On June 9, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:05 pm to 1:27 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 515-005 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Well, you must lose all your fucking new suits about as much as I do.
Very interesting.
They brought this down.
Revolution.
Yeah.
The reading was by Philip.
I'd like to take this .
What do you think?
Do you really say the things that people say?
Read that paragraph about marijuana.
Unfortunately, I really started smoking because I had about a three-hour discussion with my son last night.
And this guy's hitting right where it hurts.
He talks, he defines that there are two kinds of people in this country, Americans, anti-Americans, and neutrals.
Americans believe in the country, anti-Americans want to tear it down, and neutrals are the people that don't give a damn as long as the TV works.
Well, he says internally we're at war, and the anti-Americans are slowly winning, and maybe not so slowly.
He says we Americans are confused, disorganized, frustrated, maligned, and exploited.
Then he says, the great irony is that we've come to realize that we outnumber our oppressors.
And he says, the oppressors are the anti-Americans.
And he's got some great lines here.
We Americans are oppressed by the anti-Americans who dominate the media, the universities, and to a large extent, our government.
They malign our values, our achievements, our intelligence, our morality, our religion, our whole mode of life.
Yet we continue to support them with our taxes.
We patronize their disgusting films.
We buy their anti-American newspapers, watch their distorted newscasts, send our children to their radical colleges and seminaries, pay for the textbooks and teachers that turn our sons and daughters against us, then try vainly to win them back.
Most perversely of all, we, year after year, elect our oppressors as opposed.
Thanks to this revolution, we need a revolution of our own, as we, the workers, saviors, taxpayers, family members, and church supporters, the quiet, productive, creative, positive people of the United States, who are exploiting most outrageously the very American integration of the poor, which is to say, the middle class.
The very word middle class is, in the vocabulary of anti-American, a term of abuse.
They can't speak it without a sneer.
To them, middle class is a dull, materialistic, narrow-minded, insensitive, puritanical, bigoted, and stupid.
If we let them dupe us with their use of words, we will feel ashamed of being middle class.
They denounce a new class morality that exhorts a man and a woman to live faithfully all their lives in marriage.
They ridicule us for wanting our daughters to remain virgin till their wedding night, condemn us because we warn our sons against marijuana, urge them to discipline themselves, to work and study hard, to plan a career of follow-up, to save money and look to the future, to believe in God when the day is unfashionable, and serve our country as a useful citizen and maybe even as a soldier.
How do you like that?
Who wrote that?
A real estate agent in Philadelphia by the name of Terry McKinney.
Well, what I'd like for you to do about this is do two things.
One, do reprint, you know, get it around a bit, would you?
But second, why don't you give Terry McKinney a call and tell him the print came down.
You're tailoring it?
Yeah.
He cut it out of the book.
He said, that's what I...
when he had John Freedman, who was his brother, and any of that.
And it was very depressing for him.
Sometimes when he's in Washington, I just like to, he comes out like a sailor.
I mean, you know, maybe this guy's a writer.
I like the way he writes.
That's what I believe, you know?
Well, there's that paper that I put that Arizona or Indianapolis or whatever, Americans had enough or Americans stop it or whatever, tell them to quit writing down everything.
People are getting sick of these.
But they have to be awakened.
What we now realize is the report editorial and political candidate that's fed to us will push away this proof and examine each closing to ask the simple question, is this American or anti-American?
Then we'll win back the newspapers, the TV networks, the motion picture industry.
We will, by the grace of God, save this church from manipulators who are using it for political ends.
We'll show our children that the power and wisdom of the ages is a bedrock of American greatness.
If we're faithful to them, the shrieking radicals have nothing that can shake us.
We will one by one vote the anti-Americans out of our Congress and our local governments.
Before long we will prevail.
It will be our country.
Well, that is really great.
We'll get that copy and send everybody in the White House a copy of it.
Yeah, I think so.
And other places, too.
Get it around to the White House.
Get it around quite a lot.
You send it around.
No, not just for me, so that it doesn't get me in the position of endorsing everything that's in there, because I probably do endorse it.
But I think it ought to go around.
