Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 467-016
Date: Wednesday, March 17, 1971 at 9:16 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Butterfield, Alexander P.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/467-016
National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/417176123 (NAID 417176123)

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:10] Yeah, maybe more than that.
[0:18] I think it's going to be a lot more than that.
[0:22] They're going to hold up until they start there.
[0:23] They've got to work on a checkpoint basis.
[0:58] right away because if it is, I'm going to have to change that.
[1:05] That's right.
[1:05] That's right.
[1:05] That's right.
[1:06] That's right.
[1:06] That's right.
[1:58] As to which it is.
[2:10] That's understandable.
[2:21] If it's four, then we can go ahead with the press stand, it's no problem.
[2:36] And just like the other five men, instead of two, you'd have to leave it at two.
[2:57] and do it at one o'clock or something.
[3:02] That's what I was thinking.
[3:03] So it should be fine.
[3:04] But if it's in, then I have to do it.
[3:15] I'm sure it's going to do it in the morning, and so it does make for some of these pictures.
[3:27] The disadvantage is about how we're not doing it for TV.
[3:29] And also, this is going to make a difference.
[3:31] And there is, there are Saturday nights.
[3:34] This is Saturday night.
[3:35] There's more than you can get.
[3:36] I mean, I can argue some on the radio.
[3:36] That's right.
[3:37] But the weekend radio may be just as well.
[3:38] So, well, it's just a Democratic caucus, you know, that today we're going to try to consider a Vietnam withdrawal resolution.
[3:44] They broke up in a rock of a quarrel.
[3:48] And not yesterday or today.
[3:49] I guess today.
[3:52] This is a meeting this morning.
[3:54] Oh, yeah.
[3:55] It was an early morning meeting.
[3:56] So now they won't meet again until late April, apparently.
[4:00] Hmm.
[4:00] Good.
[4:02] So it's kind of nice to see them having a problem.
[4:06] Right.
[4:07] Uh, the only other suggestion is a one-minute film clip on that revolution, that transportation special revolution.
[4:18] No, no, no, no, no, no.
[4:21] I'll do that.
[4:22] I know what's right at this point.
[4:24] Okay, that's what we are saying.
[4:27] Now this will be tomorrow.
[4:29] Tomorrow is the press conference.
[4:31] I mean, tomorrow is...
[4:32] Tomorrow is what is going on.
[4:34] And, uh... Oh, God, it's... Do you see any sex appeal?
[4:44] I just don't see it at all.
[4:46] I don't think so.
[4:46] It seems to me that if we get one on the...
[4:49] If we get one on the farmers, I think we can get one blood without it.
[4:51] I don't.
[4:52] We're on television.
[4:53] It shouldn't be, because, God damn it, it's not about interest in it.
[4:55] It makes you want to... Every one of them did here in the room.
[4:57] Yeah, I don't...
[4:57] I don't think you want to do one.
[5:00] I think we could... You know, we'd be a safe and a safe...
[5:02] Send the message, and let Holby do a briefing.
[5:12] John, build him up.
[5:13] Let Holby do this one, Bob.
[5:15] I know they want me to be active, but I have a good kind of mind.
[5:17] 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.
[5:24] There you go.
[5:28] You can go on about it, I don't know about it.
[5:34] It's just like I don't want the law to work.
[5:38] 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
[6:00] Now you're right.
[6:02] Education.
[6:04] Yeah.
[6:04] Yeah.
[6:04] Which is a hell of a lot better one.
[6:06] So we can do the last one.
[6:08] So we can put that down and say that was not good.
[6:11] Do a minute and a half clip.
[6:17] Yeah.
[6:17] More likely to get it done in June.
[6:23] Three, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
[6:31] I see some blurbs and sightings, and he says Nixon and his White House supplies are a centralized image, and so forth.
[6:42] Now, somebody here has been done enough to talk beside me about this.
[6:46] I hope you have told all these people that they are not disgust.
[6:51] Goddamn, I don't want that kind of thing, disgust.
[6:54] Now, is this Sapphire or his name?
[6:56] Is that...
[6:57] Who would be so goddamned on the talker side?
[7:00] He's a slippery bastard.
[7:01] I don't think anybody would in that sense that somebody may have talked to him as opposed to...
[7:09] He and Kraft and a couple others have made the point
[7:14] 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,
[7:32] Oh, I see.
[7:34] And trying to tie it to, you know, the drop in the polls, so the president's doing more.
[7:37] He had the Warthog interview and the, and the, I saw it.
[7:41] Yeah, he's blessing himself for interviews all the time.
[7:45] Yeah, all the time.
[7:46] Like I said, let me just say, I just want to be sure you discipline the staff and say the thing.
[7:51] You know what I mean?
[7:52] 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...
[8:01] Or, let me see, they can talk, but don't ever confide in it.
[8:07] Don't confide in it.
[8:11] There's no way to say they were.
[8:12] The only thing I know, that I sense in that, is that it's like Dick Moore's Little Lies kind of thing.
[8:20] They build that into a monstrous event.
[8:23] Right.
[8:24] Yeah.
[8:25] And the whole country thinks the whole goddamn thing is a build-up, you know, right?
[8:32] Do our people understand this sort of thing or not?
[8:34] Do they or don't they?
[8:36] Yeah.
[8:36] And they, I said, okay, all right.
[8:40] That's all I didn't know.
[8:41] I think none of them were.
[8:44] 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.
[8:56] You understand?
[8:57] Do everything and do it blatantly.
[8:59] You can say, well, yes, do it, and then just blatantly deny it.
[9:02] It's about the course of it.
[9:04] This is the way we planned it all along, you know what I mean?
[9:06] 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.
[9:15] They got to serve.
[9:16] They said, well, they didn't help me.
[9:19] What did he really do it for?
