On June 16, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:27 pm to 2:15 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 522-011 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Some rural congressmen have me, too.
They ask about my count.
What do they always do?
No, they say we've got a quote.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, sir.
You know, see, that's a select group of states, and the guys from those states are
Anxious that they get to get as much treatment as they can.
We'll give some money to them.
Put that back now and say, because they asked you when it happened.
I think more, I think now I do some more, but by the time I'm out of here, something like a mouth is good.
The country club, the country club, that's good.
Yeah.
I'm just going to do this.
The spirit leads me.
They follow the press.
You know, they want to cover up fine.
They'll find there's all kinds of reasons for that.
It won't be a country, but it'll be a great country, John, in this society.
All right, but it got covered.
It wouldn't have been covered otherwise.
The fact that I went by and paid my respects to Mr. Bass for 25 years, nobody would have given a digger's yell.
They would have ignored it, just like they ignored having the same event to lean.
You got a big story out of that.
A truck would have been ignored.
If you'd been scheduled to go out there and speak at that lane, then there would have been a thousand press there and not one story.
This way you can go in because you do it that way.
I'll bet we get something out of this.
more than we would have gotten if they had met Santa.
In other words, we're not doing that since he's not having to press the cars, tell them about that, we didn't invite him out to do this, they say he did not have to be there, and stuff like that.
We can actually make it work.
And it's legitimate.
Yeah.
Now, I always say, well, he didn't know.
He didn't drop by at all.
And because of the cars, that's another reason that this was good.
I thought it was good.
All these kids care about the idealism, the peace issue.
That's all they care about.
Idealism, they do care about it.
Idealism, peace issue.
They want to hear it.
Right?
But you know, you want water, air, gravity, all that gravity.
It goes right over the sails right over this.
And especially this thing, if you tear it off, it's going to be a piece thing.
That's idealism, of course.
They're all gravity-friendly.
So I said, they were nice looking kids too.
So interesting to see that a group like that, they look wholesome.
Yeah.
Most of them, I didn't take a hard note of either one of the girls one way.
And in a lot of ways, it means more to them, too.
If they know they're coming to see the president, then it's, you know, all of a sudden, you know, it's a big excitement.
And the president being walking out of his office, he heard a shout and came along and came out to see us.
That's a lot more interesting than to be scheduled with a senator.
They know they have all of the lunch hour.
And if you had been committed to that, then something came up at that time.
But another reason, another unexpected thing you're seeing is that they pop by the Ohio State campus in this period of time and never give the radicals, you know, a chance to get ready and get their little signs and come up and play all of a sudden out in that bush area.
Yeah.
See?
Yep.
That's the part.
That's why those unexpected things are very important.
They know what you're going to do.
They'll be ready for you.
And the odds are in your favor that you could argue the other side of that, which is that we ought to know what we're going to do, because you might walk into one that you don't know.
But, you know, you're safe, really.
Anything you go into where they aren't prepared, they're going to be 90% for you anyhow.
Yeah, or neither for or for a lot.
Not for Nixon, necessarily, politically, but for the President of the United States.
A lot they're going to turn.
Well, 90.
How nice of them to talk to.
And especially a group like this.
We don't plan on objecting.
Speaking of politics, Brant told me that Hubert Humphrey, and I ought to really get out one hand or somebody on this, headed down to Woodrow Wilson Center for a meeting yesterday with a number of people who was there, Harriman and people like that.
Now, the Woodrow Wilson Center, I went out to them because my hand urged me to, and I helped to dedicate the darn thing.
And here Humphrey is using it for political, for a partisan.
It's true that he, you know, but he just had a bunch of hemorrhags there, you know what I mean?
I want to know who else is using the Woodrow Wilson Center.
You get my point?
I want to know who is in charge of it.
And I don't want to let Humphrey or anybody else, hell, maybe our people.
I want some of our people to start using it.
You see, it's a nice place.
You know, it's in this concern.
What don't you agree?
I knew this would happen.
That's it, they did it.
That's the public broadcasting.
They still haven't done that.
I didn't hear a conversation on it a few days ago, but at least I can do it.
I don't want to continue it.
There's no other way.
