On May 8, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Walter E. Washington, Jerry V. Wilson, Hugh McClellan Exton, Roland Merrill Gleszer, Charles Southward, John W. Dean, III, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:15 am to 10:32 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 494-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
He got quiet.
He said, you know, he's over here.
All right, sir.
He had a little fire.
He had all these.
He was here on.
He was going a little watching.
He's taping in Governor Wallace.
and Maddox, and I don't know.
It's not the key.
But that's not, that's not volatile.
The greatest, you mean, where do they meet?
They start that fourth offensive line, you march up that view and come down to the line there.
The greatest problem with them is always dancing around these crowd estimates, so he doesn't, he's only down in that area, give them a little, it doesn't make any difference.
Well, I wanted to have you all come in for the purpose of
of expressing my appreciation to each of you individually for your own leadership, but also to ask you to convey to the people, the many I've already talked to, the mayor, the chief about this, but the rest of you too, to convey to all the people in your own shops.
This sort of thing I'm referring to the whole period here is one where it has to be a combination of firmness and restraint.
And it's a galloping line.
It's a very galloping line.
Oh, and it, of course, requires leadership at the top.
It also requires remarkable poise by these people on the Air Force and the Armed Forces and the rest.
They're very provoked by people here.
You know, these people are policing here.
And the rest, you know, sit there and take the hand of the web.
But nobody was seriously injured.
This is a very great training machine.
Washington, for example, here.
I was talking to the Attorney General yesterday, and he said, some of the countries, he said, well, this Washington, for example, maybe we can have problems in the same way.
Because this is just where there are all these people in the race all about something.
And I said, Washington, well, and here, of course, we're as concerned as we are about the fact that these people are
It's a tourist trade down to a minimum.
And I hate the feeling, though, that now Washington is a city in which crime rate at least has been checked and somewhat received.
In fact, that's a very good thing to get out across the country.
This is a city where if they want to protest, they can't.
They're going to behave.
If they don't behave, they're going to go to jail.
It's awful.
So that's what I think is what we've gotten across very effectively.
Yes, sir.
We have some men who, they can't pay, we pay no overtime for the rank of deputy chief, and so once the men get the solid level of the depth of an assistant chief, their overtime is stopped.
They continue working, but they don't get paid.
I see.
So I understand that Congressman Borg was going to introduce legislation to resolve the problem.
Do you have a law board?
Yes, sir.
Yes.
We had about 48,000 hours on Monday and 41,000 hours on, as far as we can check, on Tuesday.
Wednesday figures are not all in, but it dropped off after that.
But this is, as far as we can put together, this is not just the services of the President.
This is 100,000 hours overtime just related to the demonstration.
How does it make $2 million cost for the price?
$2 million.
And then directly now, I think you'll see, you're going to feel a little front of your head.
This is an overtime, not in the cost of the word overtime.
It's an overtime amount.
Yes, I agree.
It's just overtime.
The hours I was giving him, just straight overtime.
It's fantastic.
Do you have any sense of what it costs to hold them?
Well, you can't tell.
The military costs must be the non-partners.
I used Bob, he had a lot of field training, so we wouldn't have used that anyway.
So theoretically, Mr. President, there's no additional cost from the DC National Guard.
Yeah.
We've got some valuable training.
You could do it anyway, yeah.
I'm not interested.
I think we're always concerned.
Yeah.
From the military point of view, I think principal costs were the airlift required and troops up here.
Well, you had to bring them up by air.
Yes, sir.
Or they got them up here on time.
They got to run, ran well over them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The damage.
Yeah, I can imagine the damage.
Of course, you never, you never can get any estimate on the damages, you know.
People, those are, it's all so personal to the people here.
You're going to knock over, you know, spread stuff in the streets.
Mr. President, this time, with the nature of the situation, the disruptive characteristics,
I know our citizens, particularly our businessmen, have called me just, well, a lot of them said, glorious.
He's not given them that kind of language.
But he was pleased we didn't lose.
I mean, I don't know.
