Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on William Rehnquist and Supreme Court

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Oh, my God.

Did you give the vote count?

There were many people.

Yeah.

There were only 41 votes.

There were only that many.

Hello?

Yeah.

68 to 26.

Incidentally, I just had some other votes where they had them.

I gave them down in case you were asking me to say that.

Brandeis was 47 to 22.

So this is about the same magnitude.

And Chief Justice Hughes, this is a surprise to me, 52 to 26.

So you probably remember that from your experience, but the Hughes one was just 2-1.

What was it, 68-6?

Well, yeah.

But that's it.

That's a great book, great book.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I was certainly glad you could come down on the text.

After all, you're the mother of that, if you want to call him that, of that, you and Charlie Chamberlain, remember we talked about it.

You fellas probably had to get in on that.

I'm sure we do things now and then.

You've got to ask John Connolly about this, too, you know, Mike.

He's a fighter.

Good.

All right, thank you.

If you think it's a good university, it's the same no-vote.

Could you get me Mr. Randquist, please?

Yeah, not in there.

I said, well, won't they try it next year?

He said, he doesn't think they can.

He says that, sir, they may try it.

He says, but some of the Democrats have spoken out already and said it wouldn't be right just applying in front of everybody.

Well, you must feel like Chief Justice Hughes, he had 26 voting against him, too.

52-26.

I just got it in front of me so you could go out and say, well, I'm Hughes, I had 26 against, but you had 68-4.

Yeah.

There's only one thing, though, I just stand here with a view you're not an agent before, because I just talked to John Connolly, and he showed me an article by Joe Kraft endorsing you, and I said, I've made a mistake.

Yeah.

Well, this is a great thing for him to be such a young man to go on the court.

He's making a great record that, you know, the very fact is going in.

I want to give you one last bit of advice in the Division of the Independent, actually, and that is don't let the fact that you were on the team change any of your views.

I told the boss, I said, no, he didn't get much.

I said, yes, I'll come down here.

That's the way I put it to him.

And let the Washington social set change.

So just be as mean and rough as you said you were, OK?

I don't know what they believe.

I don't like people that become practically quite social.

Yeah, yeah.

And, uh, they're, uh, can go broad about the majesty of their own office.

What happens is, they read the Washington Post, and then they think, gee, maybe I can get a good editorial in the Washington Post.

Or maybe I'll be wholeheartedly better, or the news magazines will put me on the cover as the most courageous man or something.

That's going to be a lot of pressure on you now, that the rise above his principles has become...

Tom put him past some of the vegetables and crab to the red carpet for exactly that reason.

Then come back on it.

Knowing he was going to be confirmed anyway.

We should know.

The market squeezed up a little bit today.

A hundred.

And 460 on the 17th afternoon.

You know, it's an interesting thing.

Everybody was saying this didn't tax bill through.

The market would go up.

The tax bill went through last night.

And it blew.

What is it now?

856.75.

Let it hang there a while.

We've got a deal with the French.

We're just wondering, John, the economy winds it up this next week.

That seems to be the thing that's hanging on the market more than the tax thing.

I think they've already figured we're going to make the deal.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I think we'll actually cut the 50.2% of that.

out of the, really out of the market, the market's gonna start reflecting.

There's a general feeling among businessmen, I think it's general, that things are better.

They bitch about the price board and this and that and the other thing and pay more in price commission.

But basically, business is better.

And the virtue of all people is that he reports direction to reflection.

The columnist says he hears Jesus and they hear him on all sides.

Everything, everything that's being written is that way.

You know, you've got the good guys and the bad guys.

Three months ago, a month ago, you remember everything going to hell and what's going on.

And they all say it's not booming, you know, that it's a slow upturn.

Well, that's not bad.

As long as they say upturn, you get people in an upturned psychology, it's better.

Come forth a condom and steal your bond with the pastor.

Oh, it's been...

Don't get the unemployment down.

You probably shouldn't worry about it.

So it's down some next year.

That was the other thing.

You know, Harvey was saying that, well, you shouldn't worry about the unemployment.

That if you get the automobile, he said, he was just ecstatic, of course, about the tax thing.

He said, with that stuff, he said, I will guarantee that you'll have a 10 million car a year next year.

And if you have a 10 million car a year next year,

But the fringe effect of that, you know, what moves out of that, you just can't help but get your underglow into pretty good shape, because that's just one area.

But other things will bloom at the same time along with it.

So all this stuff, well, that's what they all said.

It takes a little time to do it.

He says, we have a cook that's really...

I don't think so either.

We've had Henry Ford down in here.

We've done the social things for him, for his wife, for jewelry.

We had him for a small dinner and so forth.

What he'll do is he'll give you $50,000 and he'll give the Democrats $50,000.

But the wing is the wing, John.

But Nyako, he says, is all right.

Yeah, Nyako, of course, is a hell of a dynamic spokesperson.

He's a gutsy guy.

Bad luck.

And he's battling very, very strong.

Good, good.

That's very good.

He likes you.

He likes Nixon.

He likes the game you're playing and all that.

And that's good, because he's the kind of guy that projects with his enthusiasm and his sort of policy approach.

He can affect other people.

And he does a lot of talking with press conferences.

I hate to tell you, but now you've got the Congress pretty well wrapped up and your war wrapped up, but you've got a weather problem in Kivas County next to it now.

Oh, there is one.

Well, they don't know, of course, but they say there's a pasta...

