On December 22, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:16 pm to 1:50 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 640-011 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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'm Paul Anderson, director of the Institute of Science at New Germany.
Here is the annual club seat.
Thank you.
make sure we come out as best we can we've got a good case on because in that you you give him clemency with the understanding he cannot hold office
or be a member of any labor union or be involved in affairs of any labor union.
That's right.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's great.
Well, let's see what conditions.
Well, that's good.
That upon the condition that the subject not engage in direct or indirect management of any labor organization prior to March 6, 1980, which is when his sentence would normally have expired.
And if the aforesaid condition is not fulfilled, this commutation will be null and void in its entirety.
That's awesome.
And that's awesome, really, because that relationship, actually, we've handled, he's covered, because if he did nothing, he gets a mandatory release in 1975, and he'd be out, and he'd go back into the union, do anything he wanted.
So he put five years more restriction on him than he would have had under the law.
And his wife is still very ill.
So we play the personal thing of there's no useful purpose to society to keep him locked up anymore.
His wife is ill.
There's no social benefit.
He is precluded by the terms of the clemency from participating in the unions and allows him to come home and be with his wife.
See, she was so ill that the jail let him out.
Lewisburg prison warden let him out for two weeks to go home to be with his wife.
He said, how is she going to die?
earlier this year, and then she didn't.
But she's still very ill.
So they're going to put on the illness and the five-year and the condition.
And that will come out pretty well.
But we won't take anything and jump all over it.
It's a terrible thing.
That's it.
Mitchell came up with an interesting thing.
He said that Pete Klanning was fond of him and very much wants the Packard-spotted defense.
Mitchell says he might not want to brush this out too much.
I think he'd be wrong.
But he has to be confirmed.
Well, that was my first question to Mitchell.
He said he talked to Pete about that and
His biggest problem would have been Tidings was gone.
Tidings was the guy that was not together.
He's done well in his rounds this year with the Congress.
Because his major projects here are about done.
Sort of riding herd on the day-to-day items and hand-holding with business.
And as Mitchell says, we can do better on the hand-holding with business than Pete.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Probably a good signal to the conservatives, who are very concerned about who you put into defense.
He'd be very tough.
He'd be your man, which would be nice to have over there.
He'd be your man more than Packard was.
Because Packard had his independence.
Personal views.
Sorry to have made you talk to Henry, brother.
I was just talking to John.
Yeah.
Damn, you know, I'm intrigued with this whole situation.
This week.
It's just unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
I think, I bet you there's something there in the person's life.
There's something there in the person's life.
Christ, of course, is what it is.
It's this, uh, this, uh,
I hate to let him out.
You really ought to put him in jail.
He knows he's my child.
Catch him.
I mean, you've reserved that right, so you can put him in jail later someday.
Yeah, I might go there.
You can get him seen to be someplace where he can.
A little more ground.
There's another one.
Did Arthur get into the appointment and stuff?
That was the other thing Mitchell was concerned about because he had talked to them and stuff.
Let's go here.
Taught him a lesson.
He promised to job the other guy.
He didn't have a shirt on.
He kept it all out.
He told me.
He told me.
It's like a procedure you can do for hours.
There was always, we saw that we would never put anybody in that was struggling, that was unacceptable to him.
But we had to have a number of names that were put into consideration.
I would add, one thing that came out, he said that what concerned him was that Johnson was his first choice.
She and his third.
And he didn't like to have a situation where it caught him.
had done his first verse, and I was Archer's third.
I said, oh, you're wrong, Archer.
It's a copy.
Give a damn about Shandy Nelson and the following.
He said he was Archer's third.
You know what I mean?
They're all thinking through the crisis.
Yeah.
It's all right.
It's just too well to keep you worried.
You all seem to be happy with what you're doing.
They all seem to be happy with what you're doing.
I don't know why, but you think what happens is that they read the papers and believe some suspension columnists when they've all been against us.
Maybe I'll turn it the other way.
I think that's it to a degree.
It's greatly affecting my doing things that are popular.
