On February 17, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:20 pm to 6:32 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 450-025 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
So you've got a spoke briefly, and then you hit the way out, and then you go to this side, and you know, the trick there is just to get on and get off at this point, and then you start to stammer, and then you turn to the right, and then you want to pull it from the side.
I'll let you do that.
Ok. Ok.
Thank you very much.
The more impressive the fact that you get me into the room because you can't talk about anything such as this, so it's kind of... Why do I do the...
If you have anything that you need to worry about, go sit down.
I'm going to get you just back tomorrow morning.
We're going to have to go.
We're going to have to go.
We're going to have to go.
We're going to have to go.
We're going to have to go.
Over and out.
This is the remarks.
Oh, that's J.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.D.O.
The team accomplished our mission.
I told them that we had an objective.
If you could just call back, sign up, and we'll talk to you in a minute.
We'll find you a positive future.
Yeah, he said that to you.
Why, I'm wondering if the, uh, the radiator, the fan heater is going to be released.
We can't, I don't even consider that, in the sense of degree, when you're not missing anybody.
You know, like, I mean, I used to like a newspaper guy or a columnist in the rest of my life.
It was a lot less time in the sense that I've seen a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.
Of course, you can always get the president to say that, so that's the other thing today.
You shouldn't just say, we'll do it anyway, we're going out too.
It's just that the bottom of it, Aaron, gets it.
That's true.
There's a thing about you, you just didn't have it in press conference.
So that you have it.
The other thing, of course, is that you...
Try that thing with the bill, I'll carry some time.
You can use the carrier for some time.
You gotta do it the same way, no notice though.
Oh yeah, I know what time it is.
Let's talk about how bad it is to realize.
Well, they, they, they make all those other ones, so I said, you know, we can't do that, so we have 300 here.
Oh, God, I didn't even know that one.
I think we're out of fuel.
It's all right.
I was going to say, if there was anybody there that wouldn't normally be here, I'll obviously only want to die.
That's where we are.
He just won't call any enemies.
This is the Kansas City Star.
If I was here right now, he'd just probably start to set his ass on fire.
You guys stay there.
If not, I say I'm going to give each of them something because the favors they've done for us, you understand, at the office, you have to save it for the attendance of thousands of dollars over there.
If you control people, you can hurt people, actually.
I'm pretty sure it is.
I'd like to find out.
The company that we had them for made some nice glasses, one of the old-fashioned size, and one of the cocktail-sized size, which the president needs to use.
I had a presidential seal on them, and they were old-fashioned.
I didn't know they'd find where those came from, and see how they cost.
I thought I wanted to grab them.
I think I can sense something or the other, but I want to.
Well, I want you to monitor this, because you're going to get an attack.
What you're going to do to find the last person is that I'd like you to get an apple.
A pen set.
I have a pen set.
I don't know.
I haven't given it to us.
I think it's just a regular pen set with a clock, so we're going to get an apple in the afternoon.
Now I have to get something similar to get sent to Crosby.
I don't understand.
I'm a period of war engineer.
See, he puts it, he calls that thing.
Is he, is he, you know.
Walker's getting wide out.
So I'm going to send him a couple of engineers.
I'm going to send him a couple of those to Crosby.
Bob, I want to set up a blast.
12-8-2.
There must be something nice and very personal that he can have on his desk.
We got some other stuff down in the attic.
Give me a list.
We can talk about this and then talk about the other stuff later.
Okay, we were just talking before we went over whether this startup thing can start a lot.
Pretty much about it.
It is a waste to think that it is the best use of time that we're going to get these guys in the press conference like this.
I mean, in the office.
I know it isn't.
But what I find is that, of course, in terms of preparation, it requires not quite as much, but all sorts of preparation.
It's one thing to be able to talk about it, but just a little bit of a different style.
I think it's good to do some of them.
I think it's good to be able to break them out.
I hate to do anything that could be done on television.
I try not to, that's what I always say.
I think it's good to do some of them.
Something like this is a good thing to do at that time.
And it was good.
Well, I think that they deserved to be elected.
Oh, sure.
It is incredibly exciting.
Well, they all were.
I think one of them thought so about it.
Oh, sure.
They talked to all of them.
They were all just delighted.
It was great.
Great job.
It was good.
Asked a lot of questions.
Thank you.
We had, and you did, follow up.
Right, and that's the part at the end that looks like a follow-up on that question.
So it's totally colluded, you know, any of that type of...
But that is why I think this occasion, but the time frame thing, we could go out into the press and do the film.
Let's see.
But KG-2 would expand, rather than doing all that, it would be a full gap conference, which requires an enormous amount of preparation.
I had, I had a prayer room, and I had two questions, and I had three, you know, and one of the first integration, and the rest of you said you were wrong, and all of us, I thank God, a lot of you, and I said, they didn't have a lot of economy, well, we got a 12-month contract, and a 12-month contract, well, that was bad, but that was, 80% of it was loss,
Wow, it comes back.
It's alright.
I started to feel it pretty hard on the back.
Anyway, no worries.
You're not being tempted.
You've got to be patient.
It's not very hard.
This is what it looks like all the way out.
Well, I think the TV will give it pretty thorough coverage tonight.
I think we should assess how that runs.
Part of what we have to do on these is look at them.
But of course, once the general pattern starts, by pattern I mean by doing the same thing for the variety of things, one-on-ones and TV news conferences occasionally in here and so forth, I think it will begin to...
I think we'll probably get stretched here, but at least...
No less than five minutes on each network, you know, to recap perhaps more.
They do that right off their nose?
Yes, sir.
Well, they get the transcript and so forth, but they won't have the transcript that fast, though.
No, they've got it, sure.
Well, you're right.
All they do is they're gone.
You don't notice it.
Beautiful.
Did they bother you standing here?
Would you rather be standing here?
That light is perfect.
Perfect.
You can pick up a whisper.
Well, you'll certainly get a, you'll certainly get a news story on it.
The papers are, they are, we're the damn newest, but it'll be there where some of them are.
They're, they're, I mean, that paper's there at least three things, or three of them starts in the paper.
Absolutely.
One on, what, Laos, one on construction trades.
That's, that's going to be what?
Integration.
And the integration is likely to be at the subject of a small settlement.
Instructions, I think I'm quite good at stuff like this.
But they were, I think, taken by surprise, this way was good.
All in a good manner.
Right.
And respectful.
They should get down, come in, chatter, and go back like they did with Roosevelt.