Conversation 490-002

On April 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Valerija B. Raulinaitis, Robert E. Hampton, Barbara H. Franklin, Vickie L. Keller, Jayne B. Spain, Sallyanne Payton, Frederic V. Malek, Stephen B. Bull, White House photographer, Ronald L. Ziegler, Tricia Nixon Cox, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:04 pm to 12:42 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 490-002 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 490-2

Date: April 29, 1971
Time: 12:04 pm - 12:42 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Valerija B. Raulinaitis, Robert E. Hampton, Barbara H. Franklin, Vicki
L. Keller, Jayne B. Spain, Sallyanne Payton, Frederic V. Malek, and Stephen B. Bull; the White
House photographer and members of the press were present at the beginning of the meeting.

     Introductions

     [General conversation]

           -Spain’s education
                -University of California, Berkeley

     Photo session
          -Location
          -Unknown Prime Minister

     [Camera noise]

           -Secretary of Defense
                -Melvin R. Laird
           -Congress
           -Spain's background

                -Civil Service Commission

     [Camera noise]

     [General conversation]

          -Movies

Bull and members of the press left at an unknown time before 12:23 pm.

          -President's forthcoming press conference
          -California

     Tricia Nixon
           -Look magazine

     President's schedule
           -Trip to California
                 -Photos
           -Look magazine
                 -Photographer
                       -Cotter [Howell Conant]
                       -National Broadcasting System [NBC]
           -California
                 -Atomic reactor
                 -Sea life
                       -Crabs
                       -Fish
                             -Catalina sand dab
                             -Grunion
                             -Tuna
                             -Florida Fighting Fish
                                   -Red snapper
                                   -Dollar [?]
                             -Yellowtail
                                   -Filet
                             -Catholics
                             -Catalina sand dab
                             -Fresh water
                       -Press corps

     Administration appointments

          -Women
               -Viewpoint
          -White House staff
               -Robert J. Brown
          -Views
          -Concerns
          -Assistant Secretary of Navy
                     -Minorities
                     -Views
          -Women
               -Role
               -Women's liberation
               -Advantages over men
                     -Swearing
               -Qualities
                     -Sensitivity
                     -Intuition
               -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
               -Reaction to events
               -Pragmatism
               -Emotionalism
               -Pressure
                     -Men
               -Idealism
               -Young people
                     -Idealism
               -New appointees’ possible role
                     -Speaking up
               -Money
               -Professionalism
                     -Clothes
                     -Materialism
                     -Interest in work

Bull entered at an unknown time after 12:04 pm.
      President’s schedule

Bull left at an unknown time before 12:23 pm.

     Spain's schedule
          -Upcoming speech in Chicago, April 30, 1971
                -Investors of America

                  -Attendees
                  -Equal opportunity
                  -Role of woman

      Equal opportunity
           -Women
                -Jobs
                -Treatment
                      -Respect
                      -Special qualifications
                -Intelligence
                -Creativity
                -Reaction
                -Discrimination
                -Women's liberation movement
                -Treatment

Ronald L. Ziegler entered at 12:23 pm.

      Administration appointments
          -Women
                -Responsibilities
                -Talent search
          -Spain's upcoming speech in Chicago
          -Unemployment
                -Economy
          -Recent study
          -Education
                -“Exceptional class”
                      -”Genius class”
                      -Minorities and women
                           -Use by nation

      Presentation of gifts
           -Presidential seal
           -Women
                 -Paper weights
           -Bow pins

      Hampton's performance

Raulinaitis, et al., left at 12:29 pm.

     Look magazine
          -Pictures
                -Conant
          -Cover photograph
                -Tricia Nixon

           -Tricia Nixon's schedule

Tricia Nixon entered and Bull left at 12:30 pm.

           -Cover photograph
                 -California
                 -Deadline
           -Timing
           -Picture
           -The President’s schedule
                 -April 30, 1971
                 -California trip
                 -April 30, 1971
           -Photographer
                 -Conant
                 -Location
           -President's schedule
                 -Meeting

Ziegler left at 12:33 pm.

