Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 310-019
Date: Thursday, December 23, 1971 at 3:00 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Finch, Robert H.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/310-019

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[1:28:18] All right, Robert, how are you?
[1:28:21] Prison?
[1:28:21] Are you good?
[1:28:25] It's a plain America.
[1:28:27] Yeah.
[1:28:29] America.
[1:28:31] Bill, where do you last leave?
[1:28:32] I don't know.
[1:46:48] I don't know the whole country, I just don't know how to... Do you think he will as a fourth party candidate?
[1:46:57] Is there anything we can do to help him?
[1:47:02] Well, let me say this, the one thing, if all our people are stupid as hell, we're not going to be stupid with regard to the use of money.
[1:47:11] It's far more important to have money that puts McCarthy in the race than money to piss away with some PR for him to do some documentary on me.
[1:47:19] You see what I mean?
[1:47:20] Don't you agree?
[1:47:23] I don't know how you get it to him, and I don't know how he would do it, but what I meant is without getting caught.
[1:47:33] But in my opinion, in New York, about how McCarthy could make a difference, it couldn't be real.
[1:47:40] As a matter of fact, because you have less stable political organizations, it's a lot more level.
[2:32:51] Is that supposed to tell or ask you to withdraw money?
[2:32:53] No, you're supposed to.
[2:32:56] The M.C.
[2:32:57] thought he was going to.
[2:33:00] Well, he told you.
[2:33:01] He told my name.
[2:33:01] I know his name.
[2:33:03] That's when they told me.
[2:33:04] Well, we withdraw.
[2:33:04] Why?
[2:33:04] Why do you want to withdraw?
[2:33:06] I don't know.
[2:33:07] I thought I was told by one of the secretaries.
[2:33:11] No, I don't know.
[2:33:11] The vote was very obvious.
[2:33:13] The system.
[2:33:13] I don't know.
[2:33:15] I don't know.
[2:33:22] I think we've really done enough for Lodge.
[2:33:30] I think that's a great thing.
[2:33:45] We can raise the moment here for a minute.
[2:33:47] Because you've got a thing coming up.
[2:33:51] Henry Ford wants you to resign.
[2:33:55] Yeah.
[2:33:56] He wants you to resign and discuss it with me.
[2:33:59] And then they're going to have their big awards dinner in February and they want you to give a speech on that.
[2:34:09] The question is really...
[2:34:12] Is it worthwhile?
[2:34:13] A more basic one than that is whether the President is trying to keep a dead horse alive.
[2:34:19] I guess your argument is still that he has to.
[2:34:24] There's no real object.
[2:34:25] There is still a hell of a lot of feeling in this country for volunteers.
[2:34:29] There's a real question whether it's worth ever making anything out of the National Center.
[2:34:32] You went away with the President's prestige a decade, two years ago, and argued with him.
[2:34:39] You should have.
[2:34:42] The problem is you've got to have enough
[2:35:06] private money, which is what Ford has done, and we try to keep it, give it a bit of an air of the, like radio PGR, I guess.
[2:35:12] So you feel it's got to be something, first visibility.
[2:35:16] Yes, just one more shot, that's, that's, that's the worst thing, and we crank them up, and we've done some great work so far.
[2:35:28] How can you do, you know, focus in on one physical program that they're used to?
[2:35:33] I was telling Bob at the LA, I was talking about all of them, and the cancer of them today, they're quite moving.
[2:35:39] There are 130 of them there, and they cheer, and they cheer, and they cheer.
[2:35:42] And I was talking about what I'm trying to find in this group, and I went and brought in a copy of them, and I was posing to get a copy of them.
[2:35:51] And I was like, thank you.
[2:35:57] Did you take phone calls?
[2:35:58] Yes, I did.
[2:36:00] Oh, I was talking about the Christmas telephone call.
[2:36:09] Anyway, the thing you've done that's pretty cool is we're writing a score.
[2:36:11] It's a really new script.
[2:36:14] It's out live.
[2:36:16] What kind of cancer did you have?
[2:36:17] I mean, did you want to pursue it or not?
[2:36:20] Brian, one of those members, he was the guy who presided when you spoke out there.
[2:36:29] But his thing, now, I just saved this one on the side.
[2:36:35] He's got a lot of cancer.
[2:36:36] He said, don't smoke, please.
[2:36:39] Live clean, all the rest.
[2:36:39] This guy doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink.
