Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 490 › Conversation 490-009

Nixon & Haldeman on Anti-war protests and Stock market

Tuesday, May 4, 1971 · 7:55 AM–8:03 AM ET · Oval Office ·6 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")Conversation490-009 onTape 490 (tape position 01:07:08–01:13:11)StartTuesday, May 4, 1971 at 7:55 AMEndTuesday, May 4, 1971 at 8:03 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 490-009 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman met to discuss the status of anti-war protests and arrests in Washington, D.C., alongside the performance of the stock market. The President also reviewed procedures for an upcoming meeting with Republican congressional leadership, expressing a desire to avoid lengthy, unproductive sessions in favor of efficient, agenda-driven discussions. Nixon drew on his past experience with the Eisenhower administration to structure these meetings, aiming to maintain rapport with leadership while minimizing wasted time.

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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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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It was about as good as this has recovered last night.
Nothing happening this morning.
Nobody out except policemen and troops.
No action.
It's going to be hard for them.
They're going to try to get a mark on it.
They've got one judge now apparently who has issued a short cause on the arrests.
Checked it.
Checked it.
Yeah.
That's the rest of that.
I'll have the third.
That's what I was going to have.
Yeah.
Grabbed by him.
He's the left-hander.
One of the other, I noticed in Charlie's house, he's making a $250 bail.
And he would.
I don't know why I don't know that.
I don't know.
They did arrest Spock.
Well, they didn't see, they picked up Rennie Davis on a specific arrest, he had to be out and out and gone, and Spock just got bought from the General Suite.
They have him over in the, they may be out and out, they have him.
He probably works by the building.
coverage on the damage and disruption.
There's nobody, hardly anybody, there's only one, one or two that have come out for him.
Virtually everybody else is coming against him.
I saw him in Muskegon and, well, Muskegon coming up very strongly against him.
No, he just, he went off.
He said it was very, this, this person, I heard the cause.
That's a hell of a bad point.
I had a little meeting yesterday, yeah.
Brother, there's not, what, three young brats?
No.
No reason.
It's just that he's way up there.
For so long, the Bears have got to take care of the profits.
To get some big profit-taking, you get somewhere they've got to start getting people back in the market, which apparently they don't have yet.
But they have a lot of them.
Anything like what there is available, individual funds, make a good little profit.
It's a good buy.
It's too high.
It's a very good buy.
Well, they think it's, they don't want to buy it, but they think it's a hot stuff.
I made a note of that meeting this morning.
I'm sure it's not going to take too long, so it's all right.
But this morning, I wanted you to know that they've got a new procedure to provide instead of having to send it off to the courts.
Clark, you have the idea that they have an argument.
So he's going to take out each bill and have Scott report it to the board.
And on that road, I used to go through that.
Yeah, I had a hard day, you know.
You never get through a breach.
I'm sorry.
Do you watch?
too many things, Bob.
It's better to have a Senate report than a House report, rather than about anything.
A lot of meetings are a waste of time and more.
They're pure therapy.
So the thing to do is to have a little bullshit, you know, about something like McConnell in the beginning.
Something you have to get together on one issue.
Then for the whole group that would sit there and be bored to death about, God, they've got Frank Boe coming in and all the rest.
See, that would be like the cabinet show-and-tell meetings, you know.
Have Roy Santos about his trip to Guadalajara with
The purpose of it is really not that.
It's if the members don't want to hear all that bullshit.
And it's a horrible war for me.
Maybe a rigger thought it was that I didn't enjoy it, but I didn't want to hear it.
See, we want to get the meetings over as quickly as we can.
This idea was just in front of us.
It was locked in there.
The city got it.
It was to run through the negotiations.
The meetings don't even hold.
The whole time we're talking bullshit.
listening about .
But just so they, the fellows know that all these things that we have on this list, they'll remember that they are there again.
Countless people sinned against me, and the people, you know, and deceived me, and created a great crisis.
Well, it showed a lot of action.
But what do you think about that?
I'm just going to be honest with you.
I'm just going to be honest with you.
There were a lot of bad people here that were well-managed.
They didn't love to tear the men apart.
Right.

