{"conversationCode":"597-002","tapeNumber":597,"conversationNumber":2,"identifier":"37-wht-conversation-597-002","startDateTime":"1971-10-20T13:17:00.000Z","endDateTime":"1971-10-20T13:25:00.000Z","startDate":"20-Oct-1971","startTime":"9:17 AM","endDate":"20-Oct-1971","endTime":"9:25 AM","dateCertainty":"certain","timeCertainty":"certain","participants":"Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. (\"Bob\"); Malek, Frederic V.; Mitchell, John N.;","description":"On October 20, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. (\"Bob\") Haldeman, Frederic V. Malek, and John N. Mitchell met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:17 am to 9:25 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 597-002 of the White House Tapes.","locationCode":"OVAL","recordingDevice":"Oval Office","latitudeEstimated":38.8974,"longitudeEstimated":-77.0374,"chronCode":2,"chronRelease":"Second Chronological Release","chronReleaseDate":"26-Oct-2000","aogpRelease":null,"aogpSegment":null,"lastModified":"2015-07-27T17:04:10.235Z","findingAid":"Conversation No. 597-2\n\nDate: October 20, 1971\nTime: 9:17 am - 9:25 am\nLocation: Oval Office\n\nThe President met with H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman and Frederic V. Malek.\n\n     Appointments\n         -Women lawyers\n              -Jayne B. Spain\n\n     Telephone call from the Attorney General\n\n     Woman appointees\n        -Judges\n        -Unidentified woman\n\nJohn N. Mitchell talked with the President between 9:19 am and 9:25 am.\n\n[Conversation No. 597-2A]\n\n[See Conversation No. 11-157; two items have been withdrawn from the conversation]\n\nHaldeman and Malek left at 9:19 am.\n\n[End of telephone conversation]","filename":["597a.mp3","597b.mp3"],"tapeStart":"00:06:08","tapeEnd":"00:15:31","participantsList":["Nixon, Richard M. (President)","Haldeman, H. R. (\"Bob\")","Malek, Frederic V.","Mitchell, John N."],"prevCode":"597-001","nextCode":"597-003","tapeTranscriptFile":"597a.mp3,597b.mp3","transcript":[{"start":392.62,"end":395.29,"text":"Is, for example, James Mann?"},{"start":395.33,"end":395.99,"text":"No, James is not."},{"start":396.25,"end":398.09,"text":"Some of them were, but one of them wasn't."},{"start":402.04,"end":402.58,"text":"Check it out."},{"start":402.66,"end":404.22,"text":"We can check it out."},{"start":404.24,"end":406.08,"text":"I said we can check it out."},{"start":406.12,"end":406.92,"text":"We can check it out."},{"start":406.96,"end":418.09,"text":"We can check it out and see if that ain't a lawyer and how many years to practice."},{"start":418.11,"end":428.97,"text":"And you might also get to see if you have to check down all those things."},{"start":435.78,"end":437.18,"text":"I would not have it."},{"start":437.46,"end":445.67,"text":"What I'd like to do is see if they can then check to see if there's any others of that type."},{"start":445.91,"end":450.29,"text":"Yeah, that are outstanding in a country that are on lists that you're looking into."},{"start":450.31,"end":451.49,"text":"I don't need judges."},{"start":451.53,"end":458.28,"text":"Just because we're looking at all those, but you know, the women think about who the hell do you care about."},{"start":458.3,"end":462.52,"text":"I'm just thinking, I've occurred to me that a lot of those women, you know,"},{"start":464.71,"end":465.17,"text":"Yeah?"},{"start":465.57,"end":466.56,"text":"She's younger."},{"start":466.89,"end":467.18,"text":"What?"},{"start":467.25,"end":470.76,"text":"She's younger than that when she's in her late 20s or early 30s."},{"start":470.78,"end":472,"text":"Oh, well, I don't mean that."},{"start":472.12,"end":474.02,"text":"She's got 40 years old."},{"start":474.04,"end":474.38,"text":"Hello."},{"start":474.88,"end":475.06,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":476.3,"end":478.7,"text":"Hello, Connie."},{"start":479.29,"end":479.61,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":487.39,"end":487.73,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":491.48,"end":491.8,"text":"Oh, I see."},{"start":491.88,"end":492.26,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":492.42,"end":493.38,"text":"Why don't we leave?"},{"start":495.69,"end":516.31,"text":"It's a question of money."},{"start":516.35,"end":519.23,"text":"Well, God, we can arrange"},{"start":526.2,"end":532.61,"text":"Well, you know, loans are hard things, but hell, that shouldn't be any problem."