There's no way to cut the water off the net.
And that's the real problem.
Really Bob, you're sure now you're a wise and astute thinker?
That's what I understand.
Now, you know what I think maybe I'll do on that one?
Take a different approach to stuff now.
Just a purely analytical basis of what we can do to undo it.
Maybe instead of the substantive, in other words,
Don't you think that there ought to be some more effective action being done by somebody other than just gold on whacking these Democrats, all Democrats, for their doing, for their partisanship in foreign affairs?
I don't get it.
It's possible that we're doing here what we can.
I already feel that they're wide open.
Jesus' grandpa used to kill every father that was stuck on his head.
They'd say this is horrible, the worst in the world.
I just want everybody to work out out there.
The school is out.
As far as I'm concerned, we'll always have some.
And if they play it up, at least.
So far, that looks pretty good.
Are there plans for any big deal that you never know?
Actually, maybe some.
Yeah, sometimes they do.
And sometimes when they have a big plan, they don't materialize.
The intelligence on that stuff is not quite ready.
Well, we were on that one.
We played it that way ourselves.
But that's nobody's fault.
Except the lesson there is we've got to be sure to build a big crowd.
Never go for no crowd, because that gives them the chance to do the only crowd there is.
You've always got to build your crowd.
And it's not hard to do, but we've got to give them a chance.
We could have easily done it in the morning if we had cranked up the main tube and, you know, done the motor cable in there.
We did that at the wrong time.
Of course, we had to do this on top of it.
There were a lot of surgery, but then also, it's hard to have that now.
Yeah.
It's hard to have that now.
And that bunch of farmers were mad.
They were having a hog price problem.
It's a pretty horrible area.
They have a batch of those everywhere in every school.
You can mobilize there in every city.
As all that had been in Des Moines, it probably wouldn't have made that much difference.
If I had tied that to the hardhats and the barns, they gave them a salary of two.
I have a feeling about the awful way that the kids were brought up.
They just went that way.
I'm sure they are, because a lot of those radical kids are, and I'm sure, but I mean that.
The great portion of those people that are out shouting and screaming and so forth are totally .
No, I think you're right.
There's no reason to believe otherwise.
Do I have to use the ABC thing on five parts?
Remember that ABC thing?
That team that you had to take the signatures?
Yes.
Oh, the leadership team.
Yes.
Right.
So now it's all right.
What do we tell them?
We say they're recording.
Documentary.
Yeah.
We won't say that they're recording.
Well, Johnson had me all the time.
He was about to hold me out.
There was no help.
He said, you're not going to go home.
I was very sad, apparently, that I didn't get read.
And you completely sold the producer, who was already pretty well sold.
I guess you got him all excited.
By the way, you said that he had massacres now, so he's... That could be a very useful time, right?
Because it'll make the kinds of points that we can't make otherwise.
Carruthers was talking about that we ought to look for ways to let a camera participate again.
He's right.
He's right.
I am against it.
Virtually everything's got to be done with an eye.
The idea that that's the great weakness of the domestic counsel stuff.
It's the labor weakness, you know.
I've discussed it with John.
He has all these papers in my hand.
We can't write this for its interest.
We can't be putting it in the foreign fields.
We don't exploit that, do we?
And that, for a PR topic, we are really pretty sad.
We do this so that we run on its experience, but we give it a lot of interest.
We try to get it on when it virtually gets on.
The press conferences and the communication speech, as soon as someone gets on, that may not be the best thing.
That's really what it gets on to.
The press conference, people get tired of the communication speech.
It's just another way of hearing friends and talking.
So what makes you ready to get it?
Of course, we try to get it if you go out on a dog show or something like that, but get a little bit on those.
and we're doing as well as we can, but I'm just not sure.
I think that where we're off and we go is punchy.
One of my descriptions, I don't know if this is it, you know, I don't know if you can guess it, but here's our sapphire spittles, and they just don't come off until they're on this, when you put them on here, I said that we just have two punches.
He said the press is trying to make this an issue of suppression of the press and subsidiarily an issue of suppressing the press.
The press is right to create the truth about how we got into Vietnam whereas we have got
press massively endangering the security of the nation by breaking the law and so forth.
