On December 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander P. Butterfield, unknown person(s), Charles W. Colson, John D. Ehrlichman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:22 pm to 1:45 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 638-013 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
I'd set a departure at 45.
I'd have to meet with the government.
Take a couple over here.
I'll have you deal with it.
Okay.
Please let me consult with the Minister of Sanctuaries on this.
Please let me just be so sure.
Mr. Hall.
I'll leave it to you, Mr. Hall.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
Who was it?
John Stevenson?
No.
Oh.
No.
Well, thank you.
Well, you remember, you told us to go ahead with the first action against the three networks.
And everybody wanted to do well.
Everybody wanted to do well.
There seems to be a good reason not to, for the time being now.
And what I'm certain is intelligence to the effect that it would be counterproductive in terms of the CBS's internal order.
Who has to be told what?
Well, I'll make those four.
Good.
At least temporarily.
I think we'll say it more or less.
Well, we just say that.
I have some internal problems.
I'm not going to file them.
Fair enough.
I think it will help strengthen the corporate forces.
Well, they're not very moderate, but they're better than me.
We have at least a 50-50 shot right now getting out of CBS.
My God, that's great.
Well, it's represented to me as better than 50-50, and if it's one chance of ten, I think it's worth taking, even if the probabilities are that low.
If we get him out, that just undercuts kind of that organized group
Now, they are reorganized.
Whether we get the land scalped in the process is really what we're after.
So we really want to stiffen the hand of management with the side of the house that has the pocketbook concerned and give them no excuse at this point to
We're given no weakening of this.
You fellows know what to do.
I'm back in total.
I've been delighted.
I haven't personally followed the news very much lately, but it's funny that your value added is getting to me.
Hell of a good play.
Seems to have gotten to have a well in the news magazines.
Very good.
Well, we're not going to do anything more with it for a little while.
Oh, no, just let it lie there on the bottom of the time bomb.
and let everybody squabble around, and let them cheat at it, and let them say that it's attached to the poor, and all that sort of thing.
But then, finally, we'll see what happens.
This is a very good travel.
It's in a lot of notice amongst missingness.
And politicians, I might add.
Well, that's what I meant.
Muskie has a crash effort going on inside his head, part of which that reported Nevins and Novak, but which I've had other intelligence properties.
Yes, sir.
And how's he going to deal with that?
He can't.
No, I just think he's in a real pickle right now.
That's right.
But I was able to talk to this Republican National Committee, and they're all turned on.
What's Republican National Committee?
Oh, they've got the friends of Richard Nixon in town, which is a group of 100 state legislators and more or less youngish guys from around the country.
These things are ready to go soon.
That's part of our speaking effort with you.
In other words, we're getting young people in, Republicans, to talk to the kids.
Great group.
Excellent group.
Well, pretty good.
They were on this.
I got a lot of questions around genre.
I know that you consider it to be virtually impossible, but I wish Neil and Connie and I could talk about this.
I just got to go to that SSG guy somewhere.
I don't know how he was doing, but there's got to be something in there now and then, but you can't have the French president do right anything on it.
That was the best thing that ever happened.
I told that issue to him.
And he was right.
He well read it right down our throats.
There is a, there is a counter-barricade as far as this word is concerned.
It's too small.
What's the counter-argument?
Do nothing.
No, no, I say there's a reaction.
that is concerned with the Congress killing and a lot of second-guessing going on.
I wonder if instead of putting it in the budget, I would like to see us try and generate some outside petitioning to you.
Let's let a group come to you and force that right.
Let's generate something where a group of Americans to keep America first in the air.
let's call it keep america first in the air and a part of my group comes in here and they buy some ads and put it to us and then let's send a special message in other words it doesn't the budget everything gets lost there anyway well you know it's a great idea it'll have a good effect and frankly the whole area the first year probably wouldn't be the first year but you realize so we we still own the research center we bought the uh
I just, but China's got to do it.
We've got to do it.
It's like space.
When the damn Russians put up that station, it was fun to have.
We were behind, but we caught them and passed them.
And then we passed the first election in 1969.
I don't think it's all that difficult.
I really don't think it is.
It always doesn't happen on the task force, but it can occur other times.
I really think you, yourself, just come out there and fall down.
But I think we can generate some kind of airplane or whatever.
What does Howard mean to Howard?
What does that mean?
He's a little bit of an up-and-around, but he's under instructions to take it easy.
He'll be two months before he'll be able to go back full-time to work.
He's out of the house.
He's out of the house.
Do you have an idea of that?
We did.
Yes, sir.
He's home.
Should I write him a note?
I would think, uh, I would think now that he's home.
Yeah.
I do.
Right at home.
Right at his home.
Christmas snow.
Christmas snow would be good.
I think, obviously.
Well, just that you would, you would have heard that he was now out of the hospital.
