{"conversationCode":"664-013","tapeNumber":664,"conversationNumber":13,"identifier":"37-wht-conversation-664-013","startDateTime":"1972-02-02T17:41:00.000Z","endDateTime":"1972-02-02T17:43:00.000Z","startDate":"2-Feb-1972","startTime":"12:41 PM","endDate":"2-Feb-1972","endTime":"12:43 PM","dateCertainty":"certain","timeCertainty":"estimated","participants":"Nixon, Richard M. (President); [Unknown person(s)]; McCormack, John W.; White House photographer; Bull, Stephen B.;","description":"On February 2, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, unknown person(s), John W. McCormack, White House photographer, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:41 pm and 12:43 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 664-013 of the White House Tapes.","locationCode":"OVAL","recordingDevice":"Oval Office","latitudeEstimated":38.8974,"longitudeEstimated":-77.0374,"chronCode":3,"chronRelease":"Third Chronological Release","chronReleaseDate":"28-Feb-2002","aogpRelease":null,"aogpSegment":null,"lastModified":"2015-07-27T17:04:10.235Z","findingAid":"Conversation No. 664-13\n\nDate: February 2, 1972\nTime: Unknown between 12:41 pm and 12:43 pm\nLocation: Oval Office\n\nThe President talked with an unknown person.\n\n     Request for Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr.\n\n[The President talked with Haig at an unknown time between 12:41 pm and 12:43 pm.]\n\n     Henry A. Kissinger’s schedule\n         -Location\n\n     John W. McCormack\n          -Visit to President\n          -Briefing by Haig\n                -Haig’s schedule\n\nThe President met with McCormack at 12:43 pm; the White House photographer was present at\nthe beginning of the meeting.\n\n     Greetings\n          -Pearl M. Bailey meeting\n          -Request for refreshments\n          -McCormack schedule\n          -Feelings for McCormack\n\n     McCormack role\n        -Bipartisan meetings\n             -Lyndon B. Johnson\n             -President’s upcoming trip to the People’s Republic of China [PRC]\n                   -Carl B. Albert\n                         -Previous conversation with the President\n                   -Bryce N. Harlow\n                         -Relationship with the President\n        -General briefings\n        -Representative of US\n             -Availability\n\n                   -Anastasio Somoza Debayle\n              -Death of Danish King Frederik IX\n                   -Johnson\n              -Johnson-Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt\n                   -[Duke of Windsor] Edward VIII\n                         -Representative\n          -Somoza\n              -McCormack meeting\n                   -Location and timing\n                   -Jim Fitzgerald role\n                         -Attendance at West Point\n                   -Somoza’s relationship with Fitzgerald\n\nAn unknown man entered at an unknown time after 12:43 pm.\n\n     Gratitude\n\nThe unknown man left at an unknown time before 1:00 pm.\n\n******************************************************************************\n\nBEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2\n[Personal Returnable]\n[Duration: 24s ]\n\nEND WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2\n\n******************************************************************************\n\n     National Security Council [NSC] meeting\n          -Vietnam\n                -North Vietnamese attack\n                     -South Vietnam\n                -Peace proposals\n                     -Further concessions\n                          -Communist government in South Vietnam\n                     -Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu resignation\n                          -Upcoming elections\n\n                                -International supervision\n                    -Withdrawal of US forces\n                          -Ceasefire and prisoners of war [POWs]\n               -McCormack view\n                    -Advice to Johnson\n                          -Free elections\n                                -International supervision\n                                      -United Nations [UN]\n               -Ceasefire\n                    -Support\n                          -North and South Vietnam\n\n******************************************************************************\n\nBEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4\n[Personal