},{"start":532.63,"end":542.91,"text":"Anybody that's going to have a job and pay $60,000 for the rest of his life, even these days, John, ain't bad, huh?"},{"start":542.95,"end":547.26,"text":"He'll still get his, pick up his senatorial pension."},{"start":547.28,"end":549.34,"text":"It won't be a hell of a lot."},{"start":549.56,"end":550.58,"text":"It'll be $10,000 a year."},{"start":552.8,"end":553.06,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":557.02,"end":557.24,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":558.06,"end":559.38,"text":"Could I ask you one other thing?"},{"start":559.62,"end":560.09,"text":"Are we..."},{"start":561.99,"end":565.67,"text":"I wonder if we should just do the back thing."},{"start":565.87,"end":570.65,"text":"Did you tell them not to look into bacon or salty bacon or how we leave that?"},{"start":572.65,"end":577.51,"text":"Are they not checking her?"},{"start":577.58,"end":579.36,"text":"They said they were told they're not qualified."},{"start":580.84,"end":581.18,"text":"Inevitable."},{"start":583.73,"end":595.76,"text":"I'm just trying to think of the answers that we have when people say, well, why don't you check a woman out?"},{"start":608.65,"end":609.57,"text":"Yes, sir, all day."},{"start":617.69,"end":622.05,"text":"When I say what we want, I mean, I don't want them just taking a call."},{"start":622.13,"end":624.61,"text":"They're going to hear about ramblings."},{"start":624.81,"end":630.65,"text":"I mean, I don't want to say just no patient, but I don't want to say not all of them."},{"start":630.89,"end":632.6,"text":"That's what they're going to do."},{"start":632.65,"end":639.32,"text":"We're going to have to put it on them."},{"start":639.4,"end":639.96,"text":"Yeah, right."},{"start":641.04,"end":647.3,"text":"Right."},{"start":648.52,"end":661.23,"text":"But the bar is just being brought over, so they're gonna be, they're a stacked jury, they're gonna take, you know, let them take the wrath of the law."},{"start":661.25,"end":673.13,"text":"Is there any way that we have any place that we could push a woman up to the circuit court at the same time we do this?"},{"start":678.43,"end":692.34,"text":"I must say, but I suppose we went in the way of the New York, you know, I mean, build a mile and toss a woman in there."},{"start":692.4,"end":697.66,"text":"The idea that we're sort of preparing one for, you see what I'm getting at, John?"},{"start":697.68,"end":706.82,"text":"I don't, I think the idea that all this whole movement about women having been raised, we've got to indicate that we sure have that under consideration."},{"start":706.92,"end":707.66,"text":"It's not never."},{"start":712.12,"end":717.85,"text":"How about here in Washington you could donate your country?"},{"start":717.87,"end":719.01,"text":"Do we have a hold on this turkey?"},{"start":720.67,"end":726.78,"text":"Well, we could put some debate in there, couldn't we?"},{"start":726.82,"end":728.76,"text":"One of those bastards is going to retire and die, isn't he?"},{"start":742.71,"end":744.79,"text":"I think that they still appeal to me very much."},{"start":744.82,"end":747.02,"text":"I mean, not now, I see the point."},{"start":747.52,"end":758.45,"text":"But how about, I'm just having their eye on her, keeping her, I mean, I don't know, look, keep your nose clean and be conservative as hell, you know, and she can go out where God is."},{"start":760.77,"end":761.33,"text":"Will you do that?"},{"start":761.35,"end":762.69,"text":"Now, Mike, what is it?"},{"start":762.71,"end":770.4,"text":"Well, we're not talking about that anymore here, but I mean, what course, you know, on the street, did a trial, or..."},{"start":774.56,"end":776.54,"text":"Why don't you put her on the Federal District Court?"},{"start":776.88,"end":777.36,"text":"Can you do that?"},{"start":779.31,"end":779.55,"text":"Here."},{"start":779.57,"end":783.29,"text":"I mean, I can put her up there pretty fast."},{"start":783.31,"end":786.61,"text":"I mean, I don't have any other money, John."},{"start":786.69,"end":787.25,"text":"That's the point."},{"start":787.27,"end":791.38,"text":"You know, there are certain women that are on courts that I don't accept military."},{"start":801.28,"end":802.81,"text":"When will that, when will that come?"},{"start":809.27,"end":810.71,"text":"We can shut her up."