Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 455-025
Date: Monday, February 22, 1971 at 4:36 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Harlow, Bryce N.; Flanigan, Peter M.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/455-025

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Frank, how are you?
[0:16] Hello there.
[0:19] Well, we're glad to see you.
[0:23] Sorry to hold you up.
[0:23] How are you?
[0:23] I'm good.
[0:24] I hope it didn't take you too long.
[0:25] I'm trying to find a job at Russell.
[0:26] I'm trying to work it out.
[0:27] Well, how are you getting along?
[0:28] You're retiring.
[0:28] Do you have trouble with Russell Bill?
[0:29] Well, we can't get a break.
[0:30] about praying to the sun.
[1:55] Yeah.
[2:04] I'd like for you to call Art McClendon and offer it to him.
[2:12] He won't pay it, but Art McClendon owns half of All Street on Betty.
[2:17] Oh yes, and he's a, he loves it, and he's been down there a great deal, and he's the, as you know, smart as hell, and a great ambassador if you do it.
[2:23] But let's just try it, just take a lost fire, just call him, just call him today, see what he says.
[2:25] Yeah.
[2:29] Call it.
[2:33] Don't tell him to tell him.
[2:38] If he takes it, we'll, we'll attend to him.
[2:40] You just call him and, uh, if they need to go home, take it.
[2:46] They'd be so lucky to get it.
[2:46] But, uh, you just call him and say, now, hello, Clark.
[2:47] And, uh, and so on.
[2:48] Right out of the blue.
[2:48] If, uh, if you were going to have to change your pastor or something, what are you doing?
[2:50] And if he says no, then so does he have any suggestion?
[2:54] Great.
[2:59] Burt Cross would be great.
[3:04] I imagine they have interests, well, at least that they know that part of the world.
[3:10] 300 knows almost every place.
[3:11] Burt Cross, you know, he didn't ask for a darn thing, but there must be, there must be somebody around who's asked for something.
[3:15] Yeah, don't give it away.
[3:16] Well, that's it.
[3:16] This should be an easy assignment for anybody who just knows it.
[3:17] Any people would have to be nice to Gordon.
[3:20] Why don't you give me a list of those that really want something, you know?
[3:34] I thought I'd give you a list of the people, the most deserving people, who want to be ambassadors someplace.
[3:37] Because I was curious, because the Flint letter is a great plan, and he would be a superb ambassador to that.
[3:45] I didn't know if he had this kind of first connection to this.
[3:52] Oh yeah, next to Bob Hogue is the wealthiest of the entertainers.
[3:55] But second, he's got money in him.
[3:59] He's an enormous business, a successful businessman.
[4:02] He has about millions of haters in Australia.
[4:04] So he owns it.
[4:04] So in other words, he likes Australia.
[4:05] And he's a great person.
[4:05] I mean, smart as hell.
[4:08] Yeah, that would be what he said.
[4:12] Would you think so?
[4:17] Yeah, he loved it.
[4:19] Yeah, he loved it.
[4:19] But the Austrians would say, well, we're from North Carolina.
[4:24] It was an American interview.
[4:25] That was our country.
[4:27] You know, Washington.
[4:28] Great personality.
[4:29] God, can you imagine how he'd go down there?
[4:30] Of course, he'd not be asking.
[4:31] Some personality.
[4:32] You know, looking at Blake Letter, his age, he's 58 or not in that period.
[4:33] I don't know.
[4:34] just a couple years in Australia.
[4:41] Down there, and he dropped out of the show a couple years, he said, anyway, you couldn't stay there too long.
[4:46] Most people just kept running around, they didn't notice him.
[4:47] I was telling him, they're very good, they're very good, and I like Falco.
[4:49] He just seems to go on and on forever.
[4:56] He won't quit, perhaps.
[4:57] He'll probably quit right now.
[4:59] I think he should quit.
[5:00] He's at the top.
[5:00] He should have quit about two years ago.
[5:01] Do you think so?
[5:02] Yeah.
[5:02] Do you think it's a sale?
[5:02] Not quite as good.
[5:03] I think it's a sale, and they're starting to tear him apart.
[5:04] Like that life story, life article, and all those guys.
[5:09] John Wayne ought to get out now, too.
[5:10] Get out, and they're out.
[5:12] Well, uh, he is... You don't want to be a bachelor.
[5:23] John Wayne should be a bachelor.
[5:34] Why didn't you tell me?
[5:34] Harlan wants to be a bachelor.
[5:35] That's true.
[5:35] He's sat here and won't say a word.
[5:36] Yes, I have.
[5:36] So he's building out for St. James.
[5:37] I have.
[5:37] He wants St. James.
[5:37] I promised that to Cliff Hoyer seven years ago.
[5:38] Cliff remembers.
[5:39] Every time you forget.
[5:39] You don't think you can still send Hoyer out there, do you?
[5:40] Oh, God.