Returnable]\n[Duration: 47s ]\n\nEND WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4\n\n******************************************************************************\n\n    The President’s forthcoming trips to the PRC and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics\n         [USSR]\n\n    Congressional concerns\n        -Views of McCormack and President\n              -Similarity\n              -House un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]\n                    -McCormack’s support as majority leader\n\n    State of Nation\n          -McCormack’s opinion\n               -Pearl Harbor\n                     -Recovery\n                           -Amount of time\n          -Current defense\n               -Need for readiness\n\n                -Defense budget\n                -John C. Stennis and F. Edward Hebert\n                -McCormack’s recent talk with Hebert\n                -Lucious Mendel Rivers\n                -Need for strength\n                     -Gerald R. Ford\n                           -Support for the President’s January 25, 1972 peace proposals\n                           -Hebert\n                     -Modern warfare\n                           -Preparations\n                                 -McCormack’s comments at dedication\n                                      -Cook\n                                      -Pearl Harbor\n                           -Drawbacks\n                -Preparation\n                     -Necessity\n                -Need for top spot\n                     -Potential encouragement to US enemies\n                     -Importance emphasized\n\nBull entered at an unknown time after 12:43 pm.\n\n     The President’s schedule\n\nBull left at an unknown time before 1:00 pm.\n\n     PRC trip\n         -Timing\n         -Europeans\n         -Japanese\n         -Schedule\n               -The President’s upcoming meetings\n         -Information on PRC\n               -President’s reading\n         -McCormack\n               -PRC ideology\n         -PRC women\n               -Radicalism in politics\n\n     Women\n        -Comparisons to men in politics\n\n                 -Emotion compared to reason\n          -PRC\n              -Clothing\n          -McCormack\n          -Women’s liberation\n\n     Farewells\n          -Return visit\n          -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon\n          -Catholics\n               -Knights of Malta\n                     -History\n                           -The Crusades\n                           -Military\n                                 -Hospitallers of St. John\n               -M. Harriet (Joyce) McCormack\n               -Pope Pius XII\n                     -Feeling for communism\n\nMcCormack left at 1:00 pm.","filename":["664a.mp3","664b.mp3"],"tapeStart":"01:34:48","tapeEnd":"01:52:55","participantsList":["Nixon, Richard M. (President)","[Unknown person(s)]","McCormack, John W.","White House photographer","Bull, Stephen B."],"prevCode":"664-012","nextCode":"664-014","tapeTranscriptFile":"664a.mp3,664b.mp3","transcript":[{"start":5697.15,"end":5699.75,"text":"Do we feel worried about King?"},{"start":5700.15,"end":5701.17,"text":"He's a good soldier."},{"start":5701.19,"end":5708.29,"text":"He just wants to do everything, but it's awfully hard to know what to do in that particular place."},{"start":5708.33,"end":5711.93,"text":"But I think if we move at a measured pace, he's waiting for me."},{"start":5712.87,"end":5714.59,"text":"After this meeting, I've got something."},{"start":5714.61,"end":5715.41,"text":"He'll read this out."},{"start":5715.47,"end":5717.24,"text":"He's a patient captain in the meantime."},{"start":5718.68,"end":5724.62,"text":"He's removed at a measured pace."},{"start":5724.66,"end":5726.85,"text":"The Indians have their own reasons to get close."},{"start":5726.89,"end":5729.69,"text":"That's why I called him and slaughtered him off."},{"start":5729.71,"end":5732.23,"text":"The Indians have no interest in the Russian satellite."},{"start":5732.25,"end":5734.15,"text":"Well, look, the point that I make is cheating."},{"start":5736.36,"end":5740.03,"text":"which I think we've got to realize that poor Americans, we are always worried."},{"start":5740.07,"end":5742.93,"text":"John Cox is very outspoken on this point."},{"start":5742.97,"end":5743.53,"text":"He's absolutely right."