Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 520-010
Date: Tuesday, June 15, 1971 at 12:54 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Butterfield, Alexander P.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/520-010

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:04] Just a few seconds.
[0:56] Oh, no press charges for this.
[1:10] Good.
[1:10] That's a lot, right?
[1:11] That's good.
[1:11] It's the first time we have not had this coverage in a while, but that's alright.
[1:13] I used to suggest that we not have press charges.
[1:15] I disagree.
[1:15] I don't think we should.
[1:15] We had a brand today.
[1:17] That's the point.
[1:18] It never gets very much coverage anymore.
[1:27] It also puts me on the spot to say something.
[1:31] I've covered this 80,000 times.
[2:00] He wants to come back by fall, I'm sure.
[2:18] And Whitney would like to go over in September or October, so it would appear to work out fine.
[2:25] Sure.
[2:31] I guess we better just start with anything you want.
[2:41] Hill did officially tell you that he wasn't going to come down.
[2:47] Didn't he?
[2:47] Definitely.
[2:47] Because he said that in the letter to you.
[2:48] Okay.
[2:48] Well, he said he'd better run around.
[2:49] I don't know.
[2:49] You never know.
[2:49] I suppose he could change his mind.
[2:50] He's going to go around and check the water.
[2:51] I'm sure he's not going to be down low.
[2:52] No, he's got to come down.
[2:52] Except that he said that...
[2:55] I'll just go ahead and sort it out.
[3:11] Okay.
[3:11] Well, good.
[3:11] Now, in Rochester, you're definitely not going to do a Q&A.
[3:13] What's that?
[3:13] In Rochester?
[3:13] Well, if I do, it'll just be, you know, I'm just going to do it.
[3:16] I'm not going to do it with cameras or anything like that.
[3:18] Okay.
[3:18] The question is whether you want a briefing book.
[3:19] Oh, sure.
[3:19] You know what I mean?
[3:20] What?
[3:20] What?
[3:20] Past proposings, just rather than being a comprehensive reading book, they could just focus on big, major questions and ignore the other stuff.
[3:31] I don't know.
[3:31] I don't think I'll bother with it.
[3:35] I don't think I'll do a Q&A right now.
[3:37] I don't think I'll do it.
[3:38] So his point is the same thing you said, that there are a lot of thinking.
[3:40] These are editors and publishers.
[3:41] They're not reporters, so they're not going to ask smart questions.
[3:45] But they'll ask us the big news, which will be, what do you think about the New York Times?
[3:48] This is what you don't want to talk about.
[3:50] What's his feeling that it would not be useful?
[3:58] No?
[3:58] What's his judgment?
[4:00] He's going to be saying that that's what you are going to do.
[4:02] Oh, I see.
[4:03] But he's recommending that rather than preparing for a full-grass formal conference, you do a different kind of book, which would be just major questions.
[4:12] You can filibuster, choose the lead you want to have emerged from the conference, and go on and cover what you want.
[4:18] Got it.
[4:19] You don't let White House reporters ask questions.
[4:33] And just give them a briefing.
[4:34] Oh, well, I would ask White House reporters.
[4:35] Right here.
[4:35] You thought you had it just not doing a Q&A as part of the center.
[4:39] Just give them a little briefing.
[4:40] The briefing book is just going to cover the key questions with some sort of prose.
[4:42] Yeah, just the second idea is, well...
[4:46] Then you can use that in your, in your, as a fucking paper, sir.
[5:04] Cover, get through four of those.
[5:08] Yeah.
[5:08] Why doesn't he, instead of preparing a briefing, just prepare what he thinks we ought to say about what the other people need to hear from me?
[5:11] I like the question.
[5:12] And I can say, here are the questions that I might, are on the minds of many people, and I'd like to answer some of these.
[5:14] Basically, of course, we say these two things are impressive, these people, but...
[5:16] You know, I thought we got so little out of that editor's thing, which was a full address, and that's gone.
[5:30] But I'm not sure that this is really working fine.
