Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 646 › Conversation 646-007

United States Secret Service agents on Henry Kissinger

Wednesday, January 12, 1972 · 6:23 PM–10:59 PM ET · Oval Office

ParticipantsUnited States Secret Service agentsConversation646-007 onTape 646 (tape position 02:21:33–02:23:06)StartWednesday, January 12, 1972 at 6:23 PMEndWednesday, January 12, 1972 at 10:59 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 646-007 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon expresses deep frustration regarding Henry Kissinger’s rigid control over information flow and foreign policy execution within the White House. The President complains that Kissinger is creating an unhealthy bottleneck, filtering out essential perspectives and isolating the President from necessary intelligence. Consequently, Nixon emphasizes the need for alternative channels of communication to bypass Kissinger’s restrictive influence.

Audio

Download MP3 (part 1) · 169.3 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 41.9 MB

This conversation has not yet been cut into its own clip, so the player above contains the full tape segment shared with neighbouring conversations. It begins about 02:21:33 into the tape and ends around 02:23:06.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) ·JSON data · Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.

2:21:54I said, now, there are going to be problems.

2:21:56You must not be in a position where you come and talk to me.

2:21:59Larry, of course, must do that.

2:22:02But I said, fortunately, you have a man who is in the NFC, who is a close associate, a friend of yours, to whom you can talk, and you can bear with him, and you must do it.

2:22:14I even counted to Henry, and I said, you know, I said, and also I told him I had problems, and he doesn't want to have the hilariousness, he can't, you know, the hilariousness, he can always have them talk on a very confidential basis.

2:22:35Well, he ought to talk to me.

2:22:39For Christ's sake, there's no way that Henry would trust me.

2:22:43But you see, then I realized the guy's sick.

2:22:46He is sick.

2:22:47You know that Henry absolutely takes a position that nothing can come into this White House.

2:22:55And either from a secretary or anybody else on national events or foreign affairs that doesn't appear to him,

2:23:04It's wrong.

2:23:05Absolutely, it's wrong.

2:23:06I need to see some things sometimes that are other parts of you.

2:23:12I can't have it all filtered out.

2:23:14And I've got to be able to also take a position that I can't, shouldn't talk to anybody.

2:23:18I've got to talk to whatever it is.

2:23:20I've got to talk to the watchers.

2:23:21They're not going to answer that.

2:23:23I just don't understand where he gets this grandiose concept of his function here.

2:23:28Now, it doesn't mean that I don't have a part of everything.

2:23:32I have the occasions when I don't.

2:23:35On matters of policy, they've had to be carried out.

2:23:39This is the footage.

2:23:40I'll point out that Rogers stated that it's absolutely true that Henry is getting into the execution of a lot of this stuff, which

NARA Description

On January 12, 1972, United States Secret Service agents met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 6:23 pm and 10:59 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 646-007 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 646-7

Date: January 12, 1972
Time: Unknown between 6:23 pm and 12:59 pm
Location: Oval Office

An unknown person [Secret Service agent] talked with an unknown person.

[Conversation No. 646-7A]

     The President’s location
          -Residence

[End of telephone conversation]

Also recorded on January 12, 1972

646-001 4:02 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:02 pm and 4:04 pm.
646-002 4:04 PM · 27 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:04 pm to 4:30 pm.
646-003 4:30 PM · 50 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, unknown person(s), and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew met in the Oval Office of the White House at 4:30 pm.
646-004 4:30 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and Rosemary Manarin met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:30 pm to 4:34 pm.
646-005 4:34 PM · 1 hr 47 min — President Richard M. Nixon, George W. Romney, John D. Ehrlichman, John C. Whitaker, Manolo Sanchez, Stephen B. Bull, John N. Mitchell, Rose Mary Woods, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:34 pm to 6:21 pm.
646-006 6:21 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 6:21 pm and 6:23 pm.

Cite this conversation

Conversation 646-007, January 12, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/646-007 (accessed September 18, 2026).