On June 8, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:21 pm to 1:38 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 514-013 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Johnny is such a little son of a bitch.
I know.
He's a terrible guy.
I don't think we should have him up anyway.
I think he's bad.
You know what I mean?
He is bad.
Uh, he's coming.
I think I have serious doubt that he should be riding around.
Well, I have, too.
And they all angle.
Everybody.
Talking about, like, uh, Claire Janney said to...
I had to tell them to call all of them.
To arrange their hotel.
I had to stay at the White House.
Clara Jane said, well, we don't want you all to come back.
It's so expensive to stay back there.
Well, the hotel is not one-tenth of the cost.
The cost is getting them on an airplane.
And I said to them, okay, just let us get the own hotel.
We'll arrange for everybody else.
We've got enough so that they can send a bus over to the Watergate Hotel and load everybody up, including the fire trucks and the Annenbergs.
Everybody's going to be on top of one bus, and that's going to make a lot of cars and
That's what we did in New York.
Well, after all,
I don't want Billy Graham to stay in there again.
He stayed.
I've had Bob go.
He stayed.
I've had our workers there.
He stayed.
And frankly, what the hell does it mean to them to stay a second night?
Unless, you know, you...
It's ridiculous for you to provide free room and board to people.
This is a free room and board.
It's
That's exactly it.
So you don't have to have any of those studies.
This is an obviously another one of our conversations on this subject.
No, no, I'll try.
I'll ask Julie what the story is.
I'll then try to talk to her.
I will tell the telephone that there's enough to put her call through.
That's right.
That's right.
At least through Sunday.
That's right.
That's right.
And what...
All right, I'll say if Pat is gone, she can leave her message with me.
I'm going to tell them to say that Mrs. Nixon, what they say when they can't find Pat is that she is not picking up.
We thought she was in Wonderland.
She isn't there.
She isn't picking up.
We can't find her.
I'm going to tell them they're very busy and see.
They can then say, could anyone else help you?
And she'll say no.
Better if they don't say me because then she'll know I'm not going to talk.
And then if she answers for me, then I'll talk.
Just don't let her get through.
Tell them what?
The operator.
Read them out.
They've been laid off before.
Operators are on our side.
Oh, anyone who's talked to her.
The whole staff.
I know the staff, but how will they get an answer?
She mentioned that.
When she stayed up in the Queens room that time, she not only had the telephone operators, but everybody else on set.
She didn't like the flowers.
She didn't like something else.
Oh, I remember that.
Didn't like the kind of pen they had in there.
It's a sad thing.
She's compulsively anti-everything.
Maybe she just can't.
I think that this has been a very fortunate exercise.
I can see this morning that it began to get some focus.
But I, Connolly, and Volpe, and even a few others, but several of them came around to the view that we had to focus on one or two issues, that that was a real problem.
And I think the...
But I think in terms of focusing on leaving, I think you've got to leave them, you've got to leave them and tell them out of focus, don't you think so?
Maybe that's what we have to get down to.
What are our issues?
What do we want to get?
So I'm going to do drug and crimes on my own, and we'll have colleagues hiking around about the economy.
I get the impression, I must say, I get the impression, you said that meeting, I realize we're just pissing away a hell of a lot of money, and these goddamn cabinet officers are running all over like a head of chickens with their head cut off, doing things that are zilch as far as contributing to the success of this administration.
You agree?
Yes.
They're just a bunch of, just presiding over the bureaucrats, so we've got to do,
We've either got to decide now that we're going to bobble along as well as we can through the election and then do what needs to be done afterwards, or that it's worthwhile to take a bold move now that, I don't know if John's raised with you, but something like going in for zero funding on the basis, well, no, on the Great Society programs.
On the basis that, you know, you've got a lot of stuff that doesn't work.
It's proven it doesn't work.
You've got to get the budget and keep going.
With your 73 budget, it's got to be in full employment balance or full employment surplus.
