Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 333-031
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 1972 at 6:20 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Sanchez, Manolo
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/333-031

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] I like it here.
[0:12] I like it here.
[0:15] It doesn't make a damn.
[0:16] All you gain is something that doesn't want to go all over you.
[0:27] Thanks to other people.
[0:27] But anybody who's here has a chance of being heard and seen and all.
[0:29] Well, I think they tend to forget that.
[0:29] They do, don't they?
[0:31] You know, you can take the person.
[0:49] So, he could have been better.
[0:50] And the going is tough, too, you know.
[0:50] So, the going is tough.
[0:52] He could have stepped in and been pure drunk.
[0:53] And we were bombing Hyde Park.
[0:55] I mean, until we put it to him.
[0:55] You know what I mean?
[0:56] And he hadn't testified.
[0:58] And he did damn well.
[0:59] And he can do well.
[1:13] That's the sad thing.
[1:21] That can be very effective.
[1:22] He can do well if he just automatically moves out of whatever...
[1:23] I'd like to see what time this evening he would... No.
[1:25] He'd pick up the paper and write.
[1:26] He'd take it on his own.
[1:27] On his own.
[1:27] On his own.
[1:27] Nobody else.
[1:30] I'm glad to take on some of the things that are okay.
[1:55] And with this, it's been a great interest in public relations and also it was great to be with Laura.
[1:57] And so, as you know, we've done both of them.
[1:58] And if you have to do them,
[1:59] I don't know where to tell you who he is.
[2:21] He's very high.
[2:21] I don't know.
[2:21] Not much.
[2:22] But when you ask him, who knows about foreign policy or anything, he has not become a towering figure because he's been in that zone over the centuries and all the rest of the Senate.
[2:25] Exactly.
[2:26] In Moscow, all the, you know, what, what things you do there are, you don't do any in Moscow, but, you know, other, you know, something that's open to the other cities.
[2:49] I mean, you visit, you visit by yourself.
[2:52] The rest of the party, including Rogers, go someplace else, sometimes.
[2:53] That's it.
[2:54] That's it.
[2:55] That's it.
[2:55] That's it.
[2:55] That's it.
[2:55] That's it.
[2:57] It's awkward for him because he's deaf.
[3:27] I think it's much better when he says, go in, let her do her own trips on her own.
[3:48] She gets great coverage on her own trips.
[3:49] That kind of thing was the one exception where it was important.
[3:52] on that, and Russia will be too, in the sense that you will be there a long time without any visibility.
[4:13] In a way, you have even less visibility there because you stay in the Kremlin, the meetings are in the Kremlin.
[4:16] I'm sure they'll impress them for photo conversations and stuff like that, but they're going to be very much more recovered.
[4:19] Ah, I think I'll have a little coffee.
[4:40] It's a terrible thing.
[4:44] Well, it's a drain for me because by 10 o'clock I'm ready to go to bed.
[4:46] You know what I mean?
[4:47] Or something else.
[4:47] It's rough.
[4:47] We won't do any, certainly any press conference.
[4:48] Well, I'll do it.
[4:51] three-on-one or whatever, you know, that will be... Oh, we might do that.
[5:15] No.
[5:15] No, it's worth doing it the other time.
[5:16] It's worth doing it, and it's part of the problem for you.
[5:17] Oh, I could do it then, because it's just...
[5:18] It's mathematical certainty.
[5:18] It's just... You reach twice as many people.
[5:19] Reaching this many people just has to be
[5:22] but it has been you're not alone you're not alone voice on that you're carrying it
[5:52] I established my ability to grab at that point.
[6:07] People are beginning to get, well, it was on the bottom, so people understand.
[6:12] This was their aggression.
[6:13] Yes, sir.
[6:21] Yeah.
[6:29] But on the other hand, there have been times when they haven't done a good damn thing.
[6:46] You know what I mean?
[6:46] People are worried right now that the Hawks were going to be concerned that the evolution does not take as far as the Hawks seem to be in good shape.
[6:50] In good shape, right?
[6:51] Sure.
[6:51] That's the key.
[6:52] It does keep you suited to them.
[7:15] You're not going to be suckered into a name where you use these and they buy them.
[7:17] I don't know if that really cuts into it.
[7:17] Anyway, I'm sure this decision made me do what I did.
[7:19] So I should come out with any graduates who said that's fine, I'm not going to come.
[7:41] We had a Smith on Monday, before the announcement, and they were cutting some of the notes.
[7:42] Breakthrough on assault.
[7:43] 2003.
[7:43] In fact, that bill was in a quite a recent clause, and I was like, let's go put down the patrolling people in town and tell them the bill doesn't know a hell of a lot about assault.
