On November 29, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:25 pm to 12:34 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 625-025 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
One person.
I was a little concerned about one thing, you know, I think we've done some damn good things, and I don't know the way that we're still doing the mechanics and so on.
out there in San Clemente, I think that it's not a .
I would have taken that and put a box in there and put an office in there, another office in there, so that you destroy this reception room there.
So there's things across the street.
What you see is, it's sort of like what we had over here.
It looks like the Willie Johnson shop over here.
I didn't know that you walk into the place, Bob, that the terrible thing about it is that
I didn't know she was going to walk into my home, but I walked in.
They got a goddamn glass on the counter, and it looks like they're walking into a dentist office.
It's just, you know, when I'm going to have an idea to listen to, I almost think I'm going to be getting an eye on her.
I saw that the first time I'd seen her, just before we left, and I thought, well, she should be taken.
She should go back to the way it was.
That's going to probably seem gracious to me.
Is this an end of the trade?
Was there a boat chasing under Alex?
Or, well, Alex has to be there.
No, no, no, see, over that, over across the hall, what had happened was they, they had everyone from that office next to yours as, as you can see in this office out here.
It has changed now, and it's not what it should be, Alex, there, and he should be there so he, you know, can cover the, the office for you.
And Steve's there.
He doesn't have to be here.
He works just like he does here.
He's down the hall, right?
I don't care.
I mean, I can get everybody right around him.
But there's no need for me to be right around him.
I don't need to see him put in and taken out.
But it looks like we're wasting money.
It doesn't cost that much and that kind of stuff.
They don't do that.
They do contraception in some ways.
But getting back to the staff situation and so forth, I really, I keep ours down and in responsibility on them.
And it's the old story, we have the military, we have the Attorney General, we have the Attorney General of the Secret Service, we have the Attorney General of the Secret Service.
We've done awfully well, but I don't want to, I don't want to corrupt Marco White on staff any chance for,
The idea is that we just are constantly doing it.
We're doing it because we want our power.
And I've got everything that I've got to see.
And I've got to do it.
And I've got to do it.
And I've got to do it.
And I've got to do it.
I don't know whether anybody saw the plans before it was done or whether it was just done.
All sorts of options.
That's the biggest change of anything that's been made in this.
The west side of there, over the window, opening that up.
So the idea is beautiful.
The things that are nice are over here.
This place now has some grace.
I just wanted to say that.
There's one weakness here.
We don't have the kind of waiting room for people, for captain officers and all that kind of stuff.
Now, you understand, if you remark about the bad things over here and here, you can't have a captain officer sitting out there with nothing.
That's what I mean.
Because others may come in to see other people.
I brought him home and he didn't raise the question.
I said, I keep walking in from outside
The commons did not give them a hall when I was about two or three months old.
They tell them sometimes in the cabin room, which is the bandit cabin.
It's the cabin room where the rest of them are.
They don't have either, and they do use this hall, which actually, it isn't so bad because there isn't much traffic there, and it's all lean.
What there is is inside.
I think the person sitting in the waiting room should go walk.
There's no way we can handle reception.
I'd like for you to look at it where another person can wait.
The captain room is just too overall, I guess, in the paper.
He's going to sit at the end of the cabin and wait.
It might not be that.
It's the thing that I have in mind.
I think it should be a room where somebody can sit by himself.
They don't do anything for me.
I wonder maybe if we just, if that is possible.
You really come down on Halloween that day?
So the boys have two girls out in front of the office.
Excuse me, I was having a look.
I have a look.
What is it?
We want to see the east side of the area where you can get in.
Well, you know, I'm just wondering if you need those.
One thing we would love to do, and I think it still could, is put one girl out in that hall where nothing was waiting, which is a pretty good place for a doctor.
Since you cover St. Gavin Road and coming into your office, it gives you sort of outside receptionist to your office, and then comes, then you set this up.
So basically, you see, they come in both ways.
Yeah, sometimes this way, sometimes this way.
It probably is better for them to come in and sit down.
But they don't, sometimes they don't have the person for the rest of the night.
They've all come in and played.
That's the way they should have been.
But I wonder if you can make that the intersection for this one to come in.
And he sits there and waits.
And Steve can still, where's he sit?
He's got a little cuddly little inner office in there.
Assembly of cubbyholes again, not like it was before.
Cubbyhole.
Uh, do you mind, if you'll check it, to remove cubbyholes, sir?
I know.
Well, for the moment, he'll be in the cubbyhole box in the base.
Where does he go now?
They go to Roosevelt.
Well, not really.
Not anybody like that.
Thank you for telling me, but why do we have to ask?
Why don't we hit the table on the real stuff?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's happening somewhere else.
It's the meetings all during the day, isn't it?
Yeah.
Well, let me...
I see what you're asking.
I don't see...
There is no way to get out.
There could be a way, so that, uh...
The people has always thought of being in the cabin, and they, uh...
It's a country room that would be much better done, so... And the lounge.
Although it's too big for a collective of two or three people.
There's some kind of...
That one chipped me.
It's too big.
Thanks for the reception.
Put a nice desk in there.
Or a smaller table.
It's a real market.
You know, you look back at it, it's not as exact.
I don't know if it made roads at all.
So they come in and do that.
I mean, what I mean is, it's the big rule that it is not objection, basically.
It can't be a big rule.
So they sit there and act on it, and they wait.
But yes, because you can, if I, the way that you're acting, that's very important.
You said first you were still on, uh, on having meetings there.
I see you're talking to people who are, you're using the meetings on your own.
And I think it is pretty heavily used.
There seems to be needs in there most of the time.
And we don't use the canopy.
We're using that one.
I had it originally set out to use the canopy.
I kind of did.
It's wasted space, but it seems to me there should be some wasted space in here.
Okay.
They should be in here for a time.
Just some rooms that ought to have a little different aura.
That should have a different aura.
People ought to be walking in there by about the end of the day.
That's why I don't quite like people to sit in there and wait.
The Capitol should be the President's conference room.
It should be for the purpose of...
when we're so large.
If you didn't burn France Baker out the way, I guess there's no other room.
It's a road zone.
It's used so much.
But why, why do these, why do the girls, I guess to be devil's advocate, why not rent this stuff out here and rent this here?
See,
Instead of any, uh... You need some control and access.
I just think you should sit down.
It is.
That went, worked very well.
And I mean, that's a sensational road to set, you know.
Because that's a lovely view.
Yeah.
You took the next stop at, uh, at, uh, Nasty Branch, you know.
That'd be a not very great place to put the girls.
Those girls were, they were, they were in schedules.
Schedules weren't out there.
And how do you get Steve, uh, to just sit there and just, uh,
If you hit that, we might cut into this hall.
I have a lot of girls in that hall.
Put a hole in that one and put a blind in that hall out there to upset the camera from that side.
All right, it's a little out there to keep it.
All right.
Go out this way, Steve.
I don't know what you're doing.
I see you now.
Just walk that around, Steve.
You're going to have to put it in your ear, but it's going to be fine.