We've got oppressive lawbreakers, disloyal, et cetera.
And the issue of Vietnam is fine.
That's collateral.
The press is collateral.
I mean, that's .
We don't question the press right.
No, we don't question the press right.
No, we go to Vietnam.
I think you're going to have to put you all on our side and accept it.
Due to the fact that you have here a very understaffed price, I'm sure anything we say, they just aren't going to credit our side.
If you ever had an issue with it, well, it's going to be hard to keep it clean.
Now out there in Rochester, under no circumstances will I allow more than one camera.
I can't work it out that way or not.
If you're going to have a huge camera deal, don't bother me.
We can work it out with one camera.
If we're going to do it, we need to know it.
We've got to set it that way.
I miss when we speak.
They're gonna report it any minute.
Yep, give an excerpt for news shows.
Put it on the news rather than simply having an audio.
That's early afternoon, it's just time to do it.
And put the camera in there, a cool camera.
Okay.
Which could be used only for that section right there.
At the request of the coalition.
Correct?
Okay.
That's all right, Chief.
Now, if it's a bank account, as long as it destroys the energy, that already means I don't want to go that way.
It's not going to require any more work.
It might as well.
You've got it here on the record.
Anyway, you might as well get the picture.
The argument against it would be that'll give footage to use instead of the strip footage.
But I would guess it would be used in addition to it.
I don't think it would be used instead of it.
Oh, I see your plan.
They'll use some crowd stuff, too.
You've got a good plan.
Let them do the audio.
Crowd stuff will be a picture.
That's just about it.
I said, more interesting picture.
Visually, you're sending a movie and talking about Reverend Charlie.
It's not very exciting, but what they'll be using is what I say in the last about the New York Times thing.
I think they'll use that, too, though.
I wouldn't think that would cut out your other... Well, anyway.
Well, they don't necessarily just have two minutes.
Yeah, but what I'm getting at, the illustrations you just went through, what I'm getting at is you, maybe it's worked better if you just let the picture be received from Rochester and then let the guy come on audio and say, and they can record it on the radio.
voice, how's that sound to you?
Or is there some great advantage in having that?
They all want a picture of the man's face saying these things.
Let's record it to the radio.
Here's the street crowd.
Let's summarize you.
You're really using the focus.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Maybe that's just as well.
Let me show you.
Okay.
Do you want anybody else in Florida to come down and watch this?
Yes, and by true, it would be very useful to have a talk with him sometimes.
I mean, you see, you know, the territory is pretty broad.
Better just leave it at that, then.
If you get more, you can just start doing it.
We've got the...
Right.
That's good.
You can make our plans for other things at that time.
They'll be back Wednesday, Tuesday.
Oh, they're not taking a long period before the July 9th, just a week.
The Thursdays are coming back Tuesday, the 6th.
Why don't we wait then?
Monday is a holiday, the 5th.
The 3rd is the TV.
The 3rd is the TV on Saturday.
And then the... You can wait here.
I don't know if there's much problem, but you can do the 4th and the 5th.
All right.
You could stay and then on Tuesday the 6th on the way out do a do our Midwest media briefing.
Make our Midwest stop on the way out.
If you go out on Sunday the 4th you can't do anything.
If you went out on Tuesday the 6th we could make a stop on the way out which is a good thing to do.
And get some mileage out of the trip.
Then stay
over the next weekend.
Let's try that.
Let's do that.
That's kind of a good idea.
You can then just go up to Camp David if you want to do over the 4th of July.
4th of July, there's not a recent game that made a rush out to California for it.
Let's have the 4th of July here.
If you're going to do that, we ought to look in.
We might be able to make something out of the 4th of July if you want to.
We don't want a lot of stuff to see.
The Honor of America people have a spectacularly good half-hour film on the Honor of America Day from last year that they're working on trying to get on local stations over the Fourth of July weekend.
All right.
Tightened for that.
Then we've got your link.
Is that that free for you?
Your link?
Yes.
Thank you.
Yeah, the ABC may not because they don't have networks.
They're not on network on Saturday night.
But they think they probably will do it anyway by around 10.30, which is the best, highest.