Yeah.
And you were glad to learn it.
Yeah.
And, uh, hopes you'll take it easy.
And never go back.
Yeah.
Stay home.
I want him back.
Oh, we want him back?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's one that he got along with.
John turned up a fascinating bit of intelligence.
Wayne Cricklin was, you know,
serious domestic crime.
And this is an equation.
He has to get into the water.
Well, but the interesting thing is that he's got a girl.
That's because he likes the girl that much.
He likes the girl better than the wife.
This has apparently got Meany very upset because he has to leave things in Kirkland's hands and he's lost some confidence in Kirkland.
Yeah, because Meany is a very moral man.
That's right.
Very moral.
You betcha.
And I appreciate that.
But the other side, the other point is that Meany
put his own race through Ann Lane Kirkland to pay the alimony for Kirkland's divorce.
Now, that's a hell of a deal.
So they play games.
They play games.
Incidentally, while it's too complicated to bother your heads with, I think we've said that a lot on our party, but we made a hell of a deal.
But we want to start limiting that hell of a deal.
Promoting that in terms of gas.
Well, I think it would be well if people around here started smiling a little inscrutely.
Yeah.
And we have our problems.
We can't gloat about it because if we do, it's what a jeopardized deal we want to make, which is even more important, in which the French deal had to be made first with the Germans and the Japs.
But the deal with the French was very good.
So you've got to have that talk.
It was good.
And of course, this was very good in the last three years.
It's a very good deal, and it does mean a huge amount of money.
It's a very good deal.
It's going to be a lot of money.
The whole reality of the currency is the creator of it.
I think it's silly enough that policy is paid off now in all three units.
I think it's young and different.
All three units.
I think it's interesting what's going on in the team.
Two people have shown this week that they've had a
Well, the retail sales for November and for the weekend in December 4th were up now 13%.
which is the current... We don't know about Christmas tree.
That's considered Christmas tree.
Yes, it is.
And they're going in this week.
By the way, they're being good, isn't it?
They're relevant to the others.
They haven't met.
No, it's...
It's been terribly cold.
It's killed the sails.
No, I think that...
It's not been cold in the Midwest.
All I know is it's mighty cold.
Isn't it cold here?
But they're doing a slight check of the eight largest chains this week.
We'll have that by tomorrow.
Well, I did quite a first.
It was like something else.
It was a jar.
It was a little sketchy.
I mean, when I picked up those 10 points, I thought this economy was doing better than it did.
Unemployment's a problem.
The economy's doing better than it did.
Well, and so on.
In the New York Times this morning, it's unemployed.
And he says this fiction about 4% unemployment being a norm was fine in the early 50s to the early 60s, but he says it doesn't apply anymore, and he told the reasons why.
And he said 4.9 to 5.5 is a much more realistic, normal level for unemployment for this country today.
And it's a very good case.
Thank you.
This crazy professor at Georgetown, who was always critical of our unemployment statistics, is still critical, but now he says we're overestimating unemployment because into the figures go all of the marginal people who don't really qualify.
He wrote a beautiful piece that some people want to watch him go.
His conclusion in this article, as opposed to what we've
He was answering a post editorial which criticized you for not doing enough for job creation.
He said, no administration has done more.
He said, this has been spectacular.
Absolutely spectacular.
We've got to get some material out to our people.
This came up over here at this national conference.
What are we going to do?
We're not getting enough into their hands.
Well, of course, they're... No, we...
This group is a new group.
They may not...
I don't believe...
You know, we've started a new technique.
We call it and read it.
We read it.
We say, now, do you want a copy?
And then they always say yes.
I don't know how else to put it.
They're picking up the line.
But yesterday, the vice president gave a real nut cutter on Musketeers.
He said, all this talk about going back to the 60s.
You want to go back to 6% unemployment throughout the 60s except for war and casualty?
Really?
And good question.
Would you really throw him up there?
So we're building it.
It's
It's getting across, I hope, a lot better than it was.
Somebody's using it every day.
The casualties of the 60s and the poor economic record of Kennedy's mercy.
That's the ball on H.R. 1.
What does it do?
You're going to get it.
No.
I saw that.
What does that mean?
It doesn't mean you're going to come here.
You're going to have to sign this up.
And once you do that, I don't think you're going to get anybody to vote for H.R.
1.
Isn't that a shame?
Well, the interesting thing is that... What does that have to do with Social Security?
I don't know.
Only the work requirements.
Only the work requirements.
I'll sign that in a minute.
What he did was lift all of our work requirements out of H.R.
1.
Well, he did it really well.
He did it really well.
It just looked through as an amendment.
And what it does, it throws all these 80 dependent children recipients into the WIN program, which is this work training plan.
So they all have to register, and they all have to take work training, and they all have to take jobs.
And it's heavy on state action.