Anyway, it's done.
It's sure done.
He's in Florida.
He won't be back until Saturday.
I'll be glad to see him there.
I know him well.
I like him.
I want to see him alone.
Gallup poll for the end of the year is still 49.
49, 37, 14, which is exactly what it was at the end of October, 1st of November.
That's probably correct.
Do you think so?
I don't know.
I think we're a little better than that.
What the hell?
We may not be.
They have some sort of interesting comments.
They say the most remarkable aspect of the president's popularity trend line this year has been his stability.
Makes him score...
except for two brief periods, is fluctuated by no more than a percentage point or two, although some changes occurred in a strong versus not so strong.
Started at 56, slipped to 51 in February, following clouds.
Substance surveys hovered around the 50% mark, except for one period in October when the popularity increased from 49 to 54, and then went right back down to 49.
Major events and developments during the year, such as the Pentagon Papers, presidential plans to visit China and other nations, Nixon's economic program appeared to have had very little positive or negative effect on the President's approval rate.
While President Nixon has not registered any sharp gains in popularity following investment in new programs and policies, he has apparently been successful in counteracting the general downtrend in ratings which occurs during the President's term in office.
The Gallup survey has shown that the general presence popularity trends downward, with the lowest point registered within a year of the end of this term.
Well, 49 is about seven points lower than the last year at this time.
And yet, if you were to ask anybody in the present time, they'd say you're better off.
Everybody says it, you know?
I remember last year after the election, it turned 57, but it was not.
It was 56.
Cal showed up 56 at the end of the year.
I said, yeah.
But low last year was 52.
It was back down some.
It was 59.
It was 59 in October, you know, after that piece of thing.
And 57 right after the election.
And 56 at the end of the year.
So we're 67 points lower in government.
And nobody, if you asked anybody, is Nixon higher or lower now than he was a year ago, they'd say higher.
If you said two years ago, they'd say higher than that, too.
Even though then you were 68.
Well, it's only been a little while, I think.
Well, yeah.
It dropped down to 61, you know.
What is the situation?
What do you think it is?
Maybe it's just the fact that we're bucking the usual trend of a president going down and holding her own, which is something.
On the other hand...
Could it be that our support among the more intelligent people is stronger?
I would hope that's the case.
That's what one of our own folks showed me.
What's your guess?
There's a factor.
And we keep saying, in that hole, and it's, boy, it's heaven through everything, including that rotor.
Seriously, I've spent quite a little time on that rotor thing.
Yeah, kind of grinding it through.
I've dictated a lot of stuff to that now.
I'll go back and try and figure out as a result of it.
But there's a thing where people are not, it's that broker pole thing.
Things are not on the right track.
People don't think they are.
And I think the longer you're president, the more they blame you for whatever is right or wrong.
In other words, when you pushed them into office, everybody thought things were in terrible shape, but they didn't blame you for them.
And you're the new man coming in to straighten it out.
Now you're this.
Everything is on you now.
We can talk all day long about it.
You've been here three years, and whatever...
The point is that we've got to start getting across this year that things are better.
They're better in the economy, they're better in the war, they're better in the world peace situation, and they're better in the finances.
Talking to all our guys and trying to evolve themes and all, it's interesting.
That's what comes out solidly, that what you've got to run against is 68, and how much better things are today.
Look at what they were when you came, and look at them today, and take it, identify that.
Where was the economy and where was it going?
Where was the war and where was it going?
Where was our relationship with our friends in the world?
Where was our relationship with our enemies in the world?
What's the situation in the cities with the races on the campuses in China?
Very good.
Brother Johnson, how is it?
While people are generally unhappy, you're in basically pretty good shape.
Not on a solid basis, but on a comparative basis.
They say in spite of the polls, there is an enormous reaction to China and the economic thing.
Those big moves have a very major effect on people, even though it doesn't show up in the approval polls.
I know in Gallup's case, Bob, that 49, et cetera, and so forth is a, that does show you that Gallup does tilt a little against this.
