Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 315 › Conversation 315-017

Nixon alone in his EOB office on State of the Union and Speech rehearsal

Monday, January 17, 1972 · 2:34 PM–3:43 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 25 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President)Conversation315-017 on Tape 315 (tape position 01:14:36–01:39:12)StartMonday, January 17, 1972 at 2:34 PMEndMonday, January 17, 1972 at 3:43 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 315-017 ↗

AI Summary

President Richard Nixon utilized this private session to rehearse the delivery of his 1972 State of the Union address. He practiced articulating key themes, including the necessity of bipartisan cooperation in Congress, the importance of maintaining national strength, and his foreign policy vision regarding defense spending and the transition toward a generation of peace. The rehearsal served to refine the rhetorical tone and substantive priorities of his upcoming legislative agenda.

Audio

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Position in tape: 01:14:36 – 01:39:12

part A, 1:14:34

315a.mp3
315b.mp3

NARA Description

On January 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:34 pm and 3:43 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 315-017 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 315-17

Date: January 19, 1972
Time: Unknown between 2:34 pm and 3:43 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President rehearsed his "Address on the State of the Union Delivered Before a Joint Session
of Congress".

[A transcript of the speech in its final form appears in Public Papers of the Presidents, Richard
M. Nixon, 1972, pp. 34-41]

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Twenty-five years ago, I sat here as a freshman congressman among the speaker government and listened for the first time to the President and President of the United States.
I shall never forget the majesty of that moment.
The Senate, we had the only court, the Supreme Court, and now we have Andrews and Chamberlain, and the President of the United States, and all of the older guys, and the President of the United States, and the President of the United States.
And I remember the day he addressed that drum session of the new elected Republican Congress.
He spoke not as a partisan, but as president of all of them, calling upon the Congress for a set of partisan considerations and national interests.
Here you turn the shape of the Marshall Plan, the great foreign policy that shows that you've been responsible for avoiding a little war for the past 25 years, for a group underneath the Congress by the bipartisan majority, which I was proud to be a part of.
1972, the war.
We must not waste it.
I know the political pressures in this session of Congress will be great.
There are more candidates for the presidency in this chamber today than there have probably been at any one time in the whole history of the Republic.
There is an honest evidence that came not only between the parties but within the parties on some issues of war policy and other policy problems.
However, there are great national problems that are so likely to transcend our leadership.
Let us have our debates.
Let us have our honest services.
But let us join in keeping the nation in the first place.
Let us join in making sure that the legislation American needs does not become a hostage to the political interests of any country or any person.
There's an impressive selection here to be presented with a huge list of new proposals.
Knowing full well that there could be no possibility that they would be an act that you can do work on today, I shall not complain.
I present the leaders of the Congress today a message of 15,000 words, discussing in some detail where the nation stands, and setting forth specific legislative items which I ask the Congress to have.
Much of this is legislation which I have proposed in 1967, and in the first session of this 9th Senate Congress last year, and which I have given the central of action to this year.
I have not presented proposals which have attractive labels,
I am presenting only vital documents which are within the capacity of the Congress to enact, within the capacity of the budget to enact, and which I believe should be above partisanship.
Programms which deal with urgent priorities in the nation, which even must be the subject of bipartisan action by this Congress in the interest of the Congress of 1973.
When I took the oath of office in the service of this government, it was a good day.
The nation was not one of the most fortunate decades
The 1960s were a time of great progress in many areas.
They were also a time of great agony.
The agonies of war, of inflation, of rapidly rising crime, of deteriorating states, of hopes raged and disappointed, of anger and frustration that led finally to violence and to the worst civil disorder of the century.
To recall these troubles was not a fun thing to plan.
The nation was so torn in those final years and centuries that many of the both parties questioned whether America could govern at all.
The nation's made significant progress in its first years of service.
Our cities are no longer engulfed by civil disorders.
Our colleges and universities have again become places of learning instead of battlegrounds.
A beginning has been made in preserving and protecting our environment.
The rate of increase in crime has been slowed, and here in the District of Colonies, for one state where the federal government has direct jurisdiction, serious crime in that consent field was actually resourced by 30% in 2004.
But most importantly,
Because at the beginnings of it may we consider that the year 1972 can be the year in which America may make the greatest progress in 25 years for achieving our goal of being at peace with all the nations of the world.
As our involvement in the war at Vietnam comes to an end, we must now go on to build a generation of peace.
To achieve that goal, we must realistically face the need to maintain our independence.
In the past three years, we have reduced the burden of arms.
For the first time in 20 years, spending through the fence has been brought below spending money and resources.
As we look into the future, we might encourage the partners in our negotiations with the Soviet Union and the United Nations to do the same.
Looking further into the future, we hope there can eventually be agreement on the mutual reduction of arms.
But until there is such a mutual agreement, we must maintain the strength necessary to pursue the war.
Because of rising research and development costs, because of increases in military and administrative pay, because of the need to proceed with a new weapon system, my budget for the coming fiscal year will provide a pertinent increase in defense spending.
Strong military defenses are not the enemy of peace.
They are the darkness.
There could be no more misguided set of priorities than one which would tempt others by weakening an army, and thereby endangering the secure army.
Our foreign policy is to be a hybrid leader.
The world has changed greatly in the 11 years since President Kennedy said in his inaugural address, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any brand, oppose any foe.
We're sure to survive and be successful.
Our policy has been carefully and deliberately lessened to meet the new reality of the new world we now live in.
If we make only those commitments, we are capable and prepared to meet them.
Our commitment to freedom remains strong and undisputed, but others must bear their share of the burden of the momentary amount of freedom.
This is our policy.
We will maintain a military return, adequate to meet any threat.
our treaty commitments.
We will actively defend our interests whenever and wherever they are threatened in the face of war.
But where our interests or our treaty commitments are not involved, our role will be limited.
We will not iterate or terrorize.
We will use our influence to prevent war, and toward our country, we will use our influence to try to stop it.
Once war is over, we will do our share in helping to bind up the wounds of those who have been killed.
I shall soon be dead in
that we have sought for in 1983.