[2:36:42] He lives a clean life.
[2:36:44] He's got cancer.
[2:36:46] Prove that.
[2:36:47] He should have been a Christian scientist.
[2:36:50] He did have cancer, too.
[2:36:52] Mary Baker, I think, did.
[2:36:53] She'll decide, she's a help, she'll decide where that prize goes.
[2:37:28] My only point is that the amount of interest that you go to SC and UCLA and the other schools around the country, it's just unbelievable.
[2:37:39] We all talked about the course we're breaking through, the whole virus approach.
[2:37:46] We may be, and we are, but we might be.
[2:37:49] That's why it's worth your staying in.
[2:37:51] About one thing I think we've got, I don't know what it is, but Elmer and folks dying to be one of that panel of three.
[2:38:06] It's a real problem because of this business.
[2:38:13] We're telling him that, we're putting him on the advisory committee.
[2:38:16] I'm telling him that he's on the inner circle.
[2:38:18] They're doing that.
[2:38:19] They've got an old guy doing that sport all the time.
[2:38:23] Go ahead, Rob.
[2:38:24] Well, this thing is really tough.
[2:38:27] Really, I am the medical attorney.
[2:38:29] I signed the bill.
[2:38:33] I got all the members of the Senate and House who were there.
[2:38:42] Well, Congress and the Japanese National Guard came back for the signing ceremony.
[2:38:47] And who was that?
[2:38:49] He stood right behind me, right in the middle of the room.
[2:38:54] Would you spy?
[2:38:59] Did you think so?
[2:38:59] Sure.
[2:39:00] He looked good.
[2:39:00] We make a mistake when we try to avoid his aircraft.
[2:39:03] It's much better if we let him in.
[2:39:06] Let me tell you this.
[2:39:06] If there was any question about the picture on signing that bill being used, it was decided at the moment that Teddy Kennedy stood behind me in that picture.
[2:39:15] I knew that at the moment.
[2:39:17] They see my puss up there making a little crock all the time.
[2:39:21] They won't use it.
[2:39:22] We've got better stories.
[2:39:23] Also, you're the front guy signing the bill.
[2:39:25] He's one of them all the time.
[2:39:26] He's standing in the back.
[2:39:28] What is he doing?
[2:39:32] We really did this one, I think.
[2:39:38] I said, no, I said nothing.
[2:39:40] I said, no, don't trust the bureaucracy at all.
[2:39:43] I guess my phrase these days is, the miracle is the best thing.
[2:39:49] Chaos begets us.
[2:39:50] And preserve it.
[2:39:52] And we have it.
[2:39:53] I said, if you get busy, and I said, no, I don't trust the bureaucracy at all.
[2:39:58] And I said, you would have the total authority to kick people around and say the president took care of it.
[2:40:03] He will, too.
[2:40:03] You know, he dropped weapons, balls, you know, all that kind of stuff.
[2:40:09] Is he coming?
[2:40:11] I haven't seen him for at least 15 years.
[2:40:17] I haven't seen him, but I saw him at John.
[2:40:22] I'm awful glad he's gone.
[2:40:29] But also, it's the volunteers.
[2:40:35] on the things that volunteer people to raise money for cancer.
[2:40:39] I emphasized that point very strongly to the Pro-National Committee.
[2:40:41] As the government now has committed, the President has committed, the Congress has committed, the government and, what I say, five-sixths of what we do in this country has been done.
[2:40:56] I don't think it's the blacks.
[2:41:25] I don't know.
[2:41:26] I don't know what to do with this.
[2:41:29] Well, the thing they were trying to do.
[2:41:30] Young people, for example, on the volunteer thing, really, really know some of these cops.
[2:41:34] They're terribly interested.
[2:41:36] I don't know why, but they are.
[2:41:38] Well, I do know why.
[2:41:39] Why is it so important?
[2:41:39] You know what I mean?
[2:41:40] You know.
[2:41:43] Certainly.
[2:41:46] When they go out, you know, and they, for example, want remedial reading, and I'll give you...
[2:41:51] I think it's great for young people to do that.
[2:41:54] This is the way to deal with the long hairs and all that.
[2:41:58] You think I should grow my hair a little bit?
[2:42:03] Alright.
[2:42:03] This is what you can grow on your hair.
[2:42:14] What do you think?
[2:42:16] I know I am.
