Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 611 › Conversation 611-012

Nixon, Greenfield & Grunewald on Presidential appointments

Tuesday, November 2, 1971 · 12:34 PM–12:40 PM ET · Oval Office · 7 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Greenfield, Stanley M.; Grunewald, Richard J.; Larson, John W.; Loomis, Phillip A.; Mecum, Dudley C.; Telles, Raymond L., Jr.; Wright, Joseph; Malek, Frederic V.; Kinsley, Daniel T.Conversation611-012 on Tape 611 (tape position 03:57:33–04:04:59)StartTuesday, November 2, 1971 at 12:34 PMEndTuesday, November 2, 1971 at 12:40 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 611-012 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with a group of new administrative appointees, including Stanley M. Greenfield and others, to welcome them to the administration and acknowledge their upcoming roles. The brief, informal meeting served as an opportunity for the President to express his appreciation for their loyalty and dedication, emphasizing the importance of their work to the success of his office. The discussion included casual anecdotes about football rules and previous travels in Texas, concluding with the President presenting gifts to the appointees.

Audio

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Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 3 minutes of this recording (about 37% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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What's there?
Are there any crews here?
We've got a water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
This is the water system.
Yes, yes, church, church.
Well, I'm glad to have you here.
Another Californian, Daniel Greenfield, who's a assistant administrator for the EPA.
Yes, yes.
Also from California.
He's a smart expert.
Yes, sir.
I thought we'd take you out of there, or take you out of here.
This takes a bit of a while.
He's taking us to Mary Ronson's place in the Department of Labor.
Yeah, that's right.
We knew about Andy.
Nice to meet you, Andy.
So, I'm honored to be here.
Thank you, Lord.
Thanks.
Thank you.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
And he was an all American man.
He was an all American man.
He was an all American man in the early 50s.
He had one thing that I can tell you about.
Some of you who remember the old football, you remember the time, the present time, you remember the rules of golf when they allowed them to lose the ball to the 50 carats.
It used to be, of course, you know,
that if you ran the ball to the sideline or tackled it to the sideline, you had to run it from there, get that line out of an unbalanced way.
The whole trick then was, of course, was that your whole offense was thrown off the center of the line by running the sideline, or by attacking the sideline.
Bill Shuler, who was in the Army as well, he developed what was then Cal Tech.
I never wanted to keep away from it.
There was my anchor that the runner was trying to be tackled on the sideline.
And here it says the senator came off the sideline, trying to get it back, and he was trying to do it the other way, or trying to run out of bounds, which they were really trying to do.
They were just about to be walking in heaven.
He would step out on his own and tackle a runner in bounds.
And they have this pass that says, a rule, next year.
Apparently, the gentleman over there, he was the guy who did all of that.
He did fine.
We're so glad to have you on.
Thank you.
That was at the end of a long day in Texas, I recall.
We made love.
I started at the other end of the state, and stopped at about 8 o'clock.
Yeah, El Paso was the last one.
Well, we're glad to see you now.
Oh, sure.
That was me around back when he was governor of Texas.
Your barber takes us back, you know.
Good for you.
Well, I wanted not only to meet you, but so you could have your .
We are appreciative of your .
Some of you, of course, have been in our positions.
I won't be, you won't get a chance, I won't get a chance to see you very much during this period of time.
But I want you to know that I'm an author of your work.
I see a cabinet of officers and others, probably not staffers, but I realize that most of the stuff that you give me falls into your hands.
And how this degree works depends on the loyalty and the dedication of the people at your rank.
Which is funny how I, I mean, I don't mean it.
You've not really stated enough, none of you are, to do all of that.
They've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've, uh, they
So you all work on it to get the credit.
And, uh, you just have to do it a little faster than we are.
In the end, in the end, if it works out fine, you can just work while you're home.
Take care of your wife so she can work while you're home.
Oh, we get each of you a, uh, you get a present to come.
But it is a seal on top of it.
Not as fancy as I can afford it.
If you don't give it to your wife and give it to your secretary, your secretary will say, I accept it.
Ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Thank you very much.
Good luck and we wish you the best.
Thank you.

NARA Description

On November 2, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Stanley M. Greenfield, Richard J. Grunewald, John W. Larson, Phillip A. Loomis, Dudley C. Mecum, Raymond L. Telles, Jr., Joseph Wright, Frederic V. Malek, and Daniel T. Kinsley met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:34 pm to 12:40 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 611-012 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 611-12

Date: November 2, 1971
Time: 12:34 pm - 12:40 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Stanley M. Greenfield, Richard J. Grunewald, John W. Larson, Phillip A.
Loomis, Jr., Dudley C. Mecum, Raymond L. Telles, Joseph R. Wright, Jr., Frederic V. Malek
and Daniel T. Kingsley; the White House photographer was present at the beginning of the
meeting.

     Introductions
           -San Francisco
           -Arthur A. Fletcher
           -Kenneth E. BeLieu
           -William R. Shuler
                -Father
                -Athletic record
                      -California Tech University
                      -Whittier College
                            -The President

     Football
           -Rules regarding placement of ball
                -Shuler

     Introductions
           -Telles
                 -Former position as ambassador to Costa Rica

     The President's schedule
          -Texas
               -El Paso
               -John B. Connally
          -Cabinet and staff

       Roles of new appointees

     Presentation of gifts by the President

     The President's previous conversation with William McMahon
          -Length of meeting

     [General conversation]

Greenfield, et al., left at 12:40 pm.

Also recorded on November 2, 1971

  • 611-007 12:27 PM · 27 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:27 pm and 12:31 pm.
  • 611-008 12:27 PM · 12 sec — Stephen B. Bull and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:27 pm and 12:31 pm.
  • 611-009 12:27 PM · 29 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:27 pm and 12:31 pm.
  • 611-010 12:31 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and James D. ("Don") Hughes met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:31 pm to 12:33 pm.
  • 611-011 12:33 PM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:33 pm and 12:34 pm.
  • 611-013 12:40 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:40 pm to 12:41 pm.
  • 611-014 12:41 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Michael R. Schranth, Mrs. Michael R. Schranth, William L. Schrauth, Mrs. William L. Schrauth, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:41 pm to 12:43 pm.
  • 013-065 12:43 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 12:43 pm and 12:47 pm.

All 58 conversations from November 2, 1971 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 611-012, November 2, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/611-012 (accessed September 30, 2026).