[5:40] Oh, God.
[5:41] We're just going to have to work.
[5:43] Well, I knew it was senility when we finally just couldn't send him in.
[5:54] We locked him on three or four.
[5:57] He wouldn't take us in.
[6:00] But we're over that earth now.
[6:02] It's done and it's too bad.
[6:03] It's all over and it should be left that way.
[6:05] He's in that shit.
[6:05] He can't hurt me.
[6:06] He can't hurt me here.
[6:07] Yeah, that's right.
[6:07] I'll tell you a guy that would be an awful good ambassador.
[6:11] He went home.
[6:11] He's a good ambassador right there.
[6:16] Three would.
[6:22] At this point.
[6:25] Australia's one I hate to give away.
[6:29] I don't know how to use this as a plumb for somebody.
[6:33] My other hand, link letters.
[6:33] No, but I meant, like a guy like Bert Cross, we don't really owe him.
[6:36] He's your friend, but you don't really owe him anything.
[6:39] We can do something.
[6:39] We can use Bert Cross productively someplace.
[6:42] Well, I told people to go to the list.
[6:43] There must be a list of people that want him.
[6:43] There are.
[6:45] Does that auditor do it?
[6:49] Well, what do you think?
[6:51] I don't think he gets auditory confirmed, but I guess you're right.
[6:55] Oh, no, that's right.
[6:55] That's right.
[6:56] That's right.
[6:56] To keep him with us.
[8:21] By God, they've got a string in their hands.
[8:45] They're responsible.
[8:45] Well, we want the court for him, but nobody will die.
[8:47] Tell us what you were doing.
[8:48] Oh, I had to use one of the touch bases.
[8:48] I was over-deaf.
[8:49] Some of the...
[8:50] A person regarding the farm guy, you know, he says no on high farming.
[9:04] Don't you have tapes?
[9:09] Don't you?
[9:11] Now, the second point is, we, what do you think?
[9:13] Well, we might try.
[9:14] The other point is that
[9:18] An awfully good man is our old friend Spitzer.
[9:28] He's enthusiastic and loves the farmers and loves us.
[9:32] He's enthusiastic.
[9:32] That's good.
[9:33] Somebody carries a pair of cracks at home, he's saying, no, he doesn't have any, you know, sales entities in the library.
[9:36] He's an expert there.
[9:36] He's a terrific expert.
[9:37] He's an expert.
[9:37] He's out there.
[9:38] He's an expert.
[9:45] You do need an expert here in the White House.
[9:50] In the framework that I'm thinking about this position, let me try it.
[10:03] Let me ask you this.
[10:03] Would you mind going out and trying a patient, of course?
[10:07] Well, that's a good question.
[10:08] I'll share it with you, Mr. President.
[10:09] I'm going to have a patient tomorrow.
[10:09] I'm going to have a celebration.
[10:11] Great.
[10:11] Great.
[10:11] And I'll hit him again.
[10:12] He just went down.
[10:12] I told you, of course, it's not the best stuff.
[10:14] He said, I knew that you were something.
[10:15] I forgot what he said the first time.
[10:15] I didn't know he was a horse thief.
[10:24] That's the way he started the conversation.
[10:30] And I said, Paige, what was the trouble with that?
[10:33] He said, hi, it's not a horse.
[10:34] And we had a hell of an argument about that.
[10:35] This was about three, four weeks ago.
[10:36] We had a few talks with him.
[10:37] And then he got in bed and started calling me.
[10:38] He got Jared to call me.
[10:39] And I just told Jared that he was an aggressive coward.
[10:40] I said, that's all I'm saying to you.
[10:41] You should just break the page.
[10:42] Now, I don't think I can persuade Paige a second.
[10:44] I think it needs to be forced on this ship.
[10:52] We ought to see what that's like.
[10:54] You and the party.
[10:57] Looking ahead to next year is admirable.
[10:59] There's no question of evidence.
[11:00] The page keeps saying it's only 15 miles away from here to be used as control.
[11:02] Clever.
[11:02] Well, it's only 15 miles away from here to there, too, as I told you.
[11:05] And he's got a man in the White House that way.
[11:14] He's got his man.
[11:15] He's awful about people, for granted.
[11:17] He just clasps on to them and squeezes them out and won't let them go.
[11:25] And he's always been like this.
[11:26] But I will talk to him.
[11:27] I'll talk also to Jerry and to Les and see if I can get them to... See, Jerry tried to make a name for himself in order to know his worth.
[11:31] We tried to get it last year.
[11:35] We're going all out on the agriculture thing.
[11:52] We're going to go out and listen to them.
[11:53] And we're going to put on a salute to agriculture.
[11:58] A big dinner here.
[11:59] I don't know if it's dinner or evening.
[11:59] I think it's dinner.
[12:00] The dinner will be about
[12:01] What's your attitude toward facing people you don't know best?
[12:06] I'm very careful, as we have in common.