chronRelease":"Second Chronological Release","chronReleaseDate":"26-Oct-2000","aogpRelease":null,"aogpSegment":null,"lastModified":"2015-07-27T17:04:10.235Z","findingAid":"Conversation No. 284-11\n\nDate: October 6, 1971\nTime: 4:00 pm - 4:05 pm\nLocation: Executive Office Building\n\nThe President met with William L. Safire.\n\n     The President's schedule\n\n           -Speech draft\n\n     Safire's schedule\n\n     Speech draft\n          -Language of text\n\nSafire left at 4:05 pm.","filename":["284a.mp3","284b.mp3"],"tapeStart":"00:43:37","tapeEnd":"00:45:43","participantsList":["Nixon, Richard M. (President)","Safire, William L."],"prevCode":"284-010","nextCode":"284-012","tapeTranscriptFile":"284a.mp3,284b.mp3","transcript":[{"start":2635.67,"end":2637.55,"text":"Can I let you read this, uh, come back?"},{"start":2638.83,"end":2642.78,"text":"Yeah, I wanted you to do that, that, uh, I'll, uh, I'll tell you a bit."},{"start":2644.46,"end":2644.72,"text":"Conjure tape."},{"start":2644.74,"end":2648.9,"text":"I suppose you can come back in about a minute."},{"start":2648.96,"end":2652.7,"text":"Oh, I'll brush your shit if you're over here."},{"start":2652.74,"end":2652.86,"text":"Okay."},{"start":2654.16,"end":2656.1,"text":"You feel all right about it now?"},{"start":2656.12,"end":2656.92,"text":"I feel the same way, sir."},{"start":2656.94,"end":2657.74,"text":"It's about the 1705 war."},{"start":2657.78,"end":2660.5,"text":"That's the first time I've come in on the party floor."},{"start":2662.21,"end":2665.57,"text":"about the field of view."},{"start":2665.65,"end":2669.77,"text":"It's not just an economic view."},{"start":2669.85,"end":2670.37,"text":"I like it."},{"start":2670.43,"end":2679.86,"text":"Okay, what about the word yardstick instead of guideline, by the way?"},{"start":2679.92,"end":2681.32,"text":"Guidelines, I hate to use."},{"start":2681.34,"end":2690.46,"text":"And yardsticks, you can find them fairly in the president's office."}],"transcriptBoundary":{"start":2611.75,"end":2726,"startMethod":"silence","endMethod":"silence"},"transcriptConfidence":"high","transcriptSource":"bigtape","aiSummary":{"text":"President Nixon and speechwriter William Safire met to refine a pending speech draft, focusing on the specific linguistic framing of the administration's economic policies. The President expressed a strong preference for using the term \"yardstick\" rather than \"guideline\" to describe economic benchmarks. This brief consultation served to finalize the rhetorical tone of the address before Safire departed to proceed with the revisions.","topics":["Speechwriting","Economic policy","Rhetoric","William Safire","White House communications"],"generatedAt":"2026-04-06T13:25:00.031Z"},"topicSlugs":["speechwriting","economic-policy","rhetoric","william-safire","white-house-communications"],"audioDurationSec":126,"audioFiles":[{"file":"284a.mp3","bytes":117461158,"durationSec":7341.25,"bitrate":128001,"missing":false},{"file":"284b.mp3","bytes":39378859,"durationSec":2461.09,"bitrate":128004,"missing":false}],"audioIsShared":true,"audioProbedAt":"2026-09-18T02:19:38.614Z","audio":["https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/284a.mp3","https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/284b.mp3"],"url":"https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/284-011","nixonLibraryUrl":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/284/conversation-284-011","license":"Public domain (U.S. Government work). AI-generated fields (transcript, aiSummary) are provided as-is without warranty."}