I think he was going to lose.
Nobody was killed.
And these are important things.
The city moved.
pretty much with some inconvenience, as it would, although in the center of it you had a disruption.
But municipal services went ahead, as my experts and people told me, the sanitation services were better among the exits and the outlying regions of the city.
But, you know, it's hard to think about with the nature of this, with 14,000 arrests.
and your city moves along.
The only thing that they succeeded in doing was overcrowding our jails, and I don't know whether that relates to Vietnam.
I couldn't make that.
You know, one observation, sir, that I think is worth bringing up here is the quality of the soldiers.
We brought soldiers in from all over the country, the East Coast, and of course there's some in this local area.
It's been sundown, as you know, about professionalism and so on.
Gee, I was really impressed with the professionalism attitude, the fact that these youngsters, even though they're dealing with their own peers, didn't seem to bother too much.
How many were in?
10,000.
10,000?
On National Guard?
I had 1,900 on National Guard.
I'm very proud of them, Mr. President, because we're really closer to this group than the active forces.
They're not even part-time soldiers.
I know a lot of these general students, the weather had the same way.
We had the, we were supporting the police and securing the arena, but they were all captured.
And we related to them to the extent that they now call it National Guard D.C.
Friendship.
We were late.
We were a county submission that couldn't escape.
I won't get into that kind of ground presence, but it was a lesson from my men.
What you do when you are exposed to the name calling and they think, oh, he's rough.
And he held up well because they were not Muslim.
But technically, as far as the regulators are concerned, they're all back now, aren't they?
All back.
Everybody's closed back, sir.
Very interesting.
Another interesting observation.
I know instances and accidents and all the moves we've made.
We brought them from Fort Bragg and Camp Dejeune.
We had Marines and the paratroopers of the 8th and 7th Airborne who came up here to reinforce the troops.
that normally are under tell and please where they come from, nearby stations, Fort Meade and Fort Belvoir.
The soldiers I talked to before they left expressed a little disappointment that they hadn't seen a demonstrator while they were up there.
Because they were guarding the bridges.
And of course, the very fact that they didn't see any demonstrators attested to the efficiency of the entire thing.
I see.
Of course, they would be on the bridges if they were in Texas.
Mr. President, I want to pay another special commendation to all of them in terms of how they worked in a coordinated fashion and seemed so well-planned and coordinated that it went along.
I think particularly Chief Wilson is not only taking full responsibility for the tactical operations, but his performance in the field, in my opinion, was my
Everybody had a lot of friends, though.
And they're very honest about it.
It's been good for them.
If you're pleased, it's enough for them, right?
Yeah.
They're very happy.
Your people felt the same way you think they were.
They thought they'd done a good job.
Oh, yes.
Yes, sir.
I think, if anything, I think the 10th Bridge was shown.
The 8th and 2nd Airborne from Fort Bragg probably felt it, too.
They could have done more, but they were used.
My friends brought a few troops into town we didn't need, but on the other side, there was all the estimates you had to use.
If they had gone, you know, they had a huge number.
I think the best stroke was going in that Sunday morning.
When you got the hard core, then they couldn't get organized.
And they were all over the place.
Of course, they've been trying to follow all the veterans.
They always do that.
Yeah.
Well, after I saw the maids, they slept down there on the park for five days as soon as we put them in and outside.
And the campers out there on the stadium, they cried foul.
And they'd been sleeping in there hardly any for so long.
There was hardly any food, most of them.
It was just what they put together, pots of stuff they were boiling down there, beans and everything.
We put them in an outside enclosure and fixed them up real nice, yeah.
Which was really better than the cell.
Yeah, see, one of them complained about getting a bologna sandwich because he was a vegetarian.
On Thursday, I had a real problem with that.
We backed your feeding with 1,500 sandwiches.
They were playing, but they didn't want any more meat sandwiches.
They wanted peanut butter and jelly.
So I figured we would just cut it.
You want a real sense of power, Mr. President, when you call up McDonald's and say, I want 5,000 Big Macs.