That is, they did take it.
That's good.
Pretty hard not to take one.
Oh, Christ, with the three of you?
Very hard not to take one.
You've got to leave them more opportunities like that.
That's good because it isn't you preempting time.
It isn't you hogging the television time.
And it is the kind of thing, we've got to get some build up on it, it's the kind of thing that people should make sure that their kids see.
And that's the kind of thing, you know, the honorarium people should be very, that's a very good idea to have a damn good film.
And then let's go off and do the, let's do the Midwest Media Briefing.
I think that's kind of a good idea, and then going out to California, and then we've got a good reason to go out to California and blow a little while.
I'd like to have a week off, really, you know.
I really would look for a bottle there at one point.
Great, you'd take it.
I will, but I can't have, I just can't be nibbled to death on there, you know what I mean?
So I'd like to do it that way.
You can say that I work on the budget.
But you know what it means, that I don't want to have to sit down day after day in the sun.
I realize you can get those things inside and all that sort of thing.
And I'm not very good at much.
A lot of this stuff, I don't want to have to leave.
So I have a little every day.
But I'm happy.
Mine's just never the period where I just sit back and survey the world and think a bit about it and see.
What do you think?
I think we need some, I think I need a week now.
I think I need a week.
I'm going to need a week and then a year or two.
I mean, just to perhaps sort of face the moment on the floor and just keep it in shape for these big events is the most important thing.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
I'm sorry, sir.
I haven't got it, sir.
and then so that way you can do the media in the middle of the day and then go right on out to California.
And I've got the whole rest of that week to spend and I can spend the next week.
We should go on to Fresno instead of that square in California.
Most of you said to do something earlier.
What are you thinking?
Well, it might be better to do one July 1st, what do you think?
And you're making the other TV on the 3rd, but that's still no problem.
Or wait, is it?
Why not do it on July 1st, news time?
Did you ever find a little note that way?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did she make a point or not?
Yeah, she makes a point.
But maybe it's just an isolated point.
It's a point, no.
It's a valid point, the question and interruption that there was only some way to measure it.
Yeah.
What do you think about Glenn, the PC, on the actual first, you know, that's just exactly what that...
and then come on Saturday night with a totally non-bullying one.
And it's totally different.
And how about doing, frankly, how about for a change, since it is the summertime, trying to get the news out for a change?
What do you think of that?
I think that's fine, because if you don't, you have a low audience whenever you do, unless you have a low audience, unless you do it late at night, yeah.
Why do you do it late at night?
Yeah, that summer TV audience is just, it's,
30% lower to begin with.
Oh, there are a lot of people who look at news.
You have a pretty good crowd, don't you?
Yeah.
How about if you do it in the office?
Why don't you turn around and see if I can do it?
I'd like to preempt the news anyway for once.
It's been a year since I've come.
All right.
I just want to preempt.
And I think you need some time to get ready for that Friday night thing.
And I think you're going to have to work on what you do on that.
The Saturday night thing.
Yeah.
Well, that's fine.
But I can do that Friday.
Yeah.
I'm not going to put up any text.
No, you shouldn't.
No.
Well, what do you mean?
Do the press conference on Thursday.
Thursday night would be fine.
It was keep Friday clear.
Keep Friday clear and Saturday clear.
And I'm ready to go.
I think that's the best thing.
Let's get our press conference out of the way.
California, well, I might go again on the 15th.
In California, you know, just if we feel like it, if I feel like it.
But I'd like to keep, if you will, we keep the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th of us just for you.
That's a good long weekend that we're
Now we can move that up, we'll do it before you go.
We can leave that in around that last week in June.
And next week.
See, they want to move it up earlier anyway.
Well, anyway, what I've got to get at is, you've got to hold 30.
Right.
You've got to hold 30 if you have to do the FBI graduation.
All right.
All right.
Well, that's all.
But the press conference is on the 1st, right?
Right.
Well, what is the FBI graduation?
I don't know.
I think it's in the morning.
But then I just won't take quite as much time to prepare this for her.
So I guess I go like, I'll just go there.
I'll start over Tuesday then.
I'll have to shoot in the morning for that.
She says, I'm going earlier than the press conference.
