On November 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:24 am to 11:01 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 618-013 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
And so you were hanged up today?
Well, she was so thrilled.
She brought me up three feet off the ground.
In the meantime, you didn't go up?
I didn't go up anymore, right?
And that's that myth.
But I didn't go up.
Yeah.
I just loved it.
It was so thrilling.
And I didn't go up.
Who was there?
Well, a bank, and I was standing.
It was where she came in, and the load of the briar drove her down with the scissors.
I don't agree.
We're going to do it.
We finally got it back.
I want you to know, it's a great assignment.
But, but the, I don't know.
She is Rose.
You know, just a tremendous job with these hand shakers.
You know, she's just a fantastic, goddamn thing.
When I say that, I mean a wonderful number of people who are there who take us no press on, no credit.
I'm going to have to knock it off.
She said, Julie, the best.
So now you're going to take one big trip.
Now, this trip, by the way, is the best thing we ever got to do.
Julie's from here, and one big trip.
Julie's European.
on the left for discerning fighting people and they want to go see the bear, will you please put up the key and let the people who have been in the cabin point the door and say that the cat's not going to be able to get to their hands?
Now, the same thing throws something through with church services.
Church services is hard.
And I carry it with mixed emotions, because I just thought it was wonderful.
I mean, all those little kids have come through, and wives of this and mothers of that, and people who were in the ground after the trade war and so forth.
But Billy Graham, that's just the point.
He's a guy that should not be sitting at home.
He's been through the crisis.
He said, it means a lot to him that there are Canadians out there that you have to talk to.
You should not use his time.
I said, it's good enough for them just to come.
I think for this to work, however, we must not invite people from out of the city
I mean, if that guy comes from out of the city, he's got to shake hands.
Just invite people who work in town.
And so they come to church.
They can go in the other rooms and have their tea.
What we'll do, we'll come in.
I'll get the minister.
I'll have a picture taken with him.
Take him over, have a picture taken with the choir.
And I will come and call him stairs.
Yes, I do.
I think you can even, where people request, you know, I think then they can come in from out of town or anyone from out of town.
People just are told, you know, that they're not going to have the financials.
I wouldn't have, for example, like we have several people that we already have all the time.
I would not have them now.
Because they expect to talk to me, so I just can't do it with the line.
It's a rugged experience.
So I would invite them.
I wouldn't invite anybody they expect to see me and talk to me.
That's what I would expect too.
Fair enough.
But so on in the church, that's the way it will be.
Yeah.
Well, you would just say that that's the way it's going to be.
It will not mean anything.
People will be there, and they can go in.
It is an issue.
It's just the wrong use of time.
Well, it takes too long to have good time.
Far better use of my time than I did yesterday.
You know, I do quite a few of these calls, you know.
I made a birthday call, and I called a paraplegic in Georgia, and I called a paraplegic over here in Maryland, and I called a guy that had himself all shot in pieces and lost his eyes and his eyes and nose and so forth out of a lottery.
Well, that took me five minutes.
Now that was better rules than shaking hands with freedom.
Much as I'd love to meet these people, I'd love to see these little kids, and I know it's the biggest thrill of their lives, but what is more important?
Well, my theory is that they can, I think the numbers should be not as big as when they're doing it, even if they're not in safety.
And they could all see then, you see, this is the property they'll choose to come in after they see the president.
You know, it's true, we'll come in at the White House, period.
But not only do they see the president, but when we leave, my God, they walk in there in the state dining room.
And those fine waiters serve them stuff, and they get coffee, and the rest of that is a big deal.
That's right.
That's right.
I have...
Second thing, on the hitters, we only have one company on that list.
So we're in good shape.
On your list there, I've got a good plan there.
We're very good.
There should be nobody in the finals, except this year.
You know what I mean?
Not 30 years anymore.
He's down.
No, no, he's been coming.
You've had him come too.
Not to the dinner, not to the eating part.
The way that we can do them, I'm going to be out of the plants.
The way the eating part can be done, which I understand, they don't have a very good setup here.
The people in the line house, like, if you've got a girl or a crack on her plant or something, they'd have to see their opposite.
We're coming to their opposite numbers.
What they do is...
Percocet systems, they call them Percocet.
and they go to the receiving end, then they go down, and then come afterwards to the other end, so everybody thinks they're there.
They just don't go over there and sit there with the 150 to 100 people in the crowd.
You don't, you know, it goes, they won't get in there.