And it doesn't add up.
I mean, it just doesn't.
And there's no way.
The way the budget stuff stacks out now, there's no way to get it in the line, apparently, except to cut something.
Unless it became a big defense cut.
I say we got a horrendous problem because it screwed up operation in the Defense Department.
Yeah.
You know, it's very interesting, you know, in your poll, how heavily it came down along the side of staying ahead of the Russians.
Showed you we've got a potential issue there that we could use if necessary.
And that's one, of course, that would...
about this whole conservative business today.
And he said the other stuff, what he'd reported to you, you know, is all this, you have a radical conservative group that you can't worry too much about, but he thought you ought to be aware of what they're thinking just so you know what they're writing about.
But he's concerned now because they've gotten Buckley and some of the people that have been with us are worried about Sullivan and all that.
and that sort of thing when we get to it.
Don't let him get into that.
I'll tell you why.
That's all going to, put it this way, that will all be determined by what happens.
The main thing is for Henry to get off of his ass, I've told him a dozen times, start talking to those people, rather than simply talking to John Gardner, you know, at the Council of Foreign Relations.
The burden is, believe me, Henry has talked to every son of a bitch
that will not help us politically.
Correct.
Yeah.
You were starting to say that what we can't come up with on a national level.
Well, the defense spending concern, and our whole line, we're never going to settle that on the full employment budget.
I don't know.
I mean, we've violated the basic principles.
But we can't change on that problem.
It won't lose votes, it'll lose us some enthusiasm with the people that should be strong with us.
And then you get into the whole domestic program, the fact that we still are eliminating anything, we've increased it.
Or at least maintain it.
I know it's over at ATW and all these other places.
All the stuff at ATW and HUD.
OEO to do good programs.
Giving out more food stamps.
Our polls show that people are all for those things, don't they?
They want more for education, more for housing, more for everything else, right?
We can't hold ourselves there to see what people want.
Ask if they want more taxes.
That's right.
That's pretty weird.
They don't want to settle it down.
That's correct.
Two things.
Patricia called.
She asked me to ask you if you would have your picture taken today.
And I said that I forgot it.
According to your schedule, about 5 o'clock as you're walking over to the Diplomatic Reception, you can do it right out on the steps.
Trisha seems to think that would be a good place.
Not these steps, but the outside steps over there.
What kind of a picture do you want?
Well, one of you and Trisha outside.
And this will run after the... Would that be worth it then?
Oh, sure.
She wants just me dressed like I am?
Yes, sir.
I could do it any time, but why do they want it there?
Well, this was Tricia's suggestion.
Apparently, in her discussions with LIFE, they want one outside.
And you talk to them, and that's what they want.
And they want it at 5 o'clock.
Well, I suggest 5 o'clock.
I think it would be more convenient to you and Tricia.
Well, I was up in the meetings at 5.15.
Yes, fine.
All right.
I wasn't able to look inside, but...
I thought that Atkins' time cover was shaking.
Oh, the whole time thing was great.
Good story.
Good story.
Great picture.
Sensational picture of Julia and Tricia.
Up in the...
Sitting on the floor.
And the outside terrace was good.
And the one in the queen's bedroom.
And Tricia and Ed in the rose garden.
The contrast between that and life is...
Story, picture, story on the Kennedy Center, the Kennedy Gala.
It has a full-page picture.
I'll show it to you.
Full-page color picture.
It has all the pictures are just repulsing looking people doing kind of obnoxious, typical Kennedy Society type things, you know, drunk and making faces and all that.
But they're interesting.
They're gay.
Not really.
They're slobs.
They really are.
But the full page covers a curious square, if I get it right, of Eunice Shriver and Pat Lawford, the two Kennedy girls.
And Pat Lawford is wearing hot pants in a metallic, looks like an acrobat suit or something, you know, the trapeze artists would wear or something.
And these two
They're close up enough pictures that their faces show, and they both are so hard, disgusting.
