On July 28, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:58 pm to 5:16 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 550-001 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
I really need time.
I've got to do this.
Good God, there's a lot of things to do here.
Well, the early bird reception, it just could have been ever done without the technical errors.
He was the guy.
I did not know he was not coming.
The first one was in his office.
See?
You had it in his office.
He said, gee, I guess I could cancel.
I said, what the hell do you mean cancel?
Just put it off for a week, okay?
It's a good idea, but I didn't think he was going to do something.
We have a note here from Murray Chonder who says he just got back from Europe and the matter was told directly to him by the party concerned so delicate of such importance to you and the administration must be related to you, cannot be reduced to writing.
He's asked, he says, you've known me well for a long time.
I wouldn't ask this unless it were seriously important.
And sent a cover note to me saying, is it about horror?
He says, he doesn't say, he says, what was told to me in Europe.
As I said in my note, I wouldn't use this unless it were extremely significant.
He's asking to see you before 2.30 today.
Well, I didn't get it until after 2.30.
But, I don't know, whether you want to let him come in or whether you want to just try to come over now, get him out of the way.
We'll try to come over at about 4 or 6.
Okay.
I've got to go over there right on time.
Yeah.
We'll say that it'll be out.
We call it a four-disc lock, Captain.
Good job, Captain.
I must say, every time our people go abroad, you know, they come back and all of a sudden, oh, this is very important.
I never know whether it might, it might be an abuse.
And he has a judgment, you know, what is important.
Usually, yeah.
Although, I'll say sometimes he has one.
I guess it's about, I don't know.
When did he come back?
Yesterday.
But he says to you and your administration, so I don't know.
And we've got Don in a pretty good shot.
So about Israel, that would be another guess.
That would be my guess.
I would guess that if you told him he was a bastard, totally innocent, he would come waltzing in and say that he's discovered that you can get $5 million in cash contributions with no strength to attach from the Jewish community in the U.S.
It's Europe.
He had a decent benefit.
He said, what was told to me in Europe, told to me by the party concerned, which is so delicate, I know, such importance to you and your administration,
I think it's Bob Hill.
Thank you.
He's working at the law firm across the street.
He's on a... We've got income going to him.
He's doing a lot of stuff for potential.
Sent us intelligence reports frequently.
He's undercover.
Operating exactly the way we want him.
Better than I've ever seen Bernie.
You know, he's such a player.
He should not be here, though.
He's just not right here.
Now, I talked to Mitchell about Pinch and Rumsfeld.
What's he like?
He feels that the OEP thing is a very good idea for Pinch.
But to be sure you get a guy in and run it.
And also be sure there's a good political man in there.
Because he said there's enormous political importance in the oil stuff and all that kind of thing.
You want to be sure you've got a good substantive political guy.
We may have him in track.
He also, you know, the next one, he said the thing to do there is to have deep planning.
Oversee that.
He understands the whole thing and the political importance of it.
And he can work with Bob that would prove all the way disaster things could.
Just have to keep an eye on it.
That's the White House for you.
That would be the White House for you.
And he knows the oil business, which is the other.
Excellent.
From there.
And Darryl Tran, who's the deputy there, used to work with me.
So he's got a perfect company.
I think that's the thing.
So he's all for that.
Now Rumsfeld, he said he strongly urged, hey, don't let him go to NATO.
It's a very valuable property here.
He feels it would be much the best to keep it in the White House, at least for now, and not move him.
He said, we don't have an organization to make him head of.
And Frank Dale is the head of the, that he's elected president.
He's gonna get screwed up and he'd better not to head it, at least now.
And he said he's very valuable.
He said that he and Rumsfeld had talked to John after he talked with you.
John thinks it's ridiculous to send him on foreign missions.
Rumsfeld had told him that you said you wanted him to do some foreign work for you.
And I said, that's Rumsfeld.
He wants to get himself out and do some foreign stuff.
And John said, well, I told John that Rumsfeld said he wanted to go to Latin America.
And I said, I told John that.
And John said, well, that's out of the ridiculous.
We don't give a damn if Latin America sinks.
And politically, that has done it.
Yeah.
good so he thinks the direction we're going is the right direction now what's next i'll talk to both of them you can talk to both of them and just say we've talked but i just think bob ought to do this period and i think and i think it's a very definite upgrade i said that i will take this over any cabinet job except the first four
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
State, defense, treasurer, or attorney general.
Those are the only four jobs that are worth a damn in the cabinet.
The rest of it's all shit.
You know, crap.
Okay?
Now, on the Ohio thing, ABC is gonna do about a 12 to 15 minute thing of the whole thing, ceremonies.
They would very much like to get you, they thought, you know, you were going to be at the ceremony, we're going to do it, including you're a part of it there.
What they suggested now is that they would like to have students there.
I'm very shut in Arizona, but I said we might as well go home the earliest we can get them.
That would be 630, which is all the campaign plan.
But just double transportation along the street.
They suggested that Frank Gifford interview you briefly on camera, while you're in the Hall of Fame building shirt, before the thing hit the wall.
Three minute interview on football, centered on the Hall of Fame, and then they would include it in the, uh... You can say the same thing you said in your remarks to the chamber, because the TV thing won't run until afterwards.
Well, you know, it may be easier for him.
If he lives where there's a bus right from his office to his home, it's a hell of a lot easier to try to drive the car and park.
And Murray may not be comfortable driving the car.
He never was a good driver.
And he doesn't have a chauffeur, so he may prefer to drive his bus.
Makes sense.
You're right.
