Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 351 › Conversation 351-013

Nixon, Woods & Bull on Capital punishment and George C. Wallace

Tuesday, August 1, 1972 · 2:50 PM–3:04 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 8 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Woods, Rose Mary; Bull, Stephen B.Conversation351-013 on Tape 351StartTuesday, August 1, 1972 at 2:50 PMEndTuesday, August 1, 1972 at 3:04 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 351-013 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with Rose Mary Woods and Stephen B. Bull to coordinate administrative tasks and discuss sensitive political matters. The conversation covered logistical arrangements for providing the film *Sunrise at Campobello* to George C. Wallace and addressed Elmer Bobst’s urgent recommendation that the President seek legislation for capital punishment regarding hijackers and kidnappers. Additionally, the participants touched upon the health and behavior of Martha Mitchell and the associated stress placed on John Mitchell amid the ongoing ITT and Watergate controversies.

Audio

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NARA Description

On August 1, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen B. Bull met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:50 pm to 3:04 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 351-013 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 351-13

Date: August 1, 1972
Time: 2:50 pm - 3:04 pm

Location: Executive Office Building

The President met with Rose Mary Woods.

     Greetings

     Items to discuss
          -Woods's meeting with William R. Codus
                 -Understandings
                      -Visitors

     George C. Wallace
         -The President's offer of film, Sunrise at Campobello
               -Staff member
               -The President’s instructions to H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
                    -Paul Fisher
               -Warren L. (“Bill”) Gulley

     Elmer H. Bobst
         -Call to Woods
         -Capital punishment
                -Possible message to Congress
                -Hijackers, kidnappers
                -Kidnapping case
                     -Minneapolis
                -John D. Ehrlichman

     Crime
         -Kidnapping
              -Case
              -Probable sentence for kidnapper

     Capital punishment
          -Opposition
                -Reasons
                     -Woods’s maid’s view
                     -Rebuttal by Woods
                -Treatment of criminals
          -Arthur H. Bremer
Show the rest of the log (48 more lines)
*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 3m 35s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

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

Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 2:50 pm.

     Meeting with Alexander M. Haig, Jr.

     Photograph opportunity at 4:00 pm
          -[Paul Horst]
          -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon

Bull left at an unknown time before 3:04 pm.

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

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 31s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2

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

     John N. and Martha (Beall) Mitchell
          -Rita [?] [Surname unknown]
          -Republican National Committee

     International Telephone and Telegraph [ITT] scandal
          -Watergate
                -John Mitchell
                      -Stress
          -Martha Mitchell’s health
                -Rita [?] [Surname unknown] comments
                      -John Mitchell’s concern

     The President’s schedule
          -Haig
                -Executive Office Building [EOB]

Woods left at 3:04 pm.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 2 minutes of this recording (about 28% 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.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

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Hi.
I just have a couple of questions.
I was talking to Bill Coates about, and he understands fully, you know, trying to keep everybody busy, and he also understands the need to keep all the good news coming and all of that.
Right.
Sure.
And I guess maybe somebody else might be working on it, but Miss Hyatt said Wallace and Spence did call him and said he would like to see that movie that you mentioned, Sunrise at Camp Abel.
Yeah.
I told the military, but I think you had already told somebody.
I told, yeah, I just told Paul to be sure that Fisher was all right.
So anyway, they were very grateful.
Well, then, until...
They told me that Casey had called about it.
So Bill Gulley will get it and get it on him.
Who is it?
Bill Gulley.
He's a guy I know who's just fantastic.
He'll get it on a plane.
He worked with you?
He's been here for a long time.
Good.
That's good to know.
That's great.
So if he doesn't, I think they won't be able to get them down until Thursday morning and send them right up to him.
Right.
And they're going to call the time for the government.
And she was so grateful.
I thought I'd tell you this.
the government.
Then Elmer called me this morning and he wanted me to be sure to tell you as soon as I could that he just feels urgent that you send a message to Congress today at 5 o'clock asking them to get legislation to legalize the capital punishment for hijackers and detainees.
It's interesting that I raised this before.
Because the whole country, you know, here this weekend we've got a million dollar kidnapping in the campus, and now a hijacking of a million dollars.
And each hijacking, each time it goes up because they don't have any very good time.
I think that's the reason.
You have to give that woman a chance to create one million bucks or something like that.
If you catch that son of a bitch, you'll probably be, you know, you're an all-in catcher.
If you give him a license, he's out in six years for good behavior.
So what the heck is going on?
So, and in the meantime, somebody, the million dollars is just there.
It's just a lot of money.
I think it's so bad.
You know, my co-ed mate said to me today, they outlawed that.
She thought it was a good idea.
She convinced me.
And I said, do you know what they've done?
She said, well, why?
She said, well, as they said, it's cruel and inhumane punishment.
And I said, supposedly someone killed you.
Or your sister, or your little girl.
And they were tried.
Would you think it was inhumane punishment to have them killed too?
She says, oh, I'd want to torture them then.
I said, well, you see, that's it.
I said, what's happening here is that we're giving all the grace to this guy who does commit the crime.
And the poor person is the one who gives up their life.
Nobody cares about that person.
Oh, sure.
I think we've got to do something to stop everyone from saying they're crazy.
Thank you.
Steve, is that still on the picture, 4 o'clock?
I'm just going over the date, so I can figure it out still.
But he hasn't revealed his details.
Yeah, that was something else.
That was something else.
The reason she didn't think for it, really, for weeks and weeks, of Johnson and Mabel, that's why she didn't think for it.
Those young guys didn't have the committee.
They had such, you know, a sample that was going.
Probably Johnson wasn't thinking about it either, but she said the way Mark was.
what I was saying to John.
She said, I know the ICT thing and Martha and that stupid bogey thing.
She said, it's just
I understand, even in front of some people in the department, she would come out and curse them and scratch them, whatever it is.
She said that?
Yeah.
Rita was not there, and she told me to tell her, to agree that I was there.
And she said he was just like someone, you know, he was so mortified that he was going to hurt you and all this paper.
Yeah.
Well, OK, then.
You'll get to pay it yourself.
OK.
I'll tell you what, when you go out there, you can drop over to .

Also recorded on August 1, 1972

  • 028-030 2:22 PM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 2:22 pm to 2:40 pm.
  • 028-031 2:40 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:40 pm and 3:05 pm.
  • 351-011 2:40 PM · 13 sec — 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 2:40 pm and 2:50 pm.
  • 351-012 2:40 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:40 pm and 2:50 pm.
  • 351-014 3:04 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 3:04 pm.
  • 028-032 3:05 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and William E. Timmons talked on the telephone from 3:05 pm to 3:10 pm.
  • 351-015 3:05 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 3:05 pm.
  • 351-016 3:05 PM · 26 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William E. Timmons, unknown person(s), Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and John D. Ehrlichman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:05 pm to 3:35 pm.

All 46 conversations from August 1, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 351-013, August 1, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/351-013 (accessed November 2, 2026).