[5:31] You know what I mean?
[5:31] I don't think it is.
[5:32] It's not on television.
[5:32] I think when it's on television, it's yours now.
[5:33] That's my point.
[5:33] We've got to look for some Q&A opportunities.
[5:35] Yeah.
[5:35] Let's sort of save that.
[5:35] We'll pull that sometime.
[5:36] Fair enough.
[5:41] Check out the Don Jackson thing.
[5:43] What he wants to see you for is to ask to be moved to the post of deputy U.S. representative to the OAS, which is a post that Bill Rogers doesn't want to fill, and he's particularly not very interested in filling with Don Jackson.
[6:02] But it's a post that is needed, and his plan is to just vacate it.
[6:06] And, uh, John Jackson just wants a way to travel through South America.
[6:24] That's right.
[6:24] Jackson's indicated that if he doesn't get this post, he'll probably resign from the ICC anyway, which he intends to do, and more or less retire.
[6:29] And, uh, it seems to me we've paid down on it.
[6:30] That's what we should look into.
[6:31] And just tell them that this O.A.
[6:32] post...
[6:32] I just get right to it on a minute and say, look, you checked the thing out, and they're abolishing the post.
[6:34] Let's put it that way.
[6:35] The post is being abolished.
[6:35] Fair enough.
[6:36] Yeah.
[6:45] I've done a hell of a lot with Jackson because of Christ.
[6:49] I mean, I didn't need to do anything.
[6:51] I just did it as an old friend.
[6:51] We played with his damn job.
[6:52] We didn't kind of carry him through the campaign.
[6:53] He didn't do a hell of a lot then.
[6:56] We gave him a job then instead of not making him play the way.
[6:57] But if he doesn't want this, I just like Jackson.
[7:02] Well, he's done.
[7:02] You see?
[7:02] Over.
[7:02] John Donne's done it.
[7:05] Good for promoting more media coverage of withdrawal.
[7:33] Special PIO.
[7:33] at MACV to work stories and special coverages, features, and that kind of thing on returning troops and supplies to make them get some mileage out of them.
[7:49] He thinks he can do that.
[7:50] That's the side of the story.
[7:50] Yeah, he thinks so.
[7:51] No, it's a piece of the story, Bob.
[7:55] It's coming home.
[8:00] And he's a...
[8:00] I don't know.
[8:05] Goldwater oughta come to the attention.
[8:18] Come to the attention.
[8:18] Oughta pay for all that.
[8:20] All the times.
[8:20] I'll tell you why.
[8:24] This makes him look awful good, you know what I mean?
[8:25] Johnson looked bad, so he should've saved him.
[8:26] After all, this is not the... place, you see, where Goldwater could get out of the Senate and be a big hero.
[8:29] and say, well, this vaccine, President Johnson and others continue to see plans and so on and so on.
[8:44] He attempted to come out the other way.
[8:46] He has to agree.
[8:47] Oh, has he already?
[8:49] Well, good.
[8:49] Not in this way.
[8:49] He hasn't taken out a time.
[8:50] He's hit the other point, but he knew that they had the acceleration plans, and yet he couldn't.
[8:53] get anywhere and talk about it, because they were painting him the other way.
[8:59] But he can switch ground and take on the side.
[9:01] I feel that this is a reckless, shocking breach of security.
[9:06] I just want to fight that battle with everything we've got.
[9:13] I've talked enough to her about that, because he was all charging, ready, wanting to go, and I told him not to do anything out of the committee.
[9:20] The committee should now become a factor in it.
[9:24] But that, depending on the world, there's no reason why he shouldn't get to some of the senators under the table and let them...
[9:30] See, McGovern, the danger in the whole damn thing, the harm to us potentially, is that they're trying to tie us into a McGovern and McCloskey boat move immediately to say this is exactly what's going on now.
[9:45] And we have plans to escalate it.
[9:49] Well, you know, we're not telling people what we're doing.
[9:52] And they're trying to ask you.