You know, the 49, what the Christ is, they make it 50 just as easy, you know what I mean?
In the March of Air, you know what I mean?
They don't say, well, it's 50 or, if it's 49, it's 50, right?
Sure.
If it's 49, it's anywhere from 52 to 47.
Yeah.
That's okay.
That's okay.
All right.
Well, we've got to go with it now.
We don't have to rise.
It's to go on the basis that that's where you start.
1972 is a...
Just under headshot, we gotta move up.
Sir, and we gotta change the attitude of the country.
I am inclined to think the attitude of the country is changing.
Conley believes that.
Conley says, he says he's talked about that everybody across this country
And he says, by God, you know, you know, he does talk to, I've talked to man, I've talked to common people, I've talked to the spirit people, I've talked to barbers and so forth.
And they feel better, he says.
So it is reflective of poets.
I don't know.
Now the Johnsons, you've got to remember, too, that the broader Johnson thing is children.
to their own ultra-liberal views on the race and youth issues.
They basically believe in this alienation.
Well, they went over the sex society crap.
They went way overboard on youth on the basis that it was very important.
So they oversampled them and overstudied the youth.
And they say they did.
But they came up with the point that youth isn't all that different than other people.
They're just as apathetic, I mean, as far as they're involved, they're just as apathetic as any other group.
Youth will be affected by the trips to China and Russia.
I'm convinced we'll pick up some of them by the trips.
Yep.
Now, it's not like the Gallup thing.
Days were before the apocalyptic war.
December 10th.
All you do is...
It was before this.
It was the 13th, right after that.
This was the 10th to 13th.
So basically, this came before the 13th.
This came before the huge stock market.
It was the weekend before the 10th.
You realize the markets always have that.
The market has popped up 100 points.
It was 788 just in that weekend.
It was 888 this morning, last night.
That affects the New York area.
So you were in that doubt area that if we're right, maybe phase two isn't going to work.
Right.
And we're not going to be able to patch together the international economic thing.
The sophisticates were saying there's going to be a worldwide recession.
Well, that's changed.
But at the same time, period, are we going to be in Pakistan, which is a negative sign.
I'll bet it is.
But it may not be that all that negative.
We stayed out of the goddamn event.
I don't think we lost, from the public opinion, I don't think we lost anything in Pakistan.
Well, as distinguished from the Pentagon Papers, where some of us thought we weren't losing because we weren't being heard.
India-Pakistan just doesn't relate to the average person or this administration, and the Pentagon Papers did.
In fact, the United States suffered a defeat.
The television says it, though, and all that.
Diplomatic defeat.
That's the kind of thing that pushes the world off.
The call, and Severide, and the rest come on, and do the same talk, and say, yeah, well, this is a major defeat for the United States, you know.
And they create doubts.
Of course, it was fine.
Right on the right, the right thing is the responsibility of the media.
I believe it sure is.
It's the responsibility of the media.
The media made it feel that way.
But you think so?
Yeah, and to the degree that that's true, we're fairly powerless to do much about it.
Sure are.
Any more reactions to our program last night?
It's a little, but all good.
And we're doing some checking, like Dick Moore checked with the local station in Los Angeles, just as if he were a local college.
I just wanted to tell you what a great program I thought that was.
And the girl on the switchboard volunteer said, it's amazing, we've had a lot of calls, and only one of them said that, you know, thought it was...
not good or something to that effect.
One of them objected, I think, to that.
They were going to try and do some more checking, get some readings on people.
It isn't the kind of thing that creates, as things from a press conference or a speech where people come in and say, I heard you on television.
Like, we haven't seen that at all.
We didn't get any calls last night.
I didn't have any this morning.
One kid, Powell's son, said, I'd read the program this morning.
I just wonder if maybe it didn't, because my, as I told you, my kids were just...
They listened to it all.
They listened to it all.
Yeah.
And...
They didn't want to turn it off.
No, and, you know, they'd come in and out.
Usually they'd watch TV and they'd kind of take stuff as it comes to notice.
