On June 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:46 pm to 1:11 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 530-015 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
He thinks that the other project can't be done.
He doesn't think he's the guy to do it.
But he thinks he can put us on to the people who can do it.
And he'd like very much to...
Supervise?
No, but serve in a sort of ad hoc oversea role that...
because he could aim us at the right people and the right things, but what he says what you need is probably a guy like Tom Houston, a guy who really, and maybe we better go back to Tom, that you gotta set him up, give him the stroke, get the stuff, and then it's a matter of sitting there with a team and really working through it with some
real political sensitivity.
And he says he can put together a group that we'd have no problem getting the right people to do what he does tonight.
Out of a batch.
His view is partly colored by, it was obvious, by a very strong desire to take the theaters from John.
He's really intrigued with that because he spent this last year in that area in Pittsburgh.
from his talks with Peters, and he's just intrigued to sell these things to the International Trade Bank.
They deserve it.
Maybe it's not going to be a domestic growing, but maybe they're going to get into Peters' hands.
And Peters is smarter, but he's too liberal.
I took Peters to the mountaintop and told him that I wanted him to have the money.
In fact, I don't remember.
I don't know that anything would happen, but if something did, we might want him to wear two hats.
He couldn't have made it where he could have snapped so that he could handle his whole situation.
He's a real property, this farmer.
He's a hell of a salesman.
We gotta get that boy out one way or another.
But he's on the ropes.
How long would Martin be in better than Marty Egg?
I think Marty in there is a smokescreen as much as anything could be because he is in here.
I don't know if he'd be good or not there.
He might not even be a normal marketer.
You'd get more out of Peterson with Allen pushing him than you would with Marty.
Marty, well, what do you mean, is Marty?
Well, John kind of, apparently John has something, might have a name with his John, but, well, why don't you tell Peterson that they, that they just told him that Marty didn't have some work for him, not to talk to him about it, and that we think that the best man is Allen.
He'll be delighted with that, I'm sure.
I think that's better than the other job of Ken Houston.
Does he have any?
No, I can see that.
Does he have the balance to do this job?
No, probably not.
You probably need to supply some balance.
I'm just afraid it's going to all have bogged down in Henry's shop.
The key you want to do is not have it bogged down in Henry's shop.
He would not snap it out of Henry's shop.
No, sir.
It should be set up as a separate operation and it should be
He first said, maybe you want to set up some kind of board that does it.
And they said, no, it's really a staff job.
You just want to get some people going on it.
You've got to give us some interagency defense and justice coloration of some kind.
But he said, keep that to a minimum and have your own people do it.
He said, you're going to be charged with trying to release only those things that are politically valuable to us.
So the key is to be sure that that's what you do.
He'd love to get into that, you know, how to put it together.
But he thinks he can get us people who would be better at it.
Okay, well, Davison's a man of impressive honor.
He was loyal.
He was working like a son of a bitch.
He doesn't sit down and belittle that reading out idea, that effect, that economic.
Was he?
Surprised.
Why am I surprised?
I'm not surprised.
He had a business, he said.
If that happened, we'd fire people wholesale.
That's what would happen.
Absolutely right.
That's what it's going to be.
That surprises me.
It's the lie.
Absolutely the lie.
And it always surprises me.
Ambassador McConaughey is here the next two days before he goes back to China.
They think you need to see him because of China.
He can speak with authority and change.
That's about it.
I'm not going to see the ambassador again.
The other question is, he said he did want to see when he was here next.
And the question is, what did he do?
There's no, you know, he's here the next few days.
He's attending a Japan society in New York.
I think I should always see him.
I should always follow him around.
On your farm, it's 120 acres.
It has the foundations of a house and a shed that was standing when your mother was born.
It's still there.
The guy that owns it bought it in the fall of 69 for $100 an acre, $12,000.
$100 an acre.
He's farming it now in about 40 acres of soybeans and a little tobacco.
And the guy who owns it, Harold Crocker, his great-great-grandfather was Thomas Milhouse, who was the brother of your great-grandfather, I'm sure.
He's a distinguished Logan Pleasant man in his 50s.
He's an engineer in Columbus, Indiana.
They bought the property.
which is called their mental house home, partly because of its names and history.
He may not deal with it.
Oh, he may not want to stop.
The Taker cannon unveiling may not want to do on July 20th or 21st, we're suggesting.
We'll be back.
And, uh, it won't occur in our trials.
Question, then, was the Frank Bowden, whether you want to
Let Beau have a little lunch for the Republican members first, and then you all go to the unveiling.
That's what we talked about.
Because of the problem of Beau's request with his Republican appropriations members.
That'd be a time to do it, because they're all there.
Yeah.
Tower, we tried to shut off.
He's back in.
Well, I'm bussing again.
He was originally bussing, and then it was housing.
So I'm bussing, and he tried the AG in Richardson, and then he said he wanted to try housing.
So he tried Romney, and he said, well, he wanted to talk about politics, too.
