On October 28, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:10 pm to 1:48 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 605-012 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I don't want to consider it as a following weekend.
We're in good shape and we can keep it that way, except that I have to prepare for those meetings.
What time do we leave?
We don't have to have a legislative meeting.
We have a legislative meeting next.
We have it for Tuesday.
The 9th?
No, the 2nd.
Okay, good.
You can get out of here on Friday after the Gandy meeting on the 5th.
Yeah, that's a trouble she's going to be in.
That's Friday morning, not Saturday.
You can leave right after that.
and you're clear on monday and we can keep for that i keep choosing for you to go right up to new york and florida if you want to take you at least stay through monday night you know yeah that's i i don't want to go
Right here.
What I really need you to probably do is to, is to go both ways.
Okay.
Is there any problem?
None.
What's going on?
I suppose I just want to go to Florida for a second.
Okay.
Come back Monday night.
And then come back, uh, and go down again.
Probably turn to, uh,
I'm sorry to worry you, Floyd.
No.
Play it on the basis that you're working on something now.
It gives you three full days plus some on Friday and some on Tuesday if you want to,
Well, yeah, my view is that if I went here, I'd be kind of in trouble for no reason.
And I don't want to turn around and lose you, but I'd be in trouble for no reason.
I just want to fly home here to New York.
And after that's going to be one you'll be pretty well stuck on.
I know I can't do anything about it.
I know it's not as bad as I'd like it to be, but I'm sorry.
I don't agree with you on that.
What I said was speeches that go down to the Tinker's Dam.
Now they're on the toe of a rock.
Now they're even going to read those sentences.
I heard advances in political speeches.
They're just going to be remarks.
They're not billed by a trust now.
That thing has not billed me for more than 15 minutes on a full circuit.
I don't want any more than that.
I said it, but I don't think they're going to say anything about it tonight.
Give me 15 minutes.
Put it in that ballpark so that they don't expect to reveal the time.
You've got Steve Peterson's name that's on here.
He's coming to the car to get me.
That's good.
I'll give him a chance to.
Yeah, Schultz spent a lot of time with him yesterday and was going to spend some more time with him today.
I'm going to get to him.
George knows what the problem is.
Yeah.
But he did feel it would be good to have, in part, they want to have him in for part, and then when Arthur gets to money supply, he doesn't like to talk about that in front of other people, which is probably a sign.
And I don't think he'd want Peterson there for anyone.
Sure.
So it will be set up that Peterson and Flanagan would leave
And, uh, that thing, when you get to the point on that, you want to say, uh, it's got a pretty good space to see out.
It's still working.
All right.
All right.
That is not accurate at all.
We've got a little bowl of Flanagan and Peterson alcohol.
Right, right.
We've got some people in Virginia with Flanagan and any couple of people like that.
We have had Flanagan in.
We've discussed him on the slide before.
And the church has got a priest that represents all of them.
Hardin wants to come in and see you.
He leaves for Turkey on Monday.
He wants, he submitted his regulations, you know, and he wants to announce it before he goes because he doesn't think he should go on a trip unannounced.
Also, it's starting to leak out and he's afraid that it will, you know, create a problem and doesn't have a whole problem.
We've got some more names on that.
And I talked to Harlow about it this morning.
He thinks now that it boils down to that, well, Hardin suggested a list of people, one of which was Donald Johnson, which Harlow was kind of intrigued with.
Johnson wasn't Hardin's.
Yet he is.
Hardin was.
Well, apparently he also has a farm.
And it could be checked out as to whether he would qualify as a farmer.
He looks like one.
He looks like one and talks like one.
And he's totally loyal and damn good politically.
He'd be a lot better politically than that poor Roach.
Harlow comes down to love Sir Johnson on the basis of everybody we've looked at.
It's gone through the
Congressional, that's how I think.
I'm not interested in anything there that's worth even thinking about.
Conley has suggested a group of people, but what they all are, are officers in the cabinet.
Except for Butts, which, interestingly enough, he suggested.
The one guy he's particularly enthusiastic about is this young guy from Texas that's a member of the Claybrook family, B.K.