And they sat there, you know, without making a move or saying a word through the whole thing.
And...
It may be that it's something that has some interest to kids, to wonder what the hell is the president all about, all of a sudden they see.
Well, it's certainly one thing it does that needs to reinforce.
It reinforces the hard work you've been doing.
Now, I don't know how much they use, though, by telling people to get off their tails and get going.
Quite a bit.
They have some leadership quality.
They had your phone conversation with George Bush, which was very strong.
They had your conversation to me telling the cabinet people to get off their tails on the...
Dockstrap business.
Yeah, I mean the transportation out.
All right, now it wasn't good.
Yeah, now we're taking the legislation.
And they had your drug thing, where you really went into a lot of that, you know, you're getting sick and tired, you don't want a bunch of phonies sitting there.
A snow job.
A snow job, yeah, that's right.
And they hit the snow job.
We've gotten the snow job.
I don't want that.
You know, get into this.
And...
And there were some good human things.
They got painting that the guy did with the thing in his teeth or something.
Yeah, Rose brought it.
They did that, and you held it up so the camera could see it.
Vic Moore said, that was just a great shot because everybody you were sitting there, the president was looking at it, and you kept saying to yourself, let me see it.
And all of a sudden, the president did let you see it.
He held it up so it got on the camera.
Then you made some crack punches.
I could do that with both hands and both feet.
That was a...
And you were obviously kind of moved by it, and that came through.
But the climax was your interview.
Everybody felt, you know, the climax.
Yeah, when you picked up the China question and went with it, you really laid that out.
And that's been played a good deal, other than just in the program.
They've played that a number of times in their promotions.
What about Mark?
He was very strong.
And you know, more or less anything you do.
Well, he's right.
Anything you do is good.
We've done some really good with that.
It's actually, as I just said, we had a favorable press.
God, I don't think the expanding of what we were doing on that trip down there, the heat was a hell of an achievement.
The fact that the British had no problems with it.
Bill Rogers was talking about how he had seen that NBC special last night, and he was talking about how it was very positive.
Yeah, good.
And what a very positive job they had done overall.
He said, I think I should keep on cooperating with them because they have done a good, they did a good job on the first one.
They did an excellent job on this one.
He said that they had me on for a few minutes.
That's right.
interview thing, and he said, I think I should do that for him.
Let me see special, what special?
Oh, on the summit.
Oh, he wasn't talking about this program.
No, no, he did not talk about this program.
Oh yeah, he saw that and thought it was very good.
He was very pleased with it.
He said, he didn't like the editing.
So he did it different people.
He said he thought it was choppy and cut from one thing to the other.
On one thing, but I don't think he did it on the night events.
No, I don't.
I really don't.
That's what I think.
It was choppy, but I think that's, I think, in a way, that's what you want.
I don't think you want to face it.
But certainly, people didn't get the impression, did they get the impression of command?
Absolutely, they got the impression of hard work, hard day.
They got that.
No, they didn't cut it down great.
Not at all.
They built it up.
And Pat did a great job on that, because Chancellor said something about...
Do you see your husband more now that you live in the same house where he works and all?
And she laughed and said, well, we do see him more for dinner.
He's home for dinner more often than he used to be now.
But he goes right back to work after dinner.
And she said, I think today is a pretty typical day.
They all seem to be like this.
Of course, I have to go back and do my mail.
And she went through her four hours of mail a day.
And Chancellor was overwhelmed by that.
He said, that much time?
She said, oh, yes.
I've got all the stock in there now, but I haven't got it done yet today.
I've heard everybody did a superb job of it.
They had all the people in through the day that were there, all the staff people, which I think is good.
Oh, yeah.
Henry John Schultz, Quadriere, Rumsfeld, Arthur Burns, Connie, very strong, Rogers, Vice President.
The Juliet came off her eye.
Juliet.
Trish was up there with her mother.
The dog, Manolo.
The dog didn't.
It came out fine, but he couldn't get a little.
I mean, he was sitting over here, but they came out fine.
