Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 468-019
Date: Tuesday, March 16, 1971 at 5:47 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Butterfield, Alexander P.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/468-019
National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/417176213 (NAID 417176213)

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Oh, that's great.
[0:28] Mr. Morrison, Terry Wilson, and all the others.
[0:45] There are four different acts.
[0:58] This is just, there's already some here too, I don't know if you can see.
[1:18] There's one of us in there.
[1:19] Oh, I didn't see it there.
[1:20] Oh, you can give it to him, I'll do it.
[1:20] I think he forgot.
[1:21] He didn't realize he had to do this.
[1:28] What's this?
[1:39] Decoration.
[1:40] Decoration.
[1:40] Decoration.
[1:40] Decoration.
[2:03] Yes.
[2:34] Yes, sir.
[3:12] I don't suppose you have any word I can do with you on that?
[3:18] Yes sir.
[3:18] The word nicer sack, buffalo, or eater, it could be either one, and if you want to attend it, they will put it when you want it.
[3:26] At least that's Hope's feeling, that if you want to go, they will.
[3:30] Hope knows exactly what you're talking about.
[3:38] I don't see how the hell I can avoid it.
[3:57] Do you?
[3:58] I mean, after all, I've been back for barely twice.
[4:02] Oh, that's right.
[4:02] I'm not sure if I can go running off again, if you don't hold me.
[4:03] Yes, well, you move into a Saturday, which would be the thing to do.
[4:05] Sure.
[4:05] If you cared to be going out on a Saturday, it wouldn't be so bad.
[4:08] They're getting better than me and they are, right?
[4:32] I guess you could have them here.
[4:33] I don't.
[4:33] All right.
[4:33] I really don't think so.
[4:34] Even though I don't think you would.
[4:34] Well, we just have to take that in there.
[4:35] We can't be worried about demonstrators.
[4:36] That's the first thing.
[4:37] Write it out in there.
[4:40] He lived in pretty much a church in the city.
[4:58] He had some heart problem or something.
[4:59] He was in a heart...
[5:15] Yeah, it's just one .
[5:35] We were asked today whether or not would the position .
[5:39] John suggested we say that there was a discussion regarding the .
[5:40] There was no formal offer made because it was indicated that he was not available at that time for .
[5:43] He was excited to get a support from the chair.
[5:44] I should say the president .
[5:45] where he would consider a position in the cabinet or in the head of the position in the government.
[5:59] So he did not want to consider one.
[6:00] That's essentially what we said at the time.
[6:02] That's what we said at the time.
[6:03] You can refer back to what I said at the time.
[6:04] The question did come up.
[6:04] It came up.
[6:05] It's already been answered.
[6:05] That's why I remember exactly what I said.
[6:06] He would consider a position.
[6:07] He said, no, he felt that his work in the government was more important than anything he did in the government.
[6:10] And he was very cooperative in working with us.
[6:31] He was cooperative in his transition period before government and so forth.
[6:36] All right.
[6:36] Well, anyway, if you do want to do the doing, you may want to go back to the time when we should move on.
[6:52] I wonder if this is the first thing we should do to her.
[7:06] You're right.
[7:06] It's not a problem with the damn thing.
[7:07] She told us to get something done.
[7:09] We'll go over it.
[7:09] We'll see if they can send her out and get us out on the 19th.
[7:13] I'll let you know before it comes out.
[7:16] You see the floor we announced?
[7:18] We'll know.
[7:18] I know.
[7:18] We'll know in the E.T.
[7:19] We wouldn't wait until then to announce the president.
[7:20] We haven't announced it anyway.
[7:27] We got rid of the two of us and the standing standards.
[7:48] We want to do a press conference next week.
[7:49] We've got a project going on in 2016.
[7:50] Good, that's the day.
[7:50] You've got the standing standards the night before.
[7:52] True, but I mean the very day before, except for the social days, the standing standards.
[7:53] All right, thank you.
[7:56] That's three weeks.
[8:16] That'll call the eight.
[8:29] How about this?
[8:51] You want to make a press conference?
[8:52] I've got something tomorrow night, but the diacos wouldn't do it in an NFL.
[8:56] I could just throw it around.
[8:57] Create a new actor, and then I have to do that, and then I already have the time.
[9:03] And I don't have to worry about it in some way.
[9:17] I don't have to worry about it either way.
[9:18] I just don't want to have the uncertainty of it.
[9:19] If it turns out to be a number that I have, I don't want that to be the news, you understand?
[9:26] I'll hypo up with a press conference if I, if I go, you know, hypo or overwrite it.
[9:28] I don't know about that.
[9:28] There's only one question.
[9:31] Saying that it's bad, you just don't say anything.