Johnson.
He mentioned to us before, but
He is a super big cattle rancher and oil man type.
He's got a beautiful wife and he's a very handsome guy.
Get him for something else.
Might be just sensational for the right thing, but not for that.
Okay, there's something wrong.
John says he's a horrible guy, 41 years old.
We can put him down and give him a name like that sometime or something.
Don't let him, but I want him for an appointment.
Interestingly enough, Paul McCracken wants to be a disaster.
Back off of his objection to butts, the more he's thought about it.
He has done some talking with people, including LaBelle, when she told you he was going to talk to y'all.
Now that Bellman's out of the running.
Bellman said he didn't see any problem with butts as far as the Benson rub off that he didn't.
He just thought that was too far in the past and that Hart was, had been too close to it then was, you know, except it was an active image.
Yeah.
That is a problem.
The active image.
Right.
Hartman's other suggestions were not really, don't tell me about it, particularly good.
Yeah.
Clayton Geiger was one, and apparently a smart young talker, but nobody knows him.
We could check that out.
There's the retired president of the Rockefeller Foundation, an agricultural scientist, George Harar, who did that week program before I got the credit report.
We are going to the heart.
I find a very hard to believe.
Check Johnson's fire thing.
You see his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his,
He's a hard, loyal worker.
He's sort of the Bob Kunzik type.
You know, you tell him what you want done, and he just gets out and busts his ass to do it.
He's no mental giant, but he understands.
He catches on.
He isn't thick.
And you know what, I think he's better of a Mar-a-Loo face, apparently, than Butts.
I think Butts just started, looks like, going back to somebody.
I like Butts.
Butts is a person who stars in all of them.
Johnson's a younger man.
Johnson's a young, very good-looking guy.
I would say Johnson has a farm.
Let's go with Johnson.
Let's just get going, okay?
All right?
Do you think he has any farm-backed credentials at all?
That's right, it would give us a chance at a good appointment there if we could make some money out of it.
Okay.
Maybe go for a young guy.
A really young guy.
Well, there you get an awful fight.
You almost have to go to the VFW in return.
And they've been stronger in support of us, really, than the Legion.
I'm sure I voted because I think it would be a chance to reward the VFW, which was electricals, if we can pick up some markers on them.
Electricals?
I suppose we have to end up rainwater.
Then we've got a fed, we can put Archer on the back burner.
But I've got to consider all names.
You've got to consider all names.
And we've got some other...
Right.
But there's no present vacancies.
Well, there's about to be one.
Arthur keeps saying the guy is going to leave, but the guy keeps not leaving.
I think Arthur's using that as a pressure device.
There is an imminent vacancy.
And then the guy wants to leave.
And then there's an automatic vacancy and a term expiration in January.
And then we have a good chance of getting Berman around.
So, OK. Who talked to Arvin about it?
No, Malik talked to him because he had been talking with him on it and had been in touch with him.
Plano and Schultz are both aware of the situation so that, you know, as they do talk at the moment.
Good.
I'll love to send that in.
Good.
Schultz raised a point that he hoped you were going to have your session with Connolly and Gist here after the other meeting today.
And if he did, if he could, he would very much like to sit in.
But he's going to ride here, and I don't think he should be in.
We're not going to talk about monitoring matters today, OK?
The purpose of this is to talk about Okinawa and political matters and about some state department people that I don't want to do.
I mean, I don't know.
I really don't want Chelsea to hear it.
But I've got to talk about which ambassadors you can talk to and which ones you can't talk to, you know?
that there will be no discussion, whatever, about your matters.
Okay, so he would sit in.
Okay, you can see there's not anything, he hasn't any understanding.
All right, he's already, this is just a little call, okay.
Now, you'll be here tomorrow.
We want to schedule tomorrow and keep it open.
If we keep it open, it's going to be a good thing, too.
You've already answered a couple of questions the other day.
The other question is, Mr. Nixon, who is going to be a better copywriter for the party?
You may want to do the first one.
You've got a party for 150 physically handicapped kids.
and Walt Disney on parade and the magician and all that.
They're all being costumed.
