Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 659 › Conversation 659-007

Nixon & Bull on White House Protocol and Postal Subsidy Legislation

Friday, January 28, 1972 · 1:21 PM–1:35 PM ET · Oval Office

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Bull, Stephen B.Conversation659-007 on Tape 659 (tape position 02:49:58–02:53:48)StartFriday, January 28, 1972 at 1:21 PMEndFriday, January 28, 1972 at 1:35 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 659-007 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with Stephen B. Bull to coordinate logistics for a White House dinner honoring DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace, focusing on protocol, lighting, and the President's toast. The discussion also addressed the administration's stance on magazine postal subsidies, specifically ensuring industry support for the legislative package. Furthermore, Nixon and his staff decided to postpone efforts to revive the Supersonic Transport (SST) project until after the upcoming election, prioritizing it instead as a key initiative for his potential second term.

Audio

Download MP3 (part 1) · 168.3 MB ·Download MP3 (part 2) · 168.5 MB ·Download MP3 (part 3) · 84.7 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 02:49:58 into the tape and ends around 02:53:48.

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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.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.
2:48:58They're going to do a lot of that.
2:49:01Thanks.
2:49:01You're going to be seeing a lot of magazine people tonight.
2:49:05We have Ted Klassen and the Post Office aboard on the postal subsidy for magazine postage.
2:49:13And that was going to be the hard place.
2:49:16So if Hope or
2:49:19or some of them raise the question with you.
2:49:23We think we've cleaned out the underbrush now.
2:49:25They will not oppose it.
2:49:28Hope and the magazine people should get their bill in, and we'll support it.
2:49:34And the post office is wheeled, and so it's... About the only people that I really want to pull back to the board is for Hope.
2:49:43Yeah, well, he's got a lot of company in this one.
2:49:50Then one small weekend was SST.
2:49:53You asked us to look into the possibility of getting some enthusiasm for SST on the Hill.
2:49:59And so I've had Magruder and some other people looking into it.
2:50:03Their advice is we not touch it until after the election.
2:50:08There's too many negatives in it right now, and probably not enough Congressmen to be willing to get behind it at this point, because they're all up this time.
2:50:18We're going to put Magruder to work selling their airplanes abroad.
2:50:22I remember Foy coming in and talking about how the State Department could block your stuff.
2:50:34The trick here is to crack the State Department.
2:50:45is pretty resourceful, and he's got a PR sense, and he'll surround them with league stories and all that kind of stuff.
2:50:52They don't think they should do it, but I agree.
2:50:53SSC has been a political issue.
2:50:57And I'll tell you one thing, it's got to be included the next time around.
2:51:02That's a prime second-term project.
2:51:04We've got to build it.
2:51:06We'll do it just like you wanted to move.
2:51:08Build the SSC.
2:51:10But...
2:51:11can still be done.
2:51:12I think so, because all the tools are there, the know-how is still there, and we own it, you know, so it can be done.
2:51:24Well, I have a good memory of my speech in St. Joe.
2:51:27You know, I'm out of Denver.
2:51:28I'm on the board of a charity that I've stayed on.
2:51:31It runs kids' camps.
2:51:33And once a year, I have to go there for a meeting in Rio.
2:51:37It was an awesome private errand.
2:51:39Denver's a nice place.
2:51:41It's snowing as the devil right now, I'm afraid.
2:51:45It really had a lot of snow on the West Coast.
2:51:47And Seattle had six-foot grits in their downtown area.
2:51:51This is all our other problems.
2:51:52It's horrifically unusual.
2:51:54Yeah, there's no place for the red lines.
2:51:57Well, good.
2:51:57I'll see you later, Ron.
2:52:00Ron, if you want to go to the canteen, we'll just go.
2:52:02Okay.
2:52:02Thank you.

NARA Description

On January 28, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:21 pm and 1:35 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 659-007 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 659-7

Date: January 28, 1972
Time: Unknown between 1:21 pm and 1:35 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Stephen B. Bull.

     The President’s schedule
          -White House dinner [for DeWitt and Lila (Acheson) Wallace], January 28, 1972
               -Protocol
                      -The President’s toast
                           -Protocol
                           -Readability
                                 -Lighting
                           -East Room
                      -Medal of Freedom
                      -Press coverage
                      -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
                      -Entertainment
                           -Introduction
               -Typing of remarks
                      -Readability
                           -Lighting

                -Entertainment
                     -Ray Coniff Singers
                           -Program
                                -God Bless America

Bull left at an unknown time before 1:35 pm.

Also recorded on January 28, 1972

  • 659-004 12:17 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:17 pm to 12:20 pm.
  • 659-005 12:21 PM · 13 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Myles J. Ambrose, John N. Mitchell, Paul A. Volcker, John D. Ehrlichman, Egil ("Bud") Krogh, Jr., Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, Geoffrey C. Shepard, Mark W. Alger, John J. Caulfield, Ronald L. Ziegler, White House photographer, Stephen B. Bull, Elaine (Miller) Ambrose, Myles J. Ambrose, Jr., Kevin Ambrose, Elise Ambrose, Nora Ambrose, Kathleen Ambrose, and Christopher Ambrose met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:21 pm to 12:34 pm.
  • 659-006 12:34 PM · 48 min — President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, Stephen B. Bull, Max M. Fisher, Yitzhak Rabin, Jeremiah Kaplan, Herbert Stein, Lawrence Y. Goldberg, and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:34 pm to 1:21 pm.
  • 019-146 1:24 PM · 27 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:24 pm and 1:35 pm.
  • 019-147 1:35 PM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 1:35 pm.
  • 659-008 1:35 PM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at 1:35 pm.
  • 659-009 1:35 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:35 pm and 2:24 pm.
  • 659-010 2:24 PM · 27 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:24 pm to 2:51 pm.

All 37 conversations from January 28, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 659-007, January 28, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/659-007 (accessed October 12, 2026).