On June 1, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:10 pm to 12:50 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 509-002 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
doing that.
Think of the time you could spend doing that.
We're absolutely right, Dave.
It's actually the way we do it.
I did it.
There are a few ones.
There are a goddamn few.
Frankly, like his state and all the rest is a bunch of crap.
His state is no point at all.
They're really the purely personal ones.
You're the personal one for somebody who's going to
It is utterly ridiculous.
So, do you have any further thoughts in regard to the
We've got Venom coming in this afternoon.
He's got two kids.
We just got our copies yesterday.
But we'll go over it with him.
There's a lot more analysis that needs to be done in one order.
I'm looking at a Gallup thing, incidentally, it's 50-37.
Gallup is.
He's got it.
He's got it.
Yes, he's got it on the drive.
Why is it on the drive?
Well, because he's running with the trial heats.
And we don't have the trial heats yet.
We may get those this afternoon.
No, he's done it before the press conference.
No.
He's currently on the drive.
He says, well, I shouldn't, because they're always wrong.
What he said was that the trial leads will come out somewhere between even and Nixon two points ahead.
Basically, the one argument is Nixon two points behind.
In essence, it's even.
Basically, it's even and four points ahead of Humphrey, or five points, which means that there's certainly something between the trial leads and
Throwing them down.
Yeah.
You might want to try this first.
All right.
It gives them all a little bit of strength.
The prettier sofa, the better.
That's the point.
If you have open hands, maybe water.
People are worrying that she's bitching in a terrible sense.
He's terribly worried that maybe he's starting to put a lot of backing behind Jackson.
It seems to me that's how to deal with it.
How could Jackson be nominated by a Democratic convention?
No way.
Any more than Rockefeller could by the Republicans.
And I don't think Jackson can be nominated.
And that worries you out of the way.
Well, he said he were nominated.
Because he did so hard.
Why?
The two of them would have to go to another party.
Because their whole hook is foreign policy.
They can't do that all the time.
That's what you do about it.
Oh, I don't know.
I mean, Bob White's worries isn't solved.
But he did it.
I think that was very serious.
Mitchell was sitting there saying, I wish we could find two or three million bucks somewhere to get to scoop jobs.
He's got it.
Remember, I told him, I said, you said it in language.
He said, he's got it.
But I have a feeling, I have a feeling, I saw it.
That also means later it gets them more committed to a guy that they're going to get.
You know what I mean?
I have a feeling I saw it.
It's the name of all the voters playing for him in the presidential name of Speaker.
He killed his own stature.
He's not going to stay nominated for president.
He isn't much of a candidate for vice president because he's such a lousy person.
Getting him talked about in a presidential context makes him a more likely speaker.
It kind of pulls him out of the bomb.
That he can get.
He can be a very good speaker.
And that all those people rallying to him as a presidential candidate become, in effect, his basic leadership in the House of Representatives.
Hold on a second.
I don't want to see a lot of stories saying the White House is worried about Jacksonville, the White House is worried about this matter.
I don't want them to worry about anything.
I don't want Mitch Brunson or any of our free voters
I don't want any political backgrounders by anybody on the White House staff.
Is that clear?
Anybody.
I don't want anybody to be canon.
I don't want anybody to be canon.
You understand?
I don't want anybody by Sapphire or anything.
Politics is verboten.
I don't want Colson to talk politics to anybody.
Not with any Congress.
Is that clear?
I think it's very important not to bother.
And when I did that, I did it again.
I wanted to get everybody to talk every part of the bench.
Because, you know, what the hell, I didn't even want to see benches up on that now.
You know what I mean?
But he just got to say, well, I'm just not going to discuss it.
I want to get a bench in, though, this sometime this week.
Dave Broder's doing it, you know, starting to blow the thing.
I called the company the other day and wanted to talk to me and I said, there, I still want to talk to you.
I don't have much to say about politics.
Good.
So I said, well, I have to talk to you about what it takes to deal with politics.
It is hard enough because those guys, they're all in the scene.
They started so good.
But they'll have us do it.
We're not going to talk politics.
They have no way.
We will not talk politics with anybody.
We can.
There was that boy I visited in that news thing.
