On May 10, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:40 pm to 3:08 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 496-012 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Just turn it off.
I don't know how you do it.
I don't know.
You know, I've tried this once before, Bob, but if you're trying to get out of actual city and everything, the cost of that restriction.
Yeah.
In other words, the degree, the military cost, the overtime cost.
They put out a couple seconds on it.
We got one up to three million.
Good.
And how about the idea of any new laws to deal with other things?
I think it is a good idea.
It seems to me that's to give us something.
That's where we can see the thing that although we couldn't do before this class, it seems to me we can do now.
I don't see any reason why we shouldn't now develop a plan, publicize it, for the declaration of martial law.
in this city, which suspends the right of a proper trial and all that for people, and let them know that that's what's going to happen.
I mean, in other words, what you're doing is, there's somebody, one of the congressmen was talking about this, that this ought to be done, and let them develop a procedure that says that the government's business must be carried on.
It's the interest of national interest.
But if anybody interferes, well, that's not what you call the interference of the...
I like a little bit of intelligent thinking.
I don't think much comes out of justice.
They're pretty good reactors.
They never offer anything.
But you get some of our very young people who work on that.
Yeah.
I think, you know, I suggested this thing, which I'm sure I didn't have any demonstrators pay for their tangents, right?
Now, that came up independently, David.
That's how much I'm giving it.
Now, they don't have more work than they need to do.
What we can do is require that when an organization wants to protest here, they put up a bond.
They have to put up a bond.
I just say a bond with their issue of permit.
A bond.
I think a bond should be put up.
A bond should be put up for any damage to the property.
Any damage to the property.
I don't think that's fair enough.
Well, they also have been deep learning.
The problem is if you have the same situation again,
The best judgment is that what Wilson did was the right thing to do, that you do the same thing again.
You're going to reopen the same constitutional question or civil rights question and all that again.
Why not this time have it laid out, this is what this guy proposed, have it laid out ahead of time that this is a procedure that will be followed and that there is no, that it will be prevented with attention.
During the period of the declared emergency, then the people will be released, and they need to be transported out at some point in time.
I don't know.
There have been several- Well, there ought to be a landing office.
We might actually be involved.
We don't want to appear to be a drop-away police vehicle, that kind of crap.
I even think that John Irwin was highly sensitive.
We don't know whether any progress has been made on our radio speech thing.
Yeah.
Did those go in here?
They came in here.
The first two or three.
Did you get an event hand holder for weekend review?
Oh, maybe they're in that.
It's also weekend reading, right?
No, it shouldn't be in the weekend reading.
Let me find out.
The other one they were suggesting is doing the radio speech, which wouldn't, again, wouldn't fit in the series, but maybe make some sense on senior citizens.
So that means something in Florida is, but that's for the next week.
Yeah.
Okay, good.
If they can get some results, I would think that they're gonna raise those speech room demonstrations.
What do you think of that?
That's too late.
We're ready to just rehash the damn issue a few later.
I don't think so, unless they just end it up again.
Well, let's have somebody ready, shall we, if they do check it, as they might.
And they are suggesting they're going to make the announcement of the cancer program.
The House will either act today or tomorrow on it.
and they want to announce tomorrow the National Cancer Authority will be set up in NIH with the head of reporting directly to the president and then brought us to have you go before the camera to do this as we don't have another one camera thing where you would just say because of the importance you're taking personal charge of this be set up this way and then leave Richardson to brief on it.
All right, after we switch, maybe get you on top of the mic.
Well, that ain't a breathing time.
The breathings are, but I think we're overdoing the breathings.
I think that's correct.
I think we overdo the breathings.
I think we look over the breathings, and all these guys do.
All right, we expose ourselves to the presence.
Suck our nose, Matthews.
Actually, I really wouldn't.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I agree with you on that, but I just feel, I know that Henry always says to me, now they found him quite intense, and he listened to his speech, and I hope they were getting that to him.
