Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 638-008
Date: Wednesday, December 15, 1971 at 11:55 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/638-008

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[3:04:17] No, I'll have to do them at the end.
[3:04:22] Sure, I'll take time before I have to prepare for this meeting.
[3:06:40] There's the sports on it.
[3:06:43] The color started to be.
[3:07:03] If you were on, you could understand this.
[3:07:08] You know, he's a sports fan.
[3:07:10] Sure.
[3:07:10] What I meant is he could talk to somebody about the turning point of the Redskins season.
[3:07:17] They all say that privately, you know what I mean?
[3:07:20] But you think it's a nice story?
[3:07:21] Yeah.
[3:07:22] After this thing, the turning point of the Redskins season.
[3:07:26] And the idea that maybe that one of the guys should have that game ball or something like that.
[3:07:32] I said, I don't want it.
[3:07:34] I just think it's not good.
[3:07:36] Who could you give that to, Bob?
[3:07:39] Or maybe he's the best one to do it.
[3:07:45] Ron is going to put this together.
[3:07:47] He can do it, but he's not going to put the time.
[3:07:50] Let me play a little bit.
[3:07:51] I'm happy to talk to him.
[3:07:52] Yeah, I'm too sorry.
[3:07:55] I think it's better he probably get more on it, because Scali and Runner are working awful hard on this other story.
[3:08:03] Marge, at a turning point in the season, Marge talked to Nick, to Alan.
[3:08:11] Nick is an ideal man to write.
[3:08:12] It is really a dramatic story, what that team has done.
[3:08:23] They're split out.
[3:08:24] It's the greatest excuse to coach a team without questions.
[3:08:27] It really is.
[3:08:29] To beat the ranch, they're a good team.
[3:08:32] They've got more, frankly, they've got more horsepower than the Redskins.
[3:08:38] They've got more shot.
[3:08:39] It's your story and you're fired up.
[3:08:41] What you can do is get done.
[3:08:46] I talked to Rogers about this meeting.
[3:08:48] He said, fine, you should do it.
[3:08:51] He completely agreed you shouldn't have foreign affairs and keep it separate.
[3:08:56] He did say, if you had the chance, that it would be good for you to make the point, even to this group, Congressman,
[3:09:03] economic wasn't the only thing that was covered.
[3:09:05] We had already a successful meeting with Pompidou and the other advisors on the whole range of those relationships back and forth and all.
[3:09:18] I said you had been pushing the guys this morning on exactly that point.
[3:09:21] I didn't say Henry had, but Henry did make that point on the plane yesterday.
[3:09:27] And they are working.
[3:09:29] It's inevitable.
[3:09:30] The hard story out of it is the money.
[3:09:33] So that's what's going to override it.
[3:09:42] But he's got that.
[3:09:49] And he's a leader.
[3:09:50] And Sam will come.
[3:09:56] It's a good thought, if I hadn't been there to tell them about the mission.
[3:10:07] I'm sure you wouldn't have been.
[3:10:10] People could have realized, look, that kind of meeting was a very, a very tiring meeting, and it's no true in the heart of the city.
[3:10:17] But I reason to get prepared for the Chinese side, and there's some way we could...
[3:10:23] maybe take a little more time, progressively getting out to the damn place.
[3:10:28] I'm sure we need a day in California, that's for one thing, even though it'll pop down.
[3:10:35] The goddamn Crest could go another way anyway.
[3:10:37] They don't have to fly tandem with us.
[3:10:41] Where else would we stay other than Hawaii?
[3:10:43] Hawaii, you see, isn't much of a break either.
[3:10:48] But what looks like the best time, what we're going to recommend,
[3:10:51] is to go on Wednesday to California.
[3:10:56] Spend Wednesday night there, and all day Thursday and Thursday night.
[3:11:00] So you get two nights in California.
[3:11:02] That's only three hours, otherwise.
[3:11:06] Well, if you keep that three hours, then you go on Wednesday.
[3:11:11] Could I suggest that maybe the better thing is to fly to Hawaii and do it there for two days?
[3:11:16] All right.
[3:11:17] I'll tell you why.
[3:11:18] Then you've got six hours.
[3:11:20] That's right.
[3:11:20] On the way.