And he said, I thought you paid us in there.
What do I say when they ask about Muskie?
What do I say?
He doesn't recognize.
First, Karen's speaking.
The questions have got to make sense not to ask, but if they do, I have one quick, curious answer that I do not consider as such an extra post-conference part of the forum.
We'll discuss partisan political matters, so I don't want to take any questions in that service.
See?
And that's just, you know, we can't even want to, you can't even laugh or, of course, he's so full of means that he wants to...
We've got a problem that is a real problem, but it's a potential, not problem, but situation where we've got a lot of guys who are
Political workers, political animals who love the political party.
You want me to get out there and tell them?
No, we don't want you to get out there.
We want her to treat you with the whole thing.
And so they like to talk about it.
They like to think about it.
They like to think about it.
And we've done it.
And we've done it.
And we've done it.
And we've done it.
where they get that, but I don't want them, everything that's coming to me, that I don't want, like, you know, Buchanan's writing these, and others write these memorandums with regard to politics, I don't want that everything, again, that's coming to me.
I really don't want to steal it from them.
I don't think I should have, as a matter of fact.
I think it's, I just don't think it's all that, what the hell can I do about it?
I think you've got to get Colson off of it, too.
I think Colson's got to, you know what I mean, he can play his games, but I don't want him to
to get into the business where he is thinking of where he's going to analyze these people.
I'm not going to look every month to see how all this and the other thing.
I've got, you know, we should, like, a press conference like this, you know, I don't think any of the people around here have any idea how much that work it takes.
I mean, I've got to talk about the International Monetary Association.
I've got to talk about this too.
I may not get any questions on it, but see, I have to be prepared on that.
I've got to be prepared about marijuana.
I've got to be prepared about...
Do you want to go ahead and set the July 6th for the midway meeting?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good word to do.
That will preclude our
Well, I'll agree.
Well, you can do something the 3rd.
You can do something the 3rd, the night of the 3rd, which would be the main time you do TV, and then you can fly to California on the 4th, then fly to Midway on the 5th, have a meeting on the 6th, and come back.
So that's where you want to go.
Oh.
Well, we have an idea.
The thing that is boiled down and really, I think, is exciting.
You may not like it, but it is.
Well, the idea is a half-hour national telecast, free time, on 4th of July 8th.
Saturday night, originating from the National Archives, which is a spectacular setting.
The president, the speaker, and the chief justice.
You go to the three guys.
The archives are ideally suited to it.
They've got the one thing on one side and the other thing on the other.
You have the army chorus and you have the marine band.
They play Hail to the Chief, and then you're announced as the President of the United States, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the United States.
The three of you come in.
You introduce the thing, very briefly, with the purpose of this program, to reiterate the American values on the eve of Independence Day, and the start of, and this is what you tie it to, of the Bicentennial era.
Because it's five years from today, for five years from tomorrow, we will celebrate our Bicentennial.
And this is the start of the bicentennial hearing.
The bicentennial commission, in effect, I'm just not sure if he's paid.
I just don't know what the hell Albert's going to have to say this week.
We've given him something.
They've got some ideas now.
We've given him something.
They both are kept down in length.
Do I still get a chance to put on my red skeleton act or not?
Tell me.
Well, what you do, you have the music.
The Army Corps does a medley of patriotic songs, and Berger does brief remarks, then Albert does brief remarks, your remarks, and you're close with the national anthem.
And it's, the historic site, the reason for doing the three guys is to get it on the TV.
Now, you can do it yourself just by asking for a presidential timeout address, but if you don't have news, you shouldn't do that, sure.
But this makes it news, ahead of the three branches of government.
I like the idea of having Albert there because you and Berger will be so much better than Alcatraz that I think politically we pick up a huge thing by comparison.
He may not do it, but he's...
That would, we went over and over all the stuff with the color division guys, and this is the thing that will get on TV, and it can be done anywhere else.
The archives is the background, history, I see.
Yeah, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is on the wall behind you.
And then there's a big arrow on each side.
Well, get it together.
No, no.
I'm going to do all of my ad-lib.
And that's a good thing.
But if I'm going to have to write it, it's going to do it well.
