Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 313 › Conversation 313-009

Nixon & Connally on Legislative Strategy and Congress

Monday, January 10, 1972 · 2:44 PM–2:51 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Connally, John B.Conversation313-009 on Tape 313 (tape position 00:07:34–00:12:58)StartMonday, January 10, 1972 at 2:44 PMEndMonday, January 10, 1972 at 2:51 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 313-009 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and John B. Connally discuss legislative strategy regarding the administration's upcoming agenda, focusing on preempting political opposition in Congress. They evaluate a plan to delay new legislative proposals by emphasizing that the administration is still studying the issues while urging Congress to prioritize previously submitted reforms like revenue sharing and welfare. Nixon and Connally agree that this approach allows them to maintain flexibility while avoiding unnecessary political friction on the Hill.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 2 minutes of this recording (about 29% 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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Hi, John.
All right.
I hope I'm not interrupting you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You've been doing pretty good so far.
You shouldn't have even considered it.
Good.
Oh, yeah.
Good.
Not out of your life.
No, no, no.
We didn't...
There were, uh, we'd expect, uh, the, the common jobs and all the land gathering somewhere.
They, you know, I mean, it just was, uh, just a few were able to come anyway.
It was different, but, uh, it was different.
Let me ask you, uh, one question and then we'll be long.
I work in the state of New England this week, and I just talked to John Hartman before, and he said that he talked deeply about his plan that he had and so forth, and that he felt that you felt it was all right to handle it on this basis of sort of triumphalism, in other words, that what we would start to preempt the issue, and I would try to keep
this week with McIlroy, you and I, and Richardson with McIlroy, that we would all, we would have the governmental committee with, yeah, he'd get them together for the next meeting, so before the day of the meeting, and he would be present, and he would be there with them and ask them to think about it.
Now, that would leave us, as I understand it, in a position to either go or stop four or three more months from now.
Does that sound all right to you?
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we will use your name in it, but that you at some time will just say, well, yes, I'm studying it.
My people are studying it.
It's a very, something has to be done, but we don't want to.
Another argument I think John Wilkes should make to everybody is to say, look, we have a very practical amendment.
We don't want to send down to that committee with all that has on its plate
piece of legislation that is for pure political reasons.
We want to, we know they're not ready for it yet, and we want to think about it more, and they've got a chance to think about it once in a while.
Doesn't that make sense, too?
Because Uber is going to have the, you know, the revenue sharing, it's going to have health, it's going to have their gold bill, it's going to have all the, I think that's a good reason for it.
Now, in terms of the, maybe you can make it soft, that's not,
That really isn't going to leave us too much in the way of something really quite new.
Now, I wonder if you feel whether that combo isn't all right in a sense.
Or tell me what you think.
I've been trying to scrub up something, but I've seen it's worked bad.
Congress now to act on those things that we already presented before.
Right.
You see, really,
in a sense, with welfare reform, health, government reorganization, revenue sharing, we have everything there already that is needed, you see.
Not to mention, of course, the cleaning up of the International Monetary Fund.
So I really think that we said, now, here it is, and I'm interested in it.
And it really is.
Also, another thing that concerns me is that we must create
There's a whole new scheme to solve every problem.
There really isn't just a...
Right, right.
Right.
Do you, is what you did with your back or muscles bad?
You ever had him before?
For some.
I used to hire him.
You wouldn't, when a rival comes down on a limb, you wouldn't like for him to take a little, he's this great, awesome guy.
You want to take a crack at him?
Well, no, no, the point is, do it if you don't have anything, because what it is, is this is the best rock bar he's ever used, Mitchell knows, and he is the, he's the great one, he's an MP, too.
But I'll be a source of cheap justice.
He's the better.
That's right.
Okay.
I'll have a call you later.
Bye.
Bye.

NARA Description

On January 10, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and John B. Connally met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:44 pm to 2:51 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 313-009 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 313-9

Date: January 10, 1972
Time: 2:44 pm - 2:51 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President talked with John B. Connally.

[See Conversation No. 18-36]

Also recorded on January 10, 1972

  • 018-035 2:36 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 2:36 pm to 2:39 pm.
  • 313-007 2:36 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:36 pm to 2:39 pm.
  • 018-106 2:39 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:39 pm and 2:44 pm.
  • 313-008 2:39 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 2:39 pm and 2:44 pm.
  • 018-036 2:44 PM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John B. Connally talked on the telephone from 2:44 pm to 2:51 pm.
  • 018-037 2:51 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:51 pm and 2:54 pm.
  • 313-010 2:51 PM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:51 pm and 2:54 pm.
  • 313-011 2:51 PM · 7 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 2:51 pm and 2:54 pm.

All 83 conversations from January 10, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 313-009, January 10, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/313-009 (accessed September 29, 2026).