Oh, I know that.
I don't know.
I just want to be there because I know he's leaving.
I know he's leaving.
History always means that because that right is held with him, but it's not just that or neither.
And that means not Peterson, and not Irwin, and not Kennedy.
They've all been there, and that's all.
They don't come to them anymore.
They can come to the act of reception, always invite you if they want to.
That's the way it will be.
And they work the act of reception if they want to, but they don't have to come to them anymore.
Or are they going to come to the first one?
We don't have any of those.
We'll take him back off.
We'll take him off.
We'll open it up if we need other people.
How about getting a few of the, as I suggest, some others we could kick off?
The State Department people.
I just went down to the Assistant Secretary.
That's all I ever put on them.
Don't put the next officer on there.
Nothing.
They haven't been added in.
All right.
They put them back.
All right.
And the only canon people that I have on at this moment, I was going to ask you about that.
Well, it'll be early because Rogers will be out of country at the end, except there's a defense.
And Bob Finch, but he'll just come back.
Is that enough of your canon?
Well, one more.
It has to be the impression of a little bit more of a canon.
Is it Collier or Mitchell?
Mitchell.
But don't you agree with this proposition?
In other words, we just cut this right down the bone.
And that allows you to put other people on.
A couple of little personal things.
Incidentally, is Gene Raymond still living in Virginia?
They were so nice to us that they entertained us really slow.
They came to college, obviously.
Gene Raymond?
He was already dead, wasn't he, when we had those receptions out there?
No.
We invited Gene Raymond to something, I don't know.
Has he ever come?
I'm not sure.
I thought of him.
There's another one, Pat Lill with the Routership.
You know, the Brennans were the daughter-in-law of the suicide of the son, Barry Brennan, who was one of her two sons.
She said, we should hear, we should go say something to Jim, something that she said to her.
Hey, Barry, can I hear something?
Barry Brennan.
Barry Brennan.
Do you want me to invite him to a dinner evening or to church?
Uh, no, not church.
I think that he will have an evening of his own time.
But the thing next year will be a couple of evenings, which takes care of a hell of a lot of our neighbors.
You can get a lot more people and have more games too.
That's right.
The lions, did they die?
We can't find them.
We must go down there every time.
How about Scutaro and his old group and so on?
I mean, finally, did my mind ever so well?
You know, it's come true a lot.
Yeah.
He's here.
But you're in a mental haunt.
But you seem to be here at the end of all the jackasses we have.
Or could have.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
I don't care whether they're out there on our side a long time.
This is what I'm talking about.
Maybe, don't you think?
I think so.
I'm pushing it out.
Well, I suppose that's pretty far to ask people to travel.
Well, if it's an entertainment role.
If it's good entertainment.
If it's an entertainment.
I'm not so sure that you'd be quite as good as an entertainer if it's a, you know, if it's a black tie.
I'd eat it in the wine house and play it under the table.
No, I would be concerned.
I want you to know that I'd ask Al or Sir Gretchen some money to make a purchase of some wine for a future which would be $66 more doable.
It's $66.
It's the less expensive.
It's a good one.
But it's the one that I will look at for the future so I don't have to deal with it.
It would just keep on.
See, the deadly violence is getting a little old.
You know, I must say that another thing we can do in the near future, I think that what we can do, what should be somewhere in the tree, is to hold it to the second floor.
Now, that's no friend of the family at all.
We just get the hell out.
See what I mean?
It's funny, ain't it, Johnny?
I hate to do that.
That man ain't there, not yet.
Oh, sure, baby.
I don't...
I'm supposed to tell you.
I'll tell you what you can do.
I'll tell you what you can do.
I'll tell you what you can do.
Another way is to pick the very special people and have the military aides prop them up to secretary.
And that can be done without everybody knowing that we can.
Very hard.
Yeah, but see, there were just three or four of them.
They didn't know where we went.
We just went over the mountain.
I noticed one of them laying there sitting alone or somebody like that.
I thought, oh my God, I'd love to take him up to the second floor.
That's the kind of person.
I know.
He was a pick-off if you like that.
He was a very old friend.
He said, I'd like to go see the second floor.
Would you do that?
He'd like to have that done.
That little Jew, he's not going to quit with me today.
She wants to go to a man at the monster tonight.
I couldn't tell you.
I'm down there on my own.
Oh, she wanted to go too, yeah.
Will she be back?
She must be.
She said for her stop in two friends.