I think Andrews is going to make me write it better than, probably than, for that sort of thing, better than Peter Sapphire or Price.
You can give them a motion.
All right, we're cool with that.
You realize we kill others, don't we?
What's it worth?
Well, you killed the earlier California, but then what you could do...
I'm not going to California.
I'll use that.
I can't do that.
No, you stay here.
I do what I can't do.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay, fine.
Well, you can still do the driver's island thing that weekend.
Yeah, I suppose.
Then you do the press conference on the 24th.
That still should be on.
And then that weekend you just stay around here.
Go to Camp David.
Then the following week, you run your schedule here in Washington, whatever it is.
Maybe I should go to Florida.
That'll work.
Sure.
Maybe that should be floored by the computer.
There's nothing happening that we can do anymore.
See, that's knockout.
But they're not ready to do their tech tests, their business on the budgets award at that time, are they?
Yeah, they would be that following week.
You could do it here instead of .
By the 26th it would be, yeah.
But we don't have to do it over the weekend.
No?
You shouldn't do it over a weekend.
And we should do it during the heat crisis.
No, we don't do it over a weekend.
They always knock my weekends out.
I've got to talk to these people.
That's ridiculous.
These are working days, and they should be set as working days.
And we can make a lot of money out of here and closet it with your budget people.
You can do it here, you can do it in Florida, you can do it in California.
Or it can't be.
We can do that after we return from Midway.
Well, that was my thought, just when you come back from Midway.
On the 6th, you know, you stay there through that following weekend.
Yeah.
What would that be, true or what?
I think it's 11 to 12 to 13, something like that.
Stay a little longer.
Sure.
I don't want to spend just four days in California.
I think we might just spend ten days there.
Well, that's the thing to do.
I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop, I hop.
There's another merit to that, which is the National Committee meets in Washington the 16th and 17th.
It's a good time not to meet in Washington.
It doesn't make much difference, but we should.
Wow, that's really nice.
The farts are going to happen to me there, aren't they?
No.
I did, but I just didn't look at them.
You don't have to be there at all.
Absolutely, I didn't look at them.
I remember I shook all my hands.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
Did I or didn't I?
Yeah.
Wasn't that the next?
I can't remember what we did, but we've done, there's no problem.
They all came through the line.
They haven't even raised the question of getting to California that weekend.
But I think it's good to be away.
And we can be out there going over budget and things like that that weekend.
So the rest of the hours are not that much of a job, too.
About time that we want to take a good shot in July out there, and then come back, be here for three or four weeks, and then take a short shot at the end of August.
We'll have a press conference on the time that's best for them, 7.30 or something like that.
Well, it's summertime, so it's a good idea to do it at 8 o'clock.
I mean, it's 8 to 11, right?
I was at 8 o'clock.
I was.
Not before.
8 o'clock in the morning time.
I'll tell you, that's when we'll do the press conference out there.
And we should do that before we go.
I think it looks good publicly to do it.
The first place you can work, you can only work in those about four hours.
They can only work in about four hours.
Also, it looks like you're working all day.
You've got to get it done.
I think your plan goes zeroing in on John Roe and Hillary Shultz, both Kat Weingart, the great alibi here, with regard to the budget and all the domestic council stuff and so forth.
I just can't emphasize it too much.
Look, we've missed a way to save the union messages.
We really had, from the standpoint, it was great at the time.
Everybody loved the first one.
The second one was fair.
But nevertheless, the second one was good from the viewpoint of the Congress, sir.
It gave us a program.
It gave us a program.
All right, fine.
So you've got to have a program.
But from the standpoint of, again, it was just random people.
Neither loved it.
It meant all that, Bob.
And we found that out when I left Chicago right after that.
You remember we had that?
Well, I know those people who give a shit about the environment, 100-point environment area.
Some people worry about the lake and other things.
They were more worried about other things.
Now, I know that I'm biased.
I know that John particularly disagrees with me on it because, you know, he comes from Seattle.
I love the environment out there.
God damn it, I know most of them.
Whitaker's done a study on the environment, looking at Whitaker's tools and stuff, and he's pretty short.