Action costs us less than H.R.
1 does, but the states have to put in money.
And it's just not solidified at the service.
Well, you've had the reaction around here of a lot of people suggesting that you quickly veto it, otherwise you will undercut H.R.
1.
I veto this bill?
Actually, it gives us three months because the 60-day effect is what else?
The...
It's been a rather busy four or five days.
We've got a couple of fairly decent bills to sign.
He's got to cave in on that, though, he can't.
We can't keep 435 people at bay by the end of the quorum.
They'll go out.
I didn't see the rest of it.
It's great to have you.
Did you see the television?
You know, it's the Redskins have been a rather boring game in the playoffs because, you know, I like all great defensive teams.
But, my God, they were good.
They had an offense.
They were going to bomb her and pass her down.
We were really on the edge of our seats all through that game because, you know, the Rams were threatening and they seemed to be coming back.
But, you know, even when they were pressing the Redskins for good, because they come roaring back and now they're missing two field goals.
The Redskins were very, you know, they could have put the game on a reach.
Those field goals were all long enough just to go to the right.
Well, there was a bad call in there, you know.
There was a touchdown.
And then, oh, you got your life back to safety.
He was tackled behind the line.
He committed a violation, a rule violation.
But that's the point.
He was tacked.
That would have been tacked.
But if they tacked him over that, that should have been jailed.
He threw the ball away after he was tacked.
And he was standing at the end of his foot across the construction over.
So...
And we left points on the table all over the place.
I'll tell you, it was sort of an Alice in Wonderland sort of thing.
I didn't think that that album would come to this beat-up town.
And frankly, his letter got his visit.
So here you are, a man as good as God was.
But they just do it all through the year with inspiration.
Yeah, you agree.
Taking a little longer.
You've got Billy Kilmer.
You put him in there.
Roman Gabriel is probably the best quarterback.
He's got more, well, he's got more stuff.
Yeah.
And they have Jack Stone, who's a marvelous receiver.
Lance Redson.
And the major gold guys there, you know, Roy Jefferson's a real jackal.
Matt Neal's a real jackal.
Jefferson is probably a legitimate guy.
Larry Brown's a legitimate guy.
And as far as their defense is concerned, it's a couple of them.
Oh, yeah.
It's hard to get in.
It's good, but it's hard to get in.
I just, I currently think it's about, I mean, it's just got to be the coach.
Oh, he's a great man.
They ought to come back to our hall on this morning.
They ought to get me one of the game balls.
Because the turning point of their season.
Yeah, that's right.
They were down.
They were down.
The fans had moved them, and they were really good.
Yeah, they had moved and everything.
They should give you that game book.
He said, I hope that all of you, you know, everybody in such a precious Christmas night, particularly the girls, it's sad for us to give them time.
We're shocked, you know, and everything will be, everything will be.
The news, no, I mean the news are beating very hard, particularly when news comes up on us, you know, on him and people on me.
I mean, if you're a forester, don't worry about who's disappointed.
If people don't relax a little, let the country relax a little.
The country needs to relax.
I'm telling you the stuff we've got 20 minutes.
I didn't make nothing sad.
I could be for like some of these departments.
I'm getting terrified.
I'm putting the heat on each of these agents.
It's great.
It's great to keep them in bed.
I mean, they can sometimes try to let the violence rest, but it's worth the work that it's on.
I've got a little memo in here on the work procedures that are made now in the state of the agent.
I've got to take it.
What do you want to do?
You're going to have to pick a date for your state of the union.
And then we're going to have to see how that goes along.
This is just an objective request.
I actually want to put it out there.
We don't understand what you're talking about.
You're talking about this one.
Is this everything?
I don't think so, too.
Well, we've got a fairly decent schedule.
That's just, you know, the receiver, the stopper, and the rear wheels.
I said, Mark, it's true that he had a design, especially, it's probably one of the priceless things that I'm going to get to see.
I'll get to see it.
I'll get to see it.
The TV that we had coming over the holidays, his ex-husband was present.
Don't be deaf.
Don't be deaf, son.
He was just as good as he was when he was here.
When the mattress was here, he said, hey, come out for a ride.
And Julie got told by the boys who were looking at him, he was just as good.
And the day of life of the person he was talking about.
That's all he is.
Well, that's the way to think.
That's a good tone during holidays.
The name of Julie, though, was I like because of the tree and everything.
And they died, right?
I don't know whether the crew was much, but they seemed to be very smart.
Well, I told those who were watching, and I wrote to the tape, I don't know who said it, gave my first one.
Your Christmas message was going to be put in.
in bold as the ending is also going to be released through CBS.
We'll get a very good look at it.
Be sure to get your stamps off of them.
Don't leave it on there.
They need time, particularly now.
The most surprising was that you bought the rest of the demo shop.
That was the first game.
I won't tell you, though.