On March 14, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:16 pm to 3:24 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 685-013 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
It is the most difficult domestic problem that I have encountered since the present and perhaps the most difficult one that has confronted this nation in a hundred years.
Put it that way.
And so I realize it's an awesome, solid responsibility, and it's not scary that I would probably try to read the message tonight.
But what I have done, this is, you might know this from the end, from the end, I don't know if you, if you're talking about the message, you might not, I, I'd like to summarize it for you.
I want to get some of the highlights.
And then you've got all eight edits in the original, the message you're reading, see?
and show you that they're out of the page so that they don't say, gee, why did you pick this up, pick that up?
But in terms of, I just want you to put yourself in the position of that average person out there.
Think of his child or his neighbor's child riding that goddamn school bus.
See?
Got it?
I think so.
Well, I have a moratorium that this means stop, freeze, something like that.
I think the word moratorium has been so, if you think there's a question, I think it has to, I don't think it does use it, let me say, because I think it's pretty...
Yeah.
This means that there will be a free stop.
There will be no more Boston Air.
See?
This gives us time to do it.
That would be the way to do it.
Yeah.
Oh, I know that.
I know you said we wouldn't expect you to even approach us.
Why don't you take the rest of the day?
No.
No, I mean, they don't know.
My thought is that I should be able to get up in the morning.
How's that sound to you?
By the morning.
By the morning, no.
I mean, you work with the employer.
Work around.
No.
But I'm going to ask you to do something.
I do not want you to share this around with anybody.
I don't want you to let me start that after I see the first address.
You're going to have, with all that I can offer you, I'm going to ask you to carry out that message and carry it with everybody.
Now this thing, I will decide just you and I won't share it.
and I'll decide if I'm going to let anybody else see what I do with the bridge.
You see, you've got to be ready, you've got to land, and then you're going to have to send it over to Richardson, and he'll try to write something into it.
You've got to send it to Earl and the rest, and he's going to work.
I know what he's going to do, and I'm going to make that decision, and that's going to be it.
So don't shift this.
Don't let anybody know what's coming out.
Just do your work on something, and it's a deep, dark secret.
You and I will split it up.
It's absolutely no copies to anybody.
Don't discuss it with anybody.
Don't ask anybody anything.
I'm going to say the right thing to do, okay?
And then we'll say tomorrow, if I get there, I'll see something around.
Well, by the first thing tonight, I'll say 10 o'clock.
Well, I'll say, yeah, you've got to have a...
I won't need to see it say 930.
It's better.
930.
Okay.
If that doesn't give you the second you have, I mean, 31 to 945.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
All right.
Bye.
All right.
Bye.
Now, it seems to me that we're going to have to just say
gentlemen uh it seems to be there's not a flanagan factor involved there's political factor involved now you know we're moving into a political year and i'm not going to stand here and comment on go through that and then say i'll just say this president nixon has total confidence in mr flanagan and feels that he has conducted himself properly why he's been here then i think i'll go on to say
Look, we have...
He is honest.
As a matter of fact, if you judge Senator Eagle legally, we can see progress.
I thought another point to make is we have men in the White House and in the administration who are assigned staff people
to have contact with various segments of society, civil rights groups, education, labor, health, business.
And then if they press me, I'm going to cut it off by saying, to suggest that every time someone in the White House or someone in the administration talks to someone from business,
And that that is improper is just totally absurd.
And I'm not even going to get into...
Totally absurd.
And throw somebody out of the business.
Or somebody come later.
We have people that talk to... Sure.
People come later all the time, too.
People talk.
It's like, relax.
We've got...
It's the only way you can cover it.
That's right.
That's the only way you can cover it.
And the wife, we have always said that anybody that's behind us...
The president believes that any person who has a concern, who wants to express the president, they can't all see the president.
They see people.
The question is, how do the presidents handle it?
Do they handle it in an honest way?
Do they have an honest response to the president?
Oh, and I have to say this.
that you challenge any of the senators trying to constrain us.
I mean, try to constrain us.
And then one instance in which he has done anything which has resulted in pushing me.
Just put that in the paper.
They're going to come up and say, your idea of this is political.
It's horrible.
Sure, but I think we have to come out strong on this.
If not, it's going to look like we're waffling on it.
Because Mitchell's testimony is quite good.
Well, pretty steady.
And Eastman came up to me and said, what do you think?
He said, I think he's telling the cold-blooded truth.
which is a pretty good line.
What kind of men do they try to harass?
Well, I haven't sort of talked to them.
I'm just getting back to you.
The wire services do not serve as white-stabbed rich men.
Well, he made them rich men.
He denied other obligations.
One thing, which was pretty good point, when he was asked whether or not he used a language that was attributed to him, and that he said they could keep...
Hartford, if they give up Grinnell, Mitchell said, I haven't used language like that since I used to play Monopoly.