Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 467 › Conversation 467-016

Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on White House Press Relations

Wednesday, March 17, 1971 · 9:16 AM–9:42 AM ET · Oval Office · 17 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Butterfield, Alexander P.Conversation467-016 on Tape 467 (tape position 00:41:34–00:58:50)StartWednesday, March 17, 1971 at 9:16 AMEndWednesday, March 17, 1971 at 9:42 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 467-016 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417176123 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman met to discuss scheduling logistics, including upcoming funeral services for Thomas E. Dewey and Whitney M. Young, Jr., and the coordination of the President's public appearances. They reviewed negative press coverage surrounding the engagement of Tricia Nixon and analyzed staff communication, specifically expressing frustration over unauthorized leaks to journalists such as Hugh Sidey. Additionally, Nixon directed Haldeman to enforce stricter discipline among White House staff to prevent future leaks and maintain a controlled public image.

Audio

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NARA Description

On March 17, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:16 am and 9:42 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 467-016 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 467-016

Date: March 17, 1971
Time: Unknown between 9:16 am and 9:42 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman

     Vietnam

     President’ schedule
           -March 19, 1971 funeral of Thomas E. Dewey
                -Time
                      -Effect on President’s schedule
                            -Press conference
                      -Departure for Dewey funeral
                -President’s forthcoming press conference
                      -Timing
                      -Television and radio coverage

     Vietnam
          -Democrat caucus meeting
              -Discussion of President’s policies
                    -Decision

     Transportation
          -Possible statement by President
                -President’s position
                -Compared with statement on agriculture
                      -Publicity
          -Possible message to Congress
          -Possible briefing by John A. Volpe
          -President’s involvement
          -Budget message
                -Timing
                      -President’s forthcoming trip to California
          -Compared with President’s education statement

     An article by Hugh S. Sidey
          -View of the President
          -Possible source on White House staff
                 -Haldeman’s instructions
                 -William L. Safire
          -Sidey
Show the rest of the log (67 more lines)
            -Joseph C. Kraft
            -President’s previous interview on television
                 -Possible relation to polls
                 -President’s previous interview with Cyrus L. (“Cy”) Sulzberger
            -White House staff relations
                 -President’s instructions
            -Richard A. Moore
            -White House staff
            -Press
            -Possible source
                 -Charles W. Colson
                 -Raymond K. Price, Jr.
                 -Leonard Garment
                 -Patrick J. Buchanan
            -Sidey and John F. Osborne

     Head of State dinner for John M. (“Jack”) Lynch
          -Coverage
                 -Television
          -President’s view
                 -Length
                      -Reasons
          -Gifts
          -Lynch’s toast

     Tricia Nixon’s engagement
           -Press coverage
                 -Ronald L. Ziegler
                       -Possible press conference
                 -Photographs
                 -Marya McLaughlin’s report
                       -Administration coverage on Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
                       -Martha (Beall) Mitchell story
                 -Story on Edward R. F. Cox
                       -Work for Ralph Nader
           -List
                 -Constance M. (Cornell) (“Connie”) Stuart
                       -Betty Beale
                 -Distribution

            -Helen A. Thomas
                 -Los Angeles Times story
            -Stuart
                 -Role
                       -Haldeman’s role

     President’s schedule
           -T. Nixon’s wedding
                 -Oklahoma
                       -River project
                            -President’s possible attendance
                            -Timing
           -California trip

Alexander P. Butterfield entered at an unknown time after 9:16 am

            -Departure time for Whitney M. Young, Jr. funeral

Butterfield left at an unknown time before 9:42 am

            -New York
            -Young funeral
                -Motorcade logistics
            -Dewey funeral
                -Schedule

Haldeman left at an unknown time before 9:42 am

Transcript (AI-generated)

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.

