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Conversation 284-017

TapeTape 284StartWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 5:30 PMEndWednesday, October 6, 1971 at 5:45 PMTape start time01:46:27Tape end time02:01:34ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building
AudioNARA Description

On October 6, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:30 pm to 5:45 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 284-017 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 284-17

Date: October 6, 1971
Time: 5:30 pm - 5:45 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

     Wholesale prices
         -Rate of increase
     House
         -Tax bill

     Senate
          -The President's speech
          -Filibuster possibility
                -Clark MacGregor
                -Hugh Scott

     Draft of speech for October 7, 1971
           -William L. Safire
           -George P. Shultz
           -Herbert Stein
           -Ronald L. Ziegler, Peter M. Flanigan, John D. Ehrlichman
           -Staff people
                 -Editors
           -Arthur F. Burns
           -John B. Connally, Shultz, Stein, and the President
           -Wholesale prices
           -Stock market
           -Albert H. Gordon
           -Shultz
           -Windfall profits
                 -Possible effect
                 -Price reductions
           -Stock market

     The President's schedule
          -Cabinet
          -Russell B. Long

Polls
        -Unnamed pollster
             -Issues
             -US election
                   -Nixon support
                         -People's Republic of China [PRC]
             -Methodology
                   -Problems
        -George H. Gallup
             -Undecided
             -Schedule
             -Approval ratings
        -Louis P. Harris
             -Approval ratings
             -Henry A. Kissinger
                   -PRC announcement
             -Burns
        -Gallup poll
             -Union of Socialist Soviet Republics [USSR]
             -Phase II
             -Developments of the President's administration

Popular opinion
     -Busing
     -Issues
           -Effect on President
     -Housing
     -War
           -Cambodia
                -William Proxmire

Reviews of book
     -[Forename unknown] Wallace
     -George [Shultz ?]
     -Wallace

Personnel
     -North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]
          -Walter J. Stoessel, Jr.

The President and Haldeman left at 5:45 pm.
Transcript (AI-Generated)

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.

