On October 5, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, John B. Connally, White House operator, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Richard H. Poff met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:19 pm to 5:39 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 585-015 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
and analysis of this network.
News, I'm trying to figure out what the hell happens on times.
It may very well be that the time for you to go on is 7.30 or 6.30, rather than 7.00, because they feed the news.
CBS and NBC both feed at 6.30, and ABC feeds at 6 o'clock.
And then they run them at either 6.30 or 7.00.
on CBS NBC and ABC is run at 6, 6.30, or 7, depending on the city.
7.30, 7.30.
They don't update their fees.
They just start there normally.
Now, if you, your address at 7, they would go for a full program adjustment at 7.
They'd run it, they'd keep another full half hour at 7.
What they would do is feed at 6.30 or 6, as normal, and that would already be seen by 7.
In many wonders.
And instead, they would reprogram fully, presenting the speech following your remarks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hello.
Yeah.
I know.
Yeah, I figured.
I figured I didn't want to get fired.
I figured I'd get fired.
Okay.
Okay.
So if you would go to 7, you would not cut into the network news programs, except in those cities where the local station normally airs the news at 7 o'clock.
And then they would probably create, there was no news at 7.
Yeah, they're aired locally at 7, and those you would cut into.
But what they would do probably is move their news up to 6.30, because they get their heat at 6.30, so they'd heat at 6.30 and then run to at 7.00.
So what they're saying now is if we run at 7.30, we get the pre-buildup in the news show.
We hold the news audience.
And we leave time for network analysis.
And we hold that, but we don't go into prime time either.
That's right.
You're still in the news time.
7.30.
And you don't bring any network shows, which is really...
I think 7.30 is a good time.
7 FM shows would be preemptive because 7.30 is allocated by all networks for local station programming, so you would just preempt local.
You might preempt local, at least, on a big news roundup or something like that.
And you'd be to announce it tomorrow for and request 7.30, which would follow the...
Or some of them.
And you get that much more audience, too.
The later you go, the more audience you get.
Every half hour picks up more people.
7.30 we get a couple of big markets.
So it just... And you're still out.
You're not in prime time.
You're not cutting into the big entertainment stuff.
You'll cut into some kid shows, probably, in some markets.
Let's do the 7.30.
That looks like the best time.
Let's do it at 7.30.
If that works, then let's consider having a press conference some other reason.
Yeah.
I haven't thought about this.
What the hell is wrong with that?
That might be just a really good time.
The only thing that's wrong with that, and we shouldn't decide anything on this basis, is that to the degree that it screws anybody, it screws the local stations who are basically our friends instead of the networks who are our enemies.
But what the hell with that?
I mean, for the infrequent, the number of times you do it, it doesn't screw them enough to make any difference, so they lose a couple of them.
I just have a good feeling about 7.30.
Waiting until 9.30 or 10.
7.30 is a good time.
Often, you just have to offer the wear off.
It's for all the wearing, too, to keep yourself keyed up until 9.30 or 10.30.
7.30 is an awfully good time to go on.
Let's try it this time and see how it works.
Okay.
It's better, I don't like the 6.30.
No, that just doesn't seem right.
7.30 is after dinner.
It's sort of the right time to do it.
It's the start of the evening.
And it's also the start of the evening for most people in the Midwest.
A lot of people, 6.30 to 6.00.
6 o'clock supper.
Yeah.
Oh, the fire was true.
430.
They do the same as they would do if you let it set.
Right.
Which would be that they'll carry it live and then they'll use it in their news shows.
I'm sure they'd use a big chunk of that and they'd come to 10 minutes and they might use it all.
Probably not.
I think they would.
Use a big chunk of it.
I don't think so.
I had the idea that it would cost a little bit of time, so we should go online, online, online, and so forth.
We'd look at a hell of a big audience.
John Earthman suggested that it would be a good idea for you to give Pop a pop.
Both on a personal basis, and because he's depressed and all that.
Sapphire came up with a thing on Osborne.
He pointed out to him that COPS, the EPA rating or whatever it is, one of those liberal congressional ratings,
that he actually has a higher liberal rating than Birch Bayh has.
And Sapphire's come up with a twist now for, you know, really getting this segment that, uh, Pop really was something on a purely race and Southern blend.
And that you're the thing that some of us have almost stared at.
And those Sapphires are getting on more and more.
And that sort of makes it more appropriate for some of these conservative segments to not belong to the liberal.
We're going to have to back first, you know, but there's a lot of intelligence that we want to make sure we get this in, and also recall the cost of the surgery.
Let's go ahead and go.
It's a long time.
It's a long time.
It's a long time.
It's a long time.
In fact, he should write to his house and say, let's drive this house, and I'll have to drive it.
No, I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
I don't want to talk to people.
The, uh...
Senators and Congressmen and whatever else, you know, there's nothing wrong with you on that trip.
What were you talking about?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm against the god damn dirty men.
That's for the dirty.
That's my thing.
Well, I guess I wanted you to know that the most disappointed man on the dirty, but I think the six of them want to move to me.
And it's just a call of shame to Jerry Fordford.
Very, very
As a matter of fact, .
in the name of the Lord and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
But the thing is, I can't use it.
I think the latter one is too.
I think it goes much better.
It's as stable as it may be, but it looks like it's worse.
So I'm going to serve a chance of something I really need in a house like that.
You could say, do I have time?
Sure I have time.
Well, you did.
You did.
I know you did.
I know you did.
I said, I regret it, because I just frankly don't want it.
I just want to fight sometimes.
But under the circumstances, we got the right men.
But also under the circumstances, I got fired by a gang of two in the back court.
I got fired by a gang of two individuals.
And let me tell you, these are about cows and grass.
They're going to be people like Frederick Black.
That's what they're going to be.
We were back in the day when I did it.
So I go, I gotta go in the Southern Territory.
The public, the government, I go and ask my parents and my parents, and I do.
So I love you and I did well back in the day.
Okay, uh, there's a coffee.
Well, uh, I was, I was in Florida when this happened, or I was in California, so I'm down there in Houston, so I'm in Sydney.
But I just thought it would be swell to meet you.
Okay, keep up your spirit.
Give my best to the BYU team.
This stuff is terrible.
Terrible.
You just don't understand.
The Brock, Donovan, they're bitter.
It's not a blue spot.
It's quieted.
So he may have been doing that to learn to get close to the Chinese.
I was curious about that.
You see, the Navy is trying to get Samaritans out.
If we put it on a land basis, they'll have to do this.
And I suppose, 90% of them will say, well, they're trying to do it in Chi-Revo.
We have to do that to get Samaritans.
If we haven't, they'll say, we lost Samaritans.
We may not.
At least we've got to try.
We don't want them to do this.
Well, you know, I didn't do this for violence.
They've got something to talk about their arms, and I, uh...
I don't know.
Bill has always been that.
He's always been that.
I'm sitting there.
There's no way I can go without talking to you.
I'm sitting there talking to you about that.
I can't do it anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah.