Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 298 › Conversation 298-044

Nixon & Ziegler on Media relations and Government reorganization

Thursday, November 11, 1971 · 6:21 PM–6:29 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 7 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.Conversation298-044 on Tape 298 (tape position 03:52:08–03:58:48)StartThursday, November 11, 1971 at 6:21 PMEndThursday, November 11, 1971 at 6:29 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 298-044 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417185259 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler discuss media management strategies, specifically addressing unfavorable news reports regarding administration staff departures and background checks. The conversation focuses on refuting allegations of staff firings and providing favorable talking points regarding government reorganization and agricultural policy. Nixon instructs Ziegler to emphasize the normalcy of security investigations and to steer media inquiries toward the administration's legislative successes in the Senate.

Audio

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NARA Description

On November 11, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:21 pm to 6:29 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 298-044 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 298-44

Date: November 11 1971
Time: 6:21 pm - 6:29 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with Ronald L. Ziegler.

[See Conversation No. 14-59]

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 1 minute of this recording (about 15% 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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Yeah, yeah.
I think that'd be a good story.
So basically, and actually what I said was the total truth.
The firing stories were very unfair.
Nobody's ever talked about firing.
And so you could tell the boys straight out, you could say, no, we'll tell you what the student had done on the fire.
Totally true.
Three months ago, he came and said, I don't have any money.
I've got to do this.
I've got to take this job for my family.
And I want to do it.
It's going to hurt the administration.
So this was right after the China announcement.
I said, fine.
I said, quick, we'll do it.
There was never in front of our environment.
Well, something like that.
I don't know.
But anyway, whatever it is, we knocked that in the head and he left.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
No, farm rights, on the other hand, Bunch is going to work on farm rights.
This is my direction.
We also, we've got a good slug on the government reorganization.
Did any of the bastards ask about a positive vote in the Senate?
Or did they ignore that, I suppose?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I guess you had to encourage them.
That was a hell of a good vote.
It's the Senate's amendment.
And you ought to have sent it to turn totally around.
It's got to be a model of a big turn.
You're out in the back.
You're out in the back.
They have all sorts of things.
They've got some guy in the environmental council, you know, who's in that name.
So they're apparently CBS and they're very interested in the environment.
So I think they're married three or four.
The only reason they're married
They checked on his son, which of course I didn't know, and I would never have proved it.
But the point is, the reason they checked was that he's supposed to be an environmental specialist.
You know?
Yeah.
I don't know.
And you might say that one of the reasons they were checking is they had no file on him, which is a pretty good thing to say, too, isn't it?
Oh well, they better not push me on them or I'll just kick them in the teeth on them.
It should be on very cold.
I'd just say you covered that yesterday.
Wouldn't that be better?
That's what I meant when I was just saying, there's just many, many people that are checked that I never hear about.
And they're not being checked for other reasons.
What the hell do they think we're supposed to do with this credit?
I got the investigation and I got that reporter.
Now, if there's a leak, you know what I mean, like the New York Times or National Security or something, we then have to, and the FBI does look into it.
That is what they do, and it isn't that.
Christ Almighty, I mean, this is what it is that he said something about, something about the Catholic thing.
Pressure has been against us for years, you know.
Very good, very good.
Yeah, yeah.
I think Munch is going to be effective, you know, he's a tough guy.
He's a very, he's a good player, and Munch is a great speech maker, you know.
Munch is a great little finalist.
You know, you've got to realize, he was raving that he had a farm.
Just like my mother.
He was, he didn't farm for a year after he got out of school, and then went on to teach school.
And all the agriculture, that's a killer record.
And he's the farmer, basically, even though he farms only a year.
Oh, yes.
It's the one thing, it's the one thing that we just couldn't, that we, I mean, the agriculture people would not buy out of, pardon me, the labor people say we're not going to get in on that because an agriculture doesn't quite fit the convention.
I mean, I pointed out, you know, that we're going to slim it down to those things that only affect the farmer, and we're cutting off the board service and all the other crap.
So it'll be a pendulum, but that way it just doesn't fit anything else.
of the farmers alone.
If you hit that mirror, it's different.
If somebody comes here to the farm and problems with labor, that's done through the economic department.
That's all part of that.
Now, let's see.
They continue, I guess, to be disappointed that I wouldn't have the politics in Chicago, New York.
Is that right?
Sapphire wrote that.
He thought I'd get a lot of questions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now I'm... That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Oh, they're going to do, you know, they'll be, in my view, they're going to stick to foreign policy for the most part.
Well, there's much to be asked there, a little on foreign policy.
And I think they're going to do a little on the base, too, perhaps, I don't know.
Maybe the court, whether or not they'll say much on it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.

Also recorded on November 11, 1971

  • 014-058 6:16 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:16 pm and 6:21 pm.
  • 298-043 6:16 PM · 5 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 6:16 pm and 6:21 pm.
  • 014-059 6:21 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Ronald L. Ziegler talked on the telephone from 6:21 pm to 6:29 pm.
  • 014-060 6:30 PM · 20 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:30 pm and 6:55 pm.
  • 014-061 6:30 PM · 20 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:30 pm and 6:55 pm.
  • 014-062 6:30 PM · 2 min — Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, and John J. McCloy talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:30 pm and 6:55 pm.
  • 014-063 6:30 PM · 4 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:30 pm and 7:11 pm.
  • 014-064 6:30 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:30 pm and 7:11 pm.

All 111 conversations from November 11, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 298-044, November 11, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417185259). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/298-044 (accessed November 14, 2026).