You know, the thing on wholesale prices was better than you reported.
Now, you see, you were talking to me, and I think you had the same view.
You were giving it as if the rate of increase was 3%, and 4% adjusting.
Now, it's down.
No, I said down.
I didn't get that.
I said, well, down, but it made it significant.
Hell, the rate of increase has been around at a rate of 4% up, and I said, what the hell, this is much better.
Oh, no.
No, I said, it's reality.
It's the first time in four or five years.
Five years.
The largest drought in five years.
Yeah.
This shows the goddamn thing works for a while.
You know, it's good to have that kind of gravity.
That was funny.
We may be doing the overkill now.
It's food to a lot of them.
Well, that's good.
And that's a hell of a good balance.
That will be coming tomorrow, just before the speech, and I'm referring to it in the speech.
The House past the bench over there, and I'm referring to it on the speech.
The Senate is playing games, as some of you may have noticed, I was with them.
They have some class, I understand.
I'm not sure what they're going to do now.
Can't they talk it to them?
They may try to stay in session after your speech and try to move on it afterwards.
So they've got until midnight tomorrow night.
We have to still talk it to death.
Let's be ruthless with the bastards again.
I really think we ought to get a team in there and talk it to death now.
They don't hesitate to talk our things to death.
Let's talk one of their things to death.
It's a pure political thing.
Let's stick by the president.
Yeah, not when they can't get cloture to turn it off.
Oh, we should have no chance for cloture.
I think the order's got to go out to talk it to death now.
I really think so.
Gregory's just got to stop.
As I said, totally able-minded.
You know what I mean?
He just doesn't get so involved.
You've got to watch it.
Yeah.
I'm having common areas of speech.
Schultz, Stein, and three of them.
You say, well, how about this?
Zickel, Flanagan, or I didn't know.
You see, you go to staff people, you can't have 18 hundred on the speech.
They overdo that sometimes.
Because everybody's going to ask, well, I need this word out, or I will say that.
And that's not going to happen.
We've got there such a mix.
I said, you've got a mix here.
That's not burnt, of course.
Your reed is parted out.
Between Connelly, Schultz, Stein, and myself, we've got the works.
I think that's very good.
I'll never get it done otherwise, too.
That'll cover it.
I'm so glad about the whole silk art.
That is beautiful.
Yeah?
That's bound to be reflected in seven.
It'll be reflected in three months.
I think that's due to, according to , which I would think they would have discounted it, but it was down.
And second, the announcement of phase two.
Now, the problem we've got here, I've got it as profit, and that's the only thing that's going to chill us out.
When it falls off.
Yeah.
That may not bother you much.
I think they must be expecting that you've got to do something about it.
Do you think so?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But in a ringing defense of profits, and they create jobs for us, but with false profits, which are the result of holding wages down excessively, a sharp rise in productivity, we'd rather them taxing them than they should pass that on in price reductions.
The key there is to avoid getting some seller into it.
So let's get excited about that.
Let's track you up.
Let's put the market just over 900.
It's 900.58 or something.
It's good to have that.
Well, what else is new in the show?
We've got the captain's ship, whatever.
It's a long, big breakfast.
I'm not sure.
I don't know.
It's nice to offer what we don't have.
That is nice.
And that may be a lot better than eating that Friday.
It's not everybody.
I'd like to do that.
I'd like to do that.
Adding it for breakfast.
The problem thing, the way you say it, is big mess.
It's just one of those bad things.
It's one of those bad things.
That's a long talk for a second.
I was curious that he doesn't have the opportunity to talk about the conference, but he does the career orientation as well.
I don't know.
I actually stepped in and saw this other increase.
We're out in this different area now.
He stepped in.
One coming Monday and one coming Thursday.
Something like that.
I got to try.
Showing that...
It's going to get better.
It's going to get bigger.
He has a question that he asks.
Would you, if you elected Merrill today, would you vote for Nixon?
Which, of course, if you got a very little thing, he said 23% in July.
30 after China, 33%.
And you're at 48% now.
Good.
Would you vote for him?
the election were over there.
Now of course that doesn't indicate approval or disapproval.
It doesn't indicate that you vote for somebody else.
Then he has others that, it's just very, would you vote for Nixon, not would you vote for Nixon against somebody else.
That's right.
It's not a trial either.
It's always the way he tests.
It's great.
Well, the interesting thing is the upward trend, which is because of that, over a great work on the vote, he says ours is against approval.
There's no chance.
I don't think that's a good question.
It is a good question.
But the shift in it might be interesting.
See, there's always a huge undecided on what you vote for.
Sure.
But it's the least reliable.
It doesn't all make sense.
Yeah, and I don't think he does any accurate samples, but he just... What about, what is Gallo's name?
I don't know.
He won't be...
He is a queer damn thing, you know.
Yeah.
He last bowled on the 1st of February.
I mean, the 1st of September was his last bowled.
So he's got to have one now.
He isn't going to go again until it's either this weekend or tomorrow.
So he had nothing coming up now for a while.
It wasn't the last one.
It wasn't the first one.
The first one was the other six or something like that.
Why do you think he does this?
They said the reason they didn't do it was because they had done three together there, so they were skipping a longer than normal period.
Perfectly all right.
Because we may be moving up somewhere.
Harris says so.
I think we are.
I don't think Harris is lying on that.
He would lie.
And his China announcement will give a little kicker kind of thing.
It sort of burns the Russian people.
Yeah, I hope the office poll this weekend, I hope it's the bottom of the weekend, because I think after Russia phase two, China and all that,
It's a curious thing that sort of you must always get...
That impression is pretty.
Almost everybody, all the hands are sort of, they kick them around.
On the other hand, it's goddamn hard to beat somebody with nobody.
That's their problem.
And we do have some basic support developing in some areas.
You just got to see what erodes us from things like busing and all that sort of crap.
Plus, you shouldn't make that much different stuff.
If the old stuff is right, then they don't blame the president all day.
Of course, they blame the president for anything that's wrong.
Even though they don't consciously blame the president.
For us, they wouldn't say.
I'm sure, you know, if the recycling came along, they'd blame you for it.
The weather's bad.
The drought can go down.
The price of corn can go down.
Things are bad, so the president's good.
I have a feeling those office things are better than the country.
Aren't you, aren't you, aren't you quoting?
Oh, quoting doesn't say that.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
It takes a long time for it to sink in.
You look at that housing thing, it turns the economy around.
The effects that that has to have.
I think it takes a long time for public approval.
It takes a battery over a period of time to come out.
There is erosion.
And it's always not built thinking about problems.
But you look at the various things, the ward, the back pages.
I was excited about that invention.
I thought they had something going on in the water and that crumbled.
Yeah.
You mean the one down in Cambodia?
Well, on the border, yeah, on the border.
And he held on.
Yeah.
What did he say afterwards?
He didn't say that they are on the border.
All I've seen is, you know, there's a dream world.
Always the bad news, never the good news.
I don't think there's been any...
I don't think it's on the...
They don't publish the regular reviews to the publication date or whatever it is.
I think that's the 11th or something.
Maybe this weekend they'll have the reviews and we'll review something.
And Jerry said that, you know, once there's any guns or a lot, and he said what he might do is just
You can do a call and just actually talk to Wallace for a minute on the phone.
Sure.
And we'll wrap it up.
I will.
Yeah.
I told him.
We've got a NATO man.
We don't have a...
Still can't find out how that got off the...
I've never heard of Cecil.
It got shifted over to Cecil somewhere without him.
When I jumped out, he said, well, he was told that we weren't going to go for somebody outside.
We can't try and get him to worry about that.
Anyway, before we've got it under control.
Yep.
Put it through the, there's, and it will not be any career time.
I'll tell you that you're right.
Sure.
I saw a beautiful one.
That's the one where I got you.
Yeah.
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