Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 380-028
Date: Thursday, December 28, 1972 at 2:26 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Williams, Maurice J.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/380-028

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello, yes.
[0:21] I guess I got you in West Virginia.
[0:22] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[0:22] Well, I very much am sorry to have to call you back.
[0:23] There's a heavy responsibility at this moment.
[0:24] But after we talked about it last night, today, I determined about you're our best man, and the government's going to take a tough assignment.
[0:27] So we'd like
[0:34] It won't be as tough a thing with us, thank God.
[0:53] They aren't fighting each other.
[0:54] They're living, but they're not fighting.
[0:55] But we, as you know, we've had a very close personal relationship with Hector Rockridge over many, many years.
[0:57] And they got to feel in a serious way.
[1:04] Under the circumstances, I want you to know that you will go with the bullet already to handle all the agencies, not only the government agencies, but also the volunteer agencies involved.
[1:26] That's the nature of the assignment.
[1:27] I'd like to hear it.
[1:28] We get a report about, say, once a week or so without spending time making reports.
[1:50] And another thing, if you would, particularly because this involves Black America very specifically, I think you should make yourself available to the media as much as you can and explain what we are.
[1:54] We've already done a great deal.
[1:55] And we're not going to break them apart.
[2:20] We've got to remind them so that our friends all through Latin America realize that we're helping out here.
[2:22] So you know how to handle the thing, but as I said, the only part of it
[2:24] It varies somewhat.
[2:46] In other instances, this time, we were interested not only in actions, but we were interested in functions as possible, not only for American consumption, but for Pan-American consumption.
[2:50] It's a pretty big story about what we are doing.
[2:51] In other words, what we are doing is very important, and I'd like to do this responsibility on that, too.
[2:53] Take a step.
[2:57] Yeah.
[3:22] I don't know what it's going to be, but we can hope so.
[3:45] Bye.