[9:54] We're all sitting here plotting all kinds of things that nobody knows about.
[9:59] Like Johnson and Rostow were doing.
[10:00] and accept that we're reducing forces.
[10:08] That's what we're plotting.
[10:10] That's why it seems to me there's no reason why some senators on the other side can't say the opposite of what Governor McCloskey is saying.
[10:19] They should be defending us.
[10:20] We sure as hell don't want to get into the battle from the White House, nor do we want the National Committee to get into it at all times.
[10:24] Oh, the National Committee wouldn't want it at all.
[10:34] Because it just, that, the White House shouldn't get into it.
[10:37] I heard this all around.
[10:38] I told the leader this morning, I said, it's a family quarrel, and we're not going to get into who did what to who.
[10:41] It's got to come through.
[10:42] We've got to be sure, without arguing, that people realize they're reading history, not current events.
[10:46] I agree.
[10:46] That's why I said we will not comment on something that occurred in the previous administration, because those who were attacking and those who were apologizing for it, that's their problem.
[10:51] We adopted a new policy and it's working.
[11:01] We talk about our policy and about theirs.
[11:05] But you see, whatever the problem is, of course it is a problem.
[11:07] The bottom is, like everything else, it's a goddamn thing we can do about it except to roll with it and go on.
[11:13] That's why you can't tell everybody anything.
[11:14] Believe me.
[11:15] They think I've been keeping secrets from people, and pass you this book to the future.
[11:36] You cannot pass anything on to people.
[11:37] This is a situation that could have crashed.
[11:38] I mean, people doing this, even 20 years ago, was an unconscionable law.
[11:39] You know, you have to pull trumps full of documents, huh?
[11:40] Get them to report unbelief.
[11:41] Well, that's right.
[11:42] I'm sure you're way ahead of me there.
[11:47] Let me point out that you've got three suspects on this thing.
[11:51] You can narrow it to those three.
[11:53] It has to be Gelb, Halpern, or Ellsberg.
[11:54] I said if I had to guess which one, I would guess it was Ellsberg.
[11:58] And I'll be damned.
[11:59] If you just listened to him a little more while he was here, you would have gotten in the way of him.
[12:14] He was a good, suspicious type guy.
[12:15] He knows.
[12:15] Goddamnit, Bob, I can tell even on the domestic, I know who the liberals are, and I'm going to make sure that you know who they are.
[12:18] And goddamnit, if you've got a guy that's against what you're doing, you've got to expect him.
[12:21] Huh?
[12:21] An interesting thing, I'm calling these people, I've covered everybody.
[12:30] I'm not taxing them at all.
[12:31] I completely agree, especially the surprising ones.
[12:35] Her client said, you're absolutely right, this is exactly the right thing to do.
[12:40] But the key is to enforce it all the way down the line.
[12:44] At the top, they'll work, work all the way down the line, where, even in, you know, in the White House.
[12:52] White House has got to be total.
[12:53] You can't do it in the Bureau.
[12:54] You see, there's just no will.
[12:55] Oh, I know.
[12:55] Don't dare.
[12:56] Why the hell do you never get Robert to cooperate, for example?
[13:00] That's it.
[13:00] But, boy, they jumped right on it.
[13:02] Sam Ray called me, said, oh, geez.
[13:04] I said, you're absolutely right.
[13:07] He said, unfortunately, I just invited him.
[13:15] He's having a dinner party.
[13:15] You know, he has dinner.
[13:17] He wants to leave.
[13:18] And I invited the Times guy to the dinner.
[13:19] He said, there's no problem.
[13:19] I'll call him.
[13:20] Just tell him it's been postponed to August or something.
[13:21] He was, you know, didn't bat an eye.
[13:23] I know I'm right about this.
[13:25] I just know.
[13:26] It's the first time we've done one of these that everybody said, yes, guy's right.
[13:31] They've always said, okay, I'll do it.
[13:33] But, you know, I didn't believe it.
[13:36] Do it on a basis of...
