Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 581 › Conversation 581-001

Nixon, Haldeman & Kissinger on Domestic Policy and Political Strategy

Thursday, September 30, 1971 · 9:00 AM–9:20 AM ET · Oval Office · 26 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Kissinger, Henry A.Conversation581-001 on Tape 581 (tape position 00:00:33–00:26:16)StartThursday, September 30, 1971 at 9:00 AMEndThursday, September 30, 1971 at 9:20 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 581-001 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with H.R. Haldeman and later Henry Kissinger to review a wide array of administrative, political, and scheduling matters. They discussed the President’s recent domestic trips, potential public statements on federal pay raises, and strategies to address political attacks from critics like Senator Ted Kennedy. Additionally, the group reviewed sensitive intelligence reports, discussed the status of Supreme Court nominations, and consulted on the strategic timing of international diplomatic engagements, including Kissinger’s upcoming trip to China and the President’s meeting with Andrei Gromyko.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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All right, now show us if you need to see him in question.
If he went, he is not anxious to go either.
Well, I don't know about that.
The point is, he's very important to be here to work on this.
Well, he would come right now, either tonight or first thing in the morning.
Okay.
He would like to, uh, the next day, they ought to get some specific
We'll be right back.
We'll be right here about nine minutes.
Well, it's fine to go out if you want to come back.
But I wanted to hear this weekend.
Right.
These talks.
Right.
That's not happening with me.
That's interesting.
It's very important to those talks.
But he's going on his mind.
Well, he's ready to talk at noon, but we've got to get it over with.
We've got to get it over with.
Well, Prince, stay tuned.
I'll work during the hour today, and I won't pick your time off.
Also, I'd like to put a pinch on someone's Latin American trip.
Let's get that over with.
Okay, he's leaving for California in January.
John, one thing is a lot for that legacy attorney general.
He's leading after that.
Yeah, he's leading after that.
Well, that's 10-30.
Well, that leads to 10-60 in order.
Before, if he's going to make a move, I'm not sure if he's going to make a more grounded one or two-sentiment.
I approve something Peterson sent in here.
He wants to make some speeches, you know, which is fine.
Yeah.
But I said be sure to check with Conley.
I don't think he had.
Did you get the message or not?
Yes.
I had reached a thing with Conley before.
It was my understanding that he thought it was a good idea.
I would confirm.
I just want to be sure we don't have somebody running around where Conley is involved.
that he doesn't know about the situation.
What you've got today is to see whether or not some statement on this pay raise thing from me at this point today, or whether on Monday, whether we better wait until Monday to do it, will be useful.
But they have come out this morning with the, what they now consider to be an urgent recommendation
How about doing it Monday?
They think that's too late because there's a vote.
What they're after is a small booth that they want to run into.
How long do you need to let her out?
You can't do it then.
845 minutes.
845 minutes.
What do you do then?
Do you do that at 445?
Or do you say 5 o'clock?
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay, but the point is, how about some statements?
Somebody's got to prepare something.
A statement on the ARAC, which will, like the one I made on the draft, this blow, this will blow the top out, something really tough.
What kind of statement are you preparing?
two or three days prior to the momentum steps that they're now saying.
What was Tuesday?
They wanted to save it Monday, apparently.
Huh?
They do the saving Sunday for Monday.
Okay.
Just to get them on their period, it's that much, you know what I mean?
Tough.
Don't give it to Schultz's office to do.
You know, something that's more political.
Well, Schultz gets the, their office has got to change it for facts, but it's got to be a tough, strong,
pull the lid off of the, you know what I mean?
Off of the, this will destroy the program and so forth.
Maybe it should be just rather than just issued, maybe it should be sent to somebody or, well, I don't know.
I just, they ought to be able to figure something out, shouldn't they?
Let's go back to the dock, sir.
We should get that this month.
Yeah, we did a good job today.
That made it a better time than that.
They sometimes make a full suspension, probably about 315.
Have we done the 1230 order?
230.
Yeah, that's right.
230 is fine.
That's probably a better time for us.
I think 2.30 is better.
If you're stronger, 2.30 for five.
Okay.
Can't show us at 12.30.
Well, I think you want to go to sleep.
You have to go down.
Well, at 2.30, it's probably midday.
Yeah, man.
If you make it to the bird and clean it up, if you beat the bird, I'll give you better.
For him to stay here at work, he's got to go down there and back.
It's a goddamn hard ride.
Okay.
But that's the same with the education thing, obviously, .
He's got about an hour and a half.
That's .
Let me have John do it, because he can get it done.
I can't rush them around, but I think I'd rather have them flap around and have me talk to them.
Yeah, that'd be better.
He says I can prevent them from dropping and stealing their computers from them.
Oh.
There was one thing on Tuesday Henry has recommended.
Did you invite Echeverria?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
He is also, we turned down Senator Bernanke, and he's asking Senator Bernanke to the Yugoslav ambassador.
Oh.
You have to do today in order to look.
And just so you know, Houston has not completed the bombing home study.
I have it in hand in three copies.
Right.
There is only one thing he now concludes is lacking.
There was a series of special studies done by the CIA for Johnson in October of 68, but she's never given any of these from Helms.
My inclination is that either I or Early can call Helms and order those over here today.
We've been doing that on the other side, and it seems to me we've got everything else.
We might as well get that.
And a two.
They're home.
He's in.
He's in the control room.
He says, I suspect that because of its length, the only person likely to be interested enough to take the time to read this report is anyone else here.
I don't know.
They didn't mention the fact that you ought to have this checked without me needing to work.