           -Pictures
           -Trip to California
           -Ziegler
           -Pictures
           -Press photos
                 -Carl M. Yastrzemski
                 -Award

[The President talked with an unknown person at an unknown time between 12:33 pm and 12:42
pm]

[Conversation No. 490-2A]

     William P. Rogers
          -United Nations [UN]
          -Memorandum
                -State Department
                -George H.W. Bush

     Vietnam
          -Negotiations
          -Withdrawal deadline

Ziegler entered at an unknown time after 12:33 pm.

     President's schedule
           -Photos with Tricia Nixon

The President, Tricia Nixon, and Ziegler left at 12:42 pm.

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.

Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, but I guess it was you and Harriet that were meeting.
Oh, you were on the magazine.
Yes.
You were on the magazine, huh?
Right.
You graduated from Amherst, didn't you?
Yes.
Have you ever been back?
No.
Yeah.
I want to be in Amherst.
Yeah.
You need to go sometime.
We'll see.
It will be, uh, it's a job.
But, uh... No.
I won't be in that job.
Yeah.
Here's your order.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Mr. President, the press would like to take a vote.
Mr. President, the press would like to take a vote.
You don't rank anybody.
You must serve in civil service.
to tell you that we're glad you came with us.
the darkness of the past, and of the future.
All right.
You're going to go to California the next day?
That's hard.
All two days.
Oh, and I guess one of the major events we're going to have on Saturday.
Chris is going to be on the cover of the look.
So I'm going to have some pictures taken in California.
You mean more look for the article?
I want to get a little look for the commercial.
They said a photographer's going to come out with his name.
I thought I could look at the atomic reactor or something like that.
Also, they taught me there's some very good planets out there.
I can't believe it.
What is the good of the show?
Not really.
But most people, if you really do want to, if you ask a Californian, it's a strange little animal called a Catalina sandag, which is a tiny little fish, almost the size of a sardine, and it just eats it, you know.
And then, of course, the other thing, your grunting, which you just, you won't describe it with grunting, because you guess nobody would believe it.
And not necessarily, I speak as one who is not a grunting, but generally speaking, I think that except for the big fish like that tuna, that they catch on there, that you don't have all the money
quite is comparable to the flora of white fishes like the red snappers and the dolphins.
The water's probably too cold for them.
The calamari fish are not likely to take yellowtail.
to be good is to be rather small, about so big.
And you pull that, pull that out, and all the other different fishing nets, which goes to, I'm just proving that I can fish.
I could have been a captain before the boat caved in.
Or I'll be a grouch, or I'll be a grouch.
Or I'll be a grouch.
Usually they serve them
So, you know, they get so obsessed with the fishermen.
So all these guys, he's pressing the blame on them.
They go out on the boat.
They get sick.
Well, I can't.
Well, coming back to you, I can show you that.
And having said that, of course, you don't want this, as you've indicated it.
We do not want to have a situation where women are put on because they are women, period.
And that doesn't make any sense.
As a matter of fact, there is a fine line between other constructions.
On the other hand, it is important that you bring the woman's viewpoint, you see.
Like, for example, we have
We have people like Bob Brown, our White House staff, who's black.
And I had him on the staff.
They were, I don't care why.
It doesn't make any difference.
But on the other hand, I expect Bob to reflect, for me, the views of people who have those concerns.
And we invited a Navy
Assistant Secretary of the Council of California yesterday announced his appointment.
Now he'll go on, he'll be Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but on the other hand, he will be expected naturally to reflect the views of
and those that we would like to get in, which may not be properly reflected today.
And that's what we want you to do.
So speak up.
You don't think the women are getting fresh if you say so.
And we'll listen.
And we think, actually, that we get far more that way, too, and sort of playing in the woman's lip way, if I may say so.
I know a quarter of women's lips, except to say that
I think a woman has enormous advantages over women in competition with men.
Just as a man has enormous advantages over a woman in competition with women.
But you must use them.
A woman makes a mistake when she tries to say, well, I'm just like a man.
For example,