I don't know where he lives.
Sure, I live in Wolverine.
The Arthur Burns employee worked with the bank.
But it ran.
He said he didn't know anybody, he didn't deny anybody.
I guess I had nothing like this.
Right back and picked it up.
But he's always willing to reorganize his bed anyway since he's horrible.
So he doesn't mean to lie to me.
So that about said.
Arthur squealed the shelves last night and heard about it.
But there's real concern in the administration
by the political people about the great political harm that you're doing to the president by running around and making all these negative remarks.
And Arthur, the last thing you could ever do in the world is a political harm to the president.
He's not doing it for that.
He certainly...
And what could he do?
So I told him to tell Greenspan, to tell him that what he could do is make a damn positive, constructive speech on the economy and what a great job the president's doing.
And that was clear.
And he tried to initiate it.
President told Allen what he wants to do is come in and have a confidential talk with the president.
And I said, well, can you do that?
Three.
Three.
You see, he's had three, you know, I've done this three hundred times.
I've had these confidential talks.
He went, before he went there, he came back, and this last time.
I'll be gone then if I'm going to do it again.
Why do I have to get in here and have him say, mold again and say, I'm only doing what I believe, right?
I've never brought my own age.
This is what I've said.
He's smart enough to know about the effectiveness.
I love it.
What he says is that
Sure.
But Greenspan's brokering can do it effectively.
But Greenspan says he, Arthur's ego is so great that what he honestly, he thinks he is doing right.
And that, uh,
He doesn't think until now Arthur really realized that he was doing political harm.
But he thinks now he does, and he thinks this is a very effective way to do it, probably only by the jab.
He gives you some shock treatment.
I'm not afraid of this.
We expect that he's doing political harm, doesn't he?
Yes, sir.
Well, we told him.
I told him, you know.
I told him bluntly and directly.
That's an arbitrary verse.
You're my friend.
You're my advisor.
You're not just a YouTube channel.
He's doing the worst harm anybody's doing.
In fact, he's doing more harm than everybody else put together, really.
He talked to Conley about Rudy Peterson.
He thinks that would be fine.
He did not know about it, but he says that, and he said, I don't know Peterson personally, but I know of him, of course, and I think it would be very beautiful.
But then we'll see.
And I said to the President, why don't you just sit in, because he wants to be sure Peter gets the signal on how this all works.
John said that'd be fine.
He thought it did.
Did he say about the birds and what?
We don't need to talk about it.
I didn't raise it with him, no.
I figured.
But unless he said something about it.
And he didn't.
Stop again, day 869.
It's now 8.72, which is still not bad, huh?
Still not bad.
The news is bad today, basically.
What was the volume?
13.9.
14 million, sir.
Meaning that...
Can we, oh, there was a time then on the conservative business, Bill Buck wouldn't call Henry.
Henry talked to him, he told him.
Before then, we were talking with Mitchell.
Mitchell is going to talk to Mahoney.
Because Mitchell says there's no problem.
He says, I don't think there's any problem.
He says, except Mahoney, that that's a hell of a problem.
He said, if Buckley's playing the game and says this, we've just got to go along with that.
It's not right for any of the political people.
Again, Mahoney is the only one in that bunch that's any problem.
The rest are not political, and therefore it doesn't matter.
Mahoney will just say, we've got, I mean, just the main thing, he's got a lot more going on.
I say to you that I get the rightful right.
They're all going to get the rightful out of him, but we don't want you as a political man to get your rightful out of him.
The rest of it, sorry, Buckley wants it.
I mean, of course, if Buckley's playing, I don't understand it exactly.
It's a very clever game.
Yeah, I think it's important.
Buckley wants to scare the liberals a bit.
Well, that would be good.
If that's what he's really doing, and he's smart enough to be able to do it, that would really help me go up action.
in terms of they can, let me say this, in terms of, some of them better to deal with than a few, the effectiveness on Republican Congress and the Senate is gonna be virtually nil.
They're gonna be affected by both their people and the polls that try to put people down.
And that's what I've been saying.
We're talking about the same thing.
The effect of this, some of the talks that rumble around about it,
But so being, they'll say this sort of past and present and so forth.
I don't think it had much effect there.
I mean, I don't.
And the size of that constituency has gotten that small.
I mean, the people would read national reviews, human events, and so forth.
It's a rapid constituency, but it's a relatively small one.
I understand all the intricacies of their sort of convoluted thinking.
Well, did Mitchell say he would call home?
Yes.
He did.
That's all.
Maybe he can't reach.
He can't reach up to his left.
Maybe he will not be able to reach.
Maybe Molly is just too good.
Maybe too late to get him off of this signal, but he's going to go try it out.
But if he's on it, he's going to back off.
He's not taking it.
We specialize.
Right.
Okay.
That's the case.
If that's the case, I guess we have to do it.
I just didn't want this to clutter up, because I've got three of these things.
We've got the other three.
That's the capital worker.
That'd be put on the top.
What the hell is that here?
It's about a two-minute thing where they present you with a thing.
It's a picture.
No press coverage.
I don't want to deal with all your press coverage.
This is something we're not planning right now.
I think we probably, if you want to, we probably can put that up.
We were doing it really just to get a one-shot picture.
The war veterans put it up.
It's a small group.
Let's keep that day free.
I don't want a one-shot.
On the early bird thing, is it at least 10 locations and how many people are involved and how much time is involved?
I really, god damn, I'd like to know.
Let's really find out.
Let's, let's see if we can.
See if we will agree that we won't show down.