On November 24, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:20 pm to 3:35 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 624-028 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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 hate to slow down the pace because you get
The French trip was announced today.
The British trip will be announced Friday.
The German trip will be announced Sunday.
There's a bunch of stuff.
We have a bunch of stuff going on on our side.
In the meantime, I just hope that things go the way they do.
Well, I appreciate that.
Our troops could use it.
It's always good to have our department.
several, that Peter probably would have been calling people, his friends in New York, to get him on the money supply.
His friends had told him that Peter and I had been calling.
Isn't that typical of the Jews?
Isn't that awful?
Yeah, that is typical.
It's typical.
It's not just Jews, it's just the New York crowd.
Well, it's a treacherous thing for Pete to talk to people just saying, calling people who are interested in the money supply, saying, if you feel that way, write an article about it.
So they write and suck off the article.
Oh, boy.
That's all right.
Parker's got the message.
I'm not surprised when you go off and worry about that.
Is he starting now, or is he...
Right now.
Good.
Just right.
Just the right time, Mr. President.
Sure.
It's interesting.
I talked to Bill Donaldson this morning, who's... Lufkin.
Donaldson, Lufkin.
A pretty savvy crowd of people.
And they've analyzed the market so far.
They thought it was absolutely perfect.
They said November was going to be a bad month.
Shake out...
Charter would get to 800, but they now are going out with biorecommendations.
So we're having to go out and bounce it, bounce it.
But their senior accountants and some of the people they really rely on are giving them very, very bullish reports for next year that they're down.
You know, the ridiculous thing, for example, I'm reading this, this paper this morning about the market, because our editor-in-chief, his son-in-law, but he's blanking on the international news.
He wants to cop out on that deal now.
Well, I said, that's what he does, and that's not what it is, and they, you know, they said at first we were too soft on labor, and I go down and kick hell out of a meeting in Miami.
and now they said it's lack of confidence because the administration has broken the waiver.
Who said that?
That was in the paper this morning.
What did I say?
I wanted the market survey, the AP.
Oh, well, I think I have a clear goal here.
Oh, to the... No, they're not just using excuses.
The market is, frankly, the market is shaking out.
That's what it is.
Well, I'm not sure what your reaction is to how everything works.
I think the...
The meaning of business is so rough.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
Barger was talking to me about it.
People bring it up that I'm amazed.
Everybody.
My mother's brother arrived in Boston last night.
First thing he asked me about it and said everybody up there was talking about it.
Everything.
You know, it was...
I think we sensed it right Saturday morning.
It was an emotional spark.
It was just one of those things.
One thing that I wouldn't consider a joke...
Everybody on the right is great.
I'd like to write one more letter to her and say bye-bye.
I'm sorry about that.
Nixon, I always despise him and so forth, like you.
But I think you really, you've made a mistake here in one thing.
Your credibility is going to be affected because you sit in the president's arms and so forth.
The difficulty is that the whole of the program is on television.
And it was exactly the opposite, and we just told them, you do not repeat it when you're on Face the Nation.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
All right.
Let's get that going.
Sometimes those things get true.
That's why it's a small thing.
I don't think it's an upselling story, anyway.
No.
And in fairness, you've got to remember the old man didn't think that up.
The goddamn AP wrote that.
Or was it the AP?
It was the Times, no?
Well, nothing did it for the oil, but AP's story, Gilbride's story was bad.
Yeah.
They're a labor reporter.
Well, many of them.
They have job lines.
Many of them.
But that didn't stick either.
That didn't last.
You don't look near this as any unit.
Well, I, that's one that I never do, you know, I don't, I don't, that's one that we're copying out of our life.
We'll get up and do that.
And you did beautiful.
I don't know where I read it, somewhere in the West.
Someone said this was one of the most decisive turning points in public attitudes towards your personality.
It was a columnist.
But people are feeling that way.
Lou Harris was just in.
I had lunch with him.
And he said it just had a whale of an impact on people.
He said it has an impact in terms of not the number of people who approve of us, but in
Yeah, but he thinks the number as well.
He thinks that it does something to you that you badly need it, which is... And has always been an important point in your career, he pointed out.
You always rise and oppose when you're under some pressure.
Or attack.
Whatever it is, you go up and you do better in that environment.
It also told me a fascinating tale about Muskie's people.
They came to see him this week.
They never had before.
Wow.
They were probing, and he said he, of course, isn't the slightest interested.
Obviously, he's committed to us through next year, but he said that they were having a terrible job because they're taking telephone poles all around the country on Muskie in the primary states, and they can't get a public image on Muskie.
He doesn't show up.
No image characteristic develops more than 8 or 9 percent.
Totally bland.
I've always had some image, but I've got a lot more now.
Oh, absolutely.
And we've just got to keep that alive.
Boy, doesn't that cut my image.
Yeah, it does, and it helps your image.
Because, well, and he does so well when he talks about you that there's a brush-off effect.
We were saying that the thing that has always come through strongest on you is that you're trying your hardest to be
to do a good job.