[2:42:17] Don't you think they look a little, I mean, it's great.
[2:42:25] People are going, I don't think they're impressed.
[2:42:32] They're all the people I've interviewed.
[2:43:06] Connell was telling me that he had gone over and seen that in some place he had swiped and seen a monocle of one of the Prince's cranes, and one of the Prince's cranes, and afterwards they had a ballad, and the Prince was carrying the train all the time because he was still pushing it.
[2:43:30] And he said, you know, he said to the governor, he said, I, he said, I must thank you very much.
[2:44:47] You'd be interested to know, when I went to the Kennedy Center last night, they had a play called Story Theater.
[2:44:59] It's a sort of animized recitation of Aesop's fables and Grimm's fairy tales.
[2:45:09] done in just great fashion, a little musical combo on the stage that plays sort of a folk rock music kind of music, but really just good.
[2:45:19] And they act these things out.
[2:45:20] It's superbly done, completely clean.
[2:45:24] And, you know, it tells the story of Penny Penny in the sky.
[2:45:27] Ms. Rice and I saw that.
[2:45:28] She said it was great.
[2:45:29] Did she like it?
[2:45:30] She said it was marvelous.
[2:45:31] Can I ask a question about that?
[2:45:33] I want to be sure you follow that one because she mentioned it.
[2:45:37] somebody that's got in our box.
[2:45:39] I want to be sure that Alice is working all the time on that, that they know.
[2:45:43] Do they know they can use that box if they want?
[2:45:46] Oh, yes.
[2:45:46] And are they using it?
[2:45:48] We have an intensive program of use of the box.
[2:45:52] I want to be sure to choose for all three.
[2:45:54] Sure.
[2:45:55] Have you ever used the box?
[2:45:55] Yes, sir.
[2:45:56] In fact, we've used it earlier.
[2:45:58] And isn't that nine?
[2:45:59] So people love it.
[2:45:59] Right.
[2:46:02] We've really got it fixed up nicely now.
[2:46:03] We've got a little ante in there.
[2:46:05] We've got a little refrigerator in each box where they keep a little champagne and dendro and stuff so people at intermission can have a drink.
[2:46:18] That's a joy.
[2:46:19] That's a real joy.
[2:46:20] I don't know if he's wanting to or urging to.
[2:46:24] I think he has.
[2:46:25] I don't know.
[2:46:29] The cabinet has not been super anxious to visit.
[2:46:31] We're pushing staff to use it to take cabinet and congressional people and all, to keep it huge all the time.
[2:46:39] Postman, you know, for the people that he moments, he's got a crew working on it.
[2:46:45] See, we've got the biggest thing in the world.
[2:46:49] We've got 28 seats every night.
[2:46:53] Plus two, about six matinees a week.
[2:46:56] What is the situation?
[2:46:57] It's kind of like that tag that runs it.
[2:47:02] You know, he was Stevenson's...
[2:47:06] He was Stevenson's film manager.
[2:47:21] He's a real, real bleak McCormick player.
[2:47:24] He's a bad boy.
[2:47:24] A bad boy.
[2:47:25] I guess he's a good McCormick fan.
[2:47:27] Same family.
[2:47:29] Chicago.
[2:47:29] He is a terrible manager.
[2:47:32] Just very bad at it.
[2:47:33] Now they're, they're, they've been screwed on.
[2:47:40] I think they've been screwed on.
[2:47:44] I think they've been screwed on.
[2:47:52] Yeah.
[2:47:53] Pure, pure,
[2:48:21] Have you seen the White House this year?
[2:48:26] For Christmas, you better get over it.
[2:48:29] It is a lot twice as good as last year.
[2:48:33] Unbelievable.
[2:48:34] The decorations, the world trees, the lighted trees down the Great Hall.
[2:48:39] Be sure to go if you want to Caroline.
[2:48:45] I'll be out.
[2:48:50] This Christmas season, I've never had a visitor.
[2:49:01] I think probably we, if anything, probably the oldest that we've called.
[2:49:11] called him too much time to introduce characters.
[2:49:14] And we've done it, at least.
[2:49:16] Well, Sato, I've got a nice little girl.
[2:49:20] I'm going to take him over to play golf at Annenberg's place.
[2:49:23] So that would take care of him.
[2:49:26] Believe me, that's hard work.
[2:49:27] It's hard work to sit and talk with my mom.
[2:49:41] Let me know what you can do.