Shoot in the morning.
And then in the afternoon, I have to leave and follow the big Hawaii kids.
Yeah.
But they didn't start.
See, I've got to put them there the night before, right?
Charlie and Margie.
Yeah, we are getting it done.
Are we loading that by going to the press conference or anything?
No.
No, I know we should get these done.
Get it done.
It sure gives you the chance to get some time off and count for me if you'll tell me.
It sure will be a good idea.
How about we go to the press conference Friday?
Let's keep Tuesday free.
29, yeah.
Good productivity.
Yeah, I know.
Don't really know, sir.
Okay.
Let's leave that so that I can, so that I can feel that I can.
So we're going to lock down the restaurant.
Yes.
And on the 30th, I'll do the FBI.
But I think the press conference ought to be done on the 1st, so that we're starting to get that monthly pattern.
Okay.
So I don't want to do that every 30 days.
Okay.
Well, somewhere in there, we are going to have to do the
Well, you want to go to Florida this weekend?
No, they're not ready.
But why don't you have them do it on, I don't mind doing it.
I'll give you Saturday morning.
I mean, I'll give you two hours Saturday morning, Rob, on the 26th.
Yeah.
Two hours there.
And the same on Sunday.
Now, can't they do it on that?
No, they need more.
Need more.
But let's start at 10, three hours.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
It'll be 10.
From 10 to 1.
Better still, there's a way, because of my own habits, 10-3 to 1-3.
3-hour, apparently, and everybody gets a chance to sleep late if he wants to, or come up if he wants to.
We do that for old days.
Now, that ought to not be an option.
That's 6 hours.
Or they'll do something else.
I don't think they'll do something else.
Well, my God, then, why wouldn't you be true?
You take the 26 3-hours.
You get the 27 3-hours.
We were figured in 28.
We were figured in 27 and 28.
Well, we're moving it back and getting it free.
You know, they've got their two, as I understand it, they've got a budget review, they've got a goals review, and then they have a specific budget, and that leads to your veto policies and all that stuff.
That's what they've got to do right away.
And the other stuff comes a little bit later, as I understand it.
You're going to be ready to pick up some of that in California.
All right.
Let me suggest this, but let's figure it out on Saturday, though.
Let's figure it out on Saturday.
They can take it.
They can start right then.
Give them a Saturday morning.
Right.
All right.
This is 1030.
This way you can move it up.
And also Sunday at 1030.
Fair enough.
All right.
All right.
And, uh...
And I won't stay at Camp David.
And that's it.
See, they've got Saturday and Sunday.
We'll all be back to work here.
I think that's better than to do it in Monday, we would go there.
All right.
Good.
Then they need another period, do they?
Well, they can't have this with that week, because they've got to do it in California.
There's stuff for that.
They can do it in California.
They're doing it in California.
But I question if we can put it off to the second week out there.
I don't want to go with the 8th.
So that you get a clear time for a while.
I'd like to have, I'd like to have the 7th.
Let me just take off the 7th, the 8th, the 9th, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th.
Maybe the 14th I'll do something.
We'll start it in on the 14th or 15th or something like that.
I don't care.
Finish up.
I don't want to lose something or read or something like that.
Yeah.
OK.
I think there's something to be said.
It would be difficult for me to start to get away from it.
But I'll have other things.
You know, for a while, I'm going to be clearing reports.
You can't go on about things at this point.
It just may be as well for me to be completely away from the job as much as I can be in that period.
But it's not a period to be.
All right.
Well, we can... No, no.
We'll make the point.
Should there ever be budget discussions instead of your annual report you hold up for a couple weeks and really go to work on the budget?
Is there any advice you can give?
Is that good?
Sure.
You see, we have a pretty big deal.
We've got a press conference coming on.
The archives.
The media should be in Chicago, shouldn't they?
Or do you have another idea?
Midwest?
Yeah.
I was going with either St. Louis or Milwaukee.
It seems to me we can use it to get into another state, you know, we ought to.
Yeah.
I can get a hell of a lot of 12 and all of them.
You're real on that.
See, we're shooting for Chicago for that, for a big do when we get enough producers.
Oh, wow.
