Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 590 › Conversation 590-015

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Event planning and Guest lists

Wednesday, October 13, 1971 · 2:57 PM–3:12 PM ET · Oval Office · 14 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Bull, Stephen B.Conversation590-015 on Tape 590 (tape position 05:03:31–05:18:18)StartWednesday, October 13, 1971 at 2:57 PMEndWednesday, October 13, 1971 at 3:12 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 590-015 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417179223 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, and Stephen Bull meet to discuss administrative details regarding White House guest lists, event protocols, and the logistical management of the President's schedule. They address specific concerns over social invitations, staff morale, and the necessity of managing high-level visitor interactions to maximize the President's efficiency. The conversation emphasizes the importance of streamlining procedures for official events and balancing personal diplomatic requirements with political obligations.

Audio

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NARA Description

On October 13, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:57 pm to 3:12 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 590-015 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 590-15

Date: October 13, 1971
Time: 2:57 pm - 3:12 pm
Location: Oval Office

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

     The President's schedule
          -Presentation of diplomatic credentials
               -Emil G. (“Bus”) Mosbacher, Jr.

     White House social events
          -Guest list
                -Rose Mary Woods
                -Alexander P. Butterfield
                      -Marshal Josef Broz Tito dinner
                            -Robert J. Brown
                -Victor Reisel
                      -Charles W. Colson
                -Responsibility
                -Blacks
                      -Brown
                            -John D. Ehrlichman
          -Responsibility
                -Woods
                      -Harry S. Dent
          -Entertainment
          -Hand shakes
                -Congressmen
                -International Business Machines [IBM] chairman
                -East Room
                -Church services
                -Butterfield
                -Woods
                -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
                -Priorities
          -Tito
          -The President's overseas trips
                -Gen. Francisco Franco
                -Stag parties
          -Mrs. Brown

**********************************************************************
Show the rest of the log (55 more lines)
[Previous PRMPA Privacy (D) reviewed under deed of gift 03/18/2020. Segment cleared for
release.]
[Privacy]
[590-015-w004]
[Duration: 24s]

     White House social events
          -Sallie Walker Brown
                -Pressures on Robert J. Brown
                -John D. Ehrlichman
                -Indira Gandhi dinner

**********************************************************************

     White House social events
          -Sallie Walker Brown
                -John D. Ehrlichman
                -Woods
                      -Lucy A. Winchester
                            -Invitations
          -Dinner
                -Henry A. Kissinger
                -State Department
                -Invitations
          -Woods

     The President's schedule
          -Dean G. Acheson funeral
               -William P. Bundy
                      -Arrangements

Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 2:57 pm.

          -Mrs. Acheson

Bull left at an unknown time before 3:12 pm.

     Arrangements for the President's trip to the People's Republic of China [PRC]
          -Dwight L. Chapin
          -Kissinger
          -The President's Itinerary
               -Peking
               -Kissinger
               -Mrs. Nixon
                     -Public relations

     Kissinger
          -White House staff
               -Announcement of trip to Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]
                      -Mood
          -Soviet trip
               -Maurice H. Stans
                -Peter G. Peterson