Will you follow up on that?
Yes.
Let him do that.
For example, there should be a follow-up on this attack on Kennedy.
crawling under the roof.
I don't smoke anybody's stuff.
Well, that's a great story.
No, but that's one.
There should be a drum fire.
Oh, sure.
That's one.
That's one.
That's like out of an Alan Drury novel.
I mean, you keep going on that.
That was the whole thing.
Alan Drury was the senator who said he'd crawl on his knees to Moscow and face the Greenpeace to the world.
This is exactly the same kind of thing.
It's all that he had in 1962.
He was apologizing to Kruger.
We killed him with that for a long time.
That's when I go back to the, you know, the film.
And never in the White House will we permit a man to guess as he crawled in with him in the communist negotiations.
It reminds us, seeing as it's all gone.
Go on, he's pretty good.
He's the one guy who will, he lucked in the words, he said it was disgusting.
And, you know, that kind of thing, the others won't say.
What do you think about that?
I don't think that's close to what I saw.
No, not at all.
I've never seen another guy like that.
car sales and so forth, you know?
Oh, yeah.
It's foreign sales.
Yeah, but that's not true.
Well, it may be true about the foreign sales, which is due to the fact that they had inventory.
It's not true about the domestic sales, which are not.
He's taking a puff on it.
Yeah, me, as a hell, I've got to be calling somebody a racist.
Jesus Christ.
John Conker, what's the line for that?
You've got a letter, not very important, but you've got a letter from a group of congressmen on the Pothland.
It's an interesting collection.
It's white hair, Abernathy, Cable, Altman, Flowers, Edmondson, Burleson, Pueblo, Griffiths, Hogue,
Spike, Sungate, Ailey, Matcher, Burke, Aspinall, Pryor, Henderson, Purcell, Patman, Perkins, Kuczynski, Colmer, Wright, Daniel, Highcourt, Casey, Abbott, Downey, and Rogers.
All right.
It's been put off.
Yes.
It's kind of a combination of conservatives and liberals.
It's in recognition of his mind, sound judgment, judicial temperament, broad background, constitutional expertise, and performance for his third termination.
Go ahead, Bob.
Good.
And, uh, just, that makes me curious.
I thought the political reaction, yeah, the states, I think we, in Montana, they're extremely pleased,
He said the sensitivity and scheduling on it is extremely low and it's incredibly good because of the massive thing on the other side.
Again, this is a GOP reaction.
Even their press media coverage has been very big and positive, even the Democratic papers.
The GOP leaders are on the clouds as a result of the pictures of the president.
That's a whole different picture than that.
They're back-talking heiress and very enthusiastic as a result of the attention paid to them.
And Oregon, again, the leader's very happy.
The state chairman said it was good advance notice planning.
Media coverage was excellent.
Perception was a big boost to the GOP.
A big boost.
Being on the strike had strong impacts.
That was a problem completely.
Washington State leaders saw a beautifully happy crowd.
No demonstrators' event has dominated the media, nothing adverse.
Remarks of Hanford had good political effect, because unemployment is such a big concern.
Leaders received by the President were delighted.
State Chairman, very appreciative.
Ready to go for next year.
Alaska visit a huge success.
Happy to see a president.
Media coverage complete and positive.
State chairman is catching it because the Hickle reception has been misread by regulars as a recognition of Hickle as head of the Alaska GOP.
But her plans seem prompt to arrange them to allow a small group of local GOP leaders to greet the president with immediate media pressure.
Appreciate it.
Apparently, I don't know.
We had a problem on that with that Hickle thing, and that was a Dan Belkin exercise that he did.
Apparently, but it is quite a lot faster than some of the others, which is a typical thing.
I don't know if he needs to see it for a few minutes, too.
You want to get him in now and get it done?
Well, I will, but I've got to hold the time open for Bush.
I probably won't.
I'll let him know.
You had asked about the sendling campaign.
They are moving on the sendling or tie.
And we have someone who knows the money.
McCracken.
That's right.
McCracken has had it to lunch and is building it up on it.
a thing where he's going to include Colson in the next lunch and then move into there.
He does do commercial work of a kind that we could buy him off with under normal circumstances, but apparently there are some circumstances where he will, so we'll move in on his as well.
We're going to invite him to the church service in the future.
We'll do a little thing between him and himself.
Well, anyway, that doesn't matter.
No, I don't think you should do it.
It's a little hard to find a good church in Salem, Virginia.
Yeah, I think Arthur Burns has a plan.
I know, he's good.
An editorial writer signed on October 14th that you're keeping on Stoudwell and Pittsburgh.
It's right after the rush right now, sir.
I'm sure you would, because it will be right after phase two also.
Hey.
Hey, man.
I don't think it did hurt because it didn't give that much of a bounce.
It sure as hell didn't make any difference.
It didn't do any good.
Here's this huge replacement.
Are you interested in any review of it or should we just go ahead?
That was sweet, sir.
I thought it might be.
It is here in the country.
We're out here.
The country doesn't, as we know it, we're out there.
I don't know what I meant.
The Washington Papers leave with different stories, Bob.
They just leave with different stories.
That is so right.
Except when you get something like Justice Black dies.
Yeah.
I mean, I have to be honest with you, it's going to make his life more difficult.
But, uh... Is that what you're going?
Yeah.
Because of the dangers at about that time.
They moved it up three weeks from last year.
Last year was at the end of November.
And this year they moved it up after the session started, which was after we had fixed the date for the Chinese.
Well, do you think you should try to change the date?
I am afraid not, Mr. President.
Right.
After the new visit by Gromyko and the announcement of the summit meeting, if you change the Chinese date.
And, uh,
Yes, I said very well that in case they will never believe us.
If they only wanted to announce it on the 14th, we'd press them into the earliest possible date.
Now they agree to it, and then two days after you seek them, you change the date and announce it on it.
We can try, but we'd probably pay a price for it.
You want to see it first?
It's useful.
Two minutes, just to tell him that you're free.
No, sorry.

