Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 644-010
Date: Monday, January 10, 1972 at 12:00 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Bull, Stephen B.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/644-010

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] We've got one problem on this here that I didn't realize.
[0:04] Oh, just snuck through him.
[0:06] That is Colombo.
[0:08] He's out.
[0:09] What is he?
[0:10] Well, part of Henry's exactly.
[0:12] He was out.
[0:13] He's out again.
[0:15] Okay.
[0:15] It's election.
[0:16] They're having a cabinet crisis or some damn thing.
[0:18] I mean, I don't know who to talk to.
[0:23] And this just came in from Henry again.
[0:25] I had sent it back because I understood that.
[0:27] And then it came back in.
[0:29] So I'll check it again.
[0:32] It came in Friday.
[0:34] Well, he told me Saturday.
[0:37] It's dated the 7th, which is Friday.
[0:38] Whatever it is, the combo is apparently they're having some sort of crisis.
[0:48] Okay.
[0:48] They can't make the... Actually, even if he comes on the 25th is when he wanted to do it, he could do the Dutch guy the same day.
[0:54] It just doesn't make any difference.
[1:00] Well, Columbia, they do.
[1:01] Columbia, they're saying a dinner.
[1:04] Two-hour office meeting plus a stag dinner.
[1:07] The Dutch, you don't give a dinner.
[1:11] But if Columbia's not coming, then we don't have to worry about it.
[1:15] I agree with that.
[1:16] I think it's screwed up.
[1:18] Okay.
[1:18] Another one you have to put down, as I mentioned to you, is the Don Hughes.
[1:53] Well,
[2:17] If you're not interested in doing any of the joint cheeks, there's going to be a chance to do that if you want to do the other thing at this point.
[2:32] I have a medium-sized finger, but I'm sort of just a fan.
[2:40] I actually don't have to have her.
[2:42] I can just have him.
[2:50] If you'd like to do health services now, Mr. Preston.
[2:58] They're all here.
[3:04] Right.
[3:04] Just to get that out of the way.
[3:10] Yeah.
[3:10] Where are they?
[3:11] Close up.
[3:11] They're assembled in the personal room now.
[3:13] They'll be doing that as lunch.
[3:17] That's just a handshake.
[3:18] Just again, I'll just take an individual photograph and a group photograph.
[3:24] Yeah, I'll tell them I'll be about three, four minutes.
[3:31] Well, if you don't have to do Columbo, that would probably be the next thing.
[3:48] Monday night, have Bob Brown accidentally be sure he's invited to that cabinet dinner.
[3:52] You're going to have one of the black men.
[4:02] You're going to have one of the black men.
[4:05] You're going to have one of the black men.
[4:06] You're going to have one of the black men.
[4:20] I think it's a nice big dinner, okay?
[4:21] You just need to do round tables, and then you honor people when it is time.
[4:24] That's the time.
[4:24] We've got to produce more stands.
[4:25] Cliff Harden.
[4:31] You should be honoring stands, Harden.
[4:37] You should have the letter, too.
[4:50] Well, we ought to go for something totally different.
[4:53] Yeah.
[4:54] You have the strings all the time, so let's not have the strings all the time.
[4:58] Let's have the ironing course, but maybe just something different.
[5:06] Maybe the minimum we've ever seen.
[5:10] Well, you don't want entertainment in these, do you?
[5:18] It just wants something in the dining room.
[5:24] Yeah, except for an awful late evening.
[5:25] Yeah, I think it should just be dining room.
[5:27] Let's have something different for the strings.
[5:29] Maybe this time.
[5:30] I don't know what the hell you can get, though.
[5:34] I mean, you're a kind person.
[5:36] Everything is good.
[5:41] And there's one we thought about a while back.
[5:45] Oh, he's got an awful good show that's been in Ford's Theater twice.
[5:49] It's this guy Max Moran who does the, he does a combination one-man show of ragtime piano.
[5:57] He's the world's greatest ragtime piano player.
[6:00] He does the history of ragtime and stuff.
[6:03] And then he does Mr. Dooley.
[6:06] And he does a little characterization and reads some, or he doesn't read it, he recites some of Mr. Dooley's
[6:15] political commentary type stuff.
[6:17] You know, he's very, very good.
[6:20] We looked at him for a Beeping at the White House type of thing.
[6:24] He'd have to be in a combination with someone else at one point.
[6:29] But it's very ugly, because he, you know, all that maple rag, tiger rag, and things like that that he did.
[6:39] But he's really a first-stage thing, and he is a dining room thing.
[6:43] He would do the piano stuff.
[6:56] They've been working on a lot of other ideas.
[7:12] But this is the time when you can do one that isn't.
[7:19] Social page type stuff.