Would you do that?
Because of the hamburger stand.
The Army also provided, I think, about 14,000 meals.
These were sea rations.
I haven't gotten any reports as to how those were received.
I personally don't hear a little too much.
But it's a good chance that he gets to trial.
Well, they ran into a little metal container that the police didn't want to use, at least in the trial scene.
So that's what we had to do.
How many of you still have hamburger rations?
They should all be out now.
Last night, we were down to a few hundred, and those were just those that would have refused to be fingerprinted.
So they refused.
We've got to go, actually.
The quarter that's being printed, so now they should all be out.
I'm quite sure they don't have any of that.
The bail fund that they had was phenomenal.
They must have put up at least $200,000 in bail.
Really?
Yes, sir.
How many times was that arranged through their lawyers?
We're trying to find out.
A lot of street solicitations going on.
A lot of street solicitations?
Not only the street solicitations.
I don't think that much money came from that.
I don't think that much money came from the street solicitations.
And it had to come up fast because on Monday, you know, when we talked to Bill, he was broke.
He said the lawyer, and he said he was, that he only had a couple thousand dollars.
And in the meantime, with the rest that were in there, it did come up to about $200,000.
14,000 is a lot of bodies.
And I must admit, Mr. President, our crisis facilities were not prepared for that number, and I don't hope to prepare them for that number.
No, I don't.
But I think that actually this incident here, well,
be a very great deterrent in the future.
And I think if other cities can show the same, OK, we're all set.
If other cities can do the same thing, they may be able to.
And it's a very difficult situation to put young policemen, soldiers, and the rest of them to sit in their faces and swear at them.
That's what we're told here.
They swear at them and say, what would you do?
And you stop them and say, what would you do?
And you're in the service and you see a bunch of guys that are arguing.
And you know, for the most part, you're probably draftee or something.
You say, what's the matter?
That's what they say.
They may have it, sir, but they keep it under good control because it's something we're watching very closely.
I imagine a lot of your police in Muskogee, you've got a lot of young guys there with different services and all the rest of the United States.
All right.
Start rounding it up now.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There's another thing.
the difference between news, reporting, TV, film clips, and what actually took place.
You could hardly recognize what you were seeing on TV.
Oh, but another thing, we had content.
Yeah, of course.
The news photographer at the Vietnam Embassy Thursday told me that tomorrow they were going to announce a demonstration by the newsman against any poetry just for the demonstration.
Wow.
Well, of course, the coverage is always historic because they want to make their own story.
They don't care about what the story is.
It'd be because I probably haven't been exposed to it in the past.
That's what it is.
Is that right?
That's right.
It's done well as a crime because it happens constantly.
The work you do to make the compensation, of course, and then some of the policy that puts it together in whatever format they want.
I thought I felt I'd been in another city or something.
I think I told what you said.
This is a day-by-day thing with us.
The thing that we're going to button down to, I guess, all of us as civil libertarians in the next few weeks will be trying the cases.
Sure, Monday morning quarterbacking.
I'm guessing what they would have done.
Yeah, that would be nice.
What would they do?
Here you've got the streets blocked and that's what they're going to do.
They're going to go in and try to kick them out.
Just let the ground go home.
They don't answer to me.
There were no injuries, but the Chicago Police, you know what I mean?
This is the role of the police.
We always do what's necessary, and then in the next year, get it done.
It was a very good job in this morning's Washington Post, but I wouldn't necessarily have told him that.
Did you see that?
He would understand.
Yes.
But it's interesting how people seem to lose sight of the fact that the objective of this whole exercise was to disrupt the government.
Sure.
And so credit is not given where credit is due.
And all this fuss is made about arrest at that time.
President Russell pointed his finger on it.
I have not found anyone who can tell me what else they would have done or what they would have done under similar circumstances with the groups in town.
Roy, I failed to understand how you could non-violently turn over a man's automobile, or how you could non-violently stand up and kick his windshield in, or take a manhole cover on Prospect Street over there in Georgetown and roll it down the side of the street.
