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Conversation 339-001

TapeTape 339StartWednesday, May 10, 1972 at 4:04 PMEndWednesday, May 10, 1972 at 5:45 PMTape start time00:00:20Tape end time00:23:53ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building
AudioNARA Description

On May 10, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:04 pm to 5:45 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 339-001 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 337-28/339-1

Date: May 10, 1972
Time: 4:04-5:45 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

[Continued from EOB 337-28]

[An unknown portion of the conversation was not recorded while the tape was changed]

     Dinner for Duke Law School classmates
         -President’s lifestyle
                -Compared with unknown person(s)
                -President’s habits
                      -President’s appearance
                -Compared to Lyndon B. Johnson
                      -Age process
                      -Drinking habits
                      -Working habits
         -Classmates
                -Age
                -Suitability for Supreme Court
                      -Compared with Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
         -Dean Joseph T. Sneed
                -Supreme Court justice possibility
                      -The President’s view
                      -Texas
         -John D. Ehrlichman's comments
         -Public relations advantages
         -Charles S. Rhyne
         -Female classmates
         -Seating
                -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
                -JoAnne (Horton) Haldeman
                -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman’s view
         -Classmates
                -Reaction
         -Supreme Court justices
         -[David] Kenneth Rush
         -An unknown female classmate
                -Appearance
                                              2

                    NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                     Tape Subject Log
                                       (rev. Dec-01)
                                                                  Conv. No. 337-28/339-1 (cont.)

*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 46s ]


END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

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    Forthcoming election
         -Henry A. Kissinger's stake in Vietnam blockade
         -President's stakes in decision to blockade in Vietnam
               -Compared with Johnson
         -Johnson
               -Importance of Vietnam for reelection
                     -Haldeman’s view
                     -John B. Connally’s view
                     -William P. Rogers’s view
                     -The President’s view
         -George S. McGovern
         -Hubert H. Humphrey
         -McGovern
         -Connally’s view
               -McGovern's and George C. Wallace's appeal
                     -Leadership
         -Busing
               -Constitutional Amendment

    Vietnam
         -Support for President's actions
              -Telegrams and letters
                    -Liberals
                    -Compared with John F. Kennedy and Cuban missile crisis and media
                          liberals
                    -A Vietnam War veteran
                    -A Korean War veteran
                    -A Vietnam War veteran
                    -Stephen Page
                    -A military wife
                                          3

                  NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                 Tape Subject Log
                                   (rev. Dec-01)
                                                            Conv. No. 337-28/339-1 (cont.)
                        -Prisoners of War [POWs] and Missing in Action [MIA]
                  -Young man from Massachusetts
                  -Presbyterians
                  -A Vietnamese War veteran
                  -A soldier
                  -A family of a deceased Vietnam veteran
                  -Julie Nixon Eisenhower


*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 10s ]


END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2

*****************************************************************


                         -Comments
                   -Spanish-American Business Association
                   -A Democrat
                         -Joseph [surname unknown], Lima, Ohio
                   -Young Americans for Freedom
                         -Silent Majority
                   -Phil and Moiya Lear
                   -American Security Council
                         -Robert W. Galvin
                         -John Fisher
                   -Hawks
                         -Polls
                         -Percentage
                   -Jesse Bush, Jr.
                   -Disabled American Veterans
                   -Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
                         -Russell DeYoung
                               -Business Council member
                   -Total of wires and letters
                         -Percent of support
             -Polls
                   -Publicity
                                                4

                     NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                      Tape Subject Log
                                        (rev. Dec-01)
                                                             Conv. No. 337-28/339-1 (cont.)
                           -Ronald L. Ziegler
                -Democrats
                      -The President’s view
                -Polls
                -Charles H. Percy
                -Jacob K. Javits