He wrote, you know, I told him she was going to go, and that's why I invited him to go search somewhere in town, because he was, you know, 34 years old.
Yeah.
Incidentally, would you send him a, a, uh, a copy of his, uh, little compacts?
I'm not sure.
I'm sure.
I'm sure.
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
Thank you.
Thank you.
But here's a letter, which I didn't have enough credit because I wanted you to give it to me.
I had to give it to the letter machine.
Man, letters are so... Way unbelievable.
Just read that letter.
And that was just one of those advices to them.
Isn't that beautiful?
I think so.
That's what someone told me she is.
Well, it all did become a very good piece on her.
It was just... Oh, I didn't see it.
She was a secret pilot.
She's fantastic.
The other night before the theater, everyone was saying, like, where'd that girl go?
It's people every day.
She's a great singer.
She's a great singer.
Well, it's her beauty that was basically conquered.
She gave me a copy of the article with David Husson, Julia Stevens.
But Julia, on the other hand, has got such a sparkle in her.
You take a person, I hated you, in a way, manually despised you because she was such a slob in her personal life.
But old Lady Roosevelt, that's not a slob.
That's not a slob.
That's not a slob.
But that's not a slob.
Yes.
Now this is a marvelous picture.
But you see, I didn't think, I don't know how many people knew that song, that she used to date, that she was not the looking, but now they think she's beautiful, and she... Well, this picture is fantastic.
So big in the night.
Well, she is a beautiful girl.
This place I haven't seen in...
It is what it is.
Thank you.
See, this is one of the things that you all forget.
She has a beautiful face.
She's got an arrow.
This is the Vietnam that fixed everyone.
She's got an arrow.
She's got an arrow.
She's got an arrow.
She's got an arrow.
She's the only one that I've ever seen read a book after the ground on her coat when I do that.
Yes, she does.
She had that feeling of wanting to do this, so I'll cut off two of the front, but if there's any better checks on that office than ATW, that'd be...
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
I'll take her name off, yeah.
And on this left, and you sent this back out, the two of the pinches adjacent to the path of Krypton.
Are you hearing me?
Come on.
Come on.
When I sent this in, I didn't know if you had looked at the team's recommendations as well, the librarianship, any of them on paper?
We, uh, yeah, she's got the, uh,
We thought we ought to take that.
I thought that Bunny has done so much, it's the first time he's ever asked for anything at GGT.
State Department person.
There.
I mean, she needs one safety person.
Maybe that one that was mentioned there would be a good one.
Who should I get back to?
I can get back to Bob Hall in terms of, well, his safety people are big.
Well, what we're doing is billows to rockers and suggesting somebody to suggest a woman today.
I just told all of them that I wanted to be sure to check the safety part of the person to see if she was... Who is that?
That's Barbara Watson.
Barbara Watson.
How is she?
I think that one of them is over the patchwork down on the practice line.
Put her name down.
And Barbara Watson, does she work in the acting department?
She's been assistant secretary of state.
Well, that wouldn't be in the acting department.
It has to be in the acting department.
I doubt that.
The other one I was going to say, they're going to have...
We've got to go on protocol.
I think he's good for protocol.
He's better than me.
I think he's better than the others over there.
If he made it, I guess he's better than Pat.
She'd like the clues.
Better than Mosbacher?
Well, we can't have Mosbacher go there.
He's going to go to her.
He's going to be here.
He's going to be here.
Okay.
And the other thing.
Mosbacher on the Russian.
Now he could go around with her, but CODIS is perfect for a man where she gets along so well.
And that he doesn't have another woman to have him talk to.
I think the Mossmakers are great.
He likes them too, and I think that's what the CODIS is.
That's what the Mossmakers want.
He recommends CODIS.
Yeah, but CODIS is very good.
Well, he's, and also he's a far more advanced man in the market.
And the one I'm going to have on the military side is talking.
Coffee is so good, and give us another glass.
But he's so good at working with the advancement and secret service, you know, they all love coffee.
Doesn't that sound good to you?
Very, very.
He loves it good.
We have to meet him.
He'll get along.
He doesn't need to be rough at all otherwise.
Here's a hand that's not as good as I could.
I'm just going to send it over to you.
I'll take it up.
It's one and I want to call Ben in a minute and wait to get to you.
I'll leave you right with this.
Today?
This is 30.
Wow.
It's like the 16th.
Right.
The ladies keep them at the very end of Saturday night.