[13:38] No.
[13:44] No announcement.
[13:54] Oh, no.
[13:54] Nothing obvious.
[13:54] They just, every day, on an individual basis, become just goddamn unavailable.
[13:56] I don't know who you covered by.
[13:58] No fools.
[14:00] And only a Times person in my presence.
[14:02] You know what I mean?
[14:03] in a pool.
[14:06] They are not to be on any airplane pools in the future either.
[14:19] Just don't have them.
[14:23] It's interesting that we put that freeze on Stu Lurie, and there's an article in some of us here, I don't know if this is for you or something like that, that talks about how Lurie got the, got the freeze going on and how,
[14:32] Extended to a point where he couldn't get any credit, his sources, and he got moved out of the White House.
[14:38] Oh yeah, he's gone.
[14:41] He's still in Washington, but he's not in the White House.
[14:47] Good.
[14:48] He deserved it.
[14:48] But it says, you know, he noticed that all of a sudden he was never on Air Force One anymore, never in any engrossed pools.
[14:56] It's obvious much.
[14:56] Maybe he'll leave that and go.
[14:58] He'd leave them off for a while.
[14:59] But I'd leave them off for a while, you know.
[15:03] Other than that, I'll be doing background work on these things.
[15:21] I'll find some way to do it.
[15:22] And I'll be writing.
[15:22] There are times when the post goes too often.
[15:24] You know, we've done that before.
[15:24] It just never happens.
[15:25] I really don't tell too much on the times.
[15:26] I think it is.
[15:26] Why don't you just tell Pat to prepare me some talking points?
[15:27] That's all.
[15:28] So that he doesn't have to do too much.
[15:28] What do you think is the other denominator or something like that?
[15:31] You know, Bob, I think part of the thing is that sometimes I spend too much time trying to prepare to make everything a goddamn, you know, star-spangled mannered thing.
[15:51] I mean, hell, they're lucky I'm even coming.
[15:52] Don't you agree?
[15:53] Yep.
[15:53] Absolutely.
[15:53] There's just so much energy.
[15:54] Well, they cover so much, you know.
[15:55] By the time you get there, they've covered all of the ground and gone through all the screen.
[15:58] They've got all the stuff they can write in a month, two weeks.
[16:01] And it's really, yours is a good life at the end and another chance to shake hands.
[16:11] I'm so glad that we're here.
[16:13] You were, your judgment on the wedding was much better than mine.
[16:21] I remember you said that you thought it was quite okay.
[16:28] It has a good effect on that.
[16:42] It's bound to have.
[16:43] Don't you agree?
[16:43] Sure.
[16:43] It's bound to have a certain business kind of warms people's hearts.
[16:49] But you cannot have anything.
[16:49] Real estate people come in and start talking about it.
[16:50] Where's that?
[16:51] Oh, yeah.
[16:51] It moved it in.
[16:51] The guy was in Nassau, and his wife insisted that they get off and get the television seat away.
[16:53] And the guy said he saw a tree die.
[16:54] You know, it was a character with a big story to him, a wedding.
[16:55] It is.
[16:57] Too old, one of the networks goes around again.
[17:07] You know?
[17:07] So you go ahead and listen.
[17:09] I think we got a good chance to, that, because they can make money on it.
[17:12] They can see they can run it as a sponsored special event just as they did the original thing.
[17:20] And they keep, you know, each day they write another little story about it.
[17:22] Nobody's been able to find out where she is.
[17:24] picked up some big hint from you that determined that she probably is at Bob Elton on silent, but they don't know that I'm sure.
[17:37] And they decided that was probable because she took, it was learned that she had packed some fishing equipment.
[17:46] That's a good one.
[17:47] No, but that couldn't, that thing couldn't help but be plus because they saw the whole mountain in its best, the whole continent.
[17:50] done well and everybody feels a little bit uh a little bit as i said i did the johnson i saw
[18:16] I realize it.
[18:24] I realize that the glossaries and press are going to say the same thing is going on now.
