Conversation 410-009

TapeTape 410StartTuesday, March 13, 1973 at 2:45 PMEndTuesday, March 13, 1973 at 3:00 PMParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President)Recording deviceOld Executive Office Building

On March 13, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:45 pm and 3:00 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 410-009 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 410-9

Date: March 13, 1973
Time: Unknown between 2:45 pm and 3:00 pm
Location: Executive Office Building

The President dictated a memorandum for the file.

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[Begin segment reviewed under deed of gift]

       President’s schedule
              -Dictation
                      -San Clemente
                      -Meeting with Cabinet and White House staff
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            NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                (rev. Sept.-10)
                                                        Conversation No. 410-9 (cont’d)

                      -Breakfast

Congressional relations
        -Meeting with Russell B. Long
               -Productiveness
               -Conversation with John D. Ehrlichman
               -Wilbur D. Mills
               -Finance Committee
                       -Long’s support for President
               -Ideas
               -Appreciation
                       -George P. Shultz
                       Trade and taxes
                       -Welfare
               -Vietnam
                       -Support for President
                       -Comments on President’s critics
               -President’s critics
                       -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman, Ehrlichman
                       -1973 Inauguration, 1972 election, Vietnam settlement
               -Abilities
                       -Personal problem
                       -Leadership
                               -Democrats
               -Wife
                       -North Carolina
                       -Mother-in-law
Politics
        -Support for President
               -Democrats
                       -South
               -President’s margin of victory
               -Straight ticket voting

US-India relations
      -Meeting with Daniel P. (“Pat”) Moynihan
               -Indira Gandhi
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            NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                (rev. Sept.-10)
                                                       Conversation No. 410-9 (cont’d)

                      -Statement
                      -President’s conversation with William P. Rogers
       -Gandhi
             -Henry A. Kissinger
             -India-Pakistan conflict
             -Anti-white, Anti-western sentiments
                     -Jawaharal Nehru
                     -World War II
                             -Germany
                                    -Bombing [?]
             -Press editorial
                     -New York Times
                             -December 1972 bombing
                     -Arms to Pakistan
       -Moynihan
             -Work with Bureaucracy
             -Gandhi’s suspicions
             -Private communication with President
             -capabilities

Congressional relations
      -Moynihan’s view
      -Constitutional crisis
              -Taxes
      -Ehrlichman
      -Roy L. Ash [?]
      -Haldeman [?]

President’s schedule
       -Meeting with Frank E. Fitzsimmons [?]
               -Golf
               -Charles W. Colson
       -Julie Nixon Eisenhower
               -Weather
       -President’s statements
               -Press conference
                       -Language
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                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                      (rev. Sept.-10)
                                                              Conversation No. 410-9 (cont’d)

                            -President’s conversation with Haldeman
                     -Veto messages
                            -Delivery
                     -Weaknesses in public relations [PR]
                            -Memorable lines

       President’s schedule
              -Rogers C. B. Morton’s meeting with President
                      -Jack Drown
                      -Physical exam
                             -Treatment
                      -Hoyt S. Vandenberg
                             -Jerry Persons
                             -Gen. Walter R. Tkach
                             -Operation

       Personnel
              -Under Secretary of Labor
                     -Haldeman [?]
              -Cabinet
              -John C. Whitaker
                     -Capabilities
              -Meeting with Morton
              -John A. Volpe
              -John B. Connally [?]

[End segment reviewed under deed of gift]
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The President ceased dictating at an unknown time before 3:00 pm.
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                    NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                        (rev. Sept.10)