I mean, they talked about it just a few weeks, and he stared.
Did that come in?
You know, Scantling took 50 minutes out of the book.
I told Ron, I said, don't let these guys breathe for so long.
You stand in the rear of those guys too long.
We love you.
Oh, sorry.
It's maybe a good time for our team to do something on that detergent season.
Mean enough.
Oh, thank God I resisted it.
I had to put something in my D.A.R.
speech about these nice young people.
Oh, that's great.
You know, you recognize that, right?
Huh?
What do you think?
Look at the VAR kind of sitting up there.
You know, that's a marble building.
That paint soaks into the floors of the marble.
You can't clean paint off of marble.
That building is now permanently on base until they sandblast it.
They're going to have to sandblast pretty deep.
They're going to have to take a big chunk off the face of the building.
It looks like Europe.
And they're starting to make that point now.
And Time magazine has decided to come up.
They came out pretty well.
They're both, all the magazines are good on the things, but Time has a picture that is fascinating that they finally published, that nobody else published, that has no, that shows a scene at the camp where the demonstrators are with a nude couple
standing up, embracing.
And it's shot from the great back.
No, it's a girl and a boy.
But it's, they're, you know, close together, and it's shot from the back.
See, the girl's full, full view, back nude, and a pretty good, you know, just the side of the manhood.
But it makes a point of what was going on in that place.
And it's a sickening picture.
Is it great?
Yeah, because there's other people around, and they're sleeping bags, and, you know, stuff.
And here's this nude couple standing outside their tent,
I guess it's the one that I'm, you know, I'm amazed not to find that.
Obviously, others have had the picture, but nobody used it.
And they've replayed the picture of the new guy.
Joe, Joe the Eighth, I talked to him.
He said, you've done it, but you could go ahead and plan to open much more than that.
But again, I don't want you to be really tempted.
But this time, I'm going to go all the way.
You know what I mean?
I don't take many people with me.
Cut them down.
Press.
I don't do anything for us.
Make them jump.
Don't give them places to sleep.
The thing we do want to do, to get past the bottom line, I don't know, is work out our timing.
I think we can get a satellite bouncing and run that line.
Well, this would be working out a big thing.
This would be happening.
I'm not going to get an answer for that.
You know what he said?
He said, well, he said, I think it's because of what Roger said about it.
Now, did he really?
That's, he always thinks of that excuse.
He just can't think of it better than that.
That's when he should, well, the Russians do things for their interests.
And if they don't mean it, they don't do this because they're interested in pressing this agreement.
But now, for Christ's sakes, if anything, I cleared that up in three days.
There's no U.S.A.
The other thing is that, but we, he will know, I pressed him hard.
I said, how much longer do we have?
Wait until we start working.
And he said, well, the reason they had an answer to William Lee Vaughn has been us coming on.
They need somebody to talk to us.
I know.
I've always felt that way, too.
I think he had a reader all the time in Russia.
But, uh, except he thinks that, that they may be worried about the red sign.
Well, we'll screw over that if we can.
But be that as it may, what we have got to figure, as it relates to it, is that we will not have a solar grid.
on this scene with the Chinese baby, maybe that will develop into something incursive, incursive.
Maybe we'll meet him some sort, or announce him some sort.
That's on one course.
As far as our solidity of the need and our individual needs are concerned, that will be one of those, in my opinion.
We've got to do it all.
So what we do is to announce the combat, and then we will come for it after that.
About three weeks later, I tried working on it.
I think public MRR sees fire being brilliant, and I'm certain.
After it's entered Jefferson, he will try.
Well, he's not going to try.
He's going to try.
The point is, Bob, they have indicated you have to pick people.
I see.
And my guess is they will not.
If they do, they're going to do it.
You know, we've got that bandwagon.
I'm sure of it.
He says, if they tell me on Wednesday that I should come over to meet them on the 16th, he says, I think I should say, well, I can come on the 23rd.