[2:50:10] It's hard to know what the best thing to do is.
[2:50:12] It might be better to run around and do this.
[2:50:14] It's about a certain class, you know, that a lot of our people are going to spend time with.
[2:50:19] If we can keep doing what we're doing right now, we can keep a lot of California going.
[2:50:27] We'll be team great, but I question whether you can.
[2:50:30] In California, though, we've got a lot of heritage to bring.
[2:50:32] Yet we need a heritage to bring.
[2:50:34] We've got to get something that will really support that.
[2:50:37] That's for sure.
[2:50:40] But we've got to keep Reagan on the track.
[2:50:43] Yep.
[2:50:43] Yep.
[2:50:43] Don't irritate him too early.
[2:50:45] That's true.
[2:50:46] What's going to go on, Henry?
[2:50:49] Well, John went through his story.
[2:50:51] Henry knew it all.
[2:50:52] He knew all the part about the... John said this... Henry said, what's up?
[2:50:57] John said, well, this whole story is taking a new twist.
[2:51:04] So John started reciting it.
[2:51:05] Henry got kind of impatient.
[2:51:06] He said, well, I know that.
[2:51:08] That confirms what he told me.
[2:51:10] about the part where Christy Oldman was the one who had given the stuff to Jack Anderson.
[2:51:15] But I was no surprise to him at all.
[2:51:17] Then John went into the Joint Chiefs' business, and they hadn't always given the stuff to him.
[2:51:24] Orvin and all that.
[2:51:25] And Henry... John thinks Henry already knew him, and was...
[2:51:32] I wasn't surprised.
[2:51:33] I think he was surprised.
[2:51:35] And John, I think, now agrees, as we reviewed it, that he was, that he did not.
[2:51:43] Henry's reaction was, why the hell would they do that?
[2:51:46] Of all the people we've played straight with, given everything they wanted, and would have given anything they'd asked for.
[2:51:54] That's my point.
[2:51:55] The Joint Chiefs would have had it.
[2:51:56] He said, I can't understand why they would do this.
[2:51:59] And that was his total reaction to it, really.
[2:52:01] As he knew about it, his briefcase was being rifled.
[2:52:03] Yes, and he was very shocked.
[2:52:04] John laid it on him, but it was rifled.
[2:52:08] I don't know if he mentioned his dad pulled stuff out of his briefcase and reported political.
[2:52:12] He said, you know, he said the political men was a conversation around him.
[2:52:15] He said, that's impossible.
[2:52:16] I don't, I don't keep any record of anything.
[2:52:19] So there's no way to do that.
[2:52:25] Henry welcomed the idea of a new security officer in the National Security Apparatus, a guy that John Wood put in.
[2:52:37] He says, I want to close down this liaison office here, let them keep it over at the Pentagon, and I'll call them over when I want them instead of having them in my office, which I think makes sense.
[2:52:52] Obviously, you gotta get rid of that .
[2:53:01] He said, what do you do on that?
[2:53:03] And John said, well, that's the question now.
[2:53:07] It's in the hands of the Attorney General, and he's got to determine what we do, obviously.
[2:53:13] He said, Admiral Whelan thinks that we should put the yeoman in jail, and Admiral Mora thinks we should put Whelan in jail.
[2:53:20] And Henry immediately said, I think Mora should be in jail.
[2:53:22] And John and I both laughed and said, as you go up the ladder, everybody's going to crucify the guy under him, and nobody will take the blame himself.
[2:53:28] And Henry was a little puzzled at that.
[2:53:35] Then he said, you can't prosecute him, can you?
[2:53:37] Because you have your problem.
[2:53:40] So I said, well, that's a real question.
[2:53:42] There's probably both ways.
[2:53:43] If you don't prosecute him, you've got a guy out with a lot of knowledge.
[2:53:49] You've got no violation of the law and national security.
[2:53:57] So I was happy to keep it on my desk.
[2:53:59] And I don't think he's about to raise the case.
[2:54:04] It should be off my desk.
[2:54:05] I should be at home.
[2:54:06] John and I were both puzzled afterwards.
[2:54:08] I said, well, now how do you quite?
[2:54:09] You figure Henry hasn't raised him with anybody.
[2:54:11] He said, I have no idea.
[2:54:12] I still don't understand.
[2:54:13] Oh, my God.
[2:54:13] I thought it was a matter of course.