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Yeah, maybe more than that.
I think it's going to be a lot more than that.
They're going to hold up until they start there.
They've got to work on a checkpoint basis.
right away because if it is, I'm going to have to change that.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
As to which it is.
That's understandable.
If it's four, then we can go ahead with the press stand, it's no problem.
And just like the other five men, instead of two, you'd have to leave it at two.
and do it at one o'clock or something.
That's what I was thinking.
So it should be fine.
But if it's in, then I have to do it.
I'm sure it's going to do it in the morning, and so it does make for some of these pictures.
The disadvantage is about how we're not doing it for TV.
And also, this is going to make a difference.
And there is, there are Saturday nights.
This is Saturday night.
There's more than you can get.
I mean, I can argue some on the radio.
That's right.
But the weekend radio may be just as well.
So, well, it's just a Democratic caucus, you know, that today we're going to try to consider a Vietnam withdrawal resolution.
They broke up in a rock of a quarrel.
And not yesterday or today.
I guess today.
This is a meeting this morning.
Oh, yeah.
It was an early morning meeting.
So now they won't meet again until late April, apparently.
Hmm.
Good.
So it's kind of nice to see them having a problem.
Right.
Uh, the only other suggestion is a one-minute film clip on that revolution, that transportation special revolution.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I'll do that.
I know what's right at this point.
Okay, that's what we are saying.
Now this will be tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the press conference.
I mean, tomorrow is...
Tomorrow is what is going on.
And, uh... Oh, God, it's... Do you see any sex appeal?
I just don't see it at all.
I don't think so.
It seems to me that if we get one on the...
If we get one on the farmers, I think we can get one blood without it.
I don't.
We're on television.
It shouldn't be, because, God damn it, it's not about interest in it.
It makes you want to... Every one of them did here in the room.
Yeah, I don't...
I don't think you want to do one.
I think we could... You know, we'd be a safe and a safe...
Send the message, and let Holby do a briefing.
John, build him up.
Let Holby do this one, Bob.
I know they want me to be active, but I have a good kind of mind.
I'm talking all the time with my friend, and I want to be more active in things that are going to hurt us, rather than that gets back to the dualism security program process.
There you go.
You can go on about it, I don't know about it.
It's just like I don't want the law to work.
I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I
Now you're right.
Education.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is a hell of a lot better one.
So we can do the last one.
So we can put that down and say that was not good.
Do a minute and a half clip.
Yeah.
More likely to get it done in June.
Three, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
I see some blurbs and sightings, and he says Nixon and his White House supplies are a centralized image, and so forth.
Now, somebody here has been done enough to talk beside me about this.
I hope you have told all these people that they are not disgust.
Goddamn, I don't want that kind of thing, disgust.
Now, is this Sapphire or his name?
Is that...
Who would be so goddamned on the talker side?
He's a slippery bastard.
I don't think anybody would in that sense that somebody may have talked to him as opposed to...
He and Kraft and a couple others have made the point
in that way, plain, and it's just, yeah, without any, without the base of anybody saying anything, going on the base of, they're making a point out of the fact that you've been on television, uh, you know, with this interview, uh, I got, and it's,
Oh, I see.
And trying to tie it to, you know, the drop in the polls, so the president's doing more.
He had the Warthog interview and the, and the, I saw it.
Yeah, he's blessing himself for interviews all the time.
Yeah, all the time.
Like I said, let me just say, I just want to be sure you discipline the staff and say the thing.
You know what I mean?
I don't want anybody here to think they're smart enough to talk to you, so I don't, I just want to be able to...
Or, let me see, they can talk, but don't ever confide in it.
Don't confide in it.
There's no way to say they were.
The only thing I know, that I sense in that, is that it's like Dick Moore's Little Lies kind of thing.
They build that into a monstrous event.
Right.
Yeah.
And the whole country thinks the whole goddamn thing is a build-up, you know, right?
Do our people understand this sort of thing or not?
Do they or don't they?
Yeah.
And they, I said, okay, all right.
That's all I didn't know.
I think none of them were.
And whatever way we go on that, we don't have to go in because we don't, we do do anything that's, you know, I wanted to do things, but I could never walk up to the stage and fight it.
You understand?
Do everything and do it blatantly.
You can say, well, yes, do it, and then just blatantly deny it.
It's about the course of it.
This is the way we planned it all along, you know what I mean?
But you don't, I know what happens is if our guys steal, and we'll press back once you have a question about it.
They got to serve.
They said, well, they didn't help me.
What did he really do it for?
I understand what you're talking about.
I've had these guys for 25 years, Bob.
I know these bastards.
They are not out there on the scene.
That's the point.
I know you don't, but I just don't know.
Maybe you talked to Colson.
Maybe he did this.
Now, he's been, you know, he's been, I can't imagine, but I'll be sure he is off of an end.