I don't appear to be anxious.
I said, no.
That's ridiculous.
He's offered the 16th.
That's not bad.
He says, that doesn't take a lot of time.
He says, sir, I've got to get on this.
This is a whole business.
I said, Henry, we're now in a position where we
We've got to, I mean, there are too many waiting for other things to happen.
I said, we, you know, we've got to get it done and find out what's not going to happen.
Bob gets it done.
He doesn't make any difference whether he goes to the 60th or the 20th.
He's going to find out.
Whether Henry Kissinger sees it going, it's all too much.
And delays in three days or a week doesn't make a goddamn bit of difference.
He comes, I'll say, the next week, I'll figure out.
They do like we do.
This is because Lee Kwan was in Moscow, and now he's in Jerusalem.
So anyway, that's what we're working on.
But if you don't have any issue today, it's all right.
And we're prepared to fight again.
Can you make it?
I think we've got to just break it.
It's kind of good to get it solved and shake it down to where it is.
God damn, I wish we had some.
on the meeting with the Republican congressman.
What is it that I suggest?
I want to start with a procedure on having press in the room with the Rogers.
They've seen us do it before.
Just have the partners come and take a picture and they get the hell out.
All right.
They're suggesting rather than a breakfast that you're going to be at the Culmer's lunch tomorrow, that you excuse yourself for lunch and go to Les Aaron's flip office during lunch or at the end or just before.
Yeah.
Pretty hard.
They're suggesting you duck out for a few minutes while they're eating.
They think it'd be better for you with this roof up there.
Just catch the, they have about 10 apparently, the jerrys.
For now.
Well, it'd be better after lunch, I thought, unless the boat is, you know, I don't know.
I think it's going to be awfully hard to walk out of the roll call.
There's a lot to read.
There's Albert and everybody else in there.
Should I re-raise the breakfast question again to see if that was really better?
I want to see how the Catholic community is doing on this.
Why don't we do this at Rockingham?
We're going to do the script.
I've already had it prepared.
I'm going to teach the Catholic people how to do it.
I'm going to do that.
Rockingham had the word in the script when we tested.
Very good thing.
I can't remember.
I think maybe that's what they were talking about.
It's all right.
Sure.
I think it is.
Do you have a question?
I think it's a good idea to say that.
I've got something.
Just say you've got something.
He's a congressman.
He's a congressman.
The SSP, they don't need to order him.
You know what I mean?
He's a congressman.
That's what the state has.
Now, the only thing, I was in a little cabin, and he was like, I think, Ken, I don't know if you've heard of him around here.
He's not in there.
He's not in there with regard to the staff on each side.
I didn't mind that.
We'll see what we can do about it.
I owe you a favor.
Yeah.
Who's that?
We've talked about that.
Where do you get any of the guys?
Where do you get a little charge?
Recently, Scali was one of us, and that was
It's not a good idea if they talk, unless you have something you want to say.
Well, it's bad.
I don't know what happened.
I don't think I can figure it out, son.
Son, you want to solve it?
That's not it.
That's not it.
I talked to .
Two things.
Did I mention to you that I invited him to go to the library, the Johnson Library?
I think I did mention to you.
Yeah.
He's going down.
Is he going to be in Florida?
No.
I invited him when I thought I was going to Washington.
Yeah.
I told him, give it to me in touch.
I had talked to him about that, but at that point, he wasn't going to be going from here.
Yeah, well, he is going to be in our car.
He is saying he can fly up here and go with me.
I think you can point out to him that I will not be here, and therefore he can, you can invite him to go to the restaurant.
Did you see that?
I was trying to have those signs before I could get up.
Uh, it just takes a lot of time for me to put the best wishes with so and so and so and so and so.
But when I have a, uh, not just a signature, uh, you know, a good picture is impressive.
Well, I'll leave it at that.
I'll just save myself the time.
