On November 24, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John B. Connally, John D. Ehrlichman, George P. Shultz, and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:06 pm and 4:35 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 625-001 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
They're all active.
They're active.
HR1 in the Senate.
Well, they have a legal leader.
They're in the Senate.
They're in the Senate.
They're in the Senate.
If I could get those son of a bitches to take part in my control.
I just can't take it.
They know that one day, I understand, when they go up, they don't know the direction.
You've had it, John.
I have told them over and over again that I don't like it about the Indian Pass.
You had to do it because I don't hear it every time.
It is.
You didn't like it when I traveled to get the assistance.
I didn't cherish it.
Yeah.
The thing we want to discuss with you briefly is this.
You know this bunch of bitches.
The question I want to ask you is, does that make you okay?
Yes.
78.11 o'clock.
Yes, we can sell it to the courts.
But both of them are out of the changes we made in the original OSD submission.
Because we had to do small forces and it meant that we had to ask for them.
Secondly, on the ground, the expenditures are about 80,000.
The obligation of authority
And above all, on the ground, there's anything out there.
There's chunks of real horses.
I don't even talk figures.
I could get Goldwater, or Tower, or any of these people, and I say, these were horses that were proposed at the festival.
These are the horses we're getting, and those are the presidential intervention.
And I think there's enough about the kids.
The Marines, uh, they've analyzed their versions ten years now.
They've analyzed their versions.
We are celebrating.
Now it's time to celebrate construction.
Good.
But that was a lot of money you were spending.
Yeah.
I see, but you couldn't get much better.
No, but we can go.
I mean, that is a good summary.
No, but we, uh, we are speaking up.
We almost broke down a little bit.
But we, uh, we've had good summaries, but we're going to do that.
uh, take the power of the existing submarines by, uh, putting, uh, more powerful missiles, the new ones, you know, the longer-range missiles, we're putting the longer-range missiles into the, uh, existing house, so it, uh, in terms of its capabilities to do submarines, it's not a new house.
Sir, we can't get a new hull, we've got a 77 anyway, so what you're doing is putting the arms missile into the new, into the old hull to get an intermediate measure.
Sir, that's not a right thing to do, John.
That's not a creative problem at all.
It impacts on substance, I would say, but I think this is the best we can do.
It turns out full structure to me, but... That's how you get the charm.
Who gives the courage message to Garson?
Blair.
I do what I said.
I need to do better right now.
I've got to do it.
Okay.
The only question is whether to it.
Something's not as good about it to me, but I tell people all these things right now.
Why?
Because... What are you going to tell them?
Well, it didn't all that bad.
We were with Packard and with Packard on these things.
We're not very well with what's going on.
But he has to do, he has to get the message first.
Otherwise, he has strength back.
The entire, the board of Congress, the board of Congress, we decided that they will have to make a token fight on the cutting of the anti-fans.
We're not going to do anything significant against the anti-fans.
We've had, we've had a study that we just can't find a national group that will criticize the anti-fans.
For small scale attacks, we can get back to it now and go ahead and get you on very small scale attacks.
The credit plan wouldn't be any good anyway.
You understand that, in this program, we were talking about 78.5% content along the lines of this memorandum that you and I worked out.
And then, we planned to manage the outline in a separate way that we could print in the budget.
Seventy-six point five.
That's correctly printed out, my figure.
We'll have eighty-two billion, roughly.
Printed, obligational.
What I ought to do is, when we get it to that stage, uh, my biggest contribution is to, is to say, what I think I should do is to get some of these human events, these conservatives,
And just go through the force levels, but then the disc treads.
And also, why not leave the two-page indicator as that for all you could have spent anymore?
But the outlays are an indication that the best is going to happen in the future.
That's right.
The, uh, this is how you're going to have all the stations.
You've got that in that mode.
And that's something that we can talk about at all times.
And so I would either write that down, and we don't have anywhere ahead.
I think what we have to do, myself, is to talk to them and say, here is the substantive vision.
Here's the application of authority.
Here's the way we've got to bridge this and other things, but we can come back.
And you've got to know that.
I support it.
And don't send any number over to the defense department.
Otherwise, they'll leave you all over the place.
And you have no way to defend yourself, Jack, because you can't really discuss this.
Well, they should have bailed on you.
Well, you don't give a hell of a piece of paper.
I think the secretary of S.O.S.
had a gun.
I mean, had a gun.
Henry Goldstein had a gun.
So I did on the last troop patrol.
I read the papers.
We cannot think that Mr. President officially ought to be on the throne.
We cannot think he did all the way up to a successive troop announcement.
We will never say it's okay.
He's a great guy.
He's a gentleman.
He's just so devious that he doesn't know what he's going to have to do.
He's right.
He has to do all the things that are important to us.
And he was going to beat you by 45.
By saying he's 45.
So we came to recognize that it's really because of those three kids that we've been announcing.
And you have now been called personally.
And personally, he's saying, oh, you're going to ruin it.
Oh, if you're going to ruin it, you've got only to go up and schedule an opening announcement.
