Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 592 › Conversation 592-001
Nixon & Mitchell on 1972 Presidential Election and Political Strategy
Thursday, October 14, 1971 · 9:00 AM–9:12 AM ET · Oval Office
AI Summary
President Nixon and John Mitchell discuss political strategy for the 1972 election, focusing on undermining Democratic opponents and capitalizing on the President's public approval ratings. They analyze the impact of Nixon’s recent foreign policy initiatives—specifically planned visits to China and the Soviet Union—and their effect on demoralizing the Democratic field. The conversation also touches on media management, emphasizing the need to keep the administration's narrative focused on domestic prosperity and presidential leadership while minimizing the political damage caused by negative press coverage.
Audio
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This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 00:01:08 into the tape and ends around 00:13:09.
Transcript (AI-generated)
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
1:17Now that, over the period of the next three or four months, you know, we'll work in with you in terms of getting that thing to go about it.
1:31I'll try to find another interesting thing here, which I really think is the key to it.
1:37I think that Meany has made a decision on today.
1:41I've always felt that, you know, I'm very excited.
1:43The Catholic blood ran thicker than his concern about Jack Clay.
1:47And, uh, I think that's what it is.
1:48And I think this, uh, we're gonna see more and more of many, many related things because of Petty and the buildup of Petty and the destruction of the others.
1:59You agree with that?
2:01Absolutely.
2:02He is recommended that we shift our major emphasis away from Muskie and on to Teddy.
2:10He's always said it would be Teddy.
2:14But he's done what we can destroy.
2:21I don't know if you remember the early thing, the muskie watch.
2:24So, well, you know, he fell on his head, and I just looked at him right in the face.
2:28But that was the January, that time was January.
2:31Everybody thought muskie was unbeatable because of his strength.
2:34But that was just a figure, as far as I understand.
2:37Anyway, but that's all right.
2:38It was good analysis.
2:40But his recommendation is that we should change our attack emphasis some.
2:46Some.
2:47to start picking titty up more on the attack side.
2:51I'll check it.
2:52I've never seen any of the new sun right now.
2:56Oh, that's getting out.
2:58Oh, yes.
2:59The new sun is...
3:09I'm sorry to tell you this, but where did this weekend's May Press, about three out of the five newspapers I saw, he quoted, when Mitch admitted it, it was all over the country.
3:19It was front page in the Chicago Post.
3:21It's a terrible story.
3:22That's why I say that it's not going to make much of a media story anymore, where it's going to be effective for us, for speakers, always to talk about it.
3:29We look beautifully into the Nixon, the world leader for peace,
3:33And thank God we have a president who wouldn't even consider it.
3:37The one thing that came out of our mouth and came out of my ears is this.
3:44He's in a strong conviction that we should end up talking to him about it.
3:49And it's right now.
3:50And we can't do.
3:51And it can't be.
3:53No matter what happens to him, it cannot be a constitutional.
4:00So you try to split it at a second level to keep it from being negative and don't constantly talk about it by keeping comments.
4:07You do it all the time.
4:09Everybody's just talking about domestic issues and all the rest.
4:12They just don't understand.
4:14And he comes back to this.
4:15He says the one thing where you've got to ignore some of that is just a piece of it.
4:20and just got to keep, you got to get that across.
4:23You can't assume that people know it.
4:24You can't assume that they believe it.
4:25You know, we're all angry rebels in here.
4:27Everybody wants to talk to us.
4:28Everybody wants to talk to us, but they don't like it.
4:31You know what I mean?
4:32They're not going to read that.
4:33They'd be, well, I think we've got to get through.
4:34You've got to get through.
4:35What did I say?
4:36I don't know.
4:48Right.
5:00We agree.
5:01Absolutely.
5:02To an extent.
5:03You have to be postured correctly on the issue.
5:05It's to keep it neutral, but it is... You've got to be...
5:07When I finish, there are people here, many times when I watch media reviews, and I think to myself, you've got to mention the wrong investigations.
5:16I don't know what I mean.
5:17They're wrong.
5:18They're absolutely wrong.