Hard and crude.
The degenerate looking faces, you know, the wrinkles and the sides and all that.
I remember those people.
They dress like a young girl ought to be dressed.
A 17-year-old?
The girl would look great in that thing, but this old bag wearing it just looks terrible.
And the contrast between that picture on the cover of White, of Teddy and Joe Kennedy, and the picture on the cover of Time, of Ed Church, is just truly something.
The Kennedy-Sparkins concert.
We can't call the Kennedy-Sparkins concert.
Oh, no, Kennedy still is.
No, Teddy is.
He still has a big ball.
I'm not putting it down, but I'm talking about the...
now life is doing a color after the wedding scene but they want to intersperse they're going to do the cover with the wedding shot which Trish is a formal
wedding.
See, that will go after the wedding.
And they wanted to fill in with other, you know, before-wedding type things.
That's why they would like to get the pictures.
The revenue sharing in the briefing today said that the American people were pretty well taxed out at the local and state level, and that's why revenue sharing has such widespread support from the local officials, because it's dollars that will help them meet their problems, and the pressure of the
Increasing property taxes and other forms of taxes at the local level will then not be there.
I'll tell you what I would do.
You might put it in terms of this.
The choice of the Congress now is that we're either going to have revenue sharing or we're going to have to increase the property taxes.
That's the choice.
Revenue sharing is the answer.
It's stopping the increase in property tax.
And to get any hold of reduced property.
Which is why virtually everyone, everywhere in the country is in favor of revolution, except a few old men in Washington.
Well, I said, what we have to do is, I heard someone say this, but I said, what we have to do is break the protective band around Congress.
I said, what we're doing, we're out across the country, we're enthusiastic about this, and what we have to do is crack through that protective band.
They said, well, the bills are
Out across the country, he's seeing the same people.
Why don't they eat you?
I said, well, because he's against it.
That's right.
I hope we get some movement out of that.
You know, surprising, they did not get what military in the country is, and do people want revenue sharing?
We think so.
What'd you say?
They did not press me on that.
I said, I'm not sure they could do that.
Well, it's an old story.
It's basically the West.
That's all been covered.
Exactly what it is.
This program started in the previous administration.
This administration completely disclosed it.
There's nothing new in these areas.
Period.
So I referred.
I got one line in that goes back to the 1962 in the Kennedy administration with the North Vietnamese of the Geneva Accords.
And I said, we outlined in your March statement what the situation was left at the time.
Well, I think that the whole wedding thing is, uh, why don't we finally decide, you know, what we're going to do about the, uh, I mean, the, uh, movies, TV, the TV.
You know, that's all worked out very well.
We're going to allow them to begin to use it at 6 o'clock.
We're going to allow them to begin to use, uh, what they're covered with at 6 o'clock, which is to start a motion show now.
they're going to do specials later that evening.
So it's going to get very, very big TV.
And I think the way we've done it, which is not letting the carrier pod build their interest and force them into the... Oh, yes, sir, they're committed to it.
ABC...
Has it special about anything?
NBC has two specials.
NBC does one from 6 o'clock and then from, I think, 8.30 to 9.30, or they're still working around 8 to 9 in primetime.
There will be a lot of interest in it.
There will be very few people in this country that won't see that.
Who won't see it and won't have an opportunity to see it at different times.
They will see it, but it's going to cover something.
See, because the NBC first special will begin at six and will run in pattern.
In other words, it'll be six here, three in the west.
But then their evening special will be across the board at whatever time it starts.
What's the second half hour?
Hour.
Hour.
How the hell do they know?
Oh, I guess.
Oh, sure.
Guests arriving and talking about the cake and walking down the steps.
Steps and going back up and trying to fill it in.
The reception line, the cut of the tape.
I want to find a way to keep it so I don't get Nader getting in the picture.
Can you do that?
Is the whole reception line being photographed?
No, only the first 15 minutes.
They'll get Nader, then?