[9:19] I understand what you're talking about.
[9:21] I've had these guys for 25 years, Bob.
[9:23] I know these bastards.
[9:24] They are not out there on the scene.
[9:27] That's the point.
[9:28] I know you don't, but I just don't know.
[9:31] Maybe you talked to Colson.
[9:33] Maybe he did this.
[9:34] Now, he's been, you know, he's been, I can't imagine, but I'll be sure he is off of an end.
[9:41] Is there anybody, could that be Ray Price or Garmin or any of those people over there?
[9:48] Well, I don't want him to get gunshot.
[9:52] I know he can, but he's too smart, you know, to get caught that way.
[9:57] I was honored to come to say that.
[10:03] I don't want that kind of line to be put off by our own people.
[10:14] Yeah, they've got it.
[10:17] They look for every, he and I, he looked for every little flip and filled it up.
[10:28] Yeah, we had to go to that television there.
[10:43] It was awful on TV.
[10:49] Jesus Christ.
[10:56] You know, I'm going to stop talking.
[11:00] I'm poor Irish.
[11:01] I'm going to pretend I died.
[11:04] Well, all right.
[11:05] Everybody knows Irish over here.
[11:09] Did he give you the jam last time?
[11:11] So that was a good way to do that.
[11:15] It was a very nice way to give him a little something to do.
[11:19] And he made a little talk.
[11:20] It was very nice.
[11:22] I don't know what in the name of God they're doing on that.
[11:34] I guess they're going to beat them over this.
[11:40] I'm not sure.
[11:42] But he may have thought about it, I don't know.
[11:45] That would have been awful.
[11:48] Don't you think so?
[11:49] Absolutely awful for us to have a press conference going on, in case my daughter wanted help.
[11:54] We'd mail it out.
[11:56] Yeah.
[11:57] If anything, I think the press conference, doing it the way it was, my other accountants, it was great.
[12:06] They had pictures, and I was elected.
[12:10] Wasn't Micah McLaughlin in that group of people that we have here?
[12:14] Yeah.
[12:15] It wasn't a matter of her.
[12:18] She's apparently taking a, what did she take, a negative view of the conference?
[12:27] Apparently she didn't do a really strong, she did it as a, you know, sort of matter of CBS.
[12:36] She's a victim, isn't she?
[12:38] She's been good sometimes and bad sometimes.
[12:41] And she's the one that screwed Martha Mitchell.
[12:44] Well, that's why we fight.
[12:46] Hell, we have to.
[12:47] I guess because she's been...
[12:49] going the other way.
[12:50] They're trying to latch on to somebody at the networks where we can get some good stuff.
[12:54] We weren't getting good stuff from her.
[12:56] And we have.
[12:57] She's done some actually really good stuff actually over the last month or so.
[13:02] All right.
[13:02] 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.
[13:17] I didn't make a thing out of Eddie being the major traitor.
[13:22] I saw her, I didn't like her, and I remember kissing her.
[13:27] It seemed like, I wondered why she'd been included on the list.
[13:30] Is this the one, why was this damn list made up of?
[13:33] Mainly Connie.
[13:36] And it was, do you respect her judgment or anything like that?
[13:38] I'm not reading, what was the question?
[13:39] We left off something she wanted and we put on something she didn't want, Betty Beal, and we put her on anything.
[13:44] Why didn't she want her?
[13:47] She's one of the few that wouldn't have stayed well if she didn't want to.
[13:51] I know.
[13:52] And there's another one because she said she didn't have enough coverage.
[13:54] We had some coverage.
[13:55] But Bob, you went to Frank's office.
[13:57] Beale really does.
[13:58] Beale's syndicated in the street.
[14:00] Yeah.
[14:00] As a columnist, she has a pretty ideal thing.
[14:04] None of them compared to the wires.
[14:06] The one that she got out of that was 99% Alan Thomas.
[14:09] She got the pitch for it.
[14:12] Yeah.
[14:13] Because the LA Times ran the Alan Thomas thing.
[14:14] It was the front page.
[14:18] I just don't understand.
[14:21] I don't mind her.
[14:30] I just don't want to...
[14:33] If she's done something good, fine.
[14:40] I do not want Connie to be a dumb bitch.
[14:43] That's all.
[14:44] I just don't want us to be taken in, so...
[14:48] Thank God you didn't police her.
[14:52] Always police her.
[14:52] You know, she doesn't have her.
[14:53] She's just an emotional woman, like all people I've got.
[15:01] I think her judgment's very good.
[15:02] You're going to have to be around here during that wedding.
[15:06] By the way, I'm Trish's children's daughter.
[15:10] 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.
[15:21] We all understand.
[15:24] Just go the day after, not the day before.
[15:28] I dare to ask Sunday to wait until Saturday.
[15:33] Well, they don't have to be Monday, so we just have to have the children.
[15:39] They're all sitting in California.
[15:47] It's so late.
[15:50] It's 10 o'clock, I guess, and I'm not sure.
[15:55] 10 out of here, huh?
[15:57] Yes.
[15:59] Okay.
[16:00] 35 minutes.
[16:02] It's all right.
[16:05] It's all right.
[16:08] One, there's a lot of good reasons not to go to New York, but timing would have been...
[16:12] The logistics of this motorcade thing are screwed.
[16:21] Well, because we can't do anything about it.
[16:23] It's theirs, and all we can do is tie it to it.
[16:28] Maybe we'll go in and make a helicopter.
[16:33] Maybe we can help them.
[16:38] whether there's, it should be possible to get through the traffic.
[16:43] I don't know.
[16:45] We'll worry about it, Bob.
[16:46] We just do what we understand.
[16:51] I don't know what to do with these two.
[16:52] You haven't got a word yet on that thing?
[16:54] I guess you're wrong.