Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 339 › Conversation 339-001
Nixon & Haldeman on Vietnam War and Public Opinion
Wednesday, May 10, 1972 · 4:04 PM–5:45 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building
AI Summary
President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman met to review the public reception of the administration's recent decision to blockade North Vietnam and to discuss the political implications for the upcoming election. They examined a large volume of telegrams and correspondence from diverse supporters, including veterans, religious groups, and business organizations, as evidence of strong public approval. Additionally, the pair engaged in personal reflections on the President's disciplined lifestyle compared to his predecessors and reviewed potential candidates for Supreme Court appointments.
Audio
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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 00:00:20 into the tape and ends around 00:23:53.
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
0:26Which is a very, very soft one.
0:30They work about eight hours, about six hours a day.
0:32They take the two or three hour lunch with a couple of martinis and a lot of rich food.
0:38And then they, at night, they have two or three drinks when they get home.
0:44And then they go out to a party.
0:49They give me a couple.
0:50The fact that I have to live like a Spartan makes me feel a little younger than I used to feel then.
0:57Oh, no question.
0:59But you've been doing it consistently.
1:02Look at what he drank.
1:05Just take the booze.
1:07The fact that I don't have the booze is true.
1:16And the booze, the other thing, doesn't cost me a lot.
1:29And it didn't work hard in the same sense that you did.
1:35You didn't do the discipline kind of hard work.
1:37No, 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
1:52Well, I'm sure you are.
1:54You have to be before you develop up your speech and all that.
1:59But not in the way that he was.
2:01You don't blow your stack and rush all over it.
2:14But we all see ourselves as younger than her.
2:18That's a temporary sequence.
2:19No question about that.
2:20That's right.
2:20I know.
2:20I have a couple of other questions, but I'm not sure there's a lot over there.
2:22I'm just reading that you know after I saw those guys, that's not...
2:24I don't know if there's been one of those guys that I've been watching in court.
2:29They're all together.
2:30I just don't know if I saw Powell.
2:34He's too old.
2:35I still think he's on the second turn.
2:40He's got a good chance of falling to second again.
2:44I'll get to him in a minute.
2:46He was sort of dreading somebody else's class reunion.
3:17He 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.
3:33It 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.
3:41Because now that's one thing, we're the whores and all that we're there to make sure the president is uptight.
3:46I imagine that if they were let out.
3:48Yeah.
3:48And it was also with, I'm sure they're all old acquaintances, but they're not political associates.
3:53They're not.
3:53They're not.
3:55Most of them.
3:56Almost all.
3:56Almost all.
3:58I don't know of any Republicans there.
4:01So Charlie and Brian didn't work with them on that.
4:05Maybe just barely.
4:19So, before you get trapped that way,
4:49in that first party.
4:50But if I got her, she's sitting between two men.
4:53That's, I found it to be insulting to my wife, but I said, I understand why you like all these parties.
4:57You get to sit between two men, so it's interesting.
5:00I got to sit between two women.
5:01And that's true.
5:02That'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.
5:19And for them, I don't think they had much to do with it.
5:21They called it a party.
5:22They had a great deal of fun.
5:23They had a lot of fun.
5:23They had a lot of fun.
5:24They had a lot of fun.
5:25They had a lot of fun.
5:25They had a lot of fun.
5:26They had a lot of fun.
5:27They had a lot of fun.
5:49They heard the state, they heard the Secretary of State, and some big people go down.
5:54And the Justice of the Supreme Court, they all stood up the whole time.
5:57And Ken Roush, the Secretary of State, he's a man.
5:58He's a man, but he's not on quite as much of a show.
6:00Thank you.
6:21I would have recognized one of the girls.
6:25Two of them.
6:26One girl.
6:27Eliminating more people.
8:30I 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.
8:34You know, and this is my view of him.
8:35This is my view of him.
9:02And the reason that I would do that is because it was broken.
9:03I'm destroying it.
9:04I can do a shift.
9:04It doesn't cost too much.
9:04It doesn't cost too much.
9:05If I would have done it right, it would go out in a better place.