He says that really the only issue on the environment, the air, is the air and to some degree polluted water.
But the air is where the air is only in the cities.
That's right.
You know that.
That's right.
Most cities don't have an air problem.
That's right.
So they don't give a shit about Los Angeles or New York.
That's right.
You get my fact that in a lot of those people, as far as the polluted water is concerned, do you realize, do you realize that most people never see any water at all?
They really don't.
What the Christ are you talking about?
Polluted water.
Yeah, not a lot of them.
Rivers.
I mean, see it.
People live in their houses.
They look at television.
They ride around in the movies.
They go to drive-ins.
They don't go out and look at the goddamn river.
That's what these people don't realize.
Okay, so when you need to, when you need to, Justice Douglas walks up and watches birds.
He cares.
We don't give a shit about the birds and the ecology and the, uh, the, uh, uh,
You know, a lot of people don't, nobody, and parks, and people don't care about it.
Even the parks, even the parks.
I mean, let's cut down the park deal.
No, that, that's so, that sounds good, even though they don't care, right?
It's a nice legacy kind of thing.
Well, we already have something.
Well, the park will be a lot of work.
The rest of the stuff we have to do, we have to clean here, we have to do, also the parks is positive.
The other is negative.
Pollution is only...
Clark does not destroy one of our own, but one of our own people.
But Whitehead is not realizing this, because he's a great environmentalist.
Yeah, I know he is, but he was looking at the mobile stuff on it.
We'll get more on it when they get their issue, but we'll find out that people just don't give a shit about most of that stuff.
Men all sing men on what matters and what is good.
And I really feel that that's where, basically, it's like a...
Are you tired of it?
People get tired of it.
They say you're not saying anything new.
And in the end, but if you get off of Subject A, you're dead.
Now, at this point, Subject A, as far as the Democrats are concerned, the reason they continue to hammer on Vietnam, that's something to hammer on.
It helps them.
You know what I mean?
Because he wrote the administration.
He wrote the administration.
As long as they keep doing it.
We are praying for you now.
And the fact that it goes away doesn't hurt them a bit.
I mean, sure it hurts, and they'd be better off if it stays there.
But if it goes away, then they move to something else.
They've still gained the ground of hurting us.
What in the name of God?
None of the Democrats, none of them, none of them have been taken on except in the new summary.
Or if I did it correctly, it was, it was praising me.
Was there any candidates in the new summary board in terms of the therapy against ABM had helped to lead to the solar grid?
No.
I read my words about it.
The column's exactly the opposite.
He tore it up goddamn high.
I know you did.
That's right.
I didn't read it.
I'd read his column, so I made it.
I was ready to say, I'm this ready.
So did Henry.
And Henry read it.
He said, well, he said, and then he might be in Germany.
They prepared it in Germany.
The main thing is Wilson went just the other way.
But my point is, they can be this, and then people forget it.
Trusting initiatives.
It really gets around on revenue sharing.
Believe me, unless you can tie the property tax reduction in any word about lands in Asia.
Correct?
Yep.
And I don't know why you can't.
It's irresponsible because it does directly to the HO, but it sure does indirectly.
Sure.
In that if you don't have some form of relief to local governments, they're going to have to raise property taxes.
There's no question.
We ought to have billboards.
Cut your property taxes.
That's what we should do.
We're going to cut property taxes.
People do not see this.
They do not see it either.
Someone's got to get sort of irresponsible and start saying that.
All right.
It's possibly a loop trip that you're responsible for.
All that really matters.
What came up there is unemployment.
Unemployment.
Because the other stuff looks like it's going to be all right.
Inflation, though.
As long as it isn't really bad, it doesn't have to be too good.
But in unemployment, we can't cut that.
It's going to be going down.
You are apparently obviously not going to get it down.
He prefers to have it stay at six because it controls inflation, provided it starts to move down toward the end of the year.
Of this year?
Yeah.
Well, that's all right.
If it starts moving down and gets down, it's got to go down about a tenth of a point.
I want you to check with us on summer youth jobs.
There was an article in the New York Daily News indicating we had cut the number of summer heat jobs in New York City from 45,000 last year to 41,000 this year.
I very distinctly remember that we had increased the number of summer heat jobs.