So it runs from two to four.
It's a thing that you can go in for a minute, get a picture, and get lucky or not.
He's done.
He's asked for everything, Bob.
We give him everything.
He's done.
We are.
Incidentally, we asked the vice president, and we're going to use him for some things like that.
Like what?
political chores.
Sure.
He talked a lot and said you can't resign to the department and take care of them that way.
Do some of that kind of work for you.
It's hard for a federal cabinet officer to do it in one sense all Mitchell can.
John thought it would be a good idea to have it.
He did it and it's done.
Let's keep Mark free unless you've got somebody else that you want me to see.
I'll get back on the people if I want.
I'll talk to Henry a little more about his trip.
I haven't really had a chance to.
Talk a little bit more also about the next group.
There are lots of them, you know, that I ought to catch up on.
All right.
Well, it seems like we need to Wednesday this week, so it's a good time to do it.
There's no problem.
I'm willing to do anything, as you know.
Yeah.
You might get a discount.
And instead of that, we'll, of course, do the Halloween party this year, too.
Now, Colson's come up with a suggestion that you might want to consider if you want to get out of here and do something on Saturday if you stay up here, which is to go over to Newcastle, Pennsylvania, get an elderly housing project
Boilermakers International Union Dinner.
Building Trades Dinner.
I don't know.
Boilermakers.
I wonder.
Could we re-travel?
I think so.
I don't think you should do it, but if you have a feeling of wanting to go out, there's a dedication of a good elderly home that's sponsored by the Building Trades Council.
So you can get seniors to visit and the union.
Phase two.
And then this dinner's in Pittsburgh.
You can do a drop-by at the dinner Saturday night.
It's just the Boilermakers.
It's not a good thing.
It's a dinner dance.
No, that's all.
I just don't believe, socially, you don't really fit in with Boilermakers.
You will, but...
I just don't believe it.
There's one time I...
perhaps done the country for a while, you know?
I think we should look at it that way, because I think it's really, really compelling.
Right.
What's the other one?
He says that it's a must that you meet with Marshall when he's here next week.
I must go.
I told you that I'm not going to meet with some people anymore.
Can I turn it down?
What is it?
Who is Marshall?
He was just elected chairman, opposition leader.
I know.
And he's visiting Russia.
And before he does, he wants to consult in Washington.
And he's going to be the one to oppose Brown in the elections in 73, which is a long way away.
He wants to discuss US-German and general East-West relations.
Give him your views on our visitors to Russia.
Rogers is going to meet with him on Tuesday.
And it seems to me you should just leave it at that, unless you have some reason to be.
I wonder if you would sit down and look at me and kiss me or something.
I think I might say this, but I want you to sit down and look at me and say, no, you're not going to do it anymore.
There's one year away from the election, and there isn't going to be any more of this unless there's something in it for us politically.
Did you do that?
Yes.
This was a special appeal from Rush that you see in, well, my purpose for sitting is very different from my reason for sitting in.
It was a brownie.
Well, that's kind of what he's after.
But anyway, what I'm getting at is that the NFC comes in with all this bullshit all the time.
And I understand.
I understand.
I know they tend to stick off on all of it.
Roger is better than Henry.
He's going to come off on that, I must say.
Do you agree?
Yes.
I should have talked to Henry.
And he's a biggie.
You know, it's like you said, we need to be prepared.
And I got Henry.
I said, hello, big man.
Talk to him.
That's exactly the point.
He peddles himself as a two-bit.
Well, you know, it's sad, man.
You shouldn't.
No, sir.
He's a big deal.
Yeah.
It's funny.
I'll see parts of it.
But you say that Henry can't not sell himself to them.
Gee.
So, Brody Hill, Jim Brody Hill, told Timmons that on the trip to North Carolina, he said he wanted to talk with Brody Hill as soon as possible about the 72 election.
He requested the meeting.
And they're just, Timmons is testing if you, if you really did, if you want to see him, and if you're waiting to know whether he'll rule or not.
I don't know.
Well, you said that you wanted to talk to the attorney general.
I wanted to.
I wanted to.