9:07It has a difference between my... Johnson has to kill you.
9:08Johnson has to kill you.
9:09Johnson has to kill you.
9:27If you go down with your guns firing, that doesn't determine how well to let them out.
9:32So that's why you're so right to do this.
9:36One 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.
9:56Wow.
9:57You have a better chance of being re-elected for having done this than you do if you had just .
10:17It's better to lose Vietnam for having tried than to lose it without having tried.
10:24That's right.
10:24My view is that if you try, you lose it.
10:27It is true that we can all be honest, but on the other hand, I have tried.
10:37I have no regrets.
10:38Well, turn on the other people that forced the law to do it.
10:46We're going to be able to talk to you in a few minutes.
10:48You know what?
11:17We've got all the people that they need.
11:19That's why he wants us to leave.
11:20We waited a little too long on busing.
11:22And we did it.
11:23We did it too carefully, too responsibly.
11:24We should have gone down there and flat out said, really, I didn't truck.
11:28I didn't do it.
11:28We should have come out for a constitutional amendment.
11:31We didn't have all the pay and the need.
11:32We were excited to do it.
11:58We've got there some more wires.
12:03Yeah.
12:03What are they about?
12:04Are they some spying people?
12:06Well, stop, yeah.
12:07They're average folks.
12:08The best ones out there.
12:11You're lying.
12:11I see you're trying to kill me, son of a whore.
12:15Unlike media liberals, America supports you, and we get Kennedy and Cuba.
12:2127-year-old Vietnam veteran in the Western Kentucky Weekly newspaper publisher, I wholeheartedly support you.
12:28Thank you, Mr. President.
12:29Thank you, Mr. President.
12:51As one who lost his brother on April 7, 1971 in Vietnam, your action this evening is a blessing, courage, and totally without balance.
12:58I know my brother wherever he may be from this evening on will rest a lot easier.
13:02From 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.
13:10Since you became president, I've followed you and at not one time have I ever lost faith in you or yours.
13:15Thank you.
13:19As a 69 Vietnam veteran and a student, I congratulate you on your daring action against North Vietnam and communist aggressors.
13:26I pledge my support to your election.
13:28Will you agree with your stand on the war in Vietnam?
13:47As the wife of a military man stationed in Vietnam, we would like to give you our support of your new program in Vietnam.
13:52We 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.
14:07Being 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.
14:15Mr. and Mrs. David.
14:16Ben.
14:17I'm under 30.
14:19You have my support and my respect.
14:2290,000 Democratic and Republican Presbyterians back your decision to protect democracy by our enemies now.
14:34I'm Vice President of the Concerned Presbyterians Incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
14:41Sir, as a Vietnam veteran, I support you wholeheartedly.
14:57Thank you for being an American leader.
14:59It's an honorable and necessary thing to do.
15:06We 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.
15:21You know, Julie had an interesting reaction.
15:38Why did she say that?
15:39I think it appealed to her in my sense.
15:40That has surprised me, Leslie.
15:41She 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.
15:46Yeah.
15:46She shouldn't do that.
15:47It's interesting.
15:47In 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.
15:54Thank you.
16:08We're behind you 100% on the decision you made at South East Asia.
16:10We are sure our kill in action, son.
16:11He was the same.
16:12Please.
16:12Please let me hear your speech tonight.
16:13I'm a Democrat and I shall support you completely.
16:15Thank God for you.
16:16Joe is with the district of Ohio.
16:17Communists must be stopped.
16:18Our son is an adult and confident.
16:19He's a brother of your son.
16:40Young people were in full support of your current Vietnam plan.
16:43Young Americans for Freedom.
16:46Reverence for military action against North Vietnam.
16:50Congratulations on finally showing our good national character.
16:53It's over to you.
16:54Now show the same character in dealing with the communists here at home.
16:58Stand fast and sign the majority support sheet.
17:01Thank you, General.
17:02Young Americans for Freedom.
17:04Well, it's good to have one of those ones.
17:06Bill Lear.
17:07Oya and I salute your courage, intelligence, and self-defense.