[2:54:21] No, he was bothered by the... And he said, geez, there's so many people around who could do that.
[2:54:29] That's what...
[2:54:30] He said, sir, the same thing you did.
[2:54:32] I have a briefcase there, and I...
[2:54:34] Make it safe.
[2:54:36] And again, Admiral Robinson coming in and seeing what's going on early.
[2:54:43] Working around.
[2:54:45] You know, it's not doing anything.
[2:54:48] And whatever you do, you've got to know.
[2:54:52] And I'll cooperate in every way, of course.
[2:54:57] In case we can see that.
[2:54:59] There's certainly an equity in the young chiefs that they've been
[2:55:04] do this when they are trusted allies.
[2:55:08] It was that he feels he has to send Haig back to the man by mid-year next year.
[2:55:15] He can't keep him any longer than that.
[2:55:18] He intended to bring Admiral Robinson in to save three persons.
[2:55:24] Oh, no.
[2:55:26] And he said that.
[2:55:27] Of course you can't.
[2:55:29] But he said, that's another scary part of it, is that that's what my point was.
[2:55:33] Now, he admitted that right out.
[2:55:34] He didn't try to cover that up.
[2:55:36] The problem is not how he pinched very hard, really.
[2:55:38] He said, how can you, what can you do on the prosecution?
[2:55:45] Do you have adequate evidence?
[2:55:47] John said, we have a total case on circumstantial.
[2:55:52] And we have the lie detection.
[2:55:55] And he said, if you can't use the lie detection, you can't do it.
[2:56:01] Yeah.
[2:56:25] You can only stay home for so long.
[2:56:27] Oh, God.
[2:56:29] You get tired.
[2:56:30] You get out of here four days, that's a long time.
[2:56:32] You've been talking so long.
[2:56:35] You've got to get back to your people who are more excited.
[2:56:43] All of us are that way.
[2:56:45] One of those decorations I found at University, and every year they have a thing.
[2:56:50] This year they've got, they've got a conference.
[2:56:53] The details are just really something.
[2:56:58] That Christmas tree has to be the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world.
[2:57:07] It's fantastic.
[2:57:08] It works well for Christmas decorations anyway, and they've done a great job of taking advantage of it.
[2:57:20] I can spend another direction.
[2:57:23] And it just proved, you know, they say you have to be there and all that.
[2:57:30] You just don't have to be there.
[2:57:31] It has to be there.
[2:57:33] Oh, sure.
[2:57:33] But it is essential.
[2:57:34] And the fact of being in the house is the thing that most of the people that we have to those things have already seen.
[2:57:41] And also, the other thing, too, is the things I was doing.
[2:57:43] You know, I was brushing off through this and this and this.
[2:57:47] Nice.
[2:57:52] without saying anything to anybody after he finished the physical, the medical, or somebody at the hospital.
[2:58:01] I must have been towards or something like that.
[2:58:04] It was just a little Christmas thing to do, you know, Christmas Eve.
[2:58:11] And I went through a whole batch of ideas with Jared and Amy.
[2:58:16] Like he did last year when I was doing Gerald or something like that.
[2:58:19] I don't know.
[2:58:19] I was glad he would play any games like that.
[2:58:23] The fact that you are at the hospital would be a...
[2:58:25] If you want to do anything at all, that's a chance to do something.
[2:58:28] I don't think it's necessary to do at all.
[2:58:29] You know how it is.
[2:58:30] We've been there.
[2:58:31] We've been nurses.
[2:58:32] We've been doctors.
[2:58:33] We've been doctors.
[2:58:34] We've been doctors.
[2:58:36] We've been doctors.
[2:58:38] We've been doctors.
[2:58:40] We've been doctors.
[2:58:42] We've been doctors.
[2:58:43] We've been doctors.
[2:58:45] We've been doctors.
[2:58:45] We've been doctors.
[2:58:46] We've been doctors.
[2:58:47] We've been doctors.
[2:58:48] We've been doctors.
[2:58:49] We've been doctors.
[2:58:51] You broke a diplomatic channel on a head of state communications.
[2:59:22] He's all upset about it now.
[2:59:26] There's one step.
[2:59:30] There's one step.
[2:59:31] I don't care how far.
[2:59:32] I didn't schedule it.
[2:59:34] I just didn't know where to want to do it.
[2:59:38] I don't care how far.
[2:59:39] I don't care how far.