NARA Description

On September 30, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:00 am and 9:20 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 581-001 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 581-1

Date: September 30, 1971
Time: Unknown between 9:00 am and 9:20 am
Location: Oval Office

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

     The President's schedule
          -Meeting with George P. Shultz, Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
          -The President's trip to Florida
                -Shultz
                      -Location of meeting
                            -Time
          -The President's meeting with Robert H. Finch
                -Finch's forthcoming Latin American trip
                -California trip
                      -Date
                      -John N. Mitchell
          -George H.W. Bush
          -Peter G. Peterson
                -Actions as spokesman for the administration
                -Coordination with John B. Connally
                      -Conversation with Haldeman
          -Possible statement by the President on federal pay raise
                -Raymond K. Price, Jr.
                      -Date
          -Meeting with group of Southern Democrats regarding Dulski-Waldie Resolution
                -Time
                      -Forthcoming vote
          -The President's meeting with Sir Alexander F. (“Alec”) Douglas-Home
                -Length
          -Possible federal pay raise statement
                -Preparation
                -Draft statement
                -Time of release
                -Preparation
                      -Office of Management and Budget [OMB]
                -Type of statement
                      -Impact
          -West Coast dock strike
          -Meeting with Southern Democrats, September 30, 1971

          -Time
     -Shultz
          -Time of meeting
     -The President's meeting with leaders of various national educational organizations
          -Number of members
          -Time, length of meeting

Meeting with education group
     -Shultz
     -John D. Ehrlichman
     -Sidney Marland

President’s schedule
     -Luis Echeverria
           -Henry A. Kissinger’s recommendation
     -Bogdan Crnobrnja
           -Kissinger’s recommendation

US domestic activities
     -Tom C. Huston
           -Work on bombing halt study
                -Copies of study
           -Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]
                -1968 studies
                      -President Lyndon B. Johnson
                      -Date
                      -Richard M. Helms
                             -Possible call from Ehrlichman or Haldeman
           -Daniel Ellsberg
Charles W. Colson
     -Possible Cabinet meeting
           -The President's role
     -Follow-up action

Edward M. (“Ted”) Kennedy
    -Statement on Vietnam negotiations
          -Follow-up by administration
          -Allen S. Drury
                -Comparison of Kennedy to character in book Advise and Consent
          -John F. Kennedy
                -Nikita S. Khrushchev

                     -Apology scenario comparison
     -Vietnam issue response by Republicans
          -Senator Barry M. Goldwater
                -Compared to others