17:10We are proud to be Americans under God and pray that he will continue to protect and guide you.
17:15We thank him for a president who puts honor above politics and possesses your foresight and foresight.
17:21We completely concur with your decisions and we're happy to support them and you.
17:25We are yours to command.
17:27All I want to say is thank you.
17:36Here's the thing from the American Security Council.
17:40On behalf of our 130,000 members and contributors, I applaud your courageous decision to take necessary steps to intervene in this crisis.
17:48Robert 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.
18:02The special issue of our 100,000 circulation newsletter is now being printed and supports your decision.
18:07Also, for the first time in the 12-year history of our newsletter, we are directly asking our readers to take the position.
18:14In this action, you have shown the kind of leadership which is absolutely necessary for our nation's survival and the overall system in conflict.
18:22For this reason, I am confident the vast majority of American people enthusiastically endorse this watershed decision, John.
18:29You know, every time you quote
18:31about the number of hogs they slaughtered in 100 percent.
18:35There's cannabis in it.
18:38It's the nicest way to put it.
18:41It shows the reason why we're on it.
18:43That's it.
18:44Here's Gussie Bush.
18:45In this time of crisis, I support the President of the United States in his efforts to bring the general war to the United States.
18:52This is the course you have taken.
18:54I know you're in sync.
18:59It is always careful and serious thought on your part in doing what you believe will serve the best interests of our nation and world.
19:06I support you wholeheartedly in this comment on this table as you chair the Board of Chiefs of the United States of America.
19:13Is it not correct?
19:14Unhelpful.
19:15The National Agenda for Disabled American Veterans is a critical matter that is in the conviction of an overwhelming majority of members.
19:21It is expressed in the fact that we support wholeheartedly whatever measure you have taken or may take to ensure the safety of our country.
19:27Thank you.
19:28Thank you.
19:28Thank you.
19:29Thank you.
19:57We'll shoot some over the house.
19:59There's some other, those aren't good weather.
20:01We've got 30, 32,000 in this thing.
20:04Still pouring in.
20:05Pretty good.
20:05Chompy.
20:06Yeah.
20:06The wires are very ugly.
20:30What if you put out four or one of them?
20:33It's gone down now, it's 31, but if you put it out, it's 31.
20:37It'll go down.
20:38What happens to those?
20:40Especially 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.
20:52They'll probably get it out to about two of them.
20:57That's not...
20:59I still think this pole is active.
21:00I think you're, the 301 is where you are at this time.
21:05How about our new China Ants, if you'd like to put the staff in there, because they're going to be great.
21:15Oh, yeah.
21:16We brought, uh, see if we can hang it up.
21:19I'd have to check in his office, see if any persons might have to pass it for him, too.
21:36Yeah, we've all got the same.
21:39All of us, though.
21:40All of us.
21:40We've created a very, very empty shell among the earth.
21:45Can you watch me start?
22:10I couldn't be more strong against what I should not see going on.
22:43Fair enough.
23:11Yeah, but you see, he's exactly the kind that would run out.
23:40And, uh, yeah.
23:42He had had a kid.
23:47Yeah.
23:48Javits.
23:49Now, Javits wasn't, Javits wasn't straight, if you know what I mean.
NARA 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
*****************************************************************
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.Also recorded on May 10, 1972
- 024-066 3:55 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:55 pm and 3:59 pm.
- 337-025 3:55 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:55 pm and 3:59 pm.
- 337-026 3:55 PM · 36 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 3:55 pm and 3:59 pm.
- 024-067 3:59 PM · 30 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 3:59 pm to 4:00 pm.
- 337-027 3:59 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:59 pm and 4:00 pm.
- 024-068 4:04 PM · 27 sec — Charles W. Colson, White House operator, and unknown person(s) talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:04 pm and 4:25 pm.
- 337-028 4:04 PM · 1 hr 14 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, unknown person(s), H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, and Arthur F. Burns met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 4:04 pm and 5:45 pm.
- 024-069 4:25 PM · 8 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 4:25 pm and 4:45 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 339-001, May 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/339-001 (accessed October 9, 2026).