Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 593 › Conversation 593-005

Nixon & Kendall on Supreme Court appointments and Judicial workload

Friday, October 15, 1971 · 9:09 AM–9:10 AM ET · Oval Office

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Kendall, Donald McI.Conversation593-005 on Tape 593 (tape position 00:13:15–00:15:09)StartFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:09 AMEndFriday, October 15, 1971 at 9:10 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 593-005 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Donald Kendall discuss the strategic selection of new Supreme Court justices, emphasizing the need for younger candidates who can handle heavy workloads. They critique the inefficiency and aging composition of the current Court, specifically citing the performance of Justices Black, Harlan, and others. The conversation reflects Nixon’s desire to appoint energetic jurists capable of reversing the backlog issues inherited from the Warren era.

Audio

Download MP3 (part 1) · 89.9 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 90.0 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 141.8 MB ·Download MP3 (part 4) · 89.3 MB ·Download MP3 (part 5) · 55.2 MB

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 00:13:15 into the tape and ends around 00:15:09.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
12:17What we're trying to do is to prepare people for those appointments, but I'm not going to appoint people who can't be over 55 years of age and say, look, Warren, we're open.
12:27How's that sound to you?
12:28And they can come from any part of the country.
12:31And they can be Republicans, Democrats.
12:35I think the point about his having a lead in the enthusiasm for this thing is terrifically important.
12:40The President tested him with the
12:43I think you're absolutely right, John.
12:45It's quite a switch from a resignation over it to be the cheerleader.
12:48Well, I hope that we can bring it about.
12:50Remember, that's quite a switch.
12:52The whole country is watching him on this.
12:56He has the country in the palm of his hand.
12:59They have great respect for him.
13:02and it looks like he's opposing this thing, that respective term.
13:06There's nothing like that.
13:08Yeah, that's true.
13:09The president, of course, is going to get accolades for this, and then all spotlights are going to be focused on him.
13:15On the court, that's right.
13:17Of course, he already sees himself as the dean of some law school, and all the other mental machinations he's gone through.
13:27Except he doesn't like the lights.
13:33That's exactly what I said to him, I'll let you...
13:52You're ridiculous.
13:53You've got 50% of what you're striving for and what you want, and you're providing an olamonum because of the one justice, a woman.
14:04And of course, he's a workhorse.
14:06He's got workhorse problems up there, and he's going to help solve them.
14:10I grant you that.
14:11And he understands that facet of it better than anybody else, because that's what Warren did to ruin that court.
14:19provide that workload in that court that they should never have.
14:23And Warren Burger has changed that substantially, but they still consider too many cases.
14:29Well, and he's got some guys that aren't smoking their load, isn't there?
14:33That's absolutely right.
14:34And he's got some of these guys that are 67 years old.
14:37He had his problem compounded.
14:40That's what I pointed out to him with Black and Harlan.
14:43They could not carry their load.
14:45And he points out that White and...
14:48Hunter Stewart and Brennan are so stupid that when he can't assign some of the cases to them, he doesn't know what they're going to write.
14:55Yeah, well, another thing, too, you have to understand, though, a man over 65, business knows this, everybody else, frankly, can't work for 12-hour days anymore.
15:04It's got that Markner man of 55 who works 12-hour days.
15:08We know that, right?

NARA Description

On October 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:09 am to 9:10 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 593-005 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 593-5

Date: October 15, 1971
Time: 9:09 am - 9:10 am
Location: Oval Office

The President talked with Donald M. Kendall.

[See Conversation No. 11-97]

Also recorded on October 15, 1971

  • 011-096 8:43 AM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 593-001 8:43 AM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 593-002 8:43 AM · 25 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 593-003 8:43 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 593-004 8:43 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:43 am and 9:09 am.
  • 011-097 9:09 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Donald McI. Kendall talked on the telephone from 9:09 am to 9:10 am.
  • 593-006 9:10 AM · 29 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Henry A. Kissinger, and Peter G. Peterson met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:10 am to 9:36 am.
  • 593-007 9:37 AM · 14 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Manolo Sanchez, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:37 am to 9:52 am.

All 20 conversations from October 15, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 593-005, October 15, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/593-005 (accessed September 28, 2026).