gets up gets drunk swears and all that sort of thing that people say well that's kind of masculine and they forget the woman gets up and gets drunk and swears and all that sort of thing but she doesn't quite come off as well that doesn't sound puritanical really does it just stay in the back
and also with their, and basically intuition.
Intuition is something that you will learn.
We've got a lot of right people around here, just don't think me.
When I speak tonight, for example, I talk to my wife at night, and there are reactions to events that are quite different from those
Even though they are exposed, they read the same articles and so forth and so on, and they just react to the women's page address.
But the point is that they have an intuition, a feeling about how people are going to feel in the heart rather than just the head.
It tends to be more pragmatic.
pragmatic business line, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Or people, while I would say, I would generalize, many men are quite emotional.
And cannot, they cave under pressure, and they can't be cool, and they're going to stop.
And many of them are very strong under pressure.
So what, generally speaking, women tend to be, tends to be, as a general rule, more idealistic.
Idealistic, I mean by that,
And, well, a woman can be quite pragmatic and say, well, if we can't get this through, we'll have to compromise it all.
It's like, oh, here's the idea of what's working.
And when you, I think in particular when you think of younger people, the younger generation today, they tend to be, it's either black or white, you know, we've got to do this and that or the other thing.
And so I think that you can help a great deal in your various ways to give an administration a heart if we have another one.
So women in government and women out of government very long, all these things are necessary.
But the main thing is to speak up.
You've got to say it.
And if you do, you've got to listen.
That's one of the great advantages of the... And so, because you all enjoy your work, you've got to get more money.
You could...
In all this, it doesn't really make all that difference.
Let me put it this way.
In the kind of work you're in, you're all professionals.
The professional must think, you know, you've got to have enough clothes, and you've got to make these materials that don't tell anybody, tell you that everybody doesn't.
And if you're people that fly, the toughest place is the negotiator.
and they negotiate with people in college, faculty, boy, those people, they start a whole idea.
And all that.
But the true professional is one who is more interested in what he does, you know, what he gets.
And in the long run, that means that he's going to get more.
So if you could just come here, what am I doing?
I'd rather be, for example, I'd rather be working for an interesting person or a farmer than the other.
Okay.
I'm going to say in a speech tomorrow before the investors of America, and there will be about 1,000 women and 3,000 men, but talking about why women should have an equal opportunity to compete for the jobs and to demonstrate their ability, some of the very things you said, I am saying, and I'm ending up with, a woman should never emulate a man.
She should always look like a woman
She should act like a lady.
She should work like a dog.
I'm sorry, but you can also label it as you want.
I can do it.
You can cut it by the dog.
I want to tell you that one of my favorite ways of putting it is that wonderful song, McNeil.
Why can't a woman be like a man?
And he sends that song, Why Can't a Woman Be Like a Man?
But the moral of the story is he married a pretty girl.
And the question is that these days, people say, why can't a woman be like a man?
The greatest mistake a woman could make.
A woman must be treated with the same respect.
Women have special qualifications.
They are different.
And, boy, if I were, I mean, whenever I'm there, whenever you find somebody there, the thing to do is to always play your strings.
I want a woman who's like a woman.
And that doesn't mean I didn't want her.
Where did she stay?
I mean, you want it in brains and creativity and all these other things.
That's what we're looking for.
But I understand the reaction, you know, of those that say, well, the women have gotten a bad shake, and there has been discrimination, and they aren't treated the same.
So one of those that goes to the extreme and says, well, gee whiz, by God, we'll be like men, and we'll get treated like men.
You don't want that.
What you want to do is to be like women, and you might be treated better than men.
She does badly.
She closes the door.
Mr. President, we'll do all we can to find more where we'd like to go.
Good.
Well, you do.
And that's the other thing you can talk about with the people in Chicago.
Now, at the present time, everybody's concerned about, you know, there's a high, you know, in my area, a relatively high, really coming down to the state of Congress.
