Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 618-030
Date: Monday, November 15, 1971 at 1:16 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President)
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/618-030

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:13] He said under no circumstances should anybody be knocked.
[0:31] He said that the only two things that were totally overestimated in politics were money and vice presidents.
[0:33] What really counted was the man who ran for president.
[0:35] Truman, no money in 1948, won, going away, and won anyway, as far as vice presidents are concerned.
[0:42] They simply do not add her to the course of tracking.
[1:06] He thought that Colin, for whom he had the greatest admiration, would not add any more in Texas than Edgelord would add.
[1:08] He told a story about Harry Hopkins.
[1:09] And at the time of the old WPA, when Hopkins
[1:13] received a wire from the city saying that they had run out of shuttles.
[1:34] Hopkins wired back and said, quote, tell them to lean on each other.
[1:36] He told this story in connection with his suggestion that next year we should finance public works to produce on climate growth and roles and then immediately dispense with the back of the election.
[1:40] He said that was exactly what Roosevelt did.
[1:45] And he also told an apocryphal story.
[2:07] The two-lettered Stalin hunt for Khrushchev.
[2:08] Stalin told Khrushchev to read the letters when he was in trouble.
[2:09] After Khrushchev had been in three or four years, he opened the first letter.
[2:11] Get ready to blame everything on me.
[2:11] Then after he'd been in trouble three or four more years, his wife said, you better read the second letter.
[2:13] Khrushchev opened it and said,
[2:15] That's the end of the game.
[2:46] His wife said, I think you'd better read the letter.
[3:15] He opened the letter, and the letter read,
[3:16] He said that the reason the stock market was going down from 60% to discount the fact that inflation, that our H2 plans actually were going to work, and that they were discounting the inflation that was already in the market, that he thought that next year would be a good year, building on a more solid basis, I think, which is
[3:46] with considerable skill.
[4:05] His general feeling was that the main giraffes that are in any split in the presidency was being cruel, in spite of the enormous pressures.