The President and Haldeman left at 3:12 pm.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 4 minutes of this recording (about 25% 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 they did.
If they are told they're going to have conversations and then don't even for five minutes, you can't do it on the basis, well, the president's busy today.
See?
We just don't do it.
I mean, I don't want to do it that way.
We ought to do it.
What I regret...
I said not technically.
Earlier, they were committed to conversations.
We're expecting them.
They should not change them.
They told me not to know what the event was, and to tell us just to squeeze it down on the basis of...
If they were not committed to conversations, we're just going to shake their hands, have a picture taken, and I'll squirt them to the door, and then do the next.
It's way too just to be done anyway.
We're just ridiculous.
and have a conversation with them another time.
Stayed trying to wrap.
Rose makes one point, which is, she says that Alex called over and put somebody in a casket for the Tito dinner, and she had it filled without a toner.
Bob Brown or something like that.
I asked, did he put Bob Brown on it and that's what he did without a toner?
That's the problem.
You see, he had a bill, and Victor Roussel was next in line.
And so there's some, you know, it's a coastal system.
So Chris, she said, which is now, who's making up these lists?
Am I or Alex?
And I said, you are.
You know, that came up before, and I said, she's to do it.
So Alex just should have told her that's all.
I didn't mind him on the Brown list, but it may be that if she had to herself, he may come in at Brown.
She said she already had three blacks in there anyway.
So it wasn't for the sake of a black, it was for the sake of Bob Brown.
He had a morale problem then.
comes up in cycles every six months or so and we've got to do something for his wife if she gets left out of things.
Yeah.
He's maybe used to let him go.
Well, I've raised that with Earl and raised this with me, and I've raised that at that point.
Maybe we should.
And John said he's doing such a good job in his job.
He is great as far as the one around and all that, but his wife gets to eating away and every once in a while we've got to do...
They can't do it.
They can't get anyone on this one.
Well, she's barely sent the invitation out.
No problem.
She said she didn't know.
They already invite her, so she'll have to knock somebody off.
She'll line the way for Christ's sake.
That's no problem because they have a...
They'll line the way.
They'll line the way.
But he's the main one.
It is true.
He's going to do it more.
He's one of the two.
That's right.
Because they all come here and, you know, the rest of the thing.
That's right.
And she makes up the list for that.
Exactly right.
Oh, she just called her.
Yeah.
Behind that, anybody.
I had to do it sometimes.
Just tell her.
She'll work it in.
Who does?
The Adventurers Association.
We don't have very many assholes.
Oh, thank God.
Well, we have quite a few.
You need a little regret for this year, huh?
Do we?
Do we have to have that goddamn entertainment thing that people ask you to have something here?
The main problem I'm concerned about there is the handshake deal.
There's no way you can undo it without the handshake.
You have to get in it.
All I can do is... Sure.
You know, when they come up the other way and come in, then they pounce on me.
Our aides are not.
Just keep them away.
See, so that's why I'd much rather shake all their hands and have some church administrative system, which is usually what it is of a congressman, come in and grab me than when I'm trying to talk to the head of IBM.
See?
Well, our plan was to have them come up at the same time the others were going into the room.
Yeah.
So they just were ushered right into the eastern...
at the same time the others are ruptured into the eastern, which is, seems to be a .
So they don't get it.
I don't think they have to meet us.
It's awkward for them to mill around.
It really isn't necessary to meet us.
We've gone through this in the church.
What do you think?
Are we running a big group after dinner?
Somebody has requested that we have so many names.
Alex Ray Grayson.
They've got so many names, as you know, to talk about.
Well, it keeps coming up.
Rose raises it because she's very big on the after-dinner thing.
Then Pat gets into the handshaking.
Yeah.
But I thought she agreed.
Now, let me suggest this.
And I don't think we should put the speaking guests through the business of shaking hands with administrative assistants.
Frankly, that's what it gets down to.
Or whoever they are.
Well, they don't have to shake your hand just because they're out of your house.
I mean, you don't have to.
It doesn't have to be.
They come, they hear the entertainment, and afterwards they dance.
And they see the stage guests when we come in.
We come into the room and we go up and shake hands with them.
It's a big deal.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
And what the hell is a handshake?
They don't even, they just say, hello, thank you.
I agree.
Then I have to wait and spend the time in the States against many important people.
I'm going to have to do more of them.
I'm going to have to try to tell the folks how to bring them up.
It's a hard thing.
We must make a good deal out of it.
Well, I'm glad I could agree that we could feel that we were going to shake hands with him.
I don't think you should take an old man like T to meet a bunch of bad people like us.
I think we'll see.
That's right.
Let's do that for all of them.
No.
Even if the partnership is in the air, it's got to happen.
He said shake your hands with him before.
Let's see.
At the line they all go down because they think they're supposed to.
Don't worry, it's set up.
They didn't have us shake hands with them, did they?
Our trips abroad?
Well, we didn't have any big dinners.
No, we've done some where there were after dinner guests and you didn't shake hands with them.
In other countries, because I was in the after-dinner group sometimes, and there were a number of countries where we, the rest of your party, did not meet the head of state.
We just went by Franco, we wouldn't meet him.
The big thing is to get the invitation to get dressed up to be in the White House and to dance.
Dance and see to the entertainment and whatever the thing is.
