Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 572 › Conversation 572-001

Nixon, Haldeman & Ford on Attica Prison riot and Nelson Rockefeller

Tuesday, September 14, 1971 · 7:57 PM–8:09 PM ET · Oval Office · 10 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Bull, Stephen B.; Ford, Gerald R.; White House photographerConversation572-001 on Tape 572 (tape position 00:03:51–00:14:00)StartTuesday, September 14, 1971 at 7:57 PMEndTuesday, September 14, 1971 at 8:09 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 572-001 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and H. R. Haldeman met with Gerald Ford and staff to review the President's upcoming schedule and discuss the political fallout of the recent Attica State Prison riot. Nixon and Haldeman defended New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's handling of the situation, specifically praising the use of force and rejecting the necessity of amnesty for the inmates. Additionally, the group briefly critiqued a local Washington, D.C. environmental initiative involving bike lanes on Rock Creek Parkway, dismissing the project as a costly inconvenience to commuters.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 3 minutes of this recording (about 34% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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I don't think it's, uh, I don't know.
I think that it needs to be covered, or at least not a lot.
It doesn't mean anything.
They'll have to shoot the agriculture when you've got the money shut down.
And the Prince and Princess will have to shoot the nuts and nuts.
I'm afraid they're not going to be able to get all the dissent that these legislative leaders will never get through by in time.
If you look at the schedule, you can see what they're trying to do.
For me to finish the legislative meeting by 9.30 and then to go on and spend a half hour without
I'm afraid they're going to take a long time finding all these people.
You should take just a few minutes with the health committee and figure out what they have not figured out.
I'm going to go up there, and I know this is going to be real, but it doesn't indicate so much.
Paper here.
Now, they're reworking it, but don't rework it.
Just have somebody there and take it over so that I can do it.
I don't want to be standing so that I'm getting on this.
They're talking about so long, I think, about that.
Well, I had two interesting reactions to Rockefeller's thing.
I asked him, he said, well, I'm sorry.
He's listening to that.
He says, well, sir, I don't know the Spanish attitude.
He says, well, because the people I've introduced to you now.
Yeah.
And I asked, I think we're all there.
He said, that was a terrible thing.
He said, well, because I don't think the government had any other choice.
No, no, the general saw them other than the idiot left that's, you know, the consular worker type stuff is battling over it.
But the general thing is that the governor gave, the Congress had 30 demands, he gave you 28 of them.
He said you cannot give in to people, you know, hardened criminals and they're making the point that had he granted amnesty on top of everything else,
You would have proven to all prisoners in all prisons that all you have to do is kill a guard in order to get out.
Well, the Amnesty didn't go so far as to have them get out.
The Amnesty didn't have any action for what they had done.
But I feel for the Amnesty, the murderers.
Because they had murdered guards already.
They had already murdered, they knew they had murdered one.
And they now know that they had murdered several, or they think now they had murdered several others already.
Well, you're absolutely right.
He dropped one out the window.
Sucked the soil and killed him.
He did?
Yeah.
Three days ago.
It's a back-end amnesty for the people that did that.
Oh boy.
Well, he couldn't do it.
You know, I think they must have had a damn good bunch of sharpshooters.
Knocked off 28 of those bastards.
What do you mean?
Especially when apparently the ones they knocked off were the ones that were holding the hostages, which means they had to be damn good shots.
They must have been in the vicinity of the hostages.
You know, it's like the movie, isn't it?
Yeah.
You see all this in the movie.
They come home.
They left the TV cameras in yesterday, which was a good move.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So what they've done is they've taken Rock Creek Parkway, which is the solid line of traffic that comes in here, and they've blocked off one lane for bicycles
So the traffic is in a monumental traffic jam coming in now.
And there's empty lane that's there for people to ride bicycles in, and nobody even uses it.
And so they're getting a big flat now about that.
They spent thousands of dollars making signs and paying free clients on the road.
We're talking about all kinds of extra policemen out there.
It's part of our deal, or we, part of us.
No, we ain't got one.
Straight off, it's a lower thing.
I think it probably would be good.
It would make thousands of people mad and about ten bicycle riders happy.
We're shy before Congress.
Congress before has a plaque from Detroit.
We're going around this place and we'd like to present to you, just prior to this meeting, how the Yankees were taking photographs just in 30 seconds.
Yeah, you're probably going to lose it once.
You're just going to lose it.
I'll let you know what the rest of the aerobatics do already.
I'll see you in a minute.
This week we're here on a paper call.
This is accepted, and it isn't that people keep it up.
I haven't read this week's time.
Now, time is general.
This time it's a paper offer.
I see the way you write it.
I'd like to say that it's time to make the point that the Black West president, despite his lack of passion, though, kind of unblocks and moves and understands, uh, understates, uh, everything against direction.
I don't know, it's just, it's an issue that might be given a stunning brightness, you know.
Yeah, it's a little kind of thing.
Would you not agree, Chair?
Yeah, I see.
at the request of the resident, everybody else, and, you know, the liberals.
Why isn't it the liberals?
How do you see it?
Well, good morning, Mr. President.
How are you?
Good morning.
How are you?
You've got a black Grand Rapids.
A federated order of police officers from Grand Rapids sent that.
No, they're darn good police officers.
They asked me to have a listen.
All right, now I'm planning to trace it.
I'll get everybody in there now.
I've been on the board recently.
I haven't had any questions, though.
You're up.
Where?
I'm doing not very well.
No, I'm fine.