And he said, if you just translate that, just put a little more intensity into that image, what it is is the sincere president with convictions wanting to do what's right for the country and trying to despite these guys.
I think the problems are so terrible.
He was right on target with that.
We went a couple of good votes yesterday.
Sure did.
One didn't come up, which is good.
One, the other, shows you again, playing the hard lines, right?
Scott came in and said, I think we can make this a compromise or that.
I said, I can't compromise at all.
No compromise.
That was a good vote, and the press played that very well today, as a matter of fact.
John Erdogan came in today with a pitch, in fact, that his domestic counsel voice analyzes this vote on the, analyzes this amendment with regard to elections, and said that maybe it would help us more financially on the other side, maybe I shouldn't be to him.
And I was very horrified when I said, John, I said, that is a good point.
I said, I have always said it's going to be a hell of a lot of interest in this election, Emily and Will.
Because basically, Chuck, whoever is the Democratic nominee is going to get Jewish money.
Because I can't, you know what I mean?
I know that they won't be for me.
Because I can't go as far on plans to be responsible as I can.
It's culture.
And Jewish money always can finance any candidate.
It's as simple as that.
I don't regret it.
If I were a pro-Azeri guy, I'd support the Democrat, too.
But the point of it, I think, is that it seems to me that this is such a change in the American political system.
It isn't good to have the man who sits in elective office owe his election to the mob rather than to the intelligent people.
That's right.
Like, isn't that a reason that he told the damn thing or not?
Or I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.
John, of course, is trying to find a way to put a sign in, but damn, I think our Republicans love the law of our scientists.
I do, too.
I do.
I absolutely do.
I think there are more basic reasons, and you're hitting one that's very fundamental.
That is a very important reason.
But the fragmentation of political parties, when you look at what's happened to other countries that have gone through this, which will become institutionalized into the American political system, is a terrible thing.
It really is a very, very bad thing.
You weaken the two-party law, you weaken, you destroy the two-party system in the course of time.
I think what would happen, Mr. President, and this would be a damn good grounds also to be to it,
If that's passed and is in effect for next year and you didn't feed to it, I would wager you that it would be repealed a year later.
Because they would have gotten through the 72 campaign and would say it isn't workable.
They did that and they'd get rid of it because it's bad for both parties long term.
It really is.
I wouldn't, I hope you don't.
I raised the point with John yesterday.
I'm the one who made that argument that
I'll bet if you look at taxpayers, you'll find that a majority of them are Republicans.
That's my view.
I knew financially that it was going to hurt us.
It wouldn't hurt us financially at all.
That's the point.
It's a matter of principle.
Exactly right.
It is very, very bad.
principle.
But also, there are a majority of, they're just taxpayers, but it's a majority of people that make out their taxes.
That's what I meant.
And also, a majority of the responsible citizens who would check off their revolutions.
They could imagine blacks checking in on them.
Well, they don't have anything to check off.
Well, even if they did, they don't have any.
The feeling about the country, they figured some way they were losing money.
I think, really,
Because if you took the people that filed the wrong forms, I mean, forget the 1040s, the little cards, people that filed the wrong forms, I bet you we'd end up with two-thirds the money on that basis.
And so I don't view it as a financial proposition at all.
And I think the administrative complications of it are terrible.
I think we can make a fight in the House and have at least a 50-50 chance of winning.
In the House?
Yes, sir.
I do.
I thought it was impossible.
No, I don't think so.
I've gone over the list.
Have they talked to anybody yet?
I don't know if anybody's going to be with us.
They've been surveying, Mr. President, and we've been talking to organized groups today and getting...
I'm not looking for the broad shotgun, but the rifle approach into North Carolina, Georgia...
They don't want Wallace in their world.
Wallace is fine for his rhetoric, but not if the...
This is the reason the Democrats are doing it.
It isn't very good at all.
No.
I think the Democratic national candidates want Wallace in this race.
And they want him to open hands.
You understand?
Not the local candidates, but the national candidates.
They know that they really feel that Wallace...
might deny what would be, without walls, you realize, I wouldn't even have to go south.
Oh, hell no.
Well.
That's right.
And at any two-way race.
One other thing I was going to say, the best thing I've done over a couple of weeks was to go out and see the Redskins.
That was good.
That was a good thing.
That was damn good.
It was the right thing to do, too.
That's something that people understand.
It's been a...
They care about going to see somebody that's been, that's lost.
That's been that.
Yeah.
Well, when you think about it, Mr. President, I think a lot of the uncertainty about phase two is beginning now to dissipate.
I think the meaning of confrontation is one of the political breaks of the year.
The first treatment of the kids in him said he doesn't hold anything so far.
Well, I mean, in the case, he was coming in around 4 o'clock.
Yeah, Henry's coming in at 4.
That's where I'll wait and see if there's any general in there.
Oh, yeah, just have Henry come in.
Is Henry coming in at 4?
All right.
Because he hasn't gotten into bathroom work in a day, and I can't keep him waiting.
That's a very, that's a very profound.
All right.
Josh.