That's what they had already decided to do for the last two months.
They already did it.
Wouldn't it be useful if you could go over to India and Pakistan and try to...
He helped create the process.
One of Kenny Candy, who is considered to be a very important political figure, John, goes in.
Kenny Candy tells Kenny, we're all on the other side of the Pakistani drum.
What the hell do you think they're going to think?
I don't know.
I think it's disrespectful.
No, we won't worry about that.
This will be the first time we realize that the French turned on the Indians.
The first we just covered this little military is the first time anybody in 25 years ever said anything nasty to the Indians.
And it's about time that you hear this about too.
Uh, we'll be at the 200th.
We'll also start at the French Federation.
But three times the 11 million interest, which we're dragging up to 7 million, which we're going to use for investment this year, and 7.6 billion for aid, which is really a good sign, and 100 million of this next tranche of the loan.
We'll just do it December.
We'll just try to see who does the most.
John, one thing before you go, if you would get Kearns to give Henry a report, that's the only way to find out.
That's the word he has pending that we can hold on to.
report that we'll have a portion to get it out.
It was okay.
You're going to tell me about all the egos.
Uh, I'm ready to talk to the player.
And then there is a different draft here.
That president is dead.
that doesn't do any number, but does outline the course record.
We work it out how to learn it.
And you have to have it.
I want to say to you one thing as well.
I was delighted to hear all you weirdos.
You were delighted to hear all these kind of things.
And you didn't want me to write any paper, because Bill was president this evening, and I was talking to myself.
And I had an accident.
I was either in a dam or something.
I didn't decide at all.
Well, the United States turned out to be the only nation in the United States, in the United Nations, to turn society on the vote of the condemning party.
That's why I got that.
or or or or or or or
He's on the screen now.
He's a very smart guy.
He's a very great guy.
Right?
Good luck.
And I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
I'll call you back.
All right.
We argued that we had an incident.
The reason I didn't have it raised at lunch is that John laid it on very strong across the conversation here.
And he heard, I don't think there was any, I had no idea about it.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Yeah, I know.
Okay, good luck.
Good luck.
Well, that's good.
That's good.
That's good.
That's good.
Well, and believe everything.
One thing before we get away, we have to stay.
And I have a long session with our good man.
Well, he's got a lot of good things for us to say.
He's a great one to write and to speak for.
He's a good man.
He's good.
And he is, I can't give him a very satisfactory job.
He's not a good man.
But we really do need some sort of a symbolic way to end this thing.
Well, is there anything wrong with the sort of security?
His feeling and ignorance of the people that are following this is that that is not any good.
And it is...
A one-shot deal.
You're talking to the pros out there.
These are the professional organizers of the agency.
These associations are in these lobbies, and they see through that.
Going through this, I really think this amendment of Medicaid prescription thing is about the best thing we can do.
There are a lot of alternatives.
There are a lot of odds and ends in that game.
Uh, that there are, you know, 58 men in here and 10 men in there and that kind of stuff.
That you could put in a whole... That's a huge amount.
It's about $1.3 billion.
The point about it is, the point about it is, it's a horrible road.
It really is, John.
It really is.
It's got to the British, it's got to the rest of America.
It doesn't have science on it.
Is there anything else?
Is there anything that's got to be seconded?
We have a big list of odds and ends that we can take a look at.
What do you feel about that idea?
It's just too much of a part.
Is it something we're going to buy from it anyway?
It's very expensive.
We are going to get much more expensive than it's going to be in the line on the HR line.
No doubt.
I think it's a...
Questionable factor, too, on the merits.
Some of these things on the merits, I think, you know, you could say they're fine.
We haven't done anything about this one.
I think there's some real drawbacks on the merits.
So I'm very, very reluctant about it.
Well, it's, number one, it's high visibility.
Number two, we may or may not be able to dominate in terms of HR1 and UCA HR1.
It's a good city, but if we don't see H.R.
1 with welfare, you'll see H.R.
1 with the substance abuse.
That's right, sir.
If we've got to go on, we will move forward at least in another direction on the government pay thing.
But it's due for a while, and probably I think that's a nice little change.
Well, McGregor, I know that you, uh, you, uh, very well wanted to do that, and you should see that people don't get positioned so that, uh, so that it embarrasses them.
And, uh, give us an idea of what to say.
Well, I think it's a good idea what you've done, very much so.
Let's just do that, very much so.
Now, sure, they're going to say what about the rest of the year, and we're certainly going to be treated like everybody else and pick it up the first chance.
I like that.
That's one time I just wanted to jump ahead of the year.
On this, with John, I've listened to the medical team take things.
You know how people are medical.
They're medical.
They count.
I'm more of a Christian scientist than you are a believer.
I think this prescription thing is a racket for, it's a racket for Dr. Young, for a country expert,
Well, I recommend this very logically.
What I'm trying to get is some sort of a political bone that these guys can take.
Could I ask you to do this, uh... Go back to Arthur, and you go back to your shop.