I just wanted to know that I'm interested in you.
I wanted me to talk to the attorney general about it.
Yeah.
Do you want to consider, at all, either the attorney general or the defense?
Connelly, Schultz, Coulson, Moore.
Where is it?
Miami Beach, Miami, Montana, November 18th to 23rd.
All right.
Hodgson is opposed.
a basis of the way things stood a while back, he was opposed.
Now, it may, all of them, make the point that you've got to see whether you want to or not.
But me, he has invited you to address one of the sessions if you want to.
You'll have the Democratic candidates, obviously, there in advance.
And, I mean, I don't know that for a fact, I'm assuming, because they always are.
That happened November 15th.
period.
It's just we don't decide it now.
The question really is whether we want to even consider it.
You know, keep it in mind.
My view is that if I do it on the last day, I go after all those candidates.
I've got to be in the position of going first and then having them have an answer.
You see what I mean?
Thank you all for some jobs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He won't let it be, Bernie.
Rogers hit me again and said, I've got to get together with my name.
You've got to be sure that I know everything that's happening.
And he hit me and said, you know, for instance, his energy strip that he came couldn't have been at a worse time.
Because, you know, if I'd been phased in on the planning of it, if I could have prevented the timing, I'd have said, well, it wouldn't have made any difference.
It was a matter of phasing in.
It was a matter of it hit when it hit.
And it was a question of you either do it then or you do it at a worse time, which would be later.
And look what we're getting now.
Henry Haddon's gone.
And now he was going to China.
We put him in the UN, kicked the Chinese, the Formosans out, and then we go.
Then it goes over in a triumphant tour.
I didn't argue with him.
I used to argue with him.
And then he said, on the communique, there's a long history of negotiations here.
And so I've got to know what we're doing on the communique.
Because there's a lot of things Henry and his staff don't know that are in the files here at State.
And then he kind of backed off of that.
He realized that wasn't a very good thing for him to have said.
Yeah, I know.
Bill can't bring this up to me again.
He's over his head.
He's got it.
Bill's, I think there's intuition on this one or something.
Mr. Clark, I think Bill sort of would like this one.
What do you think?
I don't know, don't like to think so, but I'm afraid that's right.
I think he did.
I think he is right.
The bill is just so, we should really go out and drink.
Well, I'm in the business of, you know, long-distance negotiations.
Oh, shit.
I don't want to be a specialist in our workforce.
I don't want to be a man.
I don't want that.
Thank you, Doc.
The idea of the time, it almost sort of tells us that his time was three months ago.
He did know it was the first place, but if there wasn't any, his knowledge of it could have done to change the situation anyhow.
Yeah, if you will.
comes up again, I think this idea of, and don't even raise this with Henry, but this idea of Moscow, that's raised.
I'll have to discuss it with him, but it's so ridiculous.
He hasn't, Bill hasn't raised that at all, but it's just not good, I think.
Have you thought any more about what you want to explore on the Latin American visit, or a
Well, we're in basically good shape to do that.
You know, they, uh, they saw a great volunteer on that business.
Now, that's, you know, I'm sure it's hard to lose this boat and so forth, but, uh, that wasn't very good.
I mean, that, the fact that Kissinger was there, I mean, is totally correct.
I mean, like, you don't get anything to that from Bush.
It was the guy that they're fighting today.
You know, it's just the fact that he's there.
The other part is,
He gets down to the communication.
He knows so much that we don't, that I don't know.
What's he talking about?
And they've had these silly talks with Morris all three years about this man.
So, I guess we'll see what we know about him.
It's just foolish.
Well, he worked on it at some point.
I don't even think he gets to talk to him.
See?
I would have raised the point that he says the trip is a bad time.
That doesn't do anything.
It would just set Henry off.
There's all of those signs.
and we have two relatives where he knows a hell of a lot more about the subjects.
Second, I think he takes a longer view of this.
Despite all of his total desires to do things, and how busy he goes, he does a plan, which I agree on.
He puts the success of the policy first.
I think that's very much something he can come down to.
I don't think he will.
I don't think he will.
And not every time.