[7:19] We're going to have one.
[7:20] We're going to have one by the time, I'm sure, this year.
[7:23] This guy's got some, you know, expressions.
[7:24] I just talked to John Roach about, you know, the environment and what we're going to do.
[7:36] I saw his background.
[7:38] I was reading John.
[7:43] I mean, I've had every two weeks a speech, you know, or something.
[7:47] I remember this guy.
[7:48] He said, it's fine.
[7:48] But I said, I think it would be better off to go off and maybe do it two days.
[7:52] And he could walk his life and then drop it for a while.
[8:02] He agreed.
[8:02] He's going to work on it.
[8:04] What I meant is that I really feel that building something in the environment every month is so obvious.
[8:10] What's your judgment on it?
[8:12] That it isn't going to, in other words, I think we've got it between now and the election.
[8:15] We've got
[8:19] But I'm just trying to show a lot of ways we've got to give some credit.
[8:22] You know, boy, did he serve.
[8:25] Get some of the Julie's doing their kind of stuff.
[8:29] And that made, well, Andrew's going to do more.
[8:32] Pretty good.
[8:32] And, well, Patrick, her part.
[8:35] And I think it's something I can do right now.
[8:42] And I think the idea that they're doing the film is fine.
[8:43] It's presenting the message, you know, I don't think he can solve it, and that works, but let's try.
[8:49] And so they're interested in the environment.
[8:55] The environment is really the main issue, though.
[8:57] It's, you can see it, you know, they've got the companies talking about it, and they've got, you know, everything that I am is certainly up.
[9:08] It's there, but not up.
[9:10] Well, we figured there's potentially something in it for the others if we let them have it.
[9:18] Sure.
[9:18] And it is one way to talk to young people because they seem to be overwhelming.
[9:25] Well, if they're asked about it, I think they say it because it's fashionable.
[9:28] I think that's a good chunk of it.
[9:30] And I don't think their interest is as big as it was.
[9:32] Let me be wrong then.
[9:35] All this restyling the business has been nothing.
[9:39] staying up for a day.
[9:47] Recycling centers, there are volunteer centers in the suburbs where people bring their trash and then the volunteers sit there and smash up all the bottles with sledgehammers or something.
[10:01] Take the cans and separate the metal from the paper or something.
[10:07] You know, we've studied that, though.
[10:12] I saw a study.
[10:16] It doesn't mean it'll be shit.
[10:19] You know, it's 5% of a major, and they say there's absolutely nothing about it.
[10:24] You hate to tell them that, but it's... Well, you read that Drunkard article, didn't you, in Atlantic, that Danny Gerben has sent in, where he makes the point that
[10:34] That's right.
[10:35] Let's suffer with the environment for now, with the problems, and try and build our technology, because that's where we're going to solve it, not with all these silly new gooders.
[10:46] He makes a hell of a point.
[10:46] He says the problem of the environment isn't going to be handled by long-haired students emoting about it.
[10:50] It's going to be handled by crude-cut engineers and technicians who do something about it.
[10:53] Very good.
[10:53] Well, I was going to say, if you have this problem, and also if you're going to have a problem...
[11:08] We've got to develop some policy with regard to making sure that Congress is energy and so forth.
[11:22] I guess that we probably will do it.
[11:23] But I don't think that television this time, if you agree on that, that television
[11:36] Well, and I don't think you want to be on television with some, even if he's a good man, saying, I need this man back in the Congress that puts you back in the partisan pool.
[11:45] I should have a picture of him.
[11:48] Sure.
[11:48] Let him use the other thing.
[11:51] I don't think he should do radio tapes either this time.
[11:54] No.
[11:55] Because, again, you're a pitch man for another gun.
[12:00] Our argument to them should be the President's going to say this.
[12:03] which they all agree, stay above the battle on the land, be president, and just, you've got to look at it, the more votes Richard Nixon gets, the better.
[12:19] I'd send messages, written messages, not radio tapes.
[12:22] Why do I have to do that?
[12:25] I think we just say there are too many of them.
[12:29] We start this year, the calendar year, we don't do anything.
[12:32] Okay, and then you're going to get less errors.
[12:34] Do you tell less errors and you won't do one?
[12:36] Yes, I do this, but I would not tell like just many exceptions.
[12:38] But tell the others there are no exceptions.
[12:40] And tell less of them.
[12:41] I'm telling you about your goddamn thing.
[12:47] Because, you know, you're bound to get that.
[12:49] You're getting somebody where you have to get Jerry Porter or something.
[12:54] You can't say no.
[12:56] The other area, of course, is Henry's area.
[12:58] Okay.
[13:02] What do you want, son of a bitch?
[13:05] Yeah, man.