Well, we can... Oh, no, that's all I mean.
Oh, I know he's got to get photographed, but I don't think we ought to play him up that much.
Oh, well, don't worry about it.
Did you do the monitoring of the line?
I didn't want to glorify him.
I think he was doing very well in the magazines, and I think it was good we didn't do any pre-TV stuff.
No, I agree.
Well, maybe.
I think you're right.
I think you're right.
Yeah, we don't want to make it a goddamn romance service.
CBS is going to do a special the night before on the wedding, and I think it's a half an hour.
Preparations.
Preparations and...
There'd be quite an impact on all this wedding stuff.
This is really getting more than the Johnson place.
That kind of big place.
Because they did it live, as I recall.
They did something live.
I saw part of it on TV.
Very good.
Extremely well done.
They didn't do the actual service.
They had her coming down the stairs into the mall.
And they had an interview with her, too.
Or she was streaming with her.
The tall one?
The tall one.
I thought she was using each one.
You did get a chance to talk to Henry about the public knowledge of salt and so forth and so on.
Not that he could do anything about it, but just the fact that we all kind of realize what it amounts to.
And I would hope he would put it off to Scallion if he would.
He kind of realizes what it is.
And you'll learn this morning that I want a man to try to make a special effort.
And I want you to give this to the gallery, too, about the fact that the calories you can make a team is three.
It's really, that's the first time below 20.
Of course, one week was 16, but it was actually 21.
Yeah.
Your team is home this week.
Do you want to see him?
He's recommending that it's tea, is that you might find it useful to talk with him about a U.S. cellular connection.
of the Soviet situation.
He's recommending 15 knots.
Well, he wants a half hour.
Sure, I'll see.
Okay.
And they are recommending that you see Cooper this week.
Well, he still wants to report to you on his trip.
That would be ostensible purpose.
The real reason being that he
Yeah.
Can we do anything about this business about, can somebody handle Opie and get his report?
Oh, sure.
Hell yeah.
Another one that wants to report to me is Don Kendall on his trip.
Well, I talked to Don, and it really isn't a Don that he has to say to me.
I think the thing to do on him is just solve it.
I talked to him and told him the wedding was on this week, and he
You know, said that I'd see him.
He's down here next week, but he said it isn't urgent at all.
He said, I don't need it.
Well, he's good, isn't he?
The other one that was out, what was it?
Stan, huh?
Javits.
Stan Javits.
He used to see Henry.
I don't see him now.
Because it isn't about Israel anyway, so he should see Henry.
It's a presumption for him even to ask.
The other thing is whether we can confirm an official visit of Matak in August.
We had, you know, sort of agreed.
We had agreed to a lot-no visit and then we told them.
In August?
We had said a lot-no visit for us.
They wanted an August visit.
Matak has now said he would like to call on you wherever you are.
You do it in California, you've got to be there.
Is that a good time?
That's what they think.
And the idea would be to strengthen his position at home.
He's doing a good job.
All right.
Demonstrate support.
Yeah.
All right.
Fine.
Would it just be an official visit, not a state visit?
Well, all they want is a, you know, go ahead.
Fine.
You just gotta hang tight with guys like Bowlby, don't you?
I think so.
I think we better just let him walk all over us all the time.
You don't have to.
The thing to say is, you don't need a report on this trip.
You're not going to get a report.
Maybe that's funny, but
First, frankly, put him on some cabinet meeting.
Let him board the cabinet.
I'll see you back at that show to tell the cabinet.
That's the cabinet.
Thank you.
My own feeling is that we're in a situation in terms of our public position, which, as I would put it on a personal standpoint, we're better than I think we thought.
Yes, we're better.
From a history standpoint, we're worse than we thought.
And that's what it means.
Or it won't seem very damn low.
Considering what we've done, we've got a goddamn low credit box.
And that's because of the war.
But I think the other thing is, for Christ's sake, the Mideast, we get negative ratings.