We announced the whole Goddamn program, remember?
Yep.
Now, maybe this is part of the screwing, Lindsay.
I don't know what it is.
It's quite possible.
But on the other hand, on the other hand, I need it.
I'd kind of like to know.
Okay.
Better get me a one-sense.
And also, in John's case, I want you to have the same kind of a talk with him, which we've had with Henry, with regard to the size of staff.
Not only the size of staff, but the preparation of papers.
great mounds of paperwork.
I mean, I send in a little question, and I really don't, when I do that, that's why I'm not doing it as much.
I don't want them to prepare me a goddamn note on it, you know what I mean?
It's the end of that, where when I ask a question, I get a mound of paperwork, and I get a whole study of it.
I don't want that.
I just want a quick little answer.
I want one paragraph.
Yes and no, you know?
Maybe.
But, you know, we gotta, we gotta go through with tab A, tab B, tab C, tab D, et cetera.
About this paperwork, we have got to cut the goddamn paperwork down around this staff somewhere, right?
It's difficult.
I use it as an example.
The briefing that I had for Alabama was perhaps five times too long.
You know what I mean?
It could have been done in about three days if somebody had just got to work on the goddamn thing and said, here's what you want to cover.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I had a political briefing.
I had about eight pages or...
The other thing, if they do it that way and get it in on time, then if there's some area where you want more information, you say, give me some more dope on this, and we can get another page to cover something you don't think is detailed.
I think we're cutting Andrew down some.
I don't know.
A little.
It's hard, though.
Go ahead.
I just feel bored in here.
You've got people down there somewhere that if they don't pour out paper, there's no reason for them to be there.
So they pour out paper.
We've got to figure out something we're going to do.
Don't we just give them the youth then?
Let me say that I think we're making one mistake.
I think you're in a better spot for putting things under coast.
I don't know about youth.
Now, I understand, I know Colson can run it better, but I think that unless you give Finch something to do, we're, no, no, Finch is, is the head of it, is running it, is in charge, Colson's just trying to, to keep this piece of stuff down, just Finch, no.
I think so.
The Democratic National Committee is on a strict two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Republicans on it, pulling his crowd to one-on-one.
Come on down to the registrations to see if Democrats and Republicans understand.
The point is to keep out of it and program it.
I don't know whether it does anything.
Sometimes.
Richard's go apparently over there.
Something didn't work out with him.
He probably got in a problem this week.
You haven't heard from him yet.
You know, and he's back now, and he doesn't get it done.
He can withdraw it, you know, and have to get somebody else in the damn job.
This is good candidates.
I don't think they're at all.
Basically, the symbolism they need is to have somebody
But when I say conservative, I know that there goes something as shit.
What I'm concerned about is not to have a nitpicking, screaming, squealing, whining away.
You've got to have somebody that goes on and works in a positive way.
I think Al Gore will cause it, and I don't think we can.
In his name, we can.
I think it's difficult to have people like him.
You know what I mean?
Reagan did a hell of a job on that Yap thing.
He wrote them an escaping letter, told them that they were not to organize for him, that he would withdraw any support in backing of Yap in any way, shape, or form if they carried this project forward one more step, that he totally denounced it in every regard, that they should be working for President Nixon's re-election, as he is.
And, you know, back and back and back.
He's not, he's, he's...
Making sure that he's keeping that wicket covered.
If he wants, he realizes it.
That's the way to get it.
If he wants to get it someday, he knows goddamn well he's gonna get it with my support, not without it.
Now, really, if he's gonna get it at all,
He's going to get it only if something happens to you.
Someday it's going to be too late.
76 is too late for him.
If something happens to me and I can't run, then either your support or your people's support.
I'm not going to get it without it.
It's Nixon's people, not Yap's people.
That's exactly true.
The Yap people, you know them.
They've got them.
So he's playing smart.
He's doing exactly what he should, which is to disavow them and tell them to get with you.
And that's what he's got to do.
So he's smarter than he did last time.
Didn't Ziegler answer that?
He did, didn't he, a knock-and-knock?
Oh, yeah.
And they had Bill Gill baited yesterday on the knock-and-knock thing, and he just knocked him against the wall.