5:20I've got to cover them.
5:22But always expand their issue, and never contain their issue.
5:27We want folks to be thinking of our nation, not theirs.
5:29Do you see my point?
5:30Our nation is not, is not good.
5:33And that's always been a frustration to both of your staff, because the press were a full time on the other nights.
5:38And that's understandable, whether you like Spartan or not.
5:43Colson, what did you do?
5:45You must have stepped in on that one.
5:47Which is it?
5:50Oh, sign something about Eric, right?
5:52I don't like that.
5:53I don't either.
5:57Well, what I've got to do is I've got to believe in God.
6:03We can take that man to peace and we're going to give him one hell of a life.
6:12But, you know, but... No, I want it because some of it's fascinating.
6:21He was much more forthcoming than I thought.
6:23He came out with a lot of good stuff, you see, that he hadn't given me before.
6:26I think he was saving it for you.
6:29But his latest fool for Monday is...
6:34The first time in a year more than 50% of the American people think President Nixon is doing a good to excellent job in the White House.
6:41Mr. Nixon's current 51-48% positive average crashed sharply with his low of 41-56% negative back in March of this year.
6:49That was the lowest ever then was March of last year right after last.
6:52He never published that, by the way.
6:54But he's publishing it now to show the tremendous recovery this year.
7:03He stacks up all those numbers and he can use them for any purpose he wants.
7:08What he's been doing, he's been digging back using, he never used good numbers before publicly.
7:14Now he's using good numbers publicly and using it to compare bad numbers.
7:17He has some good numbers that he hasn't used.
7:21Yeah, of course he does.
7:22That was last summer.
7:23I forced those out of him in the campaign.
7:26But the point I wanted to make is in here, the leading category, which he said is the highest he's ever seen on any president, working for peace in the world, is now 64 positive, 24 negative, 12 not sure, up from July, which was 48, 48, 4.
7:44See, that's remarkable when you consider you've still got the war going on.
7:47Oh, my God.
7:49That it's now your war.
7:51Yeah.
7:52that the networks, you would think the war was raging with 5 million American troops in that network.
7:59I told you, I don't do it very often.
8:00I watched the CBS news last night.
8:03There was 8 minutes of the Vietnam War on.
8:05And I said to Joe, you watch that, you figure it's the only thing that's happening in the world, the terrible war in Vietnam.
8:13Let's look at it on the newspaper.
8:15Place that.
8:16So I looked at the Washington Star on the side.
8:19There wasn't one word on the front page about the war.
8:22I turned to page two.
8:23Not one word.
8:24Page three.
8:25Page four.
8:25Page six.
8:27was the first story in the SAR on the war, and it was the only story in the SAR, and there were two minor items, one about that prisoner coming home, which was a positive story, basically, although they turned it to negative by putting his asshole father on, who is about as qualified to talk about it as Manolo is, to explain how we should set our policy on POWs, which is we should offer to trade him ten for one.
8:49But what, I'll tell you exactly...
8:51Which you'd already done, right?
8:52Exactly what has happened.
8:54They have used those urban committees, the hearings, to...
8:58put forth their great face that they're being intimidated by government, and they've gotten away with it this week.
9:05Well, I think it does, but it increases their arrogance.
9:09Thurman did a good job.
9:11He just kicked him all over the place.
9:14He was great.
9:21He really was great.
9:24He was smart.
9:25He was smart.
9:27He played it smart.
9:28And then this guy, these newspaper guys come on and say there's a bunch of hogwash about intimidating the media.
9:34He was great last night, the guy that newspaper guy was on.
9:37Ridiculous.
9:40He said, I have yet to see a new... You're not able to do it, so I'll have to go.
9:44I reckon you're not going to school.
9:47The guys that you're dating, you know, they're coming out tomorrow.
9:52You've got to use that.
9:52Yes, that's one thing we haven't done, but they've used it.
9:56Well...
9:57But what they do is incredible.
9:58They had a long, about five-minute report about automobile accidents or motorcycle accidents in Vietnam.
