On May 12, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Frank T. Bow, Stephen B. Bull, White House operator, John B. Connally, and Wilbur D. Mills met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 5:33 pm and 6:03 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 498-001 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
in the Senate, it's awful tough there just to get those people to turn around.
Brown on a ship, Tony on a ship.
In Ohio, oh, it is, trying with the Hall of Fame.
Oh, the football.
Oh, I see.
Put that down, will you?
Yeah, fine.
Let's have a look.
Dr. Davis.
You take a lot of heat, you know, from people who are on the other side, but without your help, we could have never done it.
Yeah.
And I must say that you went in there and you took the leadership on your side.
And I'm very grateful.
And we're going to do our best to try to see if we can turn the Senate around.
If we can't, we're going to make those countries do their best.
But I think from the standpoint of the country, that's the main thing.
And that's what's really involved here, apart from whether we can go faster to Europe.
You and I don't care about that.
But my God, we don't want the United States to be number two and the place where we've been number one around the world.
Right.
Right.
OK.
But anyway, he has got to sit in, I think, more with your vehicle.
He thinks about more.
Sorry, a magical way that most of our people do.
For example, he's thinking in terms of, when I say most of our pragmatists, basically, he really ought to sit in with George Shultz for the private enterprise, you know, with all this mix of things.
And he acts, frankly, more than Erlichman or Shultz.
He really does.
He thinks politically.
He is...
For exactly what we defecate him or kind of stare at him as, he is an opportunist.
Which is the essence of the truth.
He is not the same as the rest of them.
He is clearly not a guy in a gray suit.
A dull man in a gray suit who just wants to get things done.
He really doesn't give that much of a damn about getting things done.
He's more interested in getting the credit.
for himself, yes, but for you too.
And he's trying to get it for me.
I must say, I answer to Professor Farley every day, and he was a smash head of the business council, from what I heard.
Yeah, he was, like I said.
And I'm not concerned about his last head of the Congress.
It's as long as he lies with you, Jack.
He knows that he lies with you.
He's going to fall or rise as long as he's supposed to.
He knows that.
He is just one year started.
He's going to have to...
If Rogers didn't only think that way, that would be something.
That would mean that he, Connolly, didn't even do the State Department.
driving me crazy, but he could do it.
Given the fact that he would be countenantly loyal here, he's just, and he's a ruthless bastard.
You know what I'm saying?
The way he's working on the Japanese, and he likes, he likes to fight, he likes to fight, just, just trying.
So, he's got a good property here, but I want him more than out of the clouds of international economic policy.
Because he'll like, like you said, on the water thing, don't just talk about the water, talk about everything we're going to do.
I mean, when our...
Yeah.
Well, we want it over there.
Yeah, I'd like you to be pleased.
And we now, of course, have got to start working in the Senate.
It's going to be a very long shot there.
But I don't know.
I've got to call in Gene, but he's out in Georgia.
But I just need to...
We could possibly turn a couple of those guys if you could make it.
But beyond that, even in the Senate, which is probably the lightweight in the course of events, does not go with the House.
There is a conference, and in that conference you're going to get something.
You're going to get something.
But I think it's just good for our morale to win one.
Well, the basic, the guidance that I'm going to take, I'm going to try to take a wagon trooper and get him to just swing him.
Yep.
Right.
Right, right, right.
Yep, yep.
Yep.
He provides the ones that's withheld from him.
The ones that's supposed to be.
Right.
Right.
All right, whatever the price is, we'll pay them.
What the hell?
What, sir?
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yes, sir.
Yeah, I am.
Yeah.
But I'll tell you what, really.
Get it right.
I'll tell you.
The new senator from Florida, I don't know who's got a handle on him, but he ought to shift because of Lockheed.
Cantrell ought to shift because of Lockheed.
I tell you what, if you control the Lockheed people, they ought to get to Cantrell immediately, and the new senator from Florida, and then it's going to be his cold turkey.
Frankly, frankly, I don't want to go off on Lockheed if they don't come along.
Do you understand?
And they ought to know this.