},{"start":810.99,"end":813.19,"text":"Okay, you're leaving to go to Philadelphia."},{"start":813.23,"end":814.99,"text":"You'll be gone."},{"start":817.15,"end":819.4,"text":"But I'll be here early."},{"start":819.98,"end":822.42,"text":"And first, let's see if you have a license at the moment."},{"start":822.44,"end":823.62,"text":"Do you think Baker is considering it?"},{"start":823.68,"end":823.76,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":823.78,"end":823.94,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":827.82,"end":828.08,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":829.94,"end":830.12,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":831.38,"end":834.72,"text":"Now I'm going to move on."},{"start":834.76,"end":835.28,"text":"I'm not going to..."},{"start":835.82,"end":838.58,"text":"not under any circumstances going to submit it to the law."},{"start":838.98,"end":841.16,"text":"I mean, I'm just, he's just going to go, okay."},{"start":842.1,"end":843.96,"text":"And it's not going to pop, right?"},{"start":844.62,"end":846.64,"text":"And we just can't be bothered."},{"start":846.66,"end":847.28,"text":"Okay, John."},{"start":847.56,"end":848.62,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":852.41,"end":852.69,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":855.47,"end":858.91,"text":"Yeah, well, we can simply say it because of him being a senator and all that kind of thing."},{"start":859.21,"end":865.17,"text":"We didn't think that Powell, the former president of the ABA, you know, he was a fighter, isn't he?"},{"start":870.7,"end":871.88,"text":"Cut you out, please."},{"start":875.04,"end":875.4,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":875.85,"end":879.25,"text":"Yeah, we cannot have that."},{"start":879.35,"end":879.57,"text":"Okay."},{"start":938.9,"end":944.94,"text":"Well, that's easy to say, asshole."},{"start":945.16,"end":953.3,"text":"Well, the point is, I suppose that one of our policemen or something was a guy."},{"start":954.02,"end":964.02,"text":"No, we've had some incidents where the policemen have been handled things badly."},{"start":964.06,"end":965.04,"text":"This one, the guy..."},{"start":966.17,"end":971.19,"text":"Daisy's ink wasn't on the typewriter unless it was written on the back side of it."},{"start":971.25,"end":972.25,"text":"The guy didn't see it."},{"start":972.83,"end":977.3,"text":"He said, just a second, Mr. Thompson, I'll check this for you."},{"start":977.68,"end":978.78,"text":"And that's all Daisy needed."},{"start":979.88,"end":981.8,"text":"He said, what do you do?"},{"start":982.06,"end":987.38,"text":"Unless he took advantage of it, he's made a monumental, monumental job."}],"transcriptBoundary":{"start":392.625,"end":987.375,"startMethod":"silence","endMethod":"silence"},"transcriptConfidence":"medium","transcriptSource":"bigtape","aiSummary":{"text":"President Nixon met with H. R. Haldeman and Frederic V. Malek to discuss the recruitment and appointment of women to high-level legal and judicial positions. Following this, Nixon consulted with Attorney General John N. Mitchell regarding specific candidate vetting, the political necessity of increasing female representation in the federal judiciary, and strategies for managing potential appointments. The participants aimed to identify qualified female prospects to address public pressure and project a commitment to gender diversity in government.","topics":["Gender equality","Judicial appointments","Federal District Court","Hiring practices","Political strategy"],"generatedAt":"2026-04-07T00:26:39.425Z"},"topicSlugs":["gender-equality","judicial-appointments","federal-district-court","hiring-practices","political-strategy"],"audioDurationSec":563,"audioFiles":[{"file":"597a.mp3","bytes":178702627,"durationSec":7445.87,"bitrate":192001,"missing":false},{"file":"597b.mp3","bytes":93529233,"durationSec":3896.98,"bitrate":192003,"missing":false}],"audioIsShared":true,"audioProbedAt":"2026-09-18T02:19:51.635Z","audio":["https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/597a.mp3","https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/597b.mp3"],"url":"https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/597-002","nixonLibraryUrl":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/597/conversation-597-002","license":"Public domain (U.S. Government work). 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