10:04They went on and on about how, you know, when some motorist, a Vietnamese guy, bumps into one of our trucks or something and damages his motorcycle, we jump out and pay him ten bucks so he won't file a complaint as if that were some evil thing that we were doing.
10:16And they interviewed about six lieutenants and all this stuff on it.
10:22It's unbelievable.
10:24The point is...
10:26Did we survive that sort of crime?
10:28Because of the big moves.
10:30Yeah, you just have, you just totally have the point.
10:33It seems to me, basically, that they are trying.
10:36I think they're having a hell of a time.
10:39We asked the Soviet announcement.
10:41They haven't said a word about it.
10:43Did you notice that?
10:44Did they?
10:45Not very little.
10:45Not much.
10:46Well, if I told them, they wouldn't listen.
10:48They wouldn't listen for three, four weeks and five months.
10:51The columnists are.
10:53The TV is not doing much on Spotify.
10:55Why are some of them on TV?
10:57The TV's are about standing on the right.
10:59So they can be sure.
11:00It's not like all of this is the Democrats.
11:02What have they said about it?
11:03Oh, they're screaming, dude.
11:05No, I didn't.
11:05It wasn't in the news.
11:07Well, it was a hell of a thing.
11:08You didn't see last night's story?
11:09Jim Doyle.
11:10Doyle had a piece.
11:12Jim Doyle, who's an ex-Western Globe liberal, just said,
11:16Nixon dropped the third shoe, I think he used the third shoe.
11:19And he said that the private, they're all meeting here, you know, on this reform fight.
11:24That's right.
11:25That's right.
11:32A direct quote from one of the top 30 officials of the National Committee is, quote, he's killing us.
11:39It's a beautiful thing.
11:40He talks about the new prosperity.
11:42For months, the Democrats have called for wage and price control.
11:45Even passed legislation to embarrass the president.
12:00And in using what he had disclaimed, Nixon may have raised some credibility problems, but he also raised the stock market.
12:05And two months later, Democrats were still trying to adjust their defenses to the new prosperity.
12:08Now comes the Moscow announcement.
12:11Democrats who were not batted into silence by this latest blockbuster could only say it seemed like a good idea.
12:15It goes on to say that they're just floundering, that, you know, they're in a hell of a... Read this thing about China.
12:21He's got to admit it.
12:22That's a good move.
12:25You're going to be good with it again?
12:35First was the announcement of a red China visit, which overnight turned Cold Warrior Nixon into a man that sounded incredible when he tried out his 72-spoke in a generation apiece.
12:44Then there was an interest in prospering.
12:45Then Moscow.
12:48Oh, yeah, then this is...
12:49they had planned for next spring in the primary states they would spend much of their treasure to grasp the public's attention which while deciding who would be the candidate now they find that richard nixon has already blocked out that time for his travels and the headlines seem likely to follow him not the democrats it has raised the question whispered in the dead of night of just how much the democratic nomination is worth in 1972 here it is more than a year before the election already two democratic candidates have dropped out before the time a man might normally start
NARA Description
On October 14, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:00 am to 9:12 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 592-001 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 592-1 Date: October 14, 1971 Time: 9:00 am - 9:12 am Location: Oval Office The President talked with John N. Mitchell. [See Conversation No. 11-86]
Also recorded on October 14, 1971
- 011-086 9:00 AM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone from 9:00 am to 9:12 am.
- 011-087 9:13 AM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Walter R. Tkach talked on the telephone from 9:13 am to 9:14 am.
- 592-002 9:13 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Walter R. Tkach met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:13 am to 9:14 am.
- 011-088 9:14 AM · 6 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:14 am and 6:06 pm.
- 011-089 9:14 AM · 23 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and unknown person(s) talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:14 am and 6:06 pm.
- 011-090 9:14 AM · 1 min — H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, White House operator, and unknown person(s) talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:14 am and 6:06 pm.
- 011-091 9:14 AM · 5 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:14 am and 6:06 pm.
- 011-092 9:14 AM · 14 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 9:14 am and 6:06 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 592-001, October 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/592-001 (accessed September 28, 2026).