Well, where did he say that it happened?
He said, he saw me in my apartment in New York, and that I told him that they're going to end the war in six months?
Yeah, well...
Gill just completely smashed in on it yesterday on issues and answers.
We got no mileage out of it.
We did a hell of a good job on ABC yesterday.
They had Riegel and McCloskey.
And the ABC reporters just tore them apart.
And we didn't get one.
Anybody who saw that thing, we gave them a lot of points.
But we didn't get one second percent.
Not one iota.
Instead we found another good weapon.
Last night on the Dick Cavett show, you know, McCloskey's getting an enormous amount of television.
And just because he's interesting, you know, as a guy who's taking on the president.
But last night he was on the Cavett show, and they put Jack Kemp on opposite, on our side.
And Kemp did a superb job of...
on a factual basis, but also the emotional thing, and he played it just beautifully, and he's exactly the right guy to put a freshman congressman up against him.
He looks good, he looks the out McCloskey, McCloskey all the way around, he's better looking, he's sharper,
Cut his facts straighter.
And he handles that kind of thing.
He likes to fight damn well.
So what we're going to do is make Kemp the part of one-man McCloskey truth squad.
And he does it on his own, but we make sure McCloskey goes off to Chicago and should Kemp out to Chicago too.
It'll be good for Jack.
It'll build him up.
And it'll be like Dole did in his early days.
Kemp will just become a young tiger.
You've got to keep McCloskey from doing something.
We can't give them a free ride, but we can elevate them.
It's much better for Kim to answer than for Bob Dole to answer.
That's right.
Because he puts them up too high for a senator or something.
But you say that Gill did smash it, that Regal had it smashed.
Well, he said, he just had him riding on the, he kept pinning him on the facts, and Regal kept waffling on it.
And wasn't able to defend it.
Gill said, I have it on the highest authority.
This is absolute nonsense.
And that's, to use the quote, the president said, that was not true of him.
It was a little preposterous or ridiculous or something like that.
And Gil kept hammering on her.
And he couldn't answer.
He said, well, you know, kind of waffled around.
But he repeated the charge?
Apparently.
Gil, of course, in a sense, he repeated.
And then zeroed in on the, what do you mean by it?
Because I have an honest story.
This isn't true.
He didn't in any way.
He said, well, you know, that's what I understood at the moment.
I'll give you a chance to see.
No.
I didn't see the thing, did I?
I think that's great.
That's the way to do this again.
It's that one-on-one type of thing, rather than a general process.
Everybody needs to know how to grab some of those guys.
And Jack White is skating on that kind of a fight.
He likes to fight.
Of course you know.
Are you, and one thing I do think the folks around the region do, is to find, are we getting equal time and powers and et cetera?
We are.
Okay, sir.
And we all, you know, the time I was in their broadcast,
against the Lord.
They bought time on a lot of stations.
They got free time on about a half a dozen.
Then they got big time.
They tried to get free time on the networks.
They couldn't get them.
They couldn't sell them.
They couldn't sell them either.
We have now, we waited until late.
We're committed on all the stations.
And then filed, we did, but tell it to handle it.
Filed for free time to answer it.
Because under a court of the law, if you sell time to one partisan thing, you have to provide time for an answer.
Free.
Yeah.
And we've gotten it.
Kind of an even WTOP in Washington.
And so tell it to him what he's going to put on this, uh, dog droves.
This guy that plays the Joe and tells him to just put it down.
The thing is, I think...
I think part of our problem here is this.
One of the things is that we got a distorted view.
It doesn't really matter.
That's true.
You do do to the fact that basically the news summaries carry only what the columns and the rest say about it.
And God damn it, they do not report our side.
They only report the other side.
Isn't this pretty true?
When you come down to it, you know, our guys could be on, like, we're going to be on meat, breast, fish, and everything to get a blip.
Anything is back.
It can be on.
God damn it.
It's in the news.
See my point?
Yeah.
It's the old story newspaper versus the audience.
Like the SABC thing yesterday.
But this is not very important.
You never know what happens.
Unless you watch it.
People who watch it do.
Well, that's part of our community.