On May 5, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Melvin R. Laird met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:27 am and 10:30 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 491-020 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello?
I want to see how your repair job came.
Fine.
Fine.
Why don't you hold me up?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
That's great.
That's the stuff.
Good, good.
Good.
I know, I know.
Well, as a matter of fact, the, uh, the, uh, if you noticed, they handled the military very well.
I'm, uh, I'm awfully glad.
Because, you know, we've got to give high marks to Mitchell and, uh, and the chief of police we just told you a good one.
He has been excellent.
He, he's used his strength, but he's used it with great effort.
The military that follows him have been just superb.
They've, uh, wasted a lot of time in our lead.
It's, uh,
He was the key man over there.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, well, we're going to see that all the people that participated get those notes.
They get some consultations and all that kind of thing.
When it's over, if they're going to Congress today, I hope they go into a few of our friends' offices.
They might stir up.
I think it's put them on a hell of a spot.
You know, some of those guys are really moaning that they got out front too early and endorsed the demonstration.
You see?
Don't you think?
Mutt, Mutt, Muskie and Teddy and the rest, because these people don't sit.
Well, they have to back away, but you know, for the average person now, he doesn't separate them.
It was just a demonstration, you know.
The one really that was affecting and against us was the Veterans Hunt because of that.
But since then, this group, God, was a horrible-looking bunch of people.
I'm telling you, they just look so bad that people there kind of just throw up their hands.
look all parts well anyway you take care of yourself and you've got a pretty day and get i know you are i'm going to i'm going to hold the i have a date back at the end today with the chief with mark and that's a thumbs up thing you know it's really apparently it's just a rich split on that between the chiefs and paid
And so I thought I'd wait until you got out and maybe you and David and Henry and Mark and I better crash around a little bit more on it.
I tell you the real problem I have with it at this time, I think that these recommendations, which I assume you would support his recommendation for getting rid of the command,
is the right long-range thing.
The problem I have right now is that the Latinos are all worried about whether we're paying attention to them, and also the military being about our opening.
Well, some of them aren't any good either, but they're being, as they are, some are ace of strength.
It's a question as to whether our timing is exactly the right thing right now.
That's really what we want to think about.
Try to do that, and
In fact, now I wouldn't have any problem on that.
I think the military assistance guys should be a force of our man, to be myself.
It's a hell of an important thing under the Nixon doctrine.
We cannot back away from this.
And frankly, if you want to move in that direction, I'll support it.
Yeah, yeah.
I will hold, I'm gonna hold this commissar up until you get back, all right?
There's no, you don't have to decide it this week, do we?
And you can tell both John Moore and Ian Spine had it there.
They were just great, but they, my God, they just disagreed.
And so I sat there and thought about it and said, well, I'll wait.
David's here, of course, and I'm listening now.
And there's the West Coast.
But it seems to me that this is something that you, just a small group, you...
I don't think we ought to get stated on it.
Basically, I think it should be you, Henry, and maybe Orr and Packard and myself.
Don't you think so?
And then let's talk about what it really gets down to is the foreign policy implication.
We get to Latin America at the present time, and as far as state is concerned, the reason I'm not taking this to Latin America is that they, Mel, don't really, I'm not speaking to Bill, but I'm referring to
Meyer and his group, they are really for military assistance out there, you know.
And I am.
Well, that's the point.
You see, I am for it, and I don't want this to appear to be a cutback, to appear to be a cutback in the military attitude.
I just don't think that's the right way of selling this.
Okay.
But we'll have a real plan next week sometime.
Okay.