It's the case that Bill does things which are basically what it is.
It's going to help him.
It helps us in the process.
In other words, you stop to think of it, you know, that this thing that I'm forward to all the saints and successors, and I'm going to work hard on it.
I'm sure they're going to save a lot of people.
Did he tell you about church this time?
He was ecstatic about his business.
I told him that you told me about some important questions.
Like the church, complimenting the church at this event.
Something must be wrong, because Church just cut loose with this thing of administrations to be commended for not giving credit for the things that it's accomplishing and for a policy that it deserves.
And great job of winding down the war and reducing the involvement there, which we hope the Congress will be able to help in.
Church is my friend.
covering all the other stuff.
He went through the whole litany of the administration's foreign policy accomplishments, Berlin, China, Russia, Okinawa, and bing, bing, bing, and monetary policy.
And I think he mentioned that.
But it was quite a flowery speech about the accomplishments of the administration in the conduct of foreign policy.
And it was sort of, there was sort of a, a rush to, to, uh, report it.
And it seemed to be too concerned about the event of it.
You're right.
They, uh, because of their, uh, part of the wrong reasons.
Well, some of the guys were delighted to be here.
Well, no, no, I think that's the point.
Because the reason, our problem, you know, is the foreign relations.
The problem, you know, is the right, the right wing.
And, uh, there, I must tell you,
Henry said he called in again.
Vice President said, did you see him run an ass over the scene this morning?
Or did he go around something else?
You know, one of the things, you know, he didn't just go in and talk about it.
Really, he came in and among many of them, bitched about two ambassadors that he said he had raised after his last term.
He said, no, it's been done.
One was the ambassador to Kuwait, and the other was the ambassador to Singapore.
And I said, well, I remember very well how you brought it up.
I said, I reported this to the U.S.
I said, I'm surprised.
I'll check it out.
So I checked it out.
When they reported back, they said, yes, both of them.
They're still there, but they're trying to get better.
They've named new men.
They know they're going to be retired soon.
Now, why would Magnum have this sense, Magnum?
Because he's pegged out.
So they're saying that this is all noise.
It's the attitude.
He takes the attitude of a congressman or senator.
Yeah.
I mean, he's saying, well, I raise this.
And then Fitching.
Yeah.
Fitching basically did a lot of the final.
Why haven't the staff done something?
Well, God damn it, they have done something, they say.
You know, he could have used a chair to say, well, I don't think they're really bad, but he had, he used a bad one.
Actually, it may not have been removed fast enough, but it takes time.
It does take time on those things.
You've got to find a new man, you know, juggle around, and you start that musical chair, isn't it?
It affects a lot of other folks and all that, too.
All right.
You say he was in good spirits, or... Well, on the UN, you know, he was, uh...
He felt that we were in good... that we, the administration, was in a good position on it.
That we had... that we ought not to be concerned about the right wing, and...
He thinks that it's not that much of a problem, that they understand it.
But we tried, and they hate the UN, and that this just increases their hatred of the UN.
But we have, and Rodgers is going to get a little credit there, because he also pissed off the UN.
And he could have gone a bit further, Secretary of State.
And of course,
my state of the truth statement yesterday.
That, according to Henry, was what we saved from Reagan.
He said, well, thank God the president said something.
You know what I mean?
That's all the way we're at here.
Why don't we say something?
And Henry was a matter of fact.
He said, well, he takes shots from a TV commentary every year.
I said, thank God.
I hope so.
That's what you want.
What's your dream?
I mean, of course, though.
Of course you want that.
Well, he made one point that was very interesting.
And he watched CBS.
He said, here's what the president's talking about.
And they showed only the picture of the Albanians cheering.
Did you know that?
Yeah.
That's the only shot they used.
Well, it didn't rain the same day they were set.
Well, you know, the point was, the guy dancing in the jigs and all that.
The guy dancing in the jigs and the huggers and all that.
Which, of course, outraged a lot of people.
Even, you know, Scott got in on that.
Did you see his line?
What was he called?
Hot dance principalities.
Well, let me tell you about it.
Hugh Scott was inviting him like that because he knows folks are concerned.