NARA Description

On September 14, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, Gerald R. Ford, and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 7:57 pm to 8:09 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 572-001 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 572-1

Date: September 14, 1971
Time: 7:57 am - 8:09 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

     The President's schedule
          -Presence of photographers at meetings
                -Forthcoming meeting with agricultural leaders
                -Prince and Princess Hitachi of Japan
          -Republican Congressional leadership meeting
                -Time
          -The President's meeting with Gordon L. Allott
                -Length
          -Clark MacGregor
                -Draft bill
          -Changes
                -Meeting with Francis J. Galbraith
          -The President's meeting with Committee to Form a National Health Education
                Foundation
                -Length
                      -Galbraith's meeting
          -Briefing paper
                -The President's surrogate at meeting
                -Talking points

     Attica State Prison riot
           -Nelson A. Rockefeller
           -Reactions
                 -Manolo Sanchez
                 -Administration friends
                 -William M. Kunstler, Thomas Grey Wicker
                 -Negotiations
                       -Prisoners' demands
                       -Rockefeller's concessions
                       -Jacob K. Javits
                             -Support for Rockefeller
                       -Amnesty
                             -Effect
                       -Death tolls
           -Amnesty
           -Sharp shooters
                 -Hostages
     -Television cameras
     Environment
           -Washington, DC
                 -Air pollution
                 -Bicycles as source of transportation
                       -Rock Creek Parkway
                           -Bike lane
                                -Traffic jam
                                -Expenditures
                                      -Source of income
                                -Source of action
                                -Public response

Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 7:57 am.

     The President's schedule
          -Presentation of plaque to the President
               -Fraternal Order of Police of Grand Rapids, Michigan
                      -Gerald R. Ford
                           -Republican Congressional leadership meeting
               -Photograph
                      -Oliver F. ("Ollie") Atkins
               -Length of presentation

Bull left at an unknown time before 8:08 am.

     The President's schedule
          -Haldeman's previous conversation with an unknown person
          -Congress

Bull entered at an unknown time after 7:57 am.

     The President's schedule

Bull left at an unknown time before 8:08 am.

     Elections
           -Edmund S. Muskie
               -Newsweek
               -Time
                    -Black Vice Presidential candidate issue
                         -Quote
               -Reaction
                    -Liberals

Ford entered at 8:08 am; the White House photographer was present at the beginning of the
meeting.

     Greetings

     Presentation of plaque to the President
          -Fraternal Order of Police [FOP] of Grand Rapids, Michigan

     Forthcoming meeting
          -Attendees

     Ford's schedule
          -Puerto Rico

The President, Haldeman, and Ford left at 8:09 am.

Also recorded on September 14, 1971

  • 009-004 5:39 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and William P. Rogers talked on the telephone from 5:39 pm to 5:42 pm.
  • 278-036 5:39 PM · 33 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, William P. Rogers, Henry A. Kissinger, White House operator, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 5:39 pm to 6:35 pm.
  • 009-005 6:07 PM · 5 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:07 pm and 6:13 pm.
  • 009-006 6:13 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Nelson A. Rockefeller talked on the telephone from 6:13 pm to 6:18 pm.
  • 009-007 6:18 PM · 13 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:18 pm and 6:35 pm.
  • 009-008 6:18 PM · 7 min — Henry A. Kissinger and William P. Rogers talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:18 pm and 6:35 pm.
  • 278-037 6:35 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:35 pm and 6:40 pm.
  • 278-038 6:35 PM · 53 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, Manolo Sanchez, and Patrick J. Buchanan met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:35 pm and 6:40 pm.

All 37 conversations from September 14, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 572-001, September 14, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/572-001 (accessed October 9, 2026).