Don't you think so?
Yeah, all right.
The other thing is, I want McKinney, though, you know, but I read his article.
It's going to come down.
This guy may be a nice one to get.
I'll bet he's supporting Rizzo, too, rather than Longstrap.
Hello, Tom.
My friend.
Here he is.
We're not ashamed of these things.
We're proud of them.
Without them, there wouldn't be any American for you to tear down.
Without our morality and our system and the affluence it produced, there would be one huge slope from Atlantic to Pacific, or maybe still a wilderness, and no one to exploit for welfare checks or family assistance plans or urban renewal plans.
Worst of all, there would be no one for you to blame the poverty on, and what would you do without a scapegoat?
That little guy, everything would love him.
Take the one from earlier this year.
You guys have got a hell of a character control, you know, like the manly sisters they had.
So it's a good thing to know what the hell people really think of this damn thing.
I hate it.
Everybody who goes out and works hates it because they just...
Unless people are unable to do anything, we just ruin them.
They're no good at all.
This whole generation is growing up.
I want to see, I want to see if the guy, you'd have to put him under somebody cut of gray, but put him over where you can, you know, he'd get locked in.
Because this really talks about the values that I really believe in, you know, and how that is true of the Eastern Cracker.
I don't believe in this stuff.
It's all good.
I forgot what I said about the rioters.
That's our police.
I don't like that kind of business.
This, you know, not right like it is, would not be a bad speech for you to give a couple of minor corrections.
People do need to, and the ones who are in the middle, need to be called to stay awake and turn off the television and talk to their children and do good.
They sit here and talk as if everything else is crazy.
The old newspapers, they're not a bad influence.
It's wrong.
They are.
The television, the newspapers, the colleges and universities are desastraries.
They are.
The churches are becoming that.
They are.
Don't kid ourselves.
Don't kid ourselves.
The churches are bad as hell.
Oh, everything that stands for anything, he's right, everything that stands for anything in this country is being going down by a few people.
And some of them have been put in as long ago as when you were finding this case.
That's right.
That's just the point of it.
Give it a little bit of certainty.
Seven strong people who believe that way.
They love that art.
I'll be a real estate agent who has a strong interest in political matters.
I'll be a Democrat.
Charlie McGinley.
I might be a big Democrat.
That's all right.
I like your art.
It's a very good speech.
It's a very good idea.
I like your art.
I was going to say, on Operation Ground, I talked to Katie.
She's starting to be, uh... She's not going out.
She said she wanted to cement that.
How I am is, I do think this is... You say the grounds get in at 5 o'clock.
I know we can't siphon them off the grounds.
You think we can avoid denying that we've got, uh...
They don't get in until 5.
They won't get in until 6 to the water gate and get checked into their room.
It's too late to call and be invited to the inn.
Send the boys with the bags to the water gate and I'll come on over.
I think I'll shut my eyes up just a little bit and have a seat.
If a private comes down, I'm going to be here today.
I think I'll take him to 530 if I can.
Get the hell out of here before they get in.
That'd be a good thing to do.
But if she wants to do the boat, we run on a boat together.
She'd probably want to end up at the house.
Well, no, but you couldn't see her at 530, or he could hear before that.
He could hear as early as, I don't know what you're speaking of.
He's at 530.
Well, he could hear at 540.
Well, I don't know what the capital is.
I think it would be nice.
It would be nice if the other way is a good idea.
Julie, Trisha, and Pat and I should go out on a boat and it would be nice.
Since it was Trisha's idea, why don't you call Trisha and tell her the idea that you could have mentioned.
She said she wanted me to go out on a boat or even a dock.
Well, I wanted to do the dock, too.
Well, it would be better if I was secure in the building.
Well, you get a call once in a second, but that's all right, too.
We'll be eating tonight.
I don't think you'll get a call, sir.
They won't really be able to be checked in by a second, because they'll be bringing all kinds of fancy clothes and lots of luggage to pick up and all that.
Sure.
Hold on.
We're coming.
God, that rain thing is a fantastic risk, isn't it?
But they have equipment that they can keep inside.
And they're all set to do it.
