Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 593-005
Date: Friday, October 15, 1971 at 9:09 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Kendall, Donald McI.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/593-005

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

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