On June 4, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:18 pm to 1:42 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 512-018 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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's a very impressive fellow.
He's Jewish, liberal, a lot of semen.
He's a hard-line, very good at the crime.
Hard-line and one-hearted man with good credentials.
Which is unusual for a Jew.
Yeah, good credentials.
He's got very good communication with the young people and the blacks and that's because he's got imaginative procedures like, for example,
In the field of drugs, he's got this program.
He is against legalizing marijuana.
He says, the position is exactly right.
He says, the evidence points to that.
But he says, he's got this pre-indictment probation.
He says, what you do when you've got somebody who's out enjoying a ride and you pick them up, you know, a college kid, you arrest them.
And then you bring them in before indictment.
And you say, all right, you're on probation for a year.
There will be no record if you don't break it.
But if you break it, it's going to sort of look at you.
Excellent idea.
I'm all for that.
Excellent idea.
A conventional abuser of anything like that shouldn't be given, I don't think, shouldn't be in that kind of a situation.
Any punishment at all.
I agree.
I think, but Frank, do you arrest them?
Yeah.
Do you fingerprint them?
I set an all-criminal record, and it's a pre-indictment for what you call it.
And I, as a lawyer, say a conventional abuser is completely, and I said, that's very good to see.
Yes, but to legalize it is way wrong, because then it makes it fashionable.
and acceptable, something that people should not realize is wrong.
Well, that's what, you know, as I told you, this kid, who has been on, very heavily on marijuana for two years now, said, for God's sake, don't legalize it.
He's the kind of a guy you don't even think he could.
He could run your thing, couldn't he?
No, here, your dope thing, if you don't get it, what's his name?
Huh, yeah.
I don't think he'd do that.
At least his future is there.
He's the kind of fellow that really should be heading...
He ought to go to the...
If you have appointments in the Supreme Court, if you go to the Jewish room, you're not supposed to get out of there.
You're on the harder line, Captain.
The regular line would be more tough, less intellectual.
Good.
What does he think about Rizzo?
He's managing the campaign.
Is he managing Longstrap?
He's making it clear that they're not attacking Rizzo as a policeman, just saying.
Which, of course, Green had done.
Respect for him, he's worked for him, with him for five years, and then basically the issue is whether or not he broad-gaugeed that community.
Longstrap is a Nixon man.
He's always been a Nixon man.
You know, he stuck his neck out.
Well, he was, because I was for him once, and he knew there wasn't a chance.
And a very strong guy.
He's a very decent guy, basically, not strong.
But who the hell is the strongest guy on the people you know?
Not very many.
It's the strength of something that's, I don't know, what the hell is it?
Does it get beaten out of college?
I think that's what it is.
The more intellectual people get, the weaker they get.
The less they've got.
That's right.
This economic thing, I talked to John.
He's going to put the thing together and he says Schultz is not in town.
Why doesn't that have to be done today?
But he's going to get it done today.
Okay.
I thought anyone that did together was an exception.
No, I think we ought to let the weekends go by and let them listen to the numbers and all of them.
Why not?
So he's, John's building on it.
The fact that I'm 1.6.2, you know what I mean?
But I can do some things with it, I think, without it.
It creates jobs among people who are not in the same labor force.
It may not make a whole lot of difference.
Huh.
Have you lost 23 to 67?
Is that one year?
No, that's end of draft.
One year is shorter.
I'll be the second, yeah.
I'm being so responsible.
Instead, I feel to lose about 31.
That's exactly what he lost by.
Probably closer, but we'll defeat it.
I'm glad you're staying up.
All right.
He's about double stage.
He's got a great future.
I mean, I would never see him acting an asshole like this fighter.
I mean, he's tougher.
You know, he's a Jew that's come up like Henry.
I think.
You know, he's developed some toughness.
I don't feel like there's anything I don't want to do.
I wonder what it does.
You know, of course, you know,
He didn't seem to feel that
I mean, he's just skimmed through it, I guess, but he said it's coming up.
But Benham, what Benham told me in the general discussion was that this is Benham's truth.
Benham did both polls.
He did our image poll, and then he did their issue poll.
The poll was paid for by the government.
It's part of the basic research in the domestic concept.
It means a lot, but it's a lot of money.
It's good.
We're playing our game, Johnny.
We've got more mileage out of the ORC releases.
They've got bigger news than the Gallup releases, and that's pure.
It shows you how screwed up the DER is.
They should have breaks out of ORC stuff that we put out.
It's not news.
It's a job poll.
I mean, it is.
It happens.
It's an honest job.
It could be.
They have no reason to believe that.
I imagine that if we were to job it, they wouldn't know it.
That's right.
That's why we've got to use Harris a little more, too.
They wouldn't know it.
If we job the ORC poll, put it out, they wouldn't know the figures.
That's why we want to keep it quite credible by not using it too often.
Try to use Harris.
See, he sells his stuff.
He sells his results.
Chris, if Harris pays for the poll himself and sells the results, you know, the curious thing on Harris, the Harris trend lines on trial heats differ from Gallup's.
I mean, Gallup shows the trial heats closing.
Where we were ahead, we closed.
And Harris shows where they were ahead.
And they were closed.
Now, what the hell is right?
I think Gallifrey's are kind of true.