Haldeman left at 5:45 pm.
Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Which is a very, very soft one.
They work about eight hours, about six hours a day.
They take the two or three hour lunch with a couple of martinis and a lot of rich food.
And then they, at night, they have two or three drinks when they get home.
And then they go out to a party.
They give me a couple.
The fact that I have to live like a Spartan makes me feel a little younger than I used to feel then.
Oh, no question.
But you've been doing it consistently.
Look at what he drank.
Just take the booze.
The fact that I don't have the booze is true.
And the booze, the other thing, doesn't cost me a lot.
And it didn't work hard in the same sense that you did.
You didn't do the discipline kind of hard work.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Well, I'm sure you are.
You have to be before you develop up your speech and all that.
But not in the way that he was.
You don't blow your stack and rush all over it.
But we all see ourselves as younger than her.
That's a temporary sequence.
No question about that.
That's right.
I know.
I have a couple of other questions, but I'm not sure there's a lot over there.
I'm just reading that you know after I saw those guys, that's not...
I don't know if there's been one of those guys that I've been watching in court.
They're all together.
I just don't know if I saw Powell.
He's too old.
I still think he's on the second turn.
He's got a good chance of falling to second again.
I'll get to him in a minute.
He was sort of dreading somebody else's class reunion.
He said it was quite emotional and it was very well done and he thought it was a great success and wasn't expecting it to be.
It wasn't a bad thing to do, you know, to have a public appearance the night after the broadcast at that time or the evening.
Because now that's one thing, we're the whores and all that we're there to make sure the president is uptight.
I imagine that if they were let out.
Yeah.
And it was also with, I'm sure they're all old acquaintances, but they're not political associates.
They're not.
They're not.
Most of them.
Almost all.
Almost all.
I don't know of any Republicans there.
So Charlie and Brian didn't work with them on that.
Maybe just barely.
So, before you get trapped that way,
in that first party.
But if I got her, she's sitting between two men.
That's, I found it to be insulting to my wife, but I said, I understand why you like all these parties.
You get to sit between two men, so it's interesting.
I got to sit between two women.
And that's true.
That's one of the reasons the wives do like it so much, because they do get to sit between two men, and they do have a fascinating relationship.
And for them, I don't think they had much to do with it.
They called it a party.
They had a great deal of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They had a lot of fun.
They heard the state, they heard the Secretary of State, and some big people go down.
And the Justice of the Supreme Court, they all stood up the whole time.
And Ken Roush, the Secretary of State, he's a man.
He's a man, but he's not on quite as much of a show.
Thank you.
I would have recognized one of the girls.
Two of them.
One girl.
Eliminating more people.
I don't know how long he has because his entire life reputation and so forth, you know, his whole life, his whole career has dominated him.
You know, and this is my view of him.
This is my view of him.
And the reason that I would do that is because it was broken.
I'm destroying it.
I can do a shift.
It doesn't cost too much.
It doesn't cost too much.
If I would have done it right, it would go out in a better place.
It has a difference between my... Johnson has to kill you.
Johnson has to kill you.
Johnson has to kill you.
If you go down with your guns firing, that doesn't determine how well to let them out.
So that's why you're so right to do this.
One of the arguments, you know, that last day that I thought was if you had to do it, if you could, go out the other way.
Wow.
You have a better chance of being re-elected for having done this than you do if you had just .
It's better to lose Vietnam for having tried than to lose it without having tried.
That's right.
My view is that if you try, you lose it.
It is true that we can all be honest, but on the other hand, I have tried.
I have no regrets.
Well, turn on the other people that forced the law to do it.
We're going to be able to talk to you in a few minutes.
You know what?
We've got all the people that they need.
That's why he wants us to leave.
We waited a little too long on busing.
And we did it.
We did it too carefully, too responsibly.
We should have gone down there and flat out said, really, I didn't truck.
I didn't do it.
We should have come out for a constitutional amendment.
We didn't have all the pay and the need.
We were excited to do it.
We've got there some more wires.
Yeah.
What are they about?
Are they some spying people?
Well, stop, yeah.
They're average folks.
The best ones out there.
You're lying.
I see you're trying to kill me, son of a whore.
Unlike media liberals, America supports you, and we get Kennedy and Cuba.
27-year-old Vietnam veteran in the Western Kentucky Weekly newspaper publisher, I wholeheartedly support you.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Mr. President.
As one who lost his brother on April 7, 1971 in Vietnam, your action this evening is a blessing, courage, and totally without balance.
I know my brother wherever he may be from this evening on will rest a lot easier.
From myself as a Korean war veteran and 18 months in a POW camp, I send my love and I can sympathize with the tormented feelings you're going through this evening.
Since you became president, I've followed you and at not one time have I ever lost faith in you or yours.
Thank you.
As a 69 Vietnam veteran and a student, I congratulate you on your daring action against North Vietnam and communist aggressors.
I pledge my support to your election.
Will you agree with your stand on the war in Vietnam?