[7:47] And then he had me put, you know, they sent to me, they said,
[7:49] guy, but beyond that.
[8:10] And there's no... What we built, it looked like he was a great partner, but simply by not trying to pretend that it didn't come out of here.
[8:13] He should look like... Well, I think, too, that they wrote the other one, I think, but also the fact that it comes right after he enters the Moscow world.
[8:18] They're all naturally right.
[8:38] Bill will be in Vermont State for sure.
[8:38] It was worked out by the State Department.
[8:39] And we grew up the wall.
[8:40] And it won't matter at all.
[8:40] Don't you agree?
[8:41] Yeah, I don't think there's any difference.
[8:42] Except for a few assholes.
[8:43] In the first place, they're not the same.
[8:44] People don't understand that the State Department is different than you.
[8:45] And they really think the State Department is ours.
[8:47] And it is.
[8:48] But I really believe that the timing of it is such that, yeah, the work on it, they will thank everybody who comes to the summit, because we're done.
[9:15] We're fresh on the benchmark.
[9:15] Now, there's a lot of fact that's called on Saturday, and Thursday, and Sunday, and Saturday, and Thursday, and Sunday.
[9:18] I didn't say he's working so hard.
[9:40] That's exactly what he'll do.
[9:41] Henry's so funny.
[9:53] The funniest thing of all is it's sort of a fascinating commentary on Henry Christensen.
[10:02] We were in Ziegler's office, and Henry came in, and Ziegler said something about a story of the Russian delegation going to Panama.
[10:04] Henry?
[10:04] I said, Henry, you shouldn't have put that story out.
[10:05] I was kidding.
[10:06] And I said, where did it run?
[10:07] And Ron said, the Chicago Tribune.
[10:08] I said, oh, well, then there's no danger.
[10:17] Obviously, he didn't put it out there, because you'd never tell the Chicago Tribune.
[10:21] And Henry said, I didn't do that.
[10:22] I had never talked to the Chicago Tribune.
[10:24] And I said, that's for damn sure they're our friend.
[10:27] Henry says, I don't even know anybody at the Chicago Tribune.
[10:29] Probably.
[10:29] And it's absolutely typical.
[10:30] You know, it was nature, and he didn't realize how comical it was that there's the point of the Chicago Tribune and the
[10:33] one solid American paper, it's his shirt, it's a nutty, not a nutty paper, not that, well, it is in its own way, but it's a little embarrassing sometimes.
[10:52] But it's, that, that's right, that, the New York Daily News and the Copley Press, a few other odds and ends, but Henry turned up proudly most of the week for the Chicago Tribune, obviously I didn't, because I didn't talk to them.
[11:01] It's funny in a way, it's not funny.
[11:27] Because the Chicago 80 ought to be talking at this Chicago trip.
[11:29] So then we walk out and there's Joe Crabb.
[11:29] And there's a person out laughing.
[11:30] So we're in a maze, trying to put some on a maze.
[11:32] And it is the kind of thing that you could have gotten.
[11:56] It's the kind of piece that you write on your own based on what you're seeing.
[11:57] It doesn't have anything in the form that it could have given.
[11:59] That would be fascinating to think about that.
[12:01] And I mean, this is your story.
[12:18] This little fellow living off of China and then off to sit in the Brezhnev or the top of the world.
[12:25] Nobody out there made him out.
[12:26] He ended up, Mao Tse Tung, John Lai, De Gaulle, Brezhnev.
[12:27] He's met all the great men in the world.
[12:28] And not just met them, he's dealt substantively with them.
[12:31] It won't be a very good look.
[12:48] No, because he'll get into the camera hole.
[12:50] It'll be a very dull, very useful, very dull start.
[12:52] It'll be a good start, but you will not have the, you won't know how to cut it.
[12:57] It's got to be long night one, not a night 30.
[12:58] And the other, it'll be much more useful in the end.
[13:01] There's a whole lot of history been made in the last couple of years.
[13:25] Come back up in the long night.
[13:25] Mrs. Hayden told me she's got this Samantha Aker, who's a British actress, coming in.
[13:27] She said she's never come to visit.
[13:28] She's been up for quite some time.
[13:29] She said that she was gonna come back.
[13:29] Another party's coming up.
[13:30] So yeah.
[13:30] Thing is, this is
[13:33] Henry Thompson, the game, I don't think he's playing at all.
[13:57] This is all show.
[13:57] He loves it.
[13:58] Glamour people.
[13:58] Loves it.
[13:58] Glamour, too.
[13:59] I see that insecure little, awkward, Jewish professor, ugly.
[14:00] Not ugly, but not against him.
[14:00] And, uh, he ignored it.
[14:01] Okay.
[14:01] Okay.
[14:03] Here it is.