Probably northeasterly on the, uh, on those three days.

15, 16, 17.

Well, I might still do it.

What I meant is that that's, again, it's only a probably.

The rest of the time, right on through January 5th, it's good.

That's the only northeasterly they expect.

You see, the rest of the time there's only a 15% probability.

That would be near the end of the period.

California isn't good for January.

It's partly cloudy, breezy, and chilly.

Maximum 63 to 68, and then 42 to 47.

It's cold weather.

And they do expect a northeasterly there for five days in the latter part of December.

And that's good there.

It's a northeasterly there.

It gives you clear skies and 15 degrees higher temperature.

It's the Santa Ana type.

Well, my feeling is that I don't know any place else to go.

You're better off there, too, and it's not .

So you get to the northeast of it.

I mean, you've got some rain.

Now, the temperature is 70 to 75, and 75 to 80.

Nevertheless, plus if they're running still, the one that is in the northeastern Florida is a son of a bitch.

Water's got to the water 68, 70.

But the other hand,

I'll be better off to be in Florida than I will to be here.

Well, that's my thing, too.

Does it really get good or what?

It's just not the end.

I think it will be good.

And it's better to be there than in the pandemic.

I think it will be good, frankly, for the sad part of me.

It gets what I am sad about by the Christmas shopping.

I mean, there's a lot of damn things that could be done.

It'll be the chance for the, I mean, I won't have a pressure to the cattle.

to see us then.

That's the advantage is when you're down there, you really, it is easier to turn around.

Even easier than Camp David, that's right.

And it's hard to go to Camp David on that week.

If I can go there, if I can be there, well, let me tell you, if I don't go to Florida, I'm going to go to Camp David.

Florida's better for me.

And you've got the chance of good weather there.

Here, you've got no chance of good weather.

You know, come to think of it, one thing I could consider in California, really could consider, I didn't want to ask for it.

He's going to be there.

He is?

I rejected him.

He's going to be there January 5th, today.

Oh, I'll forget it.

Then I'd better go right back to Florida.

I'd be much better off.

Don't you agree?

Yeah, I checked, because I thought about it.

There's a possibility that we're alone.

It might work out pretty well to go to Connors County.

Yeah.

But Annenberg's there.

But wouldn't Florida be better than California right at that time?

Ever since January, I think so.

Oh, sure.

Here's another question.

The only argument to the other is if you get tired of Florida, and because you have to go to California anyway, then it may be easier to go to the state for four days instead of just two or three.

You mind?

If I go to California, I'll have me go out there.

That'll be good.

And we might have a summit if anything about California does provide some opportunities.

Click off.

And that period could be good, because they're expecting that northeastern to be somewhere in there.

They get it.

Then you get that.

And that's the best weather they have.

Last week, they had one.

And they're saying it's just spectacular.

Everything is crystal clear.

The good weather in December and January is the best weather they've got.

But if it's windy and foggy, then it's .

They found some other close votes.

Justice Clicker was 26 and 23 in 1857.

Justice Matthews in 81 was 24 and 23.

And Justice Lamar in 87 was 32 and 28.

That's good to have the staff do this.

It's just a big deal to work on that sort of thing.

That's good to hear, Mr. President.

I'm glad you're here.

I checked the bill on the start of the panel, and I passed on the question.

It was not jokes at all.

What it was was a Timmons-Passman thing, where Passman called Timmons about adding the Peace Corps.

He said he wanted a presidential letter supporting the committee bill, not just redrawing the Peace Corps, but the whole committee bill as it came out.

Timmons

checked with the NSC and, you know, around here, and they said, no, that you can't give them a presidential letter supporting the committee bill because it's too low on the other things.

The Peace Corps cut is great, and Timmons told them that, but the other cuts weren't.

Haslam didn't like the letter that he got.

They wrote him, finally, a letter, it was her nanny-panny letter on the foreign aid thing.

He didn't like that, so he didn't use it.

And then he jumped on Timmons, saying, you know,

This wasn't what he asked for.

And now he can't do anything on the Peace Corps cuts because it's a good question anyway that Bill failed.

Bill's dead.

So Timmons is going to go back on it, though.

He understands the exercise.

He knew we were trying to ask him to cut the Peace Corps, and he was all for it.

Now Blatchford screwed with something, because Blatchford got up to the hill and found out that Timmons was maneuvering

Passman.

Because Passman went out and told the liberal Republicans that he was going to have a letter present on these cuts, including the Peace Corps cut, and all the others.

And then they told Blaschke and his troops who were out there hustling around.

So Blaschke called Timmons and raised hell.

All the stuff, and it's like, all right.

It wasn't George.

Bill said he wasn't involved at all.

It was Bill who was running on the hill, and he knew what he was doing.

And I'll put one other thing in.

I want to hear from George and Kevin to find a way to help them through that scene.

so that we're, so that we ask for a substantially less amount for aid in India.

I don't want to get caught on this, you understand.

I just want to know in the next budget, I want to know how we, I want to take a look at that.

I don't want, I don't want, I don't want to approve now

Now, don't get it out through the bureaucracy.

I don't want any story to leave.

Oh, John O'Connell here threw me a bullet, you know about that.

Yes, very, of course, about heroin.

There's one man who says, yeah.

And he says, they are in the D now.

We know a lot more than any other country.

Well, the D does.

The D helps the network.

No question.

It helps the network.

No question.

Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on William Rehnquist and Supreme Court

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 10, 1971

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