Yeah.
Farming at a logger.
Well, there's another thing to say, too, on this one.
It is a different situation, see, now than it was.
And, I mean, in other words, these guys have got to have a basis for changing.
Well, the financial situation is different.
It isn't as much money.
And you can make a commitment in the presence.
I'll take another look at it next year, and it's going to cost you money.
But if you can't draw a good ship, and then you get a cool breaker within the ballpark, you've got the only easy ship, too, than getting one more ship.
Can you hear me good?
Good?
Yes?
But try to do it because it means that you should talk to them before they get frozen up and say, don't make a decision until we have a chance to talk to you.
This is very important.
The other one is, I don't know, dealing with Benson.
I just really think that for the national interest, he ought to, now, in view of the fact that the House is active, why does he want to obstruct it?
That's the way, you know, he's a good citizen.
And, uh, now, yeah.
Yes, he's made his point.
He's made his plan, and he can say, well, now under the circumstances, the House is acting, and we're going to have something that looks like this.
And I'll work on Cooper, and there's only one other, and that's Clint Anderson.
But I think Clint, I think the guy's at Jackson.
I'll try Cooper, and I'll try Kenyon.
All right, well, those are the names.
Those are the only ones I can think of.
Out of that group, you get three of those names.
So we don't need to really change, because we've got the chair.
See, the tree is a tie.
Right.
But really, it's what we want to hear today.
Right.
Good.
Change the psychology a little too.
Right.
Great.
OK.
I'm talking to him.
I'm talking to him.
Well, I just wanted to tell you that I, how pleased I was that the committee got the H.R.
1 out today, and that, oh yeah, I mean, it really slated on the thing, and I just want you to know how grateful I am.
Elliot was just in, went out, made a little comment about it, and saying that I just was, I don't need to worry about it.
I want you to personally know how much I appreciate it.
Everything you've done over here, don't you really feel now that it's sent?
I've got to talk to Russell on this.
This ought to cool some of that.
Get some of it.
It's still a reach that's sent.
That's our hope is to get them back.
They were the ones that blocked it before.
What did you report to your department?
Did you have a cross-sectionist in the house?
Ah, good, good.
That's great.
That's great.
And you'll win.
Okay.
Right, right.
And you'll have good boundaries.
All right.
Well, that's great.
All right.
Well, I, on my part, I will, I've already, you know, talked with Russell and the law and, uh,
And I will personally work with Sanford's Army as I can.
Sure.
And basically, there's credit for all of us.
And that's the way I've lived here.
I told the other guy, I said, I'll just go up here and say this.
We all worked here.
That's what he said.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
I'm going to give my best to that cute little granddaughter.
That girl will come in and say she loves me.
I'm all for her, you know.
Okay.
Okay.
John Burns, please.
Congressman John Burns of Wisconsin.
You know, it really is a place to do business with.
You know, I call the other guys.
You know, he said, I'll talk to him.
I'll talk to him.
I don't have a problem.
God damn, that's a politician who likes to do it.
You know, it's...
And he will talk to them.
I'll bet you by tomorrow he will have talked to all those people already.
And he'll have talked to them effectively.
And he'll not call and say, well, I don't want to.
Of course, the bridge sponsor, principal, he'll say, now look here, I've got to get to Lockheed, and we can't get to Lockheed.
We're going to cool off and that's what we get for supporting this.
He's going to put it right to them.
It's going to be a hard game.
Good day's work in the house.
Yeah.
It's good for our troops.
It's good for the Hill guys.
You can call this Chandler, or whether I should, and ask him to call those two centers.
You can call Shawnee for SST and say that this is a
Tell Henry also to call his Jewish friends.
Or if they talk to you, it might be a better one to call Lotus.
Fine.
See, I...
I don't dazzle Lotus anymore.
Henry does.
Tell Henry to call Lotus and say that this is...
I talked to Henry about the, uh, going back to his charter and working that side of it.
Yeah.
Scali says that, incidentally, that he says that he
This is very interesting.
He said, the American Jewish community can give you some monumental support on this Mansfield thing.