Even this pension business, you know, that's not a non-violent act.
Of course it is.
And then take rags and stuff them in our mail containers.
You know, burn those up, send the investments.
It's non-violent.
And then for us,
to engage on this and assume that we're going to let this thing continue.
Well, let me say this.
One of the reasons I came on is that I'm going to come in for two purposes.
So you can convey directly to all your people the mission of the country and have some responsibility to the district.
They all know that they did a very fine job and they deserve commendation.
And secondly, I want to ensure that the
Second guess was the Monday morning quarterbacks, you know, but as far as I'm concerned, we backed all the way.
And we're not going to take any of this jazz to the effect that we were.
Maybe we've done this without the enemy.
The situation here was one that had potential violence and had potential.
to stop the government.
And we have a responsibility to avoid violence and just keep the government running.
We did both.
We're going to do it again.
The other thing is that I want everybody to put on notice.
And that's one of the reasons I asked people to do it.
Because I know they would like to see it brought to the hall.
As far as I'm concerned, if they come to town again, they're going to get it again.
And I want that understood.
They're going to get it right again.
That's the way to keep them out.
When I say they, anybody can come to this town.
They can march peacefully.
They can have a permit.
They can go up and down.
They can shout obscenities or anything like that.
Fine.
Nobody can come to this city and break the law without being prosecuted.
I think that's clearly understood, and if you go after it, you'll be bad.
And we'll fight, and the courts serve themselves, and some of the libertarians will.
I'd like to tell you this.
There are two of us here that, as long as we're here, we're not going to have this city disrupted.
I'm sorry.
The mayor takes a lot of heat here, I know, too, because, you know, he's got a lot of his people, what he would call his constituency, and they're sensitive on this issue, and they don't want it.
But on the other hand, the literature police corps, of course,
You've got a lot of your black policemen just as well as the white policemen.
All of a sudden, that's the important thing to bear in mind.
You know, when you talk about disorders and all the rest, the whole city suffers.
I mean, they don't draw any color lines on that.
I mean, if the government stops, the government belongs to everybody.
The right to go to work peacefully.
everybody's right.
The right not to demonstrate, you know, there's a right not to demonstrate too.
The right to demonstrate doesn't mean that you can impose it upon the rights of other people who don't want to demonstrate and want to go to work.
And so we are, that's the line we're taking.
That's the reason that when I talked to the Attorney General on Saturday night, next morning, I said, yes sir, go right to it.
You did the right thing.
And just stand right up there, you and the mayor, any of you who have to make public statements.
You have the back of this office all the way.
Thank you.
And I don't care about the editorials and all the second guessing and the whining and the whimpering and the rats and so forth and so on.
Let it go.
We're going to see that the peace of this city is not disturbed.
That's a great feeling for us, I tell you.
I'm just happy that we were able to come.
You tell all your people out there, don't let them worry about their bills.
I mean, I'll be concerned about the fact that we don't know.
The other one says, gee whiz, I'm just in time to look at the cherry blossoms, even though they've been gone for a couple of weeks.
Well, they weren't in contact with the sheriff's office.
They all knew what they were doing.
They were given a chance to get off the streets.
As far as these reporters would say, well, I was a reporter.
Why didn't they show their press badge?
They want you to be picked up.
Absolutely.
That's the only way they're out of this tour.
Absolutely.
Oh, I know exactly what they were up to.
And on this one, if I'm taking what you can accomplish without violence, just take a harder one if it's necessary.
I commend Buster.
We'll do that.
That's right.
Mr. President, thank you so much.
You know, if you'd like to be out there some Happy Mother's Day, I'll give you a little.
Here's another pair of cups.
All right.
And another one of these for you and your wife.
Give these to your secretary or somebody.
All right.
Here's some of those for you and for your wife.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Ten minutes.
Thank you, sir.
You go on, sir.
Sir, are you, are you, are you a economist?
Good.
I used to think that.
Thank you, sir.
Well, we really appreciate what you've all done.
Thank you.