That's what she wants in the Dallas White House isn't it?
I said, Christ, we haven't had anyone else.
And she isn't complaining that she hasn't been here.
She's pushed in to get out and go out and make money.
Oh, I see.
And all that.
It's just, John, I raised it.
Now, we didn't want to do it with the Gandy dinner because of, you know, the more that it's, the ratio is out of hand.
It could have been for one of the others.
I don't think it's a problem.
John felt it was a good move to head off with John when it comes up.
Good.
It's fine.
No problem.
My idea is probably just a kind of emotion.
Rose being weird, too.
I don't blame her.
It didn't feel good.
Anyway, you know, she's very emotional about it.
And I said, well, I said, well, I said...
But Davey and I had a relationship as well.
We called over, and Lucy sent out the invitations without telling me.
Now we're over on the dinner.
I don't know what to do.
You know, of course you don't know what to do.
It is a problem.
They're not over on the dinner.
No, I know what it is.
But it is.
The point is, you should practice.
You should interfere with it.
You should let it be done in the channel.
Be done.
I'm going to stay here all about the dinner.
I mean, I don't think that's important.
In other words, that time, you know, we had something to have dinner, or it wasn't going to be able or something like that.
She did what she did.
She thought we'd changed it.
It was not a problem.
It was just the fact that we decided to have dinner.
It was a working dinner of some kind where they, if it's here in the States, set up for us.
We ordered up the invitations and they sent out a rosary to her after the dinner.
Oh, was there?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Which was a mistake.
But, you know, nobody even thought about it.
We're not, the rest of us are not that sensitive.
Yeah.
She is terribly sensitive about her priorities.
That's a goddamn good thing for her to do, too.
It's very depending on what she has to do.
She knows how to balance it all.
She calls them out on everything.
And so I think we're able to do it in the absence of things, both times.
So I said, Bill Bundy is handling it.
And I had already notified the press.
The press and the high-level officials and a lot of pallbearers not really appreciated the fact that I made that very much so.
Just that it was too late to change it.
It was a very thoughtful thing.
They appreciated your wanting to come.
They understood that.
Yep.
Oh, I don't think so.
And that's where we get the Mrs. Atchison.
I think it's a hell of a lot.
I mean, that's something.
Someone will know.
I don't feel like I should have been there.
No.
Because the other thing's already announced.
It isn't as if it were a monster.
It isn't as if he cranked up something to avoid it.
He called her and sent the video to her.
I'm going to have to hurry tomorrow.
I'm going to go over the southern defense.
I'm trying to get it boiled down some.
I think just you and I.
We can help shape it.
I think it's a little better.
But you know what I mean?
You can shape it and we'll have those orders there.
Or you can shape it and it should be sitting on the ears.
There's no problem as far as Henry's concerned having him sit in it.
It might not be a bad idea as far as the...
No, you should be here to back up what I'm trying to do.
I mean, I'm going to knock the 7 days down to 4, and I'm going to knock off the 6.
But it's taking me just a very kind of week for me to get such things, for example, as I decided just to go to Big Canyon, not to do other cities.
I mean, that's... Henry will be all for that.
But I don't care.
That's his concept.
Yeah, but I'm not going to shoot for... That's fine.
so that we can get some sort of pictures over there.
I heard that there was a disappear behind those blue curtains.
That's really true.
I was really curious what you told me there.
I would bet that's what he did with the staff, the way he came in there.
It's not acting for it, so it's just the way he presented it.
He does it in that sort of,
And really, I was going to turn around with that, but I can't argue with that.
He's very serious.
He says, well, everybody here, well, the president will be making this announcement.
And he reads the thing on the note, and he says, now let me question against any view for it.
and immediately was in the negatives and never did give it up.
I'm just saying this is a wonderful, wonderful accomplishment.
And I can't explain it.
I had all the attention to it.
I had all the attention to it.
It's just a question of the mood.
And we got that across pretty well in our case.
I thought we had a congressman feeling we're not trying too much.
They have that big feeling about it.
Well, the staff did, too, because that was big enough you couldn't kill it anyway.
Maybe it was better, too.
The question of his race and his style, I think I've told you.
I have proved his vengeance for the Russian criminal, not me.
I can't believe you purchased it.
Seriously.
It's good to me.
And be gracious with you and say, well, it has to go.
It's been attending for a long time.
Yeah, yeah.
We had a close one until after a year.
Thanks for protecting the path.
Keep your hands up.

Also recorded on October 13, 1971

  • 011-085 1:43 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 1:43 pm to 1:50 pm.
  • 590-012 1:43 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Frank E. Fitzsimmons met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:43 pm to 1:50 pm.
  • 590-013 1:50 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:50 pm and 2:57 pm.
  • 590-014 1:50 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:50 pm and 2:57 pm.
  • 011-111 2:24 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 2:24 pm and 4:56 pm.
  • 590-016 3:12 PM · 2 min — unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:12 pm and 11:59 pm.
  • 591-001 3:36 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:36 pm and 3:41 pm.
  • 591-002 3:44 PM · 1 hr 28 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), Rose Mary Woods, Charles W. Colson, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:44 pm to 5:18 pm.

All 31 conversations from October 13, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 590-015, October 13, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417179223). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/590-015 (accessed November 12, 2026).