NARA Description

On May 4, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 7:55 am to 8:03 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 490-009 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 490-9

Date: May 4, 1971
Time: 7:55 am - 8:03 am
Location: Oval Office

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

[Transcript #1: A transcript of the following portion of this conversation was prepared under
court order from December 1978 through March 1979 for Special Access 8, Ronald V. Dellums,
et al. v. James M. Powell, et al., No. 71-2271. The National Archives and Records

Administration produced this transcript. The National Archives does not guarantee its accuracy.]

[End of transcript]

     Stock market
          -Performance, May 3, 1971
                -Profit-taking
                -Investors
          -Funds

     President's schedule
           -Upcoming Republican leadership meeting
                 -Length
                 -Procedures
                 -Clark MacGregor
                 -Hugh Scott
                 -Gerald R. Ford
                 -President’s experience
                       -Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration
                 -Senate and House reports
                 -Agenda
                 -Issues
                 -Frank T. Bow
                 -Cabinet meetings
                       -Maurice H. Stans
                 -MacGregor
                 -Length
                 -Agenda

       Meetings
             -Conduct
[Transcript #2: A transcript of the following portion of this conversation was prepared under
court order from December 1978 through March 1979 for Special Access 8, Ronald V. Dellums,
et al. v. James M. Powell, et al., No. 71-2271. The National Archives and Records
Administration produced this transcript. The National Archives does not guarantee its accuracy.]

[End of transcript]

The President and Haldeman left at 8:03 am.

Also recorded on May 4, 1971

  • 490-010 8:03 AM · 31 sec — Stephen B. Bull, Alexander P. Butterfield, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:03 am and 10:04 am.
  • 055-004 8:04 AM — President Richard M. Nixon, Spiro T. Agnew, and Republican Congressional leaders, including John N. Irwin, II, John B. Connally, Melvin R. Laird, Hugh Scott, Robert P. Griffin, Margaret Chase Smith, Gordon L. Allott, Norris Cotton, Milton R. Young, John G. Tower, Gerald R. Ford, Leslie C. Arends, John B. Anderson, John J. Rhodes, Richard H. Poff, Robert C. ("Bob") Wilson, Barber B. Conable, Jr., Robert T. Stafford, H. Allen Smith, Frank T. Bow, William B. Widnall, George P. Shultz, John D. Ehrlichman, Clark MacGregor, Kenneth R. BeLieu, Herbert G. Klein, Ronald L. Ziegler, Patrick J. Buchanan, and Bryce N. Harlow, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House from 8:04 am to 10:04 am.
  • 490-011 10:04 AM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Hugh Scott, Gerald R. Ford, Leslie C. Arends, Clark MacGregor, Herbert G. Klein, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:04 am to 10:12 am.
  • 490-012 10:12 AM · 18 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:12 am to 10:30 am.
  • 055-005 10:30 AM — President Richard M. Nixon and members of the President's Commission on School Finance and the President's Panel on Nonpublic Education, including Neil H. McElroy, William G. Colman, Hilda A. Davis, Dorothy M. L. Ford, Eugene Gonzales, David H. Kurtzman, Rev. William E. McManus, Wendell H. Pierce, William G. Saltonstall, William B. Thompson, Clarence Walton, Ivan E. Zylstra, Norman Karsh, Clint Pace, Terrel H. Bell, John R. Ottina, Caspar W. ("Cap") Weinberger, Joseph B. White, Phillips Grace, Paul H. O'Neill, John D. Ehrlichman, Kenneth R. Cole, Jr., Edward L. Morgan, and Dr. Sidney P. Marland, Jr., met in the Cabinet Room of the White House from 10:30 am to 11:36 am.
  • 490-013 10:30 AM · 36 sec — Stephen B. Bull and United States Secret Service agents met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:30 am and 11:36 am.
  • 490-014 11:38 AM · 23 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, David Packard, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:38 am to 12:03 pm.
  • 490-015 12:03 PM · 2 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at 12:03 pm.

All 33 conversations from May 4, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 490-009, May 4, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/490-009 (accessed September 18, 2026).