— 1 min 5 s with no transcribed speech —

part of the policy to manage this.

— 1 min 9 s with no transcribed speech —

Thank you.

— 1 min 44 s with no transcribed speech —

Thank you.
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Thank you.
Made in May of 1972, a year of active action, action that has almost always been in the community.
In addition, there is under us a Presbyterian library, which must be a Presbyterian name.
We don't know the name of the library, but the name is still in existence.
We call it the Library of the United States.
I'm just going to read that check and get back to you, Bob.
Bob will probably be able to do it.
Great.
Thank you.
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I'm trying to tell you the truth.
I'm telling you the truth.
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We are a faculty of St. John's College, and we have been doing this for a long time.
We believe that we have an active role

— 1 min 53 s with no transcribed speech —

Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

— 1 min 15 s with no transcribed speech —

We were, we were indebted to our instructors because I was impressed with our education.
We were on the fly, but we were in Texas, and December was a lost time away.
And the fact that we had used some of these elements in our ideas was just fine.
We should have made very much sense of the way this event happened.
The leadership of America is what did it.
Thank you.

— 1 min 26 s with no transcribed speech —

you
Thank you.
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Also recorded on January 17, 1972

  • 315-016 2:29 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John B. Connally met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:29 pm to 2:34 pm.
  • 315-018 2:34 PM · 38 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 2:34 pm and 3:43 pm.
  • 315-019 2:34 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Roger Staubach met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:34 pm and 3:43 pm.
  • 018-089 2:39 PM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Raymond K. Price, Jr. talked on the telephone from 2:39 pm to 2:43 pm.
  • 315-004 2:39 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Raymond K. Price, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:39 pm to 2:43 pm.
  • 018-090 2:43 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:43 pm and 2:47 pm.
  • 315-005 2:43 PM · 18 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 2:43 pm and 2:47 pm.
  • 018-091 2:47 PM · 22 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 2:47 pm to 3:10 pm.

All 42 conversations from January 17, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 315-017, January 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/315-017 (accessed November 13, 2026).