[9:49] You don't make news with it.
[9:50] Well, I have to trust them to do it, but they didn't actually say anything.
[9:52] It was Saturday.
[9:52] It was Saturday.
[9:52] They couldn't.
[9:53] I learned to copy.
[9:53] It was Saturday.
[10:05] I would do the mayor's thing, of course.
[10:13] You know, we send boss to the mayor's, you know, show you the typical of our problems that are, you know, I would do the manager, the inspector, the computer, you know.
[10:18] But we always get that.
[10:30] They keep saying, you know, my God, I have to do this.
[10:33] I have to move guard.
[10:35] I mean, in various places, the mayor's new presence and so forth.
[10:37] And I just feel here that I don't think the Ziggler's office has enough of, they have enough chapter person.
[10:40] I'm like, could you maybe get a list of...
[10:41] This Ziggler's office, the problem with this one is answering with the mayor's.
[10:44] Which you guys, which you guys, no, we'd love to say, but I mean, we can counteract it, but what, I'm astonished that we wouldn't, but the, John said we'd met when we agreed, and I said, my God, I can remember.
[11:05] He said, I didn't meet with Lindsey for, that's true, about a year, but now we were back with Lugar, we were in the Anaheim Mayors for a few years.
[11:11] You recall, I can remember,
[11:16] He had eight meetings, maybe.
[11:42] We haven't met with the mayor's committee.
[12:05] Let's be sure that our guys, when I do have this, let's be sure that that's okay.
[12:35] I don't know why we have the meetings unless it's for that purpose.
[12:49] Who has charge of that, for example?
[12:49] Where is that material?
[12:51] So that I know, you know, where it is.
[12:55] Yeah, the meetings.
[12:56] Yeah, like, you know, that works.
[12:58] Everybody around has a copy of it.
[13:02] And then we have through the archives office, we can run through and get the specific answer on any questions.
[13:25] How many congressmen or how many mayors or whatever it is.
[13:54] Somebody, a transit clerk, somebody was squealed and discriminated in some way and not having people on the plane went down.
[14:06] I'm sure he got into some anger and a lie.
[14:07] That plane went from South Africa, you see, and the people that went over and the people that came back were all selected by Mrs. Young, right?
[14:27] And so, but they were charged with deletion, so we had not let certain people on and so forth and so on.
[14:30] Some of those people were not strong enough to, I mean, I said, Roger, well, good God, I hope he answered.
[14:33] He said, well, the Trump administration had that too, but it was great to have seen that change.
[14:36] Well, this guy in Boston, at one point they tried to keep Ramsey Park, but it was asked.
[14:43] Well, maybe that was that somebody had instructions that he was not clearly trained on anything or something.
[14:49] And Rumsfeld overruled that because he was...
[14:51] He can see an issue being made of it on the scene.
[14:59] Clark was the guy that pulled him out of the ocean.
[15:00] He says, you know, wanted Clark on the plane, so they put him on the plane.
[15:03] And he came on the plane.
[15:04] Somebody gave him a seat so that he could come on the plane.
[15:11] The plane was full.
[15:12] Is that right?
[15:12] Yeah.
[15:12] Don told me this when we got back.
[15:14] You know, he had...
[15:15] made the decision at boot camp because he thought it was this exactly, to avoid exactly this kind of thing.
[15:24] This stuff, those bastards, there's just no way you can win.
[15:28] You know, it's just impossible.
[15:32] They talk to you and then they challenge you.
[15:36] Talk to her and be nice to them and then they turn against you.
[15:44] Of course that's uh, I wondered if you would take that Moynihan letter and get it to Flanagan.
[16:05] And I'm planning on serving, you know, Jesus Christ, if anybody's a businessman, I've seen where they run out of our ears around here, you know.
[16:12] And I thought we were doing reasonably well there, you know.
[16:16] Stans is another one, maybe he could do it.
[16:19] Maybe we got the business council people, you know, I think that's why we've been doing it, correct?
[16:24] I'm inclined to think that it could be an overreaction on the standpoint of Moynihan.
[16:34] He going down, talking to people, talking to him, commiserating about repression and all that sort of thing.
[16:45] would you put a plan in place to work on it?
[16:49] I think what plan is in order to do it, in order to develop sort of a, I've got the business community to be able to be that thankful.
[16:57] We're here fighting the battles all the time.
[17:00] Is there something where, is there something that's wrong there possibly?
[17:04] Or maybe it is this thing, is what I may be right.
[17:12] Anything?
[17:12] Maybe the problem is something there that we're not able to fathom.
[17:18] Well, can't solve it.
[17:24] I thought maybe planning it would get at it, but it's only his promises, not even Stan's.