But he said, for God's sake, let's make them come to us.
Let's don't go ask them, because you don't want to get into any debt to them on what you have to do for them next.
And boy, he just, he said, it's a great source of support, but you sure don't want to let, he knows how the Jews feel.
You know, I'm more of a writer than a Jew, so you know I'm not the one place I do not do anything at all.
I'm going to say, hey, it's a lot of influence and too much here.
That's all right.
But we are not going to let Israel continue to hurt American foreign policy in the Middle East.
That's all there is to it.
ridiculous.
And it's just, well, this is one instance where Roger's playing this bad guy.
Let him play with the Jews.
Let him play.
Well, I can't tell you, though, how impressed I am with Peterson every time I see him.
He's conceptual thinking.
You know, he knows how to start making a speech that really, really sings.
Talks about, you know, 50
I want everything recast in those terms, not in terms of the doing a good job, running the machinery better.
Or not, I want to, which is what it's for.
This is exactly just, I'm just curious.
Everybody's going to figure that's coming back and going to Alabama.
There's nothing, nobody's expecting to rush back to Washington anyway after Texas, so.
See, otherwise, I was only in Florida for two weekends.
It wouldn't sound good.
This doesn't sound like that at all.
This is a weekend song.
The next one, I'll be going to Texas.
That'll be the story.
Then I'll be going down there.
I'll do a radio address.
I think I'll do a radio address full time if I can get one together.
In Florida, I might as well do it next Sunday if I can get it together.
They're very easy shots.
They're easy to do.
And if we can get good play on them, what the hell?
Monday morning papers, right?
Number two, that the press, when they talk about the image making and the idea of making the, of being able to know that we read what they say, they think something is defecting.
They say exactly the opposite in order to get you to quit doing it.
I mean, sure.
And I think there's something to be said.
We have enough reactions from people.
You know, like I said, McCall's things, frankly, I thought it was, I didn't read the article, but the pictures and everything didn't appeal to me at all.
But I think that more of those readers, more of those women that come through that, those lines and things.
And frankly the same with that damn thing with that woman reporter, I mean that woman on TV.
And Helen Thomas' story on the press, I think.
The women all loved it.
Don't you agree?
Yep.
They liked the fact that you mentioned those things.
So you do a little of it.
It's a curious mix.
It just might be, you see, it may be that some of our enemies in the press, they don't want us to have any chance to be anything other than a cold panic.
And that's, you see my point, very definitely the case.
Now that doesn't mean
that we go out and fall over everybody and become anything we are.
I think that was a perfectly honest trade.
And as he always says, Pat overreacts because his point was if we're relying on that to win the election, then forget it.
The point is nobody was relying on it.
That's a typical sort of Buchananism.
It's all black and white.
All you're doing is using that as one little part of an overall bundle of stuff you're dishing out.
He pretended in an election to go all out, basically, the Goldwater line.
You know what I mean?
He couldn't understand why people didn't vote for Goldwater.
Well, the reason is that there are just a hell of a lot of other things.
It's a mix.
I mean, what you really need, and it's widely established, you're good this way.
You need a mix, you need Buchanan and Price.
Price is too much the poet and the guy that thinks in terms of the mystique of the presidency and all those problems to Moore, or sitting on a stool at the top and judging pretty damn good.
Maybe they'd rather unmask themselves pretty neatly for everybody.
Now we won't have any illusions about it.
Now we can all go to the sea.
There's no problem with weather, water, and eggs.
Well, there is a matter of fact.
I was wondering if you wanted to... What is it?
Oh, they had some rain yesterday.
You know, they had this drought.
Yeah.
Well, rain is probably there.
And they were getting some rain.
They wouldn't have more of these troops, I don't think.
I mean, it's a hurricane season.
That's the winter season.
Maybe we had it in 68, wasn't it?
Right at the end of the...
It was bad.
We got down there in our...
Don't you press down the room down on Walker's cave.
We'll go home tonight.
At least we can get in the water.
Let's change out.
What's in it?
It's the water.
You can't get in it and swim.