Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 299 › Conversation 299-014

Nixon & Goldwater on National Defense and Arms Control

Wednesday, November 10, 1971 · 2:51 PM–2:54 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 3 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Goldwater, Barry M.Conversation299-014 on Tape 299 (tape position 00:19:43–00:22:33)StartWednesday, November 10, 1971 at 2:51 PMEndWednesday, November 10, 1971 at 2:54 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 299-014 ↗

AI Summary

Senator Barry Goldwater met with President Nixon to share positive feedback regarding the President's recent public appearances and to discuss their shared concerns about national defense. Goldwater recounted his recent speeches in which he defended the necessity of a strong military posture and dismissed environmentalist objections to defense testing. Nixon emphasized the urgent need to maintain U.S. military strength against Soviet advances, expressing frustration with Congressional efforts that he equated to disarmament.

Audio

Download MP3 · 2.7 MB

This clip was extracted from the full tape recording by Easy Nixon.

Listen to the full tape segment

Position in tape: 00:19:43 – 00:22:33

299a.mp3

Transcript (AI-generated)

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

· Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).
My name is Chicago, please.
Yeah.
Yes.
Very.
Just had, uh...
Pat Boone and his lovely wife were his daughters, and they just raved about your appearance in Atlanta.
Told about your flight in the airplane and all that, what you said, but he said, you know, we've just got to get very cool water out across this country tomorrow.
So I thought you'd like to know that you've got some fans going, and I appreciate what you said.
Well, I had, of course, been before us.
one of those New York audiences, and I hate them, although we had armed friends there, but, you know, they're so unspontaneous, you know, but, yeah, from New York.
I, incidentally, I hit the, I thought you'd be interested to know the defense thing very hard.
In Chicago, I thought you'd be interested to know, I said, now look here, for those that say we should lay down this burden of defense, I said, if we lay it down, no other free nation's gonna pick it up, and we can't leave this vacuum, then what I'll just say is,
I said, now, I had to make a very difficult decision on this.
I said, I had to make a test decision on that, testing a defensive weapon, which was already, of course, tested.
And, of course, I laid it all out by saying if we get arms control, we should do this and that.
But then I went on to say, I said, now, many people objected to that very strongly because they were concerned about the risk to the environment.
I said, I'm concerned about the environment.
And I think we have some very good programs, very good mission environment.
I said, if we don't defend this country, we aren't going to have anybody by the environment to protect us.
And I think we ought to hit deadline very, you know.
Not many people are nuts on that subject.
me say one other thing on the answer to me you know going forward and that's essential because we had our pbm and everything was down to you know for a year so we did it and it didn't it didn't blow up the arctic and the seals were still swimming yeah i wish you'd tell some of our good
if you have a stroke with them, you know, and serve your friends, like fucking others, you've got them, and I know you disarm her, you know, and I'm fighting.
Because you know, it's just the Congress is trying to disarm them, and Barry, I'm not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What, 10 years of McNamara, for Christ's sakes, they, the Russians, have caught us now.
Now we're just, we're just, and listen, if we don't get arms control, I guess we just walked in, let me tell you, we're going to turn, we're going to start going.
I can prove you that, I can tell you that.

NARA Description

On November 10, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Barry M. Goldwater met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:51 pm to 2:54 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 299-014 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 299-14

Date: November 10, 1971
Time: 2:51 pm - 2:54 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with Barry M. Goldwater.

[See Conversation No. 14-17]

Also recorded on November 10, 1971

  • 014-015 2:45 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:45 pm and 2:50 pm.
  • 299-010 2:45 PM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:45 pm and 2:50 pm.
  • 299-011 2:45 PM · 19 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 2:45 pm and 2:50 pm.
  • 014-016 2:50 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 2:50 pm.
  • 299-013 2:50 PM · 17 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 2:50 pm.
  • 014-017 2:51 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Barry M. Goldwater talked on the telephone from 2:51 pm to 2:54 pm.
  • 299-015 2:51 PM · 18 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, and Richard J. Daley met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:51 pm and 3:16 pm.
  • 014-018 2:54 PM · 24 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:54 pm and 3:09 pm.

All 47 conversations from November 10, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 299-014, November 10, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/299-014 (accessed October 12, 2026).