Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 303 › Conversation 303-011

Nixon & Haldeman on United Nations and Taiwan

Tuesday, October 26, 1971 · 5:55 PM–6:10 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation303-011 on Tape 303 (tape position 03:07:25–03:13:00)StartTuesday, October 26, 1971 at 5:55 PMEndTuesday, October 26, 1971 at 6:10 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 303-011 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H.R. Haldeman discuss the political fallout following the United Nations vote to expel Taiwan and readmit the People's Republic of China. The conversation focuses on managing domestic criticism from conservatives like Ronald Reagan and John Ashbrook, as well as coordinating the administration's messaging through Secretary of State William Rogers and UN Ambassador George H.W. Bush. Nixon decides to meet with Henry Kissinger at the residence to further deliberate on the administration's response to the diplomatic outcome.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 1 minute of this recording (about 14% 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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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· Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).
Yeah.
Ah, anything to report?
I just finished a long session.
He's back.
Okay, good.
Good.
If you won't have him, I'll... Yeah.
All right, we'll let him.
Oh, Christ, I don't want to run.
I don't want to run.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
I don't mean with... Yeah.
Buddy, did he agree to call Raven or not?
All right.
All right.
Fine.
Fine.
All right.
Yeah.
No.
All right, boys.
I think he's working, of course, hard to get the, he says that, his reading at the present time is that the RAD is part of the, when he's talking about who, Ashbrook and Schmidt and so forth, is directing the UN rather than to, to invite us to the moment.
And what he's done is right now, as he said, so many of them saw it on television, which is outraged.
Right here, on the bush.
If you follow through that, it's going on.
Yeah.
Bill, I think I'll get Henry over now and talk to him.
I'll go over to the residence.
As a matter of fact, when I get off the phone, just tell him to come over to the residence.
I'm going to go over there now.
There's somebody over there.
And you can tell Bill that I think it would be good if Bush could come down and see me.
in the morning after, we're having breakfast with Bill in the morning, so they didn't let me see him until 10 o'clock in the morning.
And I don't know, how did Tigger handle things?
Did he just throw it all around you?
Well, that's probably right today.
I don't know.
That's, you know, Henry was insisting on this.
That's why we did that.
Who told Henry the problem?
He knows the problem.
He sees it.
I mean, that's
China re-admitted against national channel.
It's such a hateful act of utility that it would have been so well left not tried.
Yeah, but they're voted out by over two-thirds.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's done about.
It's done.
It's wrong.
And I know we just got it.
Punisher got that.
You said that Colson had not gotten that out of the Rogers thing.
The one thing that he did, the third thing was that...
If he said that he had not seen in the Rogers statement the fact that what Rogers had read to me, that it would be important to at least continue with that in relation to the title on it.
I don't agree with what Rogers read at all, so I guess the question is to figure it out.
Do you know what I mean?
Rogers had that right in the third paragraph.
He said he had it in the next piece.
I couldn't say that we're going to cut because they've already ditched us.
And Reagan just had, will take a different position after all, he's the governor and the demagoguers and all that.
But we can't do it.
Well, I don't know, I'd like to keep him muzzled if we can.
Why don't you just...
do that and then i'll see yeah and come over there and tell him we'll make it brief tonight

NARA Description

On October 26, 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 5:55 pm and 6:10 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 303-011 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 303-011

Date: October 26, 1971
Time: Unknown between 5:55 pm and 6:10 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

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

     The President's schedule
          -John B. Connally

     Request for information

     United Nations [UN] vote on Taiwan
          -Unknown man [Henry A. Kissinger ?]
                -Ronald W. Reagan
          -John M. Ashbrook
          -John G. Schmitz
          -George H. W. Bush
          -William P. Rogers
          -The President's schedule
                -Kissinger
                -Rogers
                      -Bush's schedule
          -Ronald L. Ziegler's press briefing
                -Rogers
                -Kissinger
          -Taiwan
                -Connally
                -Possible readmission
                      -Previous vote
          -US reaction
          -Rogers
                -Statement on Taiwan
                      -Charles W. Colson
          -Reagan

     The President's schedule

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

             -Kissinger

The President left at 6:10 pm.

Also recorded on October 26, 1971

  • 303-007 1:51 PM · 2 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 1:51 pm and 2:49 pm.
  • 303-008 1:51 PM · 1 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 1:51 pm and 2:49 pm.
  • 303-009 2:49 PM · 2 hr 53 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, Manolo Sanchez, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and George P. Shultz met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:49 pm to 5:55 pm.
  • 303-010 5:55 PM · 3 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 5:55 pm and 6:10 pm.
  • 303-012 6:10 PM · 52 sec — unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:10 pm and 11:59 pm.
  • 013-015 6:36 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:36 pm and 7:50 pm.
  • 013-016 7:50 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods talked on the telephone from 7:50 pm to 7:52 pm.
  • 013-017 7:52 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:52 pm and 8:01 pm.

All 44 conversations from October 26, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 303-011, October 26, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/303-011 (accessed October 12, 2026).