They're all good.
They're like, come on in.
Because they're asking everybody to pray.
It's going to be cool.
It is going to be a slower impact.
It's going to be cool.
The weather is, today's cool and tomorrow's cooler and it's going to be cool.
It's going to be high, I think, that day.
Yeah, down to 70.
Oh, that'd be great.
Or low 70s or something.
But the question is, would it be cloudy or rainy?
It gets drippy.
The risk you run will be too bad.
Oh, I hear it so I'm sure.
It'll be a great occasion.
We know what it will be.
It'll be fine.
Can't get over how, like, pictures and time and music turned out.
Bruce Lee had to find their own pictures.
I know, because they were good.
They were good pictures, so I think that was especially good.
I know, that little family album thing.
Because I tried for eight or nine hours, I think, and Bruce Lee really looked up, and I thought that family thing was as cute as it could be.
And I had one of Tracy's, the ball game, back then.
Yeah, it was years ago.
And I think those kind of people love that.
Oh, yeah.
She used to go to the ball.
Oh, yeah.
It was good.
It breaks through that.
It's a different style.
It was a fairy princess thing.
Here's a little kid shouting.
Well, yeah.
She was mad, and she was shouting.
It was cute.
Well, I'll call her and see if she'd like to.
If you want, you can go on.
The boat's leaving here at 530.
This might be a little tricky.
But in any event, in any event, if that is not the case, I'll be over, I'll be over early if you want to have an early encounter.
Join them at 5.30.
Notice thinking Sunday, what you might want to do with me is go up to Camp Hoover.
Sunday afternoon, after Pat has her pen and everything, you could just take the chopper, if you've been wanting to go to Camp Hoover anyway, it'd be a damn good time to do it.
Have dinner there and then just come back for Sunday evening.
It'll give you a chance to get out and get some fresh air in the afternoon and see Camp Hoover.
Yeah.
Well, I've got to see what the patent does.
We might prefer that to getting on the boat for the afternoon, is the thing.
Yeah.
I'll just see how it works.
I mean, I do think we'll have a little bit of a drought on our hands that afternoon.
Huh?
Well, then what we'll do, I'll just, I do think the right afternoon is the right reception.
What about my brothers?
When do I see them?
They're not coming to the Ryan reception.
I talked to Donnie.
I got the call.
He didn't ask to see you or anything.
He had a couple of things that he wanted me to do.
I think they're gonna, I think the idea was to let them then meet here and everybody go to the EOB.
They're, wait, Sunday.
Sunday, right after the...
They'll have a wonderful time, it's good.
And they're gonna let my family sit and see the kids.
I'll avoid that, but I think you're right.
You are, you are, the only thing I think you can do, as I said, you can't credit the grounds off of that one, can't you?
Or you don't even tell that to Pat.
Oh, I'll tell you.
I think the worst thing she could do would be to have to travel with her family.
She can't bear a mind when she's busy.
I haven't even told her to do much, but that would be terrible.
It would be an insult to them to have Helene down in there.
Right.
Because they've never been upstairs, they've never seen that house, you know.
I want to take them truly upstairs myself.
I don't think they want Helene telling them that she's letting the queen through.
I'm sure Pat doesn't mean for Helene to be there because Pat herself told Ned Sullivan that she was going to do this.
Then I'll be up there with Ned at that time and then I think I will check out.
We've got the time to meet Don and Herjane and whoever's here.
And go over to the EOD.
Don and Herjane can come here.
Camp Hoover takes how long?
Forty-five minutes.
Same as Camp David.
There's a telecom company there.
Yeah, we have a steward go up, and they can serve you a good dinner up there, do a barbecue or something.
Well, I'm supposed to be okay.
I do think it's wise.
I think we can let it be provided that if it falls, it will happen all over again.
I don't think Brenda wants to see it.
I don't give a damn.
I'll take it, but I'm not going to have it.
I don't think I have one.
She hasn't gone in there before the wedding, or she's busy.
This is like that night in Los Angeles, the last night.
You remember those.
If you don't want them, they will come, you know.
I mean, they'll be there.
Come on, let's see them.