I think Harris was, I think Harris was jobbing and now he's moving him back in the line because of our economic relationship.
He was jobbing.
And the reason I think Gallifrey is because Gallifrey are seeing basically our improvement, right?
And I, if we don't wait a little more until Lawrence, the other, I mean, I don't know if it's right, but you know it's not.
Oh, boy.
It's not going to change.
It's not going to change either.
One thing about the economy, the economic land, it just doesn't get any worse.
You're supposed to live for six months before it gets better and you'll be all right.
People can get used to it, you know.
And after all, to tell you that you need to sign one.
It's like, you know, a 24-card.
Well, I think it's great as far as the college kids are concerned.
You really need it.
The fact that the graduates this year can't get jobs is the best thing that could happen to them.
and higher education, I disagree with, damn right.
Well, when I used to do college recruiting back in the mid-60s, it was obnoxious, because these kids didn't come in, you know, they were doing you a favor to even come to the appointment.
You had to go to the campus, they didn't come down to the office.
You had to go out to the campus.
And they were very awful on the nights that they came.
You had to have nice, colorful brochures,
I wasn't going to be treated like I did in the law schools.
Why not give it one trip?
I mean, I mean, I mean, but there was the same lot of things.
Here I was the former vice president of the United States.
I went to these places.
Well, they, of course, were recent.
They were almost independent.
They had little shit-asses I never saw in my life.
And, uh, the, uh, there was any offers that they did.
Well, all these companies just stock them up and then they can parent them.
They have benefits and a salary and guaranteed promotions.
And that's what it is when they hear peace.
Peace.
Sure can if it happens.
Even assuming that Vietnam just drags on in the end to make the final announcement, that's that.
That's going to be done whenever I lay the books right to them.
I'm sure of it.
And you don't get it right there, but in some China things.
We know that.
And we can use it anytime we want.
So you've got that in the bank.
And that's going to be quite a thing.
I mean, that's going to be a hell of a thing when the president agrees to go to China.
It's going to be quite a thing.
You send Bruce over ahead, that's going to be a big thing.
When you go, it's going to be...
It's incredible.
You don't have the stir that that'll create when you're on it.
See, it's pretty bigger than Russia.
Much bigger.
Many times bigger, because it's a forbidden land, right?
History.
And the element of danger.
I mean, the mystery involved in, you know, what might happen to it.
Well, that's something I don't recognize.
You're safer there than any place in the world you could go.
Hell of a lot of states that are walking across Pennsylvania Avenue are going to Mexico.
We can't go any place in Latin America.
Well, going to Mexico is a damn dangerous driving through.
Hell of a lot more dangerous driving through Puerto Vallarta.
I know.
You can walk a little bit through the streets of P.T.
more safely than Parma, Ostrava, or Leningrad or any place.
You're a prime minister.
Because they just have to tell you, no, there's a damn little bit more.
When I say the drugs are there, just come on.
They are ruthless.
And take on the Soviet men.
If we don't have something, if you get a Soviet son, boy, all right, we can just get a break and come and get you.
Has the American president ever gone to Moscow?
No, never.
The American president never went to Moscow.
I don't know whether you want to ask Johnson.
I asked him.
I was invited, I was the highest ranking American prisoner in the world.
The only, of course, there was a Yalta conference, but that's really kind of different.
That really is in the country, you know, that's a, it wasn't a visit.
He was to visit a big tree at Yalta on the Black Sea.
And it really had no, and this is going to Moscow.
See, it's a big difference.
you'll have a person on that building, a thousand to walk through.
And the bank is quite something.
It really is.
Everything's like a kid with a good toy.
Well, I don't blame him.
To tell you the truth, that letter was worth his whole job here.
To tell you the truth, he knows, too, that this is something that
For what?
Oh my God.
I mean, that warmly welcomed historical significance of that piece of paper.
And, you know, it wasn't interesting enough, too, the fact that it says it will welcome Dr. Kissinger.
So, let's have this, uh, let's, again, oppose our problem with Roger.
I am thinking in terms of, well, Bob, we can't just let him come up with a perfect ending in terms of having him recall with Agnes.
July 1st.
Yeah.
He's going to end up for the weekend there, isn't he?
I think he was.
Whatever it is, it could be.
No, I guess not.
He left the trip before we got to Pakistan.
Something out of Japan, I suppose.
Alright.
That was a bruise.
Oh, you hear that?
Oh, there's a goddamn street.
This stuff, the hell?
It's hardly anything.
These two moves, there's no way you can do much more significant kind of stuff.
Alright.
Bruising, I guess.
Yep.
I totally know I'm going to trash myself in costume, but cosmetically I believe in doing the war this month.
And for God's sake, this is our key to keep it bouncing.
It's a tough problem.
Let's assure you, you don't have to worry about getting in too much trouble there.
I don't know, I think next week with some of those Senate votes, that talk with the part where they get the Vietnam votes by turning the union into the
And there's a big move of businessmen's move for peace, and those kind of people are coming in to lobby.
Who's leading that?
John Gardner.
Businessmen's, that's Willens from Los Angeles.
Oh, he's been in this group for years.
Yeah, he's been in this group for years.
Businesses are getting his move for peace.
Lawyers.
They're going into town to try and...
They're going into town to try and...