I'll do a lot.
How many did you get in the last year?
No, not a few.
of the Democratic government.
Cincinnati.
Is Cincinnati revenue going this way?
Or, why not?
See, that's the other thing, if you go to Ohio, it might, and what I've done, Bob, it isn't like her or another state, we've got to think against the curve, and Ohio's 10 times.
as compared to Milwaukee once.
That's where you get down to, because Ohio and Illinois, they've been all the guys, all awful partners to us.
Over on the head of the National Cash Registry, I want to mention to you, who was talking to me last night, I wish he'd raised Mitchell.
He was very concerned about, he said, you've got to get a tab to take the leadership out there, or if not, somebody else.
He said he couldn't quite figure out why he'd done it.
He'd been his favorite son then and so forth.
And he says, we've really got to get Ohio pulled together, because a lot of us are already pulled to work.
But we need to do it.
Actually, I mentioned earlier, what names did I give the people that would be the Mexican people when I said that?
All of them met Betsy.
And I think I met her.
You should go down higher.
What do you think about this business?
What is happening in Ohio?
That's the point.
I don't know.
Isn't it about time for that Ohio dinner?
That's what I'm thinking.
I'm pushing on John.
I'm trying to move to conservative state dinners.
And also getting an Ohio man.
You just need somebody to rally around.
It's just all of a sudden that Gilligan is pretty popular as a governor out here.
He's smart.
He would be.
I think Cincinnati, maybe you should go to Cleveland, Stokes, all the blacks, what do you think?
Why not Cincinnati?
Cincinnati's the place, to be honest, the logical place, it's what, you know, it would look logical, it looks odd if you go to Dayton or someplace, I mean, Cincinnati's perfect.
Cincinnati's a major Midwest center,
I could at least, frankly, take a minute.
Cincinnati.
St. Louis.
Or you can take St. Louis.
Now, really, you've been to St. Louis?
Yeah, I've been to St.
I've been to Cincinnati, too, you know.
I was there for the baseball game.
Well, that's fine.
I don't know about that.
Columbus, I just did.
I can't remember.
I haven't been to Queens.
Maybe we'd better just leave them.
Ohio needs attention, Bob.
That's my point.
I think we'd better give it its attention pretty fast.
Of course, Cincinnati and Cleveland would be the two, yeah, two logical cities.
But think about a way to, yeah, run her off.
Playbooks and everything kind of stays.
Let me check that out and see if they've got a sucker session.
That's pretty good.
I kind of like the feel of this bug, the way it's running, because
You're out of this week, but taking the drug announcement, going to Rochester, will be a good enough deal.
Next week, the ARPA, the ANA ARPA, that's a hell of a lot of presidential appearances.
Right.
The one thing, Chief Grayson, that you might want to consider is this, the draft press conference is, again, going in and doing that hubby dinner.
Another team shot.
As long as you're going to Chicago the next morning, you can whip through Indianapolis, do it, and go on up to Chicago to spend the night.
Don't stay in Indianapolis.
And that gets you into Chicago at a good hour to do the morning thing.
It eliminates any question of an arrival in Chicago, which is also beneficial.
Because we don't want to have an arrival now.
Right.
And you do it just kind of as a last-minute drop while you were coming to Chicago the next day anyway.
Okay, let's go.
Let's go to the lake, right?
What time?
So you arrived just to do a drop line?
Congratulations to him.
He just dropped by the way that you're riding.
Can we give him some certificate or something?
Sure.
Let's provide a certificate for him.
Not bad idea.
Also, it's Indiana.
without having to do a big stage thing.
All right, without getting into a big political, we've done Indianapolis and a rival deal and all that crap.
You got a damn Friday mayor there.
Okay.
Chicago, Purdue.
All right.
I'm gonna go on through the 30.
If you are, press conference is the first, the archive is the third.
There's a problem I got this week.
I hope I better get busy with the damn speeches at night.
Those should be red speeches.
AMA should be the best.
If you don't want to sit down and walk, come back to the crib and sit down and look around.
I won't mind if I walk.
I don't want to say, oh, it's just good to catch sometimes, but that's probably right.
I don't know what I'm going to do with my best.