US economy
     -Car sales
           -Foreign cars
           -Inventories
                -Situation
                      -Knowledge

George Meany
    -Comment about Richard H. Poff

Supreme Court appointment
     -Letter to the President from a group of Congressmen on Poff's possible nomination
           -Congressmen Joe D. Waggoner, Thomas B. Abernethy, Earle Cabell, Al
                 Ullman, Walter Flowers, Ed Edmondson, Omar Burleson [(or) Bill D.
                 Burlison?], Don Fugal [?], Martha W. Griffiths [?], W. R. Poage, Robert
                 L.F. Sikes, William L. Hungate, James A. Haley, William H. Natcher,
                 James A. Burke, Wayne Aspinall, Richardson Preyer, David Henderson,
                 Graham Purcell, Wright Patman, Carl D. Perkins, John C. Kluczynski,
                 William M. Colmer, Jim Wright, W. C. Daniel, Richard Ichord, Bob
                 Casey, Watkins Abbitt, Thomas N. Downing, Paul G. Rogers
                 -Conservatives and liberals

The President's Northwest trip
     -Montana
          -Michael J. Mansfield
          -Reactions to the President's appearances and statements
     -Newspaper reaction
          -Democrats, Republicans
     -Tim Babcock and J. Hugo Aaronson
          -Visit by the President
                 -Reaction
     -Oregon
          -Leaders
                 -State chairmen
                       -Media coverage
     -Washington state

          -Reactions by crowds
                -Demonstrators
          -Political effect
                -Type of media coverage
          -Reactions by leaders in the state
     -Alaska
          -Reactions to the President's visit
          -Walter J. Hickel and state Republicans
          -Herbert G. Klein's arrangements
                -Local Republican officials
                      -Reactions
          -Hickel

The President's schedule
     -Meeting with Ehrlichman
     -Meeting with Bush

Albert Sindlinger
     -Handling
           -Paul W. McCracken
                 -Colson
                       -Luncheon
           -Possible contract
           -Church service
                 -Invitation
                 -Arthur F. Burns

The President's schedule
     -Meeting with editorial writers
          -Date
                 -Timing
                      -Announcement of trip to the Soviet Union
          -Types of questions
                 -Phase II economic policy

Funeral for Justice Hugo L. Black
     -The President's attendance
           -Possible reaction
           -Connally
           -News coverage
                 -Event

                           -Pros and cons of news coverage

     James D. (“Don”) Hughes
          -Replacement as military aide

     The President's schedule
          -Meeting with Andrei A. Gromyko
                -News coverage
                      -Type of story
          -International Monetary Fund [IMF] reception
                -News coverage
                      -Type of story
                -Public familiarity
                -Washington newspapers comparison with regional newspapers
                -Black's death

Kissinger entered at 9:18 am.

     Schedule
          -Bush
               -Kissinger's office

     Kissinger's trip to the People's Republic of China [PRC]
          -Forthcoming United Nations [UN] vote on China membership
                -Date
                       -Changing dates
                             -Possible effect
                                  -The President's meeting with Gromyko
                                  -Peking
                       -Options on handling
          -The President's meeting with Bush

The President, Kissinger and Haldeman left at 9:20 am.

Also recorded on September 30, 1971

  • 581-002 9:22 AM · 43 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, George H. W. Bush, unknown person(s), and John D. Ehrlichman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:22 am to 9:54 am.
  • 581-003 10:05 AM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:05 am and 10:07 am.
  • 581-004 10:07 AM · 56 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:07 am to 11:03 am.
  • 078-002 11:05 AM · 1 hr 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, John F. Evans, Jr., Dana G. Mead, Elliot L. Richardson, and leaders of national education organizations, including Dr. Sidney P. Marland, Jr., Lee Pierson, Dr. Ruth Holloway, Neil H. McElroy, Herbert Stein, John B. Geissinger, David Selden, Floyd T. Christian, Joseph Manch, Elizabeth Mallory, Rev. C. Albert Koob, Donald E. Morrison, Kenneth E. Burhmaster, and James H. Rowland, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House from 11:05 am to 12:15 pm.
  • 010-035 12:16 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked on the telephone from 12:16 pm to 12:18 pm.
  • 581-005 12:18 PM · 41 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:18 pm and 12:20 pm.
  • 581-006 12:20 PM · 25 min — President Richard M. Nixon, William P. Rogers, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:20 pm to 12:45 pm.
  • 581-007 12:45 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Virginia H. Knauer, Richard H. Grant, and Marion F. Gregory met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:45 pm to 12:51 pm.

All 28 conversations from September 30, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 581-001, September 30, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/581-001 (accessed September 28, 2026).