The future is different worlds, but you've got to work to see how impressive it all is.
Where did you finish your picture?
Yeah, I would invite him to go on the vice presidential line with the vice president.
John, I was wrong today.
Okay.
In a couple of days, I'd say we're looking for him.
It has to be this one reason for it.
There.
Wait for the flight.
The first section of the flight is going to be over here.
They're not.
Yeah.
He's up to be in Florida.
He won't be in Florida.
He's going to be in there.
I don't think we should ask him to come to Florida.
I think your whole point here is to go without.
I would have to be in Florida.
There's no problem.
Your plan should change.
You're going to be in Florida instead of going here.
You're just going over here.
All right, Lord.
If there will be an official thing going on here, you know, we're done with that.
Well, hey.
We'll do it anyway.
It'll be fine.
The other thing is, you know, it's a good idea.
I don't know if he's probably not here.
I don't think he needs to be here by now.
He's having lunch with a bunch of people over there.
This morning, he was going right over, so he landed.
Bob .
He mentioned again the .
And I think he made, he's probably reporting what he finds.
I think it's very important to get him at a very specific moment and just talk about how the hell we can mobilize he and his troops for the campaign.
But it's got to be done.
So in a way, he's got to call an organization.
Now, that organization, I've heard, can be mobilized such as it was not mobilized before, and he's willing to.
He's willing to, I think, provided we take a very firm line, see, on all that sort of thing, which we are.
The other point that I made is that, uh, uh, Henry was saying, so Henry, of course, he was in California for a month or two,
They rather felt that we weren't going to do it for them.
I don't know what he's trying to say.
Here, we get the impression it's just the opposite, don't we?
I don't know what that means.
On the other side, on other things.
Of course, here we are sold.
We're sort of in the trenches.
Maybe that we are not coming through and allowing a single daughter
I think that's probably right.
I think, why isn't it?
Because we don't have, we don't have a, we don't have a, we don't have a single clear cut night.
I was reading all that Johnson stuff, because it's been a lot of publicity because of the library.
Now, yeah, they're making a very big thing out of the creation of the Great Society.
And here's the Great Society as a total disaster.
Except that it,
I think a lot of things started to look like something was happening.
But they're making a big feature out of the Great Society.
We don't have a Great Society.
We don't, we didn't.
Revolutionary.
Well, I was trying to think.
The members of the organization.
Welfare reform.
If we were going to set up a big thing in the Nixon Library, how would we build it up?
The American Revolution.
The American Revolution.
About the closest we have.
We may have to.
We can do better than that.
or sapphire, or anybody else.
It's the single focal point thing is what we don't have, right?
That people say, gee, that's what Nixon's doing.
And you know what it is?
It is PR.
It is fun.
It's fun.
Everything's fun.
He said, yeah, I said, oh, it's really, we've got much more.
You're really not being wrong.
There's some accomplishments, especially the accomplishments of Jesus Christ.
The population, we've got to carry both the Earth Affairs Council and Feed the Hungry and all that crap.
What the hell else do you want?
You've got it all there, but it is tied up with a red ribbon, so you can see it.
And I think, too, in terms of even, I say, a whole other thing,
Don't ever think we've got that across yet.
That's right.
I mean, I got on this business with the demonstration, too.
That's why they were wrong.
He didn't want to be in the chief of police because he's sitting there in the damn foxhole.
The bastard's shooting at him.
But a lot of other people don't know he's in the foxhole, you know?
Don't you agree?
No.
I think out across this country, or do you think it did get across?
I think it got across, but I think it was important to,
We don't see the chief.
It was important to do what we did.
And it got us to the point of staying in Iran and taking more action.
The reason it got across, we don't deserve any credit for it.
The reason it got across is because you called Chief Wilson because Chief Wilson said so.
And his own judge went out early Monday morning and used you as his brownie.
And he had to do with it.
You guys can look back.
I'm curious.