Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 285 › Conversation 285-030

Nixon & Haldeman on Phase II wage and price controls and Bureaucracy

Thursday, October 7, 1971 · 1:25 PM–2:43 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 6 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation285-030 on Tape 285 (tape position 03:19:40–03:25:52)StartThursday, October 7, 1971 at 1:25 PMEndThursday, October 7, 1971 at 2:43 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 285-030 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman met to coordinate the President's upcoming schedule, including appointments with F. Edward Hebert and Cabinet members. The discussion shifted toward political strategy, specifically addressing polling, public reaction to Phase II wage and price controls, and the need to overhaul the bureaucracy. Nixon also directed Haldeman to instruct John Dean to aggressively use the IRS to investigate the Los Angeles Times, citing his desire to retaliate against the publication's perceived bias.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 2 minutes of this recording (about 25% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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And then on Tuesday, one of them, I had to do with a bear.
You know about that?
You know, a bears can picture hanging.
Isn't that all the schedule?
The chairman of the...
committee down there, there's a hanging picture.
And I promised, I'm sure it's on the 12th or so, just try to do it at two, do it as close as two o'clock as you can.
And the other thing would be a leader's decree, maybe the one that we're working on now, and cabinet report, four o'clock, 4.30, Friday.
Good, good.
All right, boys, we're all out.
Have a good job.
Goddamn.
Really?
Kennedy must be hungry.
Let me, uh... Oh, of course, he thought about it.
Well, that's kind of a record, though, of what... What?
Yeah.
Come on.
Yeah, I know.
I think these fellows are a little afraid of this public reaction on Facebook.
Don't you agree?
You gotta give your channel a little credit on that.
The way he rewrote that.
Don't you see how infinite and better it was?
God damn it, he had fights.
You know, he put you, he put it in your groin and twisted it.
Whereas the other state, the father was just too nice.
Too nice to do that.
Good.
That's very good.
That's very good.
Better off than the Russian cabinet and the other state.
For breakfast, I can do that.
For breakfast, I can do that.
Let it go.
Let it go.
I don't know.
I just think, I don't know whether it's
The other one's hot.
Yeah.
That's right.
Good.
All right.
Good.
Good.
All right.
That's good.
Fine.
Nothing else in the line.
Damn it.
It's a chopper.
Well, I'm mad about that.
Yeah.
And he should be mad.
Good.
I don't.
I don't know if he takes time.
So it'll take him 4.30 of 1983.
He knows what I meant.
I just meant to let it pass.
The decision.
Moving.
That's all.
Moving.
Transfer the son of a bitch.
Yeah.
All right, I'll tell you though, just shake up this bureaucracy around.
I'll tell her, I'll tell her, I'm gonna shake this up a little.
All right.
Two.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
I just wanted to be sure they all understood because don't let that poor woman take a beating on that son of a bitch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now let's go all over there and find every one of their various installations.
And then we will get the story.
And also the internal revenue, which we go after at times, particularly over us.
Now, also, there's a man I trust up there.
I'm planning to get off his ass and find out what it is.
All right.
A medium.
Be a medium.
Tell Dean to get off his ass and do it, and I don't care.
Every other paper we've got to keep her reclined so we won't face out on this, because, you know, he's always on their side.
I want the time to go after him, and tell Dean that's an order, and I want to see something fast, okay?
Okay.
Good.
How do you take it?
Yeah.
Well, you know, he'd done so many nice things for Bob, I just felt it was just wrong.
And what'd he say?
Played big at Miami?
That's good, huh?
All right.
Okay.
Good day.
Okay.

NARA Description

On October 7, 1971, 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 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 285-030 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 285-030

Date: October 7, 1971
Time: Unknown between 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

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

     The President's schedule
          -F. Edward Hebert, October 12, 1971
          -Cabinet
                -Clark MacGregor

     [Unknown topic]
         -Edward M. Kennedy, Edmund S. Muskie, Hubert H. Humphrey

     Polls
             -Congress
             -Public reaction
             -Wage and Price Controls
                   -Phase II
             -Patrick J. Buchanan

     Cabinet

     Transfer of unknown person

     Bureaucracy
          -John D. Ehrlichman

     Unknown woman [Romana A. Banuelos?]

     Internal Revenue Service [IRS]
           -Los Angeles Times
                -Anti-trust
                     -Peter M. Flanigan
                -John W. Dean, III
                     -Herbert G. Klein

       Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542

     Unknown event in Miami

Also recorded on October 7, 1971

  • 010-133 1:02 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 1:02 pm.
  • 010-134 1:02 PM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Marjorie P. Acker talked on the telephone from 1:02 pm to 1:03 pm.
  • 010-135 1:03 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, Marjorie P. Acker, and William L. Safire talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:03 pm and 1:20 pm.
  • 285-026 1:05 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Marjorie P. Acker, White House operator, and William L. Safire met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:05 pm and 2:43 pm.
  • 285-027 1:25 PM · 1 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 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm.
  • 285-028 1:25 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm.
  • 285-029 1:25 PM · 8 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 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm.
  • 285-031 1:25 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:25 pm and 2:43 pm.

All 106 conversations from October 7, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 285-030, October 7, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/285-030 (accessed October 6, 2026).