Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 522-005
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 1971 at 12:38 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Klein, Herbert G.; Scott, Stanley S.; Atkins, Oliver F. ("Ollie"); Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/522-005

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] All right.
[0:12] President, right now, I'm just a panelist.
[0:17] How are you?
[0:18] Good to see you.
[0:18] I was thinking, sir, we'll come here together.
[0:22] We're here in front of the White House, sir.
[0:23] Thank you.
[0:23] All right.
[0:23] I'm here.
[0:24] Yeah, we're doing a lot of things like you're going through, which is fantastic.
[0:27] Congratulations.
[0:30] Well, I want to tell you that we are very happy to be here tonight.
[0:50] And you will be a great addition.
[0:50] You can talk to the authority among people that don't even trust you.
[0:52] Her, of course, will be here.
[0:53] mentor, and I've got many friends in the organization.
[1:13] We all know that we've got problems in the black community that have nothing to do with black, and quite a necessity with the fact that you've got an awful lot of poor people.
[1:17] And with the democratic tradition.
[1:18] On the other hand, all we want is a fair shake, and particularly in the field, you know, we've been making some rather remarkable corrections in these appointments.
[1:40] You know, deciding, pushing that military thing, you know, I put a judge in the military court of appeals, that's a big one.
[1:43] You know, there's never been a way to find another.
[1:45] And it should be.
[1:45] But you figure the number of, you know, people, like,
[1:47] or any iron service, the proportions are so important that it should have been long ago.
[2:03] And I have one of them.
[2:05] I said, I don't think I've talked about it.
[2:07] I think it's in Cleveland, Ohio.
[2:13] I think it's Ohio.
[2:14] Then we've got Johnny Johnson.
[2:14] I don't believe that's announced here.
[2:15] It hasn't been announced, but it's, I got hold of a couple of, at Brogan.
[2:17] I don't know, months ago, I said, I don't want to name him here.
[2:35] He'd been working on the off years as an ambassador over in Ferguson, over in Africa.
[2:37] He just wanted to do it.
[2:38] And so we kept going around.
[2:39] That's a great position.
[2:40] We're trying to make breakthroughs in areas.
[2:42] See, what we've really got to get away from is, well, there's a black spot.
[2:44] The moment you do that, then you're going to be fenced in in that.
[2:46] We don't want to think of you as just working in a black publishing business.
[3:04] It's very important that I'm on the interchange.
[3:06] You go to that and put him in the other way.
[3:09] Because I just don't believe in that sort of thing.
[3:10] I want to naturally, naturally, people like Bob Brown and the White House staff can do a lot better job talking to some people who come in here who may have black interests in mind than somebody else.
[3:16] But we try to mix in another niche, too, because if you ever get down to a pure sort of a traditional quarter system, or whatever the case may be,
[3:33] Just certain spots.
[3:40] But you need a breakthrough.
[3:42] Same thing is true of women, like I do.
[3:45] And it's a very different problem.
[3:47] But I believe that women now, some people say, well, I don't have a woman in the Cabinet Office.
[3:50] Well, we don't have them.
[3:52] They don't have them to be in it at the moment.
[3:53] But we do have a woman in the Consumer Affairs and the Freedoms Administration.
[3:57] But more importantly, we have women as Chairman of Commissions.
[3:58] Chairman of the Maritime Commission is one.
[3:59] And Chairman of the Spectator Commission is another.
[4:02] They never get a chance.
[4:04] That's what we want to do in the case of lunch.
[4:07] You see my point?
[4:08] I want to find areas where we've got qualified people and don't put them in charge of just the civil rights area.
[4:15] In fact, maybe that's not the best area.
[4:17] In other words, put them in places where, like this military court of appeals, that isn't just a perfect, just, you know, it would be dealing mainly with white cases.
[4:27] We're going to John Johnson's square in this afternoon.
[4:30] In defense, that's another post of that kind.
[4:34] Oh, John, yeah, our California.
[4:38] Yes, sir.
[4:39] Yeah, not John.
[4:41] That's not of the.
[4:42] Yeah, yeah, well, that's a decision.
[4:43] That's what they're in defense.
[4:45] In the men's heart.
[4:46] It's another breakthrough.
[4:46] And I think just a little quiet talk about that, though, that you know this administration and all this jazz to the effect that, well, we don't care, and the rest of this is nonsense.
[4:58] Now, you do get some problems when you get the Black Congress and Congress and the rest of the state.
[5:02] Why didn't we do all those things?
[5:03] Well, you've got so much money.
[5:04] but they also look at what we are doing.
[5:15] We are moving in every area just as well as we can and we are trying to be absolutely fair.
[5:25] The main thing is the attitude as far as we're concerned.
[5:28] We, as somebody said, we're color blind here.
[5:28] We really are.
[5:29] We want you to feel very much at home in our shop.
[5:31] We want you to feel the herb well with herb and we'll find it around here.
[5:34] I hope good luck.
[5:39] Good team.
[5:40] Yes, sir.
[5:46] All right.
[5:47] Well, we've got to get to the partners.
[5:54] Oh, we don't have them.
[5:55] We'll bring them right in here.
[5:56] I see.
[5:58] Let me see.
[6:00] I'll give you a little time.
[6:00] Thank you.
[6:01] Thank you.
[6:01] Thank you.
[6:01] Thank you.
[6:01] Thank you.
[6:02] Thank you.
[6:03] How's that?
[6:04] Oh, thank you, Erickson.
[6:08] That's the little one.
[6:10] Do you have three kids?
[6:16] Yes, sir.
[6:16] Boys or girls?
[6:28] Two boys and one girl.
[6:28] I'll give you the work site.
[6:29] I'll take it.
[6:29] I'll take it for the boys.
[6:30] These are better.
[6:31] And for the little girl.
[6:31] Thank you.
[6:32] We should have given you a bag.
[6:47] Those little things could have arrested me and said, buddy, you have fun.
[6:48] Get in my bed down here.
[6:49] We'll do this.
[6:49] And now you've got a tough pack.
[6:50] Is there a tough hide that you're going to find that's not going to be popular out here?
[6:52] And the bar is crazy terrible.
[6:52] And so you tell it out the other way and so forth.
[6:54] You're just going to stand up there like, oh, Art, talk to him.
[7:07] I'm just trying to say, am I afraid of the challenge?
[7:08] Right.
[7:08] Well, Art, you know, he gets around here.
[7:09] He loves to fight.
[7:09] I don't want you to have to be fighting.
[7:18] But I just want you to know that I'm going to be easy.
[7:19] Right, sir.
[7:19] Okay.
[7:19] Thank you.
[7:19] Thank you.
[7:19] Thank you.
[7:20] Thank you.
[7:23] He's been around since 1929.
[7:27] I don't think he has quite as distinguished a character.