Is there anybody, could that be Ray Price or Garmin or any of those people over there?
Well, I don't want him to get gunshot.
I know he can, but he's too smart, you know, to get caught that way.
I was honored to come to say that.
I don't want that kind of line to be put off by our own people.
Yeah, they've got it.
They look for every, he and I, he looked for every little flip and filled it up.
Yeah, we had to go to that television there.
It was awful on TV.
Jesus Christ.
You know, I'm going to stop talking.
I'm poor Irish.
I'm going to pretend I died.
Well, all right.
Everybody knows Irish over here.
Did he give you the jam last time?
So that was a good way to do that.
It was a very nice way to give him a little something to do.
And he made a little talk.
It was very nice.
I don't know what in the name of God they're doing on that.
I guess they're going to beat them over this.
I'm not sure.
But he may have thought about it, I don't know.
That would have been awful.
Don't you think so?
Absolutely awful for us to have a press conference going on, in case my daughter wanted help.
We'd mail it out.
Yeah.
If anything, I think the press conference, doing it the way it was, my other accountants, it was great.
They had pictures, and I was elected.
Wasn't Micah McLaughlin in that group of people that we have here?
Yeah.
It wasn't a matter of her.
She's apparently taking a, what did she take, a negative view of the conference?
Apparently she didn't do a really strong, she did it as a, you know, sort of matter of CBS.
She's a victim, isn't she?
She's been good sometimes and bad sometimes.
And she's the one that screwed Martha Mitchell.
Well, that's why we fight.
Hell, we have to.
I guess because she's been...
going the other way.
They're trying to latch on to somebody at the networks where we can get some good stuff.
We weren't getting good stuff from her.
And we have.
She's done some actually really good stuff actually over the last month or so.
All right.
But she apparently, I've heard her on these, but from the reports, she apparently is, I noticed all the engagement in on the trust thing has played a relatively negative, you know, no particular digs or anything.
I didn't make a thing out of Eddie being the major traitor.
I saw her, I didn't like her, and I remember kissing her.
It seemed like, I wondered why she'd been included on the list.
Is this the one, why was this damn list made up of?
Mainly Connie.
And it was, do you respect her judgment or anything like that?
I'm not reading, what was the question?
We left off something she wanted and we put on something she didn't want, Betty Beal, and we put her on anything.
Why didn't she want her?
She's one of the few that wouldn't have stayed well if she didn't want to.
I know.
And there's another one because she said she didn't have enough coverage.
We had some coverage.
But Bob, you went to Frank's office.
Beale really does.
Beale's syndicated in the street.
Yeah.
As a columnist, she has a pretty ideal thing.
None of them compared to the wires.
The one that she got out of that was 99% Alan Thomas.
She got the pitch for it.
Yeah.
Because the LA Times ran the Alan Thomas thing.
It was the front page.
I just don't understand.
I don't mind her.
I just don't want to...
If she's done something good, fine.
I do not want Connie to be a dumb bitch.
That's all.
I just don't want us to be taken in, so...
Thank God you didn't police her.
Always police her.
You know, she doesn't have her.
She's just an emotional woman, like all people I've got.
I think her judgment's very good.
You're going to have to be around here during that wedding.
By the way, I'm Trish's children's daughter.
That day was the day that that thing in Oklahoma, the American Star River Project, we put off, three times we had to put off the game.
We all understand.
Just go the day after, not the day before.
I dare to ask Sunday to wait until Saturday.
Well, they don't have to be Monday, so we just have to have the children.
They're all sitting in California.
It's so late.
It's 10 o'clock, I guess, and I'm not sure.
10 out of here, huh?
Yes.
Okay.
35 minutes.
It's all right.
It's all right.
One, there's a lot of good reasons not to go to New York, but timing would have been...
The logistics of this motorcade thing are screwed.
Well, because we can't do anything about it.
It's theirs, and all we can do is tie it to it.
Maybe we'll go in and make a helicopter.
Maybe we can help them.
whether there's, it should be possible to get through the traffic.
I don't know.
We'll worry about it, Bob.
We just do what we understand.
I don't know what to do with these two.
You haven't got a word yet on that thing?
I guess you're wrong.

Also recorded on March 17, 1971

  • 467-012 9:01 AM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:01 am and 9:10 am.
  • 467-013 9:01 AM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:01 am and 9:10 am.
  • 467-014 9:10 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Adm. Thomas H. Moorer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:10 am to 9:14 am.
  • 467-015 9:15 AM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:15 am to 9:16 am.
  • 467-017 9:16 AM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:16 am and 9:42 am.
  • 467-018 9:16 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:16 am and 9:42 am.
  • 467-019 9:42 AM · 36 sec — Manolo Sanchez and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:42 am and 10:04 am.
  • 467-020 2:32 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:32 pm and 2:43 pm.

All 31 conversations from March 17, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 467-016, March 17, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417176123). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/467-016 (accessed October 31, 2026).