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.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course, Russell is the one who changed his mind rather unpredictably.
But this meeting came about not only because it was the right thing to do after having seen Mills, but also because Russell had told her that we should not just talk to Mills, that we should talk to him, because he considered himself to be the president's man on the finance committee.
I think it's a great paragraph.
His ideas were interesting and imaginative.
He really appreciated the building, the shelves, the deal on trade and taxes, and also the discussions we had on welfare.
At the end of the meeting, he spoke quite emotionally about the fact that he admired the thoughts that the president was providing.
Now, the situation in the city of Crete has been extremely unfair and malicious.
And we felt that the great majority of the people in this city, in this country, were sorry for the outside presence.
And Peter, as a matter of fact, went to all of them early.
And others, as he revealed, were really concerned about both Democrats and Republicans.
It's just possible that the president may have more support in the country than he may have.
And with this constant conflict, the president is not going to be able to hear as far as they are concerned.
As a matter of fact, Long said that he thought of this.
wrong to take President Trump right after his inauguration and right after he achieved a fantastic election victory, at least in Vietnam.
He said he thought it was wrong on the merits, but he said he thought it was also wrong on the political standpoint, and he did not agree with the tactics at all.
Long was certainly an aside, but I wanted to get an experience from him, whether it would be able-spinning from the standpoint of sheer mentality that we have in the United States every day.
A year or two ago, I think that also, you know, I had this, that problem, which probably led to this debate before, but he would be a very formidable leader of the Democrats, and
This proved to be a boom plan.
I got into a conversation with him and his wife, who's from North Carolina.
And his wife, who voted for the party, had heard about it.
Of course, he would have, if he had gotten the government any chance to win, which is probably the attitude of a great number of Americans in the South and in the country.
Which is probably the reason why we did not reach the 64th or 68th.
level that Senator Trump was actually going to move to the country.
And it ended up around 61.
The Democrats just struggled with it.
They didn't have to.
They had to keep their votes.
And I've got certain chances that she didn't go to their party right down the line.
But I had a great problem.
And I had a few of them.
But so many of them were members all along.
Mrs. Duffy, of course, made her recent statement.
Uh, Bill Rogers and I talked about it at breakfast, and, you know, we were planning to move out of the neighborhood.
We got our old man here, Bill Rogers' mother, and he had a family there, and his wife was already abroad, and he was planning to leave her there.
And I told him that he ought to hang on there about a week before the letter got out, which were both, uh, Sierra and Dallas.
And, uh, he agreed to do so.
Uh, the association referred out to this county, of course, was very hard to understand.
She was treated quite well.
Now she reversed the tide just at the time when you said our relations with India have been improved as we're going.
What happened?
In fact, the period of the India-Pakistan conflict, what it was that she did in my mind, was that she fired her father before.
She was basically anti-white, anti-Western.
... ... ... ... ...
The idea that we only use our bonds and then throw it out is sort of ridiculous.
This is something that the district will probably put in some respect, but at the present time, this is kind of a fine one.
There is, I don't know, some of the press that they would set up for hatred in the New York Times.
We could even write one on a very short list.
But during the December bombing period,
That is, uh, something that's with regard to the partnership and supply chains and everybody in the middle area.
I told him that he ought to spend a couple months out there before he started sitting in there.
It was also that, uh, you have to, uh, work on the bureaucracy at other levels, so that's good.
This has gotten to this, uh, suspicion of, uh, hiring.
We're going to send, uh, we will present problems because of his ideas and we'll explode, uh, send in various people.
Unfortunately, we have a private channel set up.
We're going to have a lot of time to explode.
We're going to have a lot of time to explode privately, but I'm getting it all through the bureaucracy.
My answer is that I have made two very specific points.
I know certain countries should be allowed in Congress to get this debate over and over again.
It escalated into what people would say is a constitutional crisis.
It is not a constitutional crisis.
It's a tax crisis.
Uh, this, of course, is what I've been trying to do, pinpointing what I've been saying.
And it was something that, uh, we know, that we have to go, you know, a lot more in the region.
Early on, this was, uh, better data for both leaders.
We made two or three points, we made them one.
They just, uh, uh, predictably were, not as much, they were very good at socializing.
They didn't have to grab our type of lines.
We didn't, you know, I don't know what I'm saying.
I'm not sure.
He was very excited about the fact that he was coming in four weeks to the hole at one.
He didn't go with Chuck Colson like yesterday, so I told Steve to, like I said, we'd hire out the rational emails so that I could be able to give him a good sentence for the first installment of all of us.
He has three and a half years of those in which to accept.
I also
I just mentioned I had a chance to look at the presidential statements during that coming Saturday.
It was hard for me to do so because I got to deal with other press conferences and other statements read, particularly the evaluation of their generation lines.
In this instance, I wrote the veto message, where I vetoed the ECW Proclamation on Harvard.
The language was so sharp, so effective, that I told all of them to read it, have the record read it, so that they could get more of that type of language and even repeat some of the veto messages.
There are statements that I make with a lot of the building and other members that in the weeks ahead, this is probably one of the greatest things, is that our old PRMF, we do not know how to get our lines, our network of lines that will be picked up in the rest of the year.
The black portion of the park and the universe of it, like when there's a big building, a big barrier,
kind of like that emotional way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I remember in 1953, all of the real estate was just out there in the nasty field.
And then, a few months after that was said, Jerry Pershing signed it.
And Dr. Koch, too, the banker, had to sign it.
He would never sign it because the broker couldn't.
Our operation, our treatment has been provided, and we're going to do that today.
I'm not going to be worried about it, but we're probably going to be wanting to get a lot of pressure from the government.
I mentioned it back in the day.
We're going to go to Manhattan, and we're going to try to turn it away.
Very rich at the end of the day.
He took off and did some great work.
He's quite honest with his company.
He's a kid.
And he's a very good kid.
And I just wanted to be able to give a shout-out to some of the kids.
And I think part of the reason why I'm a secretary is to do their job.
And I feel they've been kind to us every time we've been here.
And, of course, I may play a curious role.
Paul is going to do this.
He doesn't bear the word.
He doesn't ask for anything.
He doesn't give a lot of money.
And this may help.
Certainly, I'm a student of ours.
I, again, recognize how important that is to the country and the government.
There are a lot of ways to get involved now.
One choice is the other.
Our choice is to vote.
But first, we've got to spend our managers and our departments.
I have a hand in each of them.
And that's why I call it, again, just a great deal of work