As the wife of a military man stationed in Vietnam, we would like to give you our support of your new program in Vietnam.
We hope that our fellow Americans will also give you their support, and that this program will help to settle the unrest in Vietnam, and will not only bring home our husbands, fathers, and sons, but the POWs and MIAs, but give the people of Vietnam what they are fighting for in respect to their democracy.
Being a close friend of the POSPI with us is the only way possible to ensure not only his safety, but that of the others included.
Mr. and Mrs. David.
Ben.
I'm under 30.
You have my support and my respect.
90,000 Democratic and Republican Presbyterians back your decision to protect democracy by our enemies now.
I'm Vice President of the Concerned Presbyterians Incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sir, as a Vietnam veteran, I support you wholeheartedly.
Thank you for being an American leader.
It's an honorable and necessary thing to do.
We cannot, in memory of our dead heroes and past wars, do any less to save the murder and the lives of our lives as well as the lives of our prisoners and servicemen, the family of a dead Vietnam hero.
You know, Julie had an interesting reaction.
Why did she say that?
I think it appealed to her in my sense.
That has surprised me, Leslie.
She says, I think that the moral issue is, what do you think she says, that it really can't love someone who can't do anything about it.
Yeah.
She shouldn't do that.
It's interesting.
In this moment of great strife, we, the members of the Spanish American Businessmen's Association, wish you to know that we agree with your position and we wholeheartedly back you.
Thank you.
We're behind you 100% on the decision you made at South East Asia.
We are sure our kill in action, son.
He was the same.
Please.
Please let me hear your speech tonight.
I'm a Democrat and I shall support you completely.
Thank God for you.
Joe is with the district of Ohio.
Communists must be stopped.
Our son is an adult and confident.
He's a brother of your son.
Young people were in full support of your current Vietnam plan.
Young Americans for Freedom.
Reverence for military action against North Vietnam.
Congratulations on finally showing our good national character.
It's over to you.
Now show the same character in dealing with the communists here at home.
Stand fast and sign the majority support sheet.
Thank you, General.
Young Americans for Freedom.
Well, it's good to have one of those ones.
Bill Lear.
Oya and I salute your courage, intelligence, and self-defense.
We are proud to be Americans under God and pray that he will continue to protect and guide you.
We thank him for a president who puts honor above politics and possesses your foresight and foresight.
We completely concur with your decisions and we're happy to support them and you.
We are yours to command.
All I want to say is thank you.
Here's the thing from the American Security Council.
On behalf of our 130,000 members and contributors, I applaud your courageous decision to take necessary steps to intervene in this crisis.
Robert W. Gallivan, as chairman of our National Strategy Committee, has today wired 200 of our committee and board members and written a personal letter to 4,000 of our committee members across the country urging that they actively support your action.
The special issue of our 100,000 circulation newsletter is now being printed and supports your decision.
Also, for the first time in the 12-year history of our newsletter, we are directly asking our readers to take the position.
In this action, you have shown the kind of leadership which is absolutely necessary for our nation's survival and the overall system in conflict.
For this reason, I am confident the vast majority of American people enthusiastically endorse this watershed decision, John.
You know, every time you quote
about the number of hogs they slaughtered in 100 percent.
There's cannabis in it.
It's the nicest way to put it.
It shows the reason why we're on it.
That's it.
Here's Gussie Bush.
In this time of crisis, I support the President of the United States in his efforts to bring the general war to the United States.
This is the course you have taken.
I know you're in sync.
It is always careful and serious thought on your part in doing what you believe will serve the best interests of our nation and world.
I support you wholeheartedly in this comment on this table as you chair the Board of Chiefs of the United States of America.
Is it not correct?
Unhelpful.
The National Agenda for Disabled American Veterans is a critical matter that is in the conviction of an overwhelming majority of members.
It is expressed in the fact that we support wholeheartedly whatever measure you have taken or may take to ensure the safety of our country.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll shoot some over the house.
There's some other, those aren't good weather.
We've got 30, 32,000 in this thing.
Still pouring in.
Pretty good.
Chompy.
Yeah.
The wires are very ugly.
What if you put out four or one of them?
It's gone down now, it's 31, but if you put it out, it's 31.
It'll go down.
What happens to those?
Especially when we put out the story, the other stuff that they're doing, they're going to get wires going to all the sides of the coalition.
They'll probably get it out to about two of them.
That's not...
I still think this pole is active.
I think you're, the 301 is where you are at this time.
How about our new China Ants, if you'd like to put the staff in there, because they're going to be great.
Oh, yeah.
We brought, uh, see if we can hang it up.
I'd have to check in his office, see if any persons might have to pass it for him, too.
Yeah, we've all got the same.
All of us, though.
All of us.
We've created a very, very empty shell among the earth.
Can you watch me start?
I couldn't be more strong against what I should not see going on.
Fair enough.
Yeah, but you see, he's exactly the kind that would run out.
And, uh, yeah.
He had had a kid.
Yeah.
Javits.
Now, Javits wasn't, Javits wasn't straight, if you know what I mean.
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