[17:32] Stan's giving him some work.
[17:34] That porch to the right left, he wrote an elephant when I saw it.
[17:37] I was thinking, that's pretty good on that issue.
[17:41] I think what you're talking about there is a little, you know, Nixon team in the business community.
[17:51] They get every count.
[17:52] It's the same kind of thing as you're talking about in another area.
[17:56] I'm thinking about, frankly, loyalists.
[17:57] We need a group of loyalists who, you know, speak up.
[17:58] Loyalists in the Congress.
[18:01] Loyalists in the National Committee.
[18:03] Loyalists among the governors.
[18:06] Loyalists among the business community.
[18:07] A few in other areas.
[18:10] I will get together with the Metropolitan.
[18:18] And that's why I want you to get along with you.
[18:20] You have a few loyalists there.
[18:20] And some excellent people.
[18:24] I'm sorry we didn't have a meeting today, but I could not so I decided not to.
[18:26] He's going?
[18:26] 615, Dibby.
[18:26] Yeah, I'm on it.
[18:28] I'm going to see those people.
[18:31] I think that I should vote for Dewey, thank you.
[18:43] Do you agree?
[18:44] I feel the same.
[18:45] If you think so, yeah.
[18:50] Not much.
[18:50] I rather feel it on that point.
[18:51] To be perfectly frank, to draw the line, I wouldn't vote for Ronald Lewis.
[18:54] I wouldn't vote for this guy.
[18:55] Or Dewey Wallace.
[18:55] I wouldn't vote for this guy.
[18:57] Dewey is a public figure, presidential.
[18:57] He ran for president five years ago.
[18:59] That's the reason.
[19:00] has been an advisor to you over the years, over 23 years you've been there.
[19:12] I don't know because I've been in Congress since 1948, actually.
[19:18] And you kind of, as president, you consulted with him often.
[19:21] I wouldn't put a claim, there's some merit to it in that it kind of washes your hands of the young people in a sense, too.
[19:27] I hadn't thought of that.
[19:33] I mean, I went to two of them.
[19:34] Well, the people that wonder why the hell you went to Whitney Young's, because it was great and you went to Tom Dewey's.
[19:41] Put it this way.
[19:41] You know, they had these things running, so I could shoot them and wonder what the hell's the president doing with them, and people would talk about it.
[19:47] Well, Don Johnson used to go, well, I don't do that as much, but let me put it this way.
[19:50] Yeah.
[19:52] I didn't go to Dewey's after going to Young's.
[20:02] People, that's what I'm really on about.
[20:03] That's the part that you need to know.
[20:05] I think it was actually a good, God Almighty thing of Dewey's friends.
[20:09] Now, they said, first of all, you've got to relax on the vengeance against us.
[20:12] And we've got to use those loyal friends to support her.
[20:15] That's right.
[20:15] And it's just cold as that.
[20:15] And you're right.
[20:16] You're right about that.
[20:17] You cannot do it.
[20:17] That's why I let her on the side of the study.
[20:18] I think I should go.
[20:26] So I'll go Saturday.
[20:27] They will have it on Saturday afternoon.
[20:34] They might do it Friday afternoon.
[20:34] If it'd be Friday afternoon, the later the better.
[20:37] You know, I'd just do the damn press thing and go right along, you know.
[20:40] Say it'd be late Friday afternoon, or it'd be, say, 4 o'clock.
[20:42] Well, they suggest this, you know, the question of Friday or Saturday, and if you had any preference, they would adjust to your preference.
[20:47] I think Saturday is better than I should say Saturday morning.
[21:03] It looks better too.
[21:04] Yeah, I mean it's, it's a funny time.
[21:05] It's Wednesday and Saturday.
[21:06] I argue that there's less for anything for that matter for our demonstrations.
[21:10] There's even less chance on Saturday than there are probably.
[21:11] A lot of people are in there on Saturdays.
[21:14] They're sort of set off.
[21:15] Thank you, Bennett.
[21:15] When you go to a team of people that are
[21:18] I don't know.
[21:29] I guess they demonstrated anything and just don't give a damn.
[21:37] Nope.
[21:37] I hope the demonstrations are period.
[21:42] But I'll be frank with you.
[21:42] I've never felt just a technical problem.
[21:43] It's very much for our advantage until we screw it up.
[21:44] I did it from the other end.
[21:45] If you run away from these things,
[21:54] I told John this.
[21:55] I said to him, I said, look, I'll do the mayor's, but I thought I wanted an honor.
[22:05] He hadn't been looked at, and he did get treated an honor, but I said, well, it was just awful.
[22:14] John said it was just awful.
[22:14] Did he think so?