He sat down on the couch, the dog jumped up and sat down there, and then they went to do a close-up of his head.
You know, his head was so great.
Did they?
Yeah, on the couch.
They had the close-up, and he said he made some crap about he likes expensive furniture or something.
They said, well, you want to go?
He kind of jumped up and said, let's go.
We started out.
We should go, though, and went out the door.
You know, in a sense, it ought to be an interesting program.
And the Christmas one's going to have the dog thing, because they've got you on the floor with the dogs.
That's what they're going to use.
Apparently so.
I wasn't because of it.
They released the stills on that.
Time Magazine had three still shots of you on the floor with the dogs.
This week, there's promotion stuff for the three still shots in sequence.
And they're quite intrigued with that, because it shows sort of a rare glimpse type of thing.
You don't see the presence.
But it's pretty good, because you know what, that's very good for a reason, that everybody who loves dogs gets on the floor with them sometime, you know?
And they would then show up in the Florida White House with the dogs.
That is an unusual picture.
And decorated the Christmas tree, you know, with the family.
It's a good shot of Kirsh and Ed, you know, smiling at your, one of them.
They were standing here as you were down with the dog in there.
It was all the dogs, I guess, all three of them.
They're all the same thing.
I think you got quite a nice reaction to that show, the Christmas show.
But you also did get jerked.
You won't, none of those, they won't stir a reaction.
You're going to get people, you know, find all that stuff and all that.
No, because it's not concentrating on that kind of thing.
But they, you know, even taking it out, even holding it for a while, it doesn't make sense.
Because, I mean, in the public mind, there's no change.
And that's what we need.
We need to feel that we're doing pretty well and holding our own.
It is true.
I mean, we're attacked savagely by the president, by the politicians.
Well, they've got their little sunbed here.
It's counteracting the usual downturn, you know, in this.
There must be a better way.
Why?
It's a ball game, I think.
I never used to market the market.
Maybe now it's going to be a little bit better than what they have today.
back, but it has to work its way.
You know, it dropped 100 points, over 100 points.
40 points from the 940 to where it was.
You know, and after the economic policy dropped down to 785 or 8, and it went up.
Now it's up to 880.
Back where it was right after the economic
The economic thing shut it up, though.
It shut it over 900.
Did it go over 900?
It went up to 940.
In August?
Right after that.
It went up like hell.
I mean, it kept going up, you see.
It got up to 940, and then it stopped.
It started going down.
Dropped below 900.
Dropped below 800.
It's really been a healthy shift.
Now it's up 100 points.
Somebody's made a lot of money.
Somebody's lost a very young kid.
Yeah, unless it depends on one group of eyes themselves.
I'd say our plan to have me get a reasonable rest for kind of time is just a hundred to five.
The other thing you've got to figure out, everybody else does.
You've got to spend some time every day, you know what I mean?
You've got to pick up that goddamn phone.
There's just no way.
You just can't walk away.
Can't they bring in something to sign?
You've got to sign it.
There is no way that you can do it.
It used to be that way.
I guess it was in the old days when Congress was out of session.
The president would go away and say, well, Congress used to go home for six months.
Yeah, but they still are.
He didn't have the communication speed that you have now.
And he puts a, you know, they were very nice to these people up there.
They made a sport coat for him.
With an elephant made out of an elephant cloth.
Elephants on it.
Oh, really?
He saw it.
He thought, this person must make the problem necessary.
Because, you know, they have to be served.
And he said, okay.
And he saw it in the yard and proceeded to buy something and make it up for him.
I'll be back.
Oh, it's very nice.
It's a nice spot.
It doesn't have any cruising out feeling.
I'd rather be looking out.
It's great.
We all set for the golf games.
And the landing.
Yep.
And we're just going to pass the word.
And I thought it was very funny.
Mr. Sully.
Mr. Sully.
Mr. Sully.
Mr. Sully.
Mr. Sully.
Mr. Sully.
Well, zero is a good problem.
Thank you.
Questions?