We get very little positive ratings on salt.
No positive ratings on China.
You see my point?
Here are all these big things we thought we were doing.
The world here didn't just come true.
I think you believe me.
You've got to realize that
I think you ought to talk to him.
I think you really ought to talk to him.
To scowl him and say, this is a wonderful opportunity to get scowled more, in this case.
I look at him.
Here we've done all these things.
What the hell is the matter?
What do you think?
Don't you agree?
I think maybe we've got to let him up more.
The public doesn't get anything unless you make it simple and just repeat it.
That's the point.
And we do not repeat over and over.
We do not repeat.
We do not make a sign.
We make one salt announcement, now salt out of the way.
The very factors have a lot to go on about that.
I don't know that this law, the law issue, we're going to reverse that.
The economic issue, you can't do a goddamn thing about it except...
You've got to find a couple of enemies.
And a fighter's a plan.
The whole, I must say, we really pondered around.
You know, John was surprised when I told him that I'm ranking together.
I gave him your analysis of it.
I said, John, he says, it has to go.
He says, what about those with control?
I said, no, no, no.
Only in the south.
Do you remember them?
So you've got to look at that question.
That's why you see the analysis of that poll is so important.
So that you don't get the, you know, I mean, so get the break-ins.
You do, you really have, with the Buchanan thing on Earth, you can't get across the Buchanan thing.
You ought to broker all sorts of things.
Broker, good God.
What about the police and, you know, the idea of government and all that stuff?
He's very good on that.
Yeah, he just said, you know, he got sent to the other side.
I mean, he thought he was going to know, but he just, he just said it was positive.
And there, he does.
You know, the guitar.
I put a guitar on the playoff.
I forgot to tell him about it.
Well, that's a couple of good signals.
But isn't your view that all the personal things were probably going well, except in terms of the...
I think...
Which is, it's about everybody, the issues that is being a little bit of a, of a, of a, of a courageous sense.
Well, strong.
So that is the strong leader that's not better.
Strong, strong leader.
Well, I quote that because, you know, they don't have to be precautionary.
Well, because there isn't a clear cut thing.
There isn't a, there's nothing that, as Paul said, with a cutting edge.
There's no end.
That's right.
No end.
That's right.
We aren't fighting with something.
You've got to fight the Congress, Bob, or you've got to fight the labor unions, or you've got to fight the best foreigners' interests, or the bureau, or state of the art.
That's right.
And we're not fighting anybody.
We're just nice guys.
The only thing I fought, so to put it, in the public mind, and that we forgot to tell you this, is that I fought against the demonstrators, right?
That won't be forgotten.
We've got a pretty good line on that one, because we've done it many times consistently, and people feel strongly about it.
But that is enough.
Fighting demonstrators are an aberration.
They're not a struggling emperor.
You've got to be into something more than that.
That's right.
But taking our strong suit of foreign policy, I do not agree, and you would agree with me on that, when we got Andrea and Scali and Chris, when I talked to them, they said, this is our strong suit.
We're doing very well in foreign policy.
The answer is, we're not doing nearly as well as we want to.
I don't agree with them.
I'm just sure that war is a dragon.
That's true.
But we've got a whole lot of policies, foreign policy areas, that we simply aren't getting any credit on.
Right?
Yeah.
But as the war goes, I think those are there, which, they need something there to take the full pay for.
But it's all going to be solved.
It's either not that thing, and I know it, but that was the nuclear arms, when you announced it, I thought, yeah, the invitation to the arms trade, it would mean a hell of a lot.
Because that, they're into the people, they're scared, maybe.
Certainly the assault thing does have some effect.
It's liberating, doesn't it?
Because you turn off people.
It affects the intellectuals and all that, and it works its way down.
Of course, that's the Poussiri, Walters, or, you know, who was it that says it takes six, oh, the Harlow, Harlow, six weeks or anything.
Yeah, it could be.
Yeah.