Yeah.
and also to, what did you say, the history, the history to Pastor Conley, that he feels, is it, is it, is it, you know how, appearing to be investing in his business?
I feel better.
It's just slow.
What about the idea that I have of your taking off and going to California for a week?
I don't know.
You might go.
And you feel the fact that you're going to be out there
Anyway, you might just take off, say, this Friday, and just go out there and stay out there and hold.
Come back on the following Tuesday.
You may be a period of 10-year vacation.
It gives you seven or eight days to get a ticket.
You see, next year is going to be an extra year, and the Chinese and Russian trips are going to be enormously prescient.
It may be nothing will happen on those trips, and then we'll have to do something.
If something does happen,
We're not going to take anybody else, you know.
I'm not going to leave the burglars or these people on the staff side.
I'm not going to take all of them.
I have a problem with him.
You know, everybody wants to take secretaries and all that jazz, and I'm not going to let them do it.
The history will have to have one.
The science will have to have one.
You know what I mean?
We're just going to keep it running.
We're going to hold them.
That's kind of the rush.
There's no problem.
Let everybody go there.
But I think it's very, very, very good for you to, you know, to take off a couple of weeks so that you feel real rested to see that State of the Union coming up.
Now, for your very confidential information, too, we may be having a meeting with Pompidou and another separate one with another one with Brown coming up in the next two months.
And all of this is going to be
Well, I am.
How much you will have to do is to kind of, on those three, not so much, but on the China-Russia affair.
You see, there's undoubtedly going to be stuff I'm going to have to get out of there that will not be for other people.
Oh, well, I'm sure everything will end.
It is a slow process.
I'm not sure it will be.
I think the best thing to do is to get out and get your gut to hell out there in California where you like it.
I remember we said we went out there.
I don't know, I think it might be better to get it to work so we don't get a little bit caught up in it.
Because we're so far behind, so it might be awful, but it's the best.
You go out there and do the work.
I'd love to see what might be out here.
Did I say it would be out there?
But we all feel this.
I mean, I feel it very strongly.
And the trouble is, Rose, I can assure you to get through the Christmas period.
And I'm worried about ourselves, as a matter of fact.
I'm glad I took off those two days in Florida.
Those three days were good for me.
And I'm going to take off another three days just that first time I get a chance.
Because I've got to be up for the big plays.
Don't you agree?
I absolutely do.
That makes a difference.
Even though sometimes it's probably wrong.
Yeah, but I've done an awful lot of them just because I thought somebody should and I think that I've done a lot of them.
You know, one of the best things I can do for a school is hand-holding calls.
I'm sure you do have an idea of how many I could advise for a day of call centers.
I don't do them tonight.
I've been trying for the last two or three weeks to always get one or two at some time, two or four a day.
Well, it makes a big difference.
I haven't seen many on the station.
One of ten at a time has maybe twice as many calls.
Oh, well, I've done it.
It's, uh...
It's fantastic, and particularly when they're in a hospital room, and we're just spread like wild in the hospital.
We've done a letter, and I sent a letter to Carl Howard.
He died?
He died while we were in the farm.
I said, he's been so good over the years and everything.
Oh, Carl.
Anyway, thanks.
I think it was a hard day.
Yes.
Bless you.
How many are gone from the old place?
How many crows are up to the list?
You can forget the sanity.
A lot of our humanity has been squeezed for 10 or 15 years over the highlands.
From Christ 70 to 75, people die.
People live.
Big men, men and women, crows won't leave your bed.
So we have to live to the age of 85 and try to die in your service.
You have to listen to the tension on the drive of the police.
The women are short.
I always send those names to you because they occur to me at, you know, you know the ones.
You know, one of these things, if somebody doesn't get in with somebody, it's pretty hard for me.
but just be pretty ruthless on the staff, that's what I think.
Anything else where there's no need for them to be there?
Once in a while there's something from the evenings when my Dr. Entertainment asks me yes.
I think when the people who are always around,
You know, and if it's a real thrill, then you're gonna be taking them here, right?
Well, we've drawn that bow, we've drawn that bow with Garmin.
What is it, fluoroblasts?
For that reason, I don't want to...
They work hard, which is so true.
Well, they work hard, and, you know, in very, in areas where I need, that I don't care much about, you know, I care what I've got time for, so they can do it.
Well, they were just thrilled.
I tell them to be great at it.
I think they've had enough time.
They've had a lot of time.
They've got to tell each other.
Where are you?
I'll set it up.