[22:14] Yeah.
[22:15] He didn't know how bad they are.
[22:15] I mean, this was a report from Volpe.
[22:16] Yeah, it was.
[22:16] It's Volpe.
[22:18] It's Volpe.
[22:18] I hope he wandered all over the world and then stands to explain how he got sick and the Air Force flew to the Greeks in Kenya.
[22:27] They should see that it don't matter to us.
[22:29] We don't care what is happening in Kenya and what is happening in Nicaragua, and nobody cares.
[22:34] And there was nothing of importance to be discussed.
[22:37] I'm purely self-serving.
[22:40] It's exactly like we used to back in the civilian life.
[22:47] Whenever somebody went to Hawaii for a two-week vacation, they'd come back with 30 trays of slides.
[22:54] They'd go to their house for dinner and look at the slides of their trip to Hawaii.
[23:00] There's nothing to go to.
[23:00] Oh boy, I've never shown you home.
[23:02] You look at them yourself and you think it's great, but nobody else has the slightest interest.
[23:18] And that's the same with your trip.
[23:23] I said, I don't need to do anything in terms of these kids writing.
[23:25] I don't know what I'm going to do with these sons.
[23:27] Oh, I'm not going to write the letters.
[23:28] I think if you go to the time, you don't have a widow, so there's no... That's right.
[23:31] The sons are far away from me.
[23:34] People that really matter are not his family, it's his own generation of associates.
[23:41] It's a whole generation.
[23:42] But there's all that crowd that do matter in their own way.
[23:52] Francis, if something happens to him, I'm happy to hear it.
[23:57] But it seems to me you've got to go to the Germans if something happens to you.
[23:59] I don't know.
[23:59] Oh, I think so.
[24:10] They'll have to draw some kind of line.
[24:11] I don't know what his plan is.
[24:12] We ought to find that out.
[24:14] We ask him.
[24:14] I don't know.
[24:15] We'll find out.
[24:15] We ask him.
[24:15] Truman, I'd like to try this.
[24:16] I just do a memorial service here.
[24:16] I wouldn't go out here.
[24:17] I wouldn't go to Texas.
[24:17] General, it's not a good thing to go, Truman, honestly.
[24:19] This idea that this is a good way to go to Kentucky is not a good way to go.
[24:21] Oh, hell no.
[24:22] You can't go to the fence, you can't get a good picture.
[24:29] This doesn't give you any good news as far as Kentucky is concerned at all.
[24:39] You are in the Iowa South or anything else.
[24:40] Russell did do good.
[24:41] I think so.
[24:41] Yeah, because it was a different thing.
[24:43] They attributed to him.
[24:43] Well, he was a symbol of the South and had a lot of benefit.
[24:52] He covered it down.
[25:02] No, I'll go do this.
[25:04] If we can get him over in an hour and a half.
[25:06] I brought this for him.
[25:08] He said, I told John, I told the mayor, I said, I just can't sit through another two-hour reading or anything.
[25:13] He said, why do you have to sit in to read them?
[25:15] Why can't they be read first and then be come in?
[25:17] John just said that about that.
[25:21] You know, it's a funny thing.
[25:22] Everybody in this office, even a whole lot of John, was close to everything.
[25:27] I mean, for his own pitch, I got to be through the whole week.
[25:30] I cannot leave the meeting.
[25:44] I cannot leave the meeting.
[25:44] I cannot leave the meeting.
[25:45] You know what I mean?
[25:45] You know, these NSC meetings.
[25:46] We really thought that was kind of ridiculous.
[25:47] Henry won't have a meeting with my son in person.
[25:55] We are, but on this, it's all right.
[26:07] You're on your chance to make it an hour.
[26:11] And I'll go sit for an hour.
[26:12] But the reason is, the reason is, that's why I did the reason, it's sort of tragic.
[26:14] The reason is that they build up an idea which is false.
[26:16] The fact that I do not deal with Mainers.
[26:17] So I gotta go spend another hour with Mainers, and I've already spent hundreds of hours, well, stories of these.
[26:20] I've been, I said, who's got that many, you know, listen to those dumb Mainers.
[26:23] All this country, you know that.
[26:26] What the hell are the regional meetings about?
[26:28] Some of them.
[26:30] Some of them.
[26:33] But I'm sure they have, you know, this group that's looking into this.
[26:41] I understand the need for you to be in the briefing.
[26:45] I do see the point that you've got to meet with a group of mayors at some point, symbolically, on record of sharing at this time.
[26:49] I agree.
[26:49] I agree.
[26:55] I'm at 11, John.
[27:18] It's very heavy load there.
[27:18] I'm going to move this.
[27:19] I'm going to move this.