Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 310 › Conversation 310-029

Nixon & Moorer on Football and Casual conversation

Sunday, December 26, 1971 · 12:12 PM–12:16 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Moorer, Thomas H. (Adm.)Conversation310-029 on Tape 310 (tape position 03:14:08–03:17:24)StartSunday, December 26, 1971 at 12:12 PMEndSunday, December 26, 1971 at 12:16 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 310-029 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer engaged in a brief, informal exchange following the Christmas holiday. The conversation focused primarily on their mutual appreciation for a recent professional football game. No official policy decisions or strategic military matters were discussed during this interaction.

Audio

Download MP3 (part 1) · 112.0 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 112.1 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 53.7 MB

This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 03:14:08 into the tape and ends around 03:17:24.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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

· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
3:14:15I think there's another briefcase there over in the Oval Office.
3:16:27Step over to you and me, please.
3:16:30Hello?
3:16:30Yeah.
3:16:31Hello?
3:16:39Hello?
3:16:40Yeah.
3:16:42Fine.
3:16:44Merry Christmas to you.
3:16:47You have a good one.
3:16:48Hope you saw that game.
3:16:52Wasn't that fantastic?
3:16:54That's probably the best one.
3:16:55I mean, while they're always the best, the only thing I do if I were to have them play off the roll, I think it's a mistake for them to have it in the sudden death thing because it makes it basically so unlike football and so conventional.
3:17:11Everybody plays it to save a pair of an error.
3:17:13They really ought to play a third quarter, a fifth quarter, and then they, you know, you have all the excitement of both teams going for broke again, you know.
3:17:21I think it might be working.

NARA Description

On December 26, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Adm.Thomas H. Moorer met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:12 pm to 12:16 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 310-029 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 310-29

Date: December 26, 1971

Time: 12:12 pm - 12:16 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with Adm. Thomas H. Moorer.

[See Conversation No. 17-102]

Also recorded on December 26, 1971

  • 017-102 12:12 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Adm. Thomas H. Moorer talked on the telephone from 12:12 pm to 12:16 pm.
  • 017-103 12:16 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-030 12:16 PM · 25 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and Tricia Nixon Cox met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-031 12:16 PM · 28 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Tricia Nixon Cox, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-032 12:16 PM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-033 12:16 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and Zosimo T. Monzon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-034 12:16 PM · 59 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.
  • 310-035 12:16 PM · 13 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 12:16 pm and 1:43 pm.

All 31 conversations from December 26, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 310-029, December 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/310-029 (accessed October 11, 2026).