He comes up with some pretty good lines.
Representative, now I think we can lay our U.N. point.
Sure, now you're done.
We slapped him.
And now we'll do something.
Very quietly.
And I'm glad that Ziegler made it rather than on that, for me, rather than on my head.
You see, I didn't want to even, that's why I don't want to press conference now.
Let the U.N. thing right off.
But you know, my concern the first of the week is, frankly, much less now.
Don't you agree?
Yeah.
Because of it, which I hadn't thought was possible, I think we have been able to deflect a great deal of the animosity to the U.N. rather than to the administration.
You've already heard it.
Yeah.
One of the commentators at Congress pointed that out.
Yeah.
I saw that.
He was saying it didn't totally deflect it.
I think that's right, which we had to do.
And if...
Then even there, now that Congress is on foreign aid, the Senate, the Secretary, and they're bouncing around on the Jillian Amendments and everything, they're currently going to get pretty screwed up.
And they'll probably just wallow in and have to either finally get something through that will then get bogged down and stalemated in conference, or they'll
They won't be able to get cleared out of the Senate and just bogged down.
At least that's what the guy's saying now, that we'll just have to go on a continuing resolution and not get a form anything for a while, which won't do any harm.
And the only thing we want is everybody to get a high function.
So we'd be all right if it did happen that way.
They're going to go for a, say, a Cooper church this afternoon at 3.30.
In the Senate.
Yeah, they're old.
Mm-hmm.
Old climate.
That's right.
I meant now it's in the Senate.
Scott's going to move to strike Cooper Church.
Cooper Church relates to Cambodia's article.
That's the Cambodia restriction.
He's going to move to strike it.
We can't secede.
I think so.
We have 44 votes locked.
And we had a pretty good Democrat audience as well.
Pretty good Democrats.
And then we weren't getting enough credit on that early about now.
No.
Actually, it was five last week.
It was seven this weekend.
Oh, we got big back in the third week in a row under 10.
That's the way they put it.
That was nine a week before it was under so much.
Yeah, did they put that where in the television?
No.
Under that last one?
No, they said the wire thing today.
Oh, the wire.
and see what they do on the TV in Colson.
I don't think it was on TV much.
Well, it wouldn't be.
You'd see it.
But it's not really .
And that hits the wire.
Sure is.
But if they've got enough demographic capacity to tell, they're able to do it.
Wait a minute.
What?
You know what's interesting to me about the UN, but I know everybody around here, and I was so unworthy, and I was quite encouraged.
But the strange thing, I think, is the whole deal of overreactions.
All the time encounter, they create the other kind of, it was good that they basically, that everybody was so goddamn mad about the vote.
In other words, and you know what I mean?
Yeah, it was good.
It meant that fury could be turned the other way.
Now, it would be much worse to have, you know, a just routine vote.
So we voted them out and all that sort of thing.
But it's the very fact that it was done in an emotional way that stirred people up.
And then it could be reacted to emotionally.
What I'm getting at is this.
The boat that came out of National China by itself would have been given the right wing of good or hard, and probably they should have been handled.
But when they kicked them out, and then when they went on this war dance, dancing around there,
a hell of a lot of people and were probably bored with the U.N. and were ashamed of it.
Yeah.
And because they had so blatantly kicked the U.S. service, which made a hell of a lot of people that probably were just having a timeline kick.
I didn't care that they don't like it.
Then I think what happened is that people said, well, what happened is that, well, you would sense it the day afterwards as you read the news.
Sorry.
I checked the worldly mills and a couple of others.
The overwhelming amount of comment was against the UN.
It wouldn't have been against the UN if not what they made themselves.
But there was a great, exactly, there was a sort of a swell enough there that, and I think actually very helpful, the Iraqis were going down and testifying as you did, which was responsible that, well, of course, they would retaliate, but it was going to make a cover in Congress.
That helped.
And that if we regret it, it's a regrettable action.
And coming on with a, just a slap, you know, a harsh tone, something like that, just, it just, just gets the right way and we'll feel that we are not, you know, like we meant to, without depending on our challenge.
There, okay.