Let's see what we can give them.
Let me...
These old folks are here.
We'll, uh...
We can do one of these types of things, and we'll take another one.
I just came from a meeting that Clark and I had with the Republican leadership on the House side of the tax checkoff.
And it's pretty evident that Monday will go to conference.
They all recommend strongly that he's trying to make any money before the conference.
Nobody knows where Bill is.
And there's about one chance out of a hundred that he might be with us in the conference.
If not, they feel, by and large, that you should not take a position that you don't need to have this officially or overtly before the Congress reports.
But it may be that what you want to do is get the word out through lobbies around town.
Maybe have five or six strong lobbies come in here and have us tell them that Jim and Kiko, this is it, and they start to work it.
And they'll get out on the ground.
And that's the timing on that will be Monday or Tuesday of next week.
Whether you're here or not, we can put the word out.
And we all got the question, no, you may want to, you may want to give a strong statement.
We can talk about that after we've seen how it goes one day.
But that's our money.
Let me say this.
I feel so strongly about the principle.
I have already done the rest of the tickets on the 1972 elections.
The 1972 elections.
We will give.
There are more registered voters who may not have tax returns that are Republicans than are Democrats.
And you would win.
And also, the Republican voter tends to be a more property man than is the Democratic voter.
So I think we did very well that way.
One of the fundamental reasons that they don't put out on their Democratic front, they really want to send President
They want George Wallace back to leave the Nats when they want him in the threes.
That's what the key to the down pat is the Wiccan thing.
That's the Wiccan level, Section Half-Million Boxes, and they've got raised money otherwise.
And also, it ensures that he will be that caliber factor that Section Half-Million Boxes in several states that we don't care in.
Now that's it.
The other thing is that it's just a bad, bad idea.
And I'm just, just, well, uh, I'll look into your eyes.
A lot of your, a lot of your old friends up there, like Springer, feel so strongly about this.
They want you to sign it.
No, no.
They want you to be, uh, Springer feels that this would be the major mistake of the 72 Lush.
What do you say you say about it?
You see,
that you have in that kind of rock feels the same way.
When decent men like that feel that way, I mean, you can't run around like that.
They're not a whole lot of detail.
That's the same in detail.
John, can I suggest this as an interim thing?
Well, you don't want to start doing it this weekend.
If you get a second one, yeah, you can go ahead and go to Colson now.
Tell him I wanted to get the daddy's group of business guys in here.
Now, where does the piece pass Monday?
President's going, hey, Joe, listen, if you want to save your tax bill, get to work.
Okay, fine.
Do they think there's any chance they could do it?
They could do it in that house.
It's not on that.
After the day that this combination might work, it's like after the conference,
It has to lay on the table three days.
Yeah.
If you announce today in a conference report that you are vetoed if that thing is in, and that the houses still have a chance to take out that big motion to recommit with instructions, might have a chance in a Senate where they can't put in, you know, half a vote.
And they might get it recommitted.
No chance of that.
Well, it's very diffused in the House.
The House has never voted on this.
We don't know who the targets are in the Senate.
It's falling in a couple of weeks.
So that would be the strategy.
And let's go forward.
It's really on the stage.
Let's go forward.
I think it's probably...
I don't think we want to stick it out there as a target at this point.
I think your plan, in other words, start seeking it out, get the people educated, do it, get ready, and then quite definitive message in June.
You know, we could do it in a variety of ways.
You know, tell them that it is much better if you can tie it to education, you can have people thinking about it.
Perhaps we will bust it up and beef up the things we do and the other things as well.
And let's not...
Make up your minds if you're going to speak on this.
Let's take a reading and keep it back from where I said it was taken out.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Also, by that time, we can pull it.
That's another thing to do.
Basically, it's a political thing.
I mean, let's look at it that way.
Consider it that way.
Right.
A poll.
I wouldn't take one now.
No, I wouldn't take one now.
All right.
All right.
I think George should say that you, of course, are the presidential advisor.
You can speculate as to what the president can do, but you know from having discussed this with the president that he has very great doubts about this for deep reasons.
You say that you've talked to a very, very, very big house.
All I've been saying is the president has an analysis.
These fellows also said that anything we said between now and the conference should be on the basis of the whole plan.
That is, you've got tax settings, too.
Also, if you didn't have the idea of the irresponsibility of the tax bill, the Christmas tree, the other things that are on it, and so forth and so on, this is a very bad bill.
You know, it's inflationary to us.
It busts the budget.
etc.
And it isn't just this, it's that provision is bad.
If you go into the budget reasons, that's good.
It's a mandatory thing to raise.
George, on that, if you want, can I suggest, if you can, it's awfully good.
I'll leave you those suggestions on any questions that might come up.
How do you feel?
So, if you're using, if you say, all right, I know that's pretty important, but if you've got anything for you, don't come.
Just let me know.
I'll take that.
I'll go by.
Fine.
All right, I'll get you a call.
I think you didn't go necessarily for the airport.
Do you want to go?
Yes, sir.
All right, fine.