And their assumption is that he just wants to be able to say he's talking to the president, you know, and stuff like that.
kind of deal.
And I don't know how much you have to, I guess we've got to keep him on track all the time.
No, no.
245.
We've got an hour and a half.
God, he's a miserable son of a bitch, isn't he?
And this is unreasonable.
It's kind of, you know, riding on a helicopter here.
He had his own computers out there.
He was the enemy of all of them.
And here he is again.
Well, tell me after I return.
All right.
Yep.
Or do you want to know?
I see no reason.
Tell him to sit after you return.
Got it.
I agree with you.
And talk to Billy Graham on that North Carolina thing he called.
He wanted to be sure that we understood what that was.
And he says that that isn't good.
Well, he's not sure whether it is or not.
He thinks it is.
But Dr. Critchfield did talk to you about it at the President's Chamber of Commerce in Charlotte.
uh he said the real crux of this is that they want to get the president into charge before school starts and uh they've dreamed up this award for billy graham contrived the billy graham deal as a way to get you in he says however he thinks it's a worthy thing to do probably they'd bring black and white leaders together and be a big
But it's not planned yet, and they're putting it together.
He said, of course, it would be a tremendous thing for me and my family.
But I just want to be sure the president thinks it is something to do.
And North Carolina is a good state to go to.
We want to get Asheville in that election.
Second Charlotte is the most important place to go to.
Third, Billy Graham.
I'd like to have him associated with Graham.
I do.
I do, of course.
He's got to do it before the 15th of August.
I'm sorry?
When was your thing in New Hampshire?
That's that boat.
Yeah.
We can do that any time.
It doesn't matter when.
After they can get a boat ready.
We want a timing to that though.
Right.
Okay.
I've got a rough thing on the summer travel and a lot of ideas.
Right.
We'll talk about that later.
The other thing is the, I asked, you know, we have, in Mitchell's campaign thing, he's got a little task force on the convention site thing, and I asked those guys to, I raised all the arguments for Chicago.
They all say no.
They're very strong here, it's that we not, that they're,
And they make some fairly good arguments, some of them look good.
Who do they come down on?
They only come down that we not consider Chicago, because that's the only question I really have.
Their recommendation is going to be San Diego, I'm sure.
Their argument is that
On my understanding, they follow through and I don't see them, I don't feel that strong about them.
Well, that is one factor they raised, but they raised just at the end.
Charlie Barr is strongly opposed to it too.
They don't trust the daily interest.
That's right.
Okay.
San Diego is very out of convention.
Let's give it to them.
Why don't we just decide that now?
They're now saying the new problem with that arose, which is that they've lost their basketball team, which may impair their sports arena.
I don't know what the problem is, but it's supposed to be done the next day or so, I guess.
Are they just building it for you?
No, it's built.
He's probably going to be able to continue to operate or something.
I don't know if there's something.
Well, then where'd he go?
Of course, it's an old building.
It's a year away.
And I think probably at the finish.
I don't think it's done.
I'm going to get closer to Ken.
Check.
Ken's.
He probably didn't have a sign on him.
I don't know who that was.
I don't know either.
Ken's an American.
Tomorrow's the FBI.
No, you just come in and make your marks and leave.
That's all I do.
They go to a paddock where they have a speaker.
Their class speaker or something, he finishes, which is what this is their plan they've worked out.
I don't hear it.
You can hear the end of it or something.
Or you could get over and sit and listen to him, and then you speak after him, and then we... You could start doing that, but you're going to get bogged into the whole sermon.
They're perfectly happy with you the way you are.
That's right.
Amen.
And it's just a little bit better, a little more... You should sell.
You saw last year they got bogged down into your head.
That went too long.
I want to make sure that we actually get a lot of people around, their staffs are around in terms of security and the rest of it, if you think so.
I apologize.
Roger's catching us.
He called, said that personnel thing yesterday.
The ambassador, he said that really didn't come from the State Department because he had things that nobody here knew.
Like John Eisenhower coming back.
Which is kind of funny that he went to the trouble of calling me yesterday to talk to you about the letter.
Yeah.
Good.
The letter and that.
Now listen, you may be right about that.
Sure.
Now do you think there's somebody on Henry's staff or anybody on Henry's staff that was involved?
How about Pete?
Pete's staff?
We were running that ship very damn sure.
Yeah, it's possible because we were running that ship through clearance.
But the guy, the guy that, the lead came from state, clearly.
I mean, I was a guy who says that.
He's a key ambassador, watchers of the State Department.
Yeah.
Bill is always saying it didn't come.
Nevertheless, he's got the message, and now it's done.
It was well-worked.
He'll actually make the folks here shake him up.
And the main point was I limited the appointments.
I just skipped that one quickly.
He's frozen.
He wanted to get the message, but he got the other thing.
He's arguing about things, fighting with each other.
That's really more important, the appointments.
There's no message.
There are a lot of ways that that leaks.
When they start with their instance, they have to be out of checks and all that sort of stuff.
And that doesn't bother me.