[18:30] My point is that that's what it is.
[18:32] It's an attack on government.
[18:33] It's your answer, Johnson.
[18:33] Look at the goddamn times.
[18:34] They're not putting in the stuff about Kennedy they got as much as they say tomorrow.
[18:36] I think it'd be interesting to see what they did.
[18:39] Of course, if you don't have anything on me,
[18:41] You know, I wasn't here.
[18:47] Or he's asked him, or I said, do you want to come to the Indiana report on this?
[19:02] Paris Air Show findings on SST and Lockheed.
[19:03] We have some time, but that's fine.
[19:06] Always have him come in when he wants.
[19:06] Good.
[19:07] Then we find the White House photographers, you know, who, you know, we didn't do their dinner at all.
[19:11] Tomorrow is the date of their 50th anniversary, the association.
[19:17] They would like to have a small delegation call on you to present you with a parable case or a commemoration of it.
[19:27] Normally, we wouldn't deal with these press therapy things, but with them, I think we probably should.
[19:32] Absolutely.
[19:33] Since we didn't do the dance.
[19:39] Okay.
[19:39] Go ahead.
[19:40] I wrote three letters of reference.
[19:59] So then, we're at the top of the state of Mississippi.
[20:03] I hear you ran across the park, but it's a goddamn shore.
[20:04] It's just a very little tunnel.
[20:04] Do you want to be airplane lineman?
[20:07] Do you want to be SSD man?
[20:08] No, no, I didn't get a chance.
[20:10] What you think of these little countries, there's nothing to talk about.
[20:28] It's like the Nicaraguan, God Almighty, I mean, they're super unbelievable.
[20:30] I really feel now we're off and running on a good schedule.
[20:32] We're going to have to start to hang tight on it.
[20:33] Is it?
[20:33] Oh yeah, I think it will.
[20:34] Is it?
[20:34] Sure.
[20:36] It's incredible.
[20:39] They can come up with an overriding reason on each one.
[20:45] Every foreign minister, every defense minister, every special emissary.
[20:54] And when it's a state, there's always something.
[20:57] We're going to fly over there.
[20:59] There's rockets or something.
[21:03] So you're going to see them.
[21:03] They look pretty good.
[21:06] Anything that we could announce, we could do better than us in here without having to there.
[21:35] And that's one of the reasons why if we get anything that we can say, we need these things, we will do it here.
[21:54] So, uh, bunker.
[21:54] Hey, the bunker area was flying to California.
[21:56] And then announce it from there.
[21:57] Go out and make a thing there.
[21:58] You've got to have, we're going to have to announce it.
[22:00] I still think you can make some mileage out of that announcement.
[22:02] I mean, so they're saying that you can spell in all kinds of stuff, but it never comes through as an official thing.
[22:05] Well, I think it makes much of a difference.
[22:17] The other thing, of course, about this sort of togetherness, we should be so lucky that we probably won't get anyone to negotiate it.
[22:24] And we'll have something else to talk about.
[22:25] Or if we don't get something to negotiate, then I've got to make a public announcement on that.
[22:28] You know, of what we were bothered with as a media group instead.
[22:29] So, which will also get these people to ask us another question.
[22:31] columnist or editorial or something pitching this morning that you aren't pursuing a negotiating front.
[22:45] They're just sitting still.
[22:46] The only excuse for continuing your policy is if there's negotiations.
[22:48] And since you're not negotiating, there's no excuse to continue your policy.
[22:55] Well, what the hell do you think?
[22:57] You're going to pop that bubble one way or the other after .
[23:01] She's all excited now because the lead doctor was coming or something.
[23:09] When you're reading this TV, it's like, oh, there we go.
[23:16] It's like, I got it.
[23:16] I got it.
[23:17] It's like, hell yes.
[23:19] We're about to get it.
[23:19] We're about to get it.
[23:20] We're about to get it.
[23:20] We're about to get it.
[23:21] We're about to get it.