Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 627-001
Date: Wednesday, December 1, 1971 at 9:15 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Butterfield, Alexander P.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/627-001

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:59] He's got to work over plans.
[1:25] All that.
[1:26] Now you go down there.
[1:27] And you gotta come out for Christmas, I guess.
[1:30] And go right back down.
[1:32] Go down.
[1:33] It's my work.
[1:33] I need to look around.
[1:35] Stay.
[1:35] Go around.
[1:36] So you leave.
[1:38] I don't think it worries me that bad.
[1:39] I just...
[1:40] I don't think you can spend that much... You make yourself stay that long in Florida.
[1:45] I need to...
[1:52] If you'll slip into the back, it'll work fine.
[1:55] And you can take some breaks there.
[1:56] Like, at that time, there's no problem.
[1:58] Like, if you go back down to the 26th, you can go right out to the island if you wanted to.
[2:04] Sure.
[2:04] Come back the morning of the 28th for the run meeting, the night of the 27th.
[2:08] Like, go to the island.
[2:10] Or right after the run meeting, you can go out there.
[2:14] Stay out for a couple of days.
[2:16] Well, I kind of...
[2:17] You can see we're trying to work this out so that it's somewhat of a period of application of what you need to do.
[2:23] And I'm going to try to get rid of the button down there.
[2:25] I'm going to stick to the union thing because I don't know.
[2:42] We will come up here for New Year's Day.
[2:46] Pat, you don't know where the department is.
[2:48] No, I don't.
[2:49] I talked to them today and shared that together.
[2:52] But at any rate, I want to see you gain strongly.
[2:55] So, I'll stay here.
[3:18] Stay true tonight.
[3:18] Henry wants to stay out there and work, and work, and work.
[3:26] He's fine.
[3:27] You go to him and say, I'll play it.
[3:31] Now, in that period, you go out, what's on the second, do you think?
[3:36] Yes, you might as well.
[3:38] In that period, we ought to do our telephone person, perhaps.
[3:41] You're welcome to do that.
[3:55] Peace out.
[4:07] I've got to find a way after that truck here.
[4:10] Back into the... That might be the time to do the three-on-one interview.
[4:37] I understand it's on the 9th.
[4:39] It's your birthday all of a sudden.
[4:51] Yeah.
[4:52] That would be my account.
[5:05] I never thought I'd get back here.
[5:10] If you haven't had Thursday and Friday, you'll probably have to come back here on Saturday.
[5:17] Maybe not.
[5:18] Depends what time of day Tom gets back.
[5:20] I think we can come back Friday, because I thought it would be true.
[5:30] Yeah.
[5:31] If you want to, do you want to come back Friday?
[5:37] What do you do here?
[5:37] You can make sure I stand up here.
[5:54] There's a lot of things on Monday and Thursday.
[5:56] It's back to the end of the day.
[5:57] Sure.
[6:01] That will depend on whether you call a special session and all kinds of things like that.
[6:05] Yes.
[6:12] I am afraid this is going to be a special session problem.
[6:19] They cannot roll on this.
[6:20] I suggested to Henry to put the 21st for the Italian meeting, which would then, if for some reason Congress came back a week later, you could still have Thursday for your State of the Union, the 20th.
[6:35] And I have to tell you, I'm getting away, but I also suggested that he, and he was going to talk about it, is to make it clear to them that we have a congressional problem, and we may have to change the date.
[6:45] We'll set a tentative date now, but it would have to be somewhat dependent on what our Congress said.
[6:51] I told him that by the end of the day, there would be no more exceptions.
[6:57] I told him I don't care who he is.
[7:04] No more visits.
[7:11] No more recruitment.
[7:12] Yes.
[7:12] Well, you should be.
[7:13] It looks like the same orderly, well-conceived process, the way it's going.
[7:16] No more.
[7:17] I don't want to know.
[7:20] He also was going to wait two weeks on the entire time.
[7:22] I suggested that we ought to announce it this week.
[7:24] Absolutely.
[7:25] So that it looks like it's part of the pack, rather than something that's screwed up.
[7:29] Sure.
[7:31] And just do the writing cycle and then finish them off in the barber.
[7:34] But I had to do everything from Mexico to Argentina, just Barbados.
[7:37] Mexico's tied into the Latin American thing.
[7:41] We have a foreign minister's meeting at some point.
[7:44] Whatever Rutledge does, I'm not going.
[7:49] If I would be here, you'd have to do something for me.
[7:52] What I've had is that I don't want any more visitors, visitors of any kind, no Africans, no Europeans, no Mexicans, no non-Africans.
[8:00] Here's what I'm going to have.
[8:07] You've got one after that native secretary, but that's just an office appointment.
[8:14] I understand that kind of thing.
[8:17] I'm just saying I'm not going to have any business with the mayor.
[8:23] Oh, crap.
[8:23] And also, the mayor's secretary has to be at a very, very eventful.
[8:27] Right.
[8:27] It's just going to want to get a courtesy.
[8:29] Right.
[8:30] He, you know, I'll give him some time.
[8:32] I don't want to have the ambassador for this, or a secretary for that.
[8:36] Just all the political managers are natural crap that should be knocked off too, you know.
[8:40] You just thought, hey, you're going to work out that scheme, aren't you?
[8:44] No, he changed back on that and said, believe me, I want to go back to China.
[8:51] You shifted it back to this family, because he didn't have to talk to them, and we were going to leave it on on that basis.
[9:00] Listen, I've never seen it.
[9:10] But I can't see much more of it.
[9:17] From then on, it's... From then on, Bob, you've got to go to the schools.
[9:24] February is wiped out.
[9:25] February is wiped out for China.
[9:45] Then you have March and April to do the capitalizing on China, which would be stuff we do on our own initiative, like schools or whatever.
[9:55] Then May is wiped out for Russian preparation.
[10:03] We got ourselves basically clear, right?
[10:08] On March and April we can get your service buddies
[10:15] Gathering one evening in there.
[10:18] Yeah, man.
[10:19] I'm reminded of the other show that was on at the moment.
[10:24] After Russia.
[10:24] You want to show it at the law school after Russia and do the other one you said before Russia?
[10:28] Well, yeah.
[10:29] You should wait and see.
[10:29] You've got a couple months in there.
[10:31] It's not a bad time to do it.
[10:31] And you don't want both of them right together.
[10:33] Right.
[10:55] It's hard for me to get outside the first place.