},{"start":5744.11,"end":5754.35,"text":"We are always so passionately worried that our foreign policy is going to so enrage another country that they will refuse to accept our aid."},{"start":5755.33,"end":5758.27,"text":"Now, there hasn't been anybody."},{"start":5758.45,"end":5760.49,"text":"I'd like to deeply see what the ambassador says."},{"start":5761.71,"end":5763.09,"text":"Bobby, I would like to."},{"start":5767.78,"end":5769.88,"text":"an interesting position."},{"start":5769.92,"end":5782.81,"text":"Keating recalled when he and I came here as freshmen of Congress in 1947, we were among perhaps 10 Republicans who were supporters of aid to India, and I supported all my life, my political life, still do, and so forth and so on."},{"start":5783.55,"end":5790.68,"text":"But I said, well, I'm not going to support aid to any country that is at that time engaged in military action, period."},{"start":5790.84,"end":5793.16,"text":"So, but then I made the point to Keating, I said, look,"},{"start":5794.46,"end":5802.56,"text":"I said, India, I said, rather than, I said, the point that some of our friends in the States say, how can we reassure the Indians?"},{"start":5804.08,"end":5806.71,"text":"And you know, they all look at them, how can the Indians reassure us?"},{"start":5807.47,"end":5809.53,"text":"Because basically, I said, look at India."},{"start":5810.19,"end":5811.47,"text":"What are their options?"},{"start":5812.25,"end":5817.29,"text":"They have three superpowers that they have to deal with."},{"start":5817.41,"end":5820.54,"text":"One is China, the other is Russia, and the other is the United States."},{"start":5821.86,"end":5822.06,"text":"Now,"},{"start":5823.01,"end":5831.7,"text":"The only one that they are sure has absolutely no designs on territory, economically, politically, is the United States of America."},{"start":5832,"end":5839.38,"text":"We proved it by $10 billion over 20 years without a string and got a kick in the tail of the United Nations every place else."},{"start":5840.24,"end":5843.51,"text":"They cannot say that about the Chinese reserve that they lived in in 1962."},{"start":6295.76,"end":6296.15,"text":"We'll be right back."},{"start":6408,"end":6410.14,"text":"Could you not be locked up in a jail cell?"},{"start":6411.78,"end":6413.72,"text":"Could not be locked in a jail cell?"},{"start":6516.35,"end":6518.31,"text":"I'm sorry."},{"start":6553.28,"end":6553.6,"text":"Thank you."},{"start":6609.86,"end":6612.79,"text":"I don't know what you mean, sir."},{"start":6612.83,"end":6613.51,"text":"I don't know what you mean."},{"start":6775.65,"end":6776.12,"text":"Right now, they've already turned you in every time."}],"transcriptBoundary":{"start":5695.625,"end":6776.125,"startMethod":"silence","endMethod":"silence"},"transcriptConfidence":"high","transcriptSource":"bigtape","aiSummary":{"text":"President Nixon met with former Speaker of the House John W. McCormack to discuss foreign policy, national defense, and the President's upcoming diplomatic trips to the PRC and the USSR. They reviewed the status of the Vietnam War, including potential peace proposals and ceasefire negotiations, while also evaluating the necessity of a robust U.S. defense budget. Additionally, the pair touched upon broader geopolitical themes, including U.S. relations with India and the role of women in politics.","topics":["Vietnam War","Foreign Policy","National Defense","People's Republic of China","John W. McCormack"],"generatedAt":"2026-04-07T02:13:19.994Z"},"topicSlugs":["vietnam-war","foreign-policy","national-defense","peoples-republic-of-china","john-w-mccormack"],"audioDurationSec":1087,"audioFiles":[{"file":"664a.mp3","bytes":177528371,"durationSec":7396.96,"bitrate":192001,"missing":false},{"file":"664b.mp3","bytes":43392312,"durationSec":1807.95,"bitrate":192006,"missing":false}],"audioIsShared":true,"audioProbedAt":"2026-09-18T02:19:54.978Z","audio":["https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/664a.mp3","https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/664b.mp3"],"url":"https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/664-013","nixonLibraryUrl":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/664/conversation-664-013","license":"Public domain (U.S. Government work). AI-generated fields (transcript, aiSummary) are provided as-is without warranty."}