[3:11:22] The only reason for California is it's an easier place for you to relax.
[3:11:26] But if we could get, I won't relax a whole lot.
[3:11:30] I mean, being left alone really is the point.
[3:11:32] No, but if we got to Hawaii and used the rock-collar house, you know, that I, and I won't do any swimming or anything.
[3:11:40] I can drive to the beach if I want to take a swim.
[3:11:44] The other thing that was sort of a factor, I don't think it's terribly important, is we could have a bigger send-out kind of a thing from California.
[3:11:52] Which had some sort of appeal.
[3:11:56] Hawaii you won't get, you just don't get much of a crowd thing.
[3:12:01] I got moved twice then.
[3:12:02] I got spent a night in California.
[3:12:08] Then a night in Hawaii.
[3:12:13] And then what we had was two nights in Guam.
[3:12:16] Because that's your...
[3:12:19] And you have that nice, that's a good house there.
[3:12:22] If I stayed there?
[3:12:23] Yeah, the Nimitz house.
[3:12:26] That's where I stayed before.
[3:12:27] It's not a bad place, not a bad place.
[3:12:30] It's also not bad symbolism.
[3:12:32] That's right.
[3:12:33] The wild doctor came from there.
[3:12:39] That's right.
[3:12:39] Okay.
[3:12:40] I wonder, you know, if...
[3:12:43] I don't know, California then maybe is a better partner.
[3:12:47] Still the Hawaii partners.
[3:12:50] Spend the night in California.
[3:12:51] Then fly to Guam.
[3:12:52] Then fly to Guam.
[3:12:53] Then fly to Guam on how long the flight will take.
[3:12:56] Longer.
[3:12:59] It's a long flight.
[3:13:00] And then sparkies for Hawaii may be being better.
[3:13:03] As a matter of fact, we, I think, have to re-deal with weight.
[3:13:07] That, in a certain sense, is late.
[3:13:10] If we could do Hawaii, I don't think we'd worry about the scent of Hawaii.
[3:13:17] It's going to be all that difference.
[3:13:19] We'll have it here.
[3:13:20] We can have a scent out here.
[3:13:25] We can do a formal departure from here.
[3:13:29] That'll run, you know, we always think that doing it in California helps in California.
[3:13:33] And yes, we find everything we do in California gets a bigger ride.
[3:13:37] No, we get a bigger ride from here to here than in California.
[3:13:40] That's right.
[3:13:41] You just don't do it.
[3:13:41] That's right.
[3:13:42] How many times they're perverse on that.
[3:13:45] I think Hawaii is better, all right?
[3:13:48] I think we ought to do it.
[3:13:50] And that breaks the thing.
[3:13:51] Six hours.
[3:13:52] Spend two days in Hawaii.
[3:13:55] And then you also have the advantage of better weather there.
[3:13:59] You can get outside, get some sun.
[3:14:00] That's right.
[3:14:01] I hadn't thought of that.
[3:14:03] I'm trying Hawaii.
[3:14:04] And incidentally, you don't have to just think of the Hawaii color place on Hawaii.
[3:14:09] Maybe there's a better place.
[3:14:10] Maybe to go to the, you know, Maui is a place.
[3:14:12] Take the hotel, not take Mauna Mauna in.
[3:14:15] and take one of the private houses, if there's some private houses.
[3:14:17] I'll tell you at the end that you could, with a beach.
[3:14:20] Yeah, there's one private house with a beach.
[3:14:23] I think Maui has a greater deal to me rather than being in a rockfall place.
[3:14:29] You know, a rockfall place is off.
[3:14:31] It's not on the beach.
[3:14:33] That's right.
[3:14:33] If we could land in Maui, I don't want to be, I don't want to be in that goddamn hotel on a walk.
[3:14:40] Yeah, that's just, you just, you have a huge group of people there.
[3:14:43] Everybody's outside waiting to take your picture.
[3:14:45] Yeah, that's, that's a bad, it's no way to walk.
[3:14:47] It must be a private house.
[3:14:49] Okay, let's do it that way.
[3:14:51] Fly to, fly to, uh, fly directly from Washington to Hawaii.
[3:14:57] Spend a couple of days.
[3:14:58] Then fly along, right?