But the important thing is that, did you realize that there's a study, a recent study that's shown, and these studies go back, is that
No matter, and this is a complete, uh, this is a complete, uh, uh, difference.
You know, with the, you know, with all of you who read H.G.
Wells' Outlander History, you know, it's a negative, it's, it's probably the best show of history in the world, everyone agrees.
But, as he gets to the end, I mean, probably when he's older, he goes on in this case, and the answer to all of those problems is education.
As people become educated, better educated, they will not fight.
Uh, they will become, you know, a little raised up.
Now,
That is, this isn't an argument for saying education is not good.
It is very good.
It's very important.
It is an argument for this one point.
Studies have been made that no matter what the level of education, what the level of education, the number in the exceptional class, or shall we call it the lack of, in better terms, the genius class, in all societies remains the props that you say.
Now and then, to see what education will do, it will find in a society, you know, a kid, for example, on a gavel or something, not a guy who hasn't had a chance to make his sculling.
But in terms of that, the really exceptional person, that person's got an extra something.
There are only a few.
Now, in that exceptional class, our great number went.
And in Asia, therefore,
their department, the workforce, and all the other tasks and so forth, the nation, any nation, if it is to go forward, that can afford to have any exceptional people, whether they're women, whether they're members of minority groups, or anybody else, who are not used.
In other words, the exceptional people, because the number is small, it's about 6%.
This is a, I'm very sociologist.
Let me give you a little credit before you go.
Let's see.
Here we have it here.
You've got the seals.
You see the seal here.
That's the mark.
Let's see.
I don't know if this is going to help us.
The two were here last.
It's very nice.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, right.
You see the records they made in school?
Yeah.
and I can get us to something so you don't have to need them.
Are you ready?
Well, good.
I've done a great job, Bob, and I appreciate it.
And this is a good appointment.
Yes, sir.
Bye.
Sir?
We looked at the pictures you got this morning.
I agree with him that if he had five more minutes on the cover shot, then he could do a better job.
We can do it first thing in the morning, but I wasn't invited to have to do it.
Yeah.
Well, come on in here.
Why don't we go to California?
Can you do that?
You can't do the cover because the cover deadline is pretty much done.
The inside of the lock can be done.
All right.
Monday.
We can do it tomorrow morning, you know.
We can do it two times now or one more day.
We can just do it.
Maybe 12.
No.
We can do it.
Oh, now we can do it.
Stop it one more day until Saturday?
No, they can't.
They have all the insights of what they're doing.
What, what, what, you know, 12 hours.
I don't know.
I didn't get much of a picture now, but I don't know.
How do they do it tomorrow?
Is he going to get from here to the plane?
No, what he needs is simply the two of you standing.
He doesn't need to walk in front of me standing in front of Linda's seat.
Yeah, I know, I know.
How about you?
What does he... What does he want?
I can use it when he's gone, can't I?
It's all right.
It's all right.
It would be worth an additional five.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just thinking, though, if he doesn't get a good one now...
It acts like it's very usable, isn't it?
The moment, what he has now is useful.
Do you have a question about that?
No.
You have so much on your mind, is that it?
Did you just think that you... Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Hey, I'll ask you here.
Just think of the time.
It would be the best time to do it.
Where is he?
I think they got something usable.
I'm going to look at them after this.
Good.
Going down to look at them.
You take a look at them, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Wait, you see, he's a perfectionist.
He's really great.
I can get too much on your mind just to think about a photograph.
No, go ahead.
Here you go.
Yeah, you've only just taken a photo of us.
What do you think?
It's great.
Yeah, there are some great photos.
Fantastic.
Yeah, I'm quite surprised.
Yeah, you've got a great agenda, if you know what I'm saying.
But they don't always respond to us very well.
Well, that may mean that to you.
I know, but just in interviews or something like that.
You know, this is my fellow Corrie Straxby Gators award.
Who could have known?
Huh?
Huh?
You didn't need to tell me about the money.
What?
OK.
They would negotiate, you say, I think.
Yeah, okay, bye.
All right, all set.
Okay, sir.
There was a time when this was going to get better.
Because they're all human.