Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 686 › Conversation 686-004
Nixon, Ziegler & Haldeman on Busing and Constitutional amendment
Friday, March 17, 1972 · 7:58 AM–8:04 AM ET · Oval Office
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Ronald Ziegler and H.R. Haldeman to discuss the administration's political strategy regarding school busing and a proposed Constitutional amendment. The participants reviewed the public response to the President's recent policy announcement, focusing on favorable polling data and bipartisan support from congressional allies. They also discussed the utility of utilizing computer-categorized call data to gauge public opinion and counter critical news media coverage.
- Busing
- Constitutional amendment
- Public opinion
- Bipartisan relations
- H.R. Haldeman
- Ronald Ziegler
Audio
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 00:05:51 into the tape and ends around 00:15:58.
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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.
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· Timestamps are positions within the full tape recording.
6:02We're working on it.
6:03Oh, yeah.
6:03We talked about it earlier.
6:06We just talked about it earlier.
6:08It's a, I think, an action that needed to, you know, carry with the message.
6:12And I think it's just a bipartisan, you know, we already have a person here.
6:31Well, the thing that changed is, you know, I'm going to call it a day.
6:37I'm going to do it again.
6:37Recap of the message.
6:39What you said today is showing the bipartisan leaders how to get into the division.
6:42They were trying to get Congress to go to that.
6:45Right.
6:46And then this bipartisan thing is massive.
6:49It's massive.
6:54Yeah.
6:55Good.
6:56Good.
6:56Good.
6:56Good.
7:03Banner and post?
7:11Plays it?
7:14No.
7:18What floor is it last night?
7:24Uh...
7:31I know you can do a good job.
7:34I think we're going to meet with the brief.
8:07um is
8:27It is in no way an interference of the Constitutional Amendment.
8:30There are a number of suggestions being considered by the House and the Congress on whether we should go forward with the Constitutional Amendment.
8:39And any of those that have worked out a reasonable plan can certainly go forward.
8:44The problem there is that it takes too long.
8:47And in the meantime, we did that awfully hard.
8:51I'm sorry.
8:59That's, well, very nice.
9:01No, but the guys like Brock, Baker, and so on, who are Constitutional Amendment-oriented were in power, all made the point that they were glad he didn't reject the Constitutional Amendment rule, and that they were for what he said.
9:18Thank you.
9:20Thank you.
9:31No, I can't.
9:32No, because I thought about the governor.
9:35The governor's good.
9:37I thought there was a great governor on the bus.
9:38He didn't.
9:40Well, the more I think about it, the more I consider what he did for the strategy.
9:44I was expecting he'd stay with it.
9:46He doesn't come in right after anything.
9:49He deserves to come in until the next step.
9:50It's very smart of him.
9:51What he's doing is missing the cutting edge.
9:55I guess that's it.
10:02He went against it.
10:03He said it was... Well, Gover did it very hard on those that, uh, that you met.
10:10Well, I forget what he said.
10:13I was just trying to say, this is the first thing he said.
10:21That's right.
10:21Yeah.
10:25The right hasn't done it very hard yet.
10:27Wallace is supposed to do it today.
10:28He's making a major speech.
10:39Poor old Andrew, I mean, he said that nothing he knows of ever will.
10:42Hmm.
10:44That's that poor guy.
10:45What about the other call?
10:47He told me he'd get a six, but at least get himself on his feet.
10:50He doesn't get a six.
10:50What about Jackson?
10:51Jackson had a six and a kick.
10:52Well, that person didn't get a kick.
10:56Well, that's it.
10:59They got...
11:02They got Brock out right away, which is good.
11:05If we can get some of our...
11:10We've got a number of others out.
11:12The reaction at the end of the end, they were just, they might help.
11:15They're working.
11:16They're all going to work.
11:19We've got to be ready for the blocks.
11:29Let's see.
11:30Roy Wilkins was on the team yesterday before you came in.
11:35He was against that.
11:37He was against her.
11:39I'm going to put it where it was, where I don't want it to happen.
11:46The Corps of People was on the other way.
11:49The Big Four?
11:49Yeah.
11:50Well, right now, they're on.
11:52Before you went on, they're all out right now.
11:54The Corps, as you said last night, just totally cracked.
11:59Wicker.
12:00Yeah.
12:00I bet you hate them.
12:02Oh, the wickers.
12:02Yeah, I mean, wickers.
12:04Those guys, wicker in battle, they're just, you know, laying down in tears and crying.
12:10Oh, my God.
12:17We're in a place where it belongs.
12:24It looks like what you've done is you've told me that you had technically not got the support of about 5% on the wing right and about 20% on the wing left.
12:35And you've got 75%.
12:35It's kind of like where you were in the manager on that.
12:42We're bugging the contract.
13:03reaction and your calls.
13:04I did live on the spot exactly the same as you did.
13:06And a couple of students, college president and her professor, you know, thought it was terrible.
13:11And we told people, college professors do good.
13:15But we had this cross-section thing that's terrible.
13:18It sounds terrible to me and everybody, but we've got that thing on our whole, you know, office computer now, categorized so that we can, the computer can put up a cross-section for us on these kind of issues.
13:30and give us a set of calls today that we should tell people about.
13:39But they got those calls.
13:40We had that set up.
13:41They were able to personally punch them up ahead of time.
13:43They made the calls, and we got all of them in within a half hour after he went off the air.
13:51This is a pretty good, you know, very good reaction.
13:57Very good reaction.
13:59All.
14:01All of them.
14:07All of them.
14:08And he had 10, he had a son of mine too.
14:15He read about the deep end town and he said, he made a point there.
14:22He said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said,
14:34He said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said,
NARA Description
On March 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 7:58 am to 8:04 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 686-004 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 686-4
Date: March 17, 1972
Time: 7:58 - 8:04 am
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Ronald L. Ziegler.
Ziegler's conversations
-H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
-John D. Ehrlichman
Forthcoming bipartisan leaders meeting
-Robert P. Griffin
-Message to Congress
-The President’s return from the People’s Republic of China [PRC]
-Television
-Congress
-Michael J. Mansfield
-George H. Mahon
Haldeman entered at an unknown time after 7:58 am.
News story
-Unknown place
-Washington Post
-Ziegler’s schedule
Busing
-Ehrlichman
-Constitutional amendment
-Griffin amendment
-Press briefing
-East room
-Reporters
-Timing
-Busing speech
-Constitutional amendment
-Ehrlichman [?]
-Talk with Haldeman
-Leonard Garment
-Raymond K. Price, Jr.
-Elliot L. Richardson
-George P. Shultz
-Support
-William E. Brock, III
-Howard H. Baker, Jr.
-John G. Tower
-Washington Post
-George S. McGovern
-Edmund S. Muskie
-Edward M. Kennedy
-McGovern
-George C. Wallace
-John N. Ashbrook
-Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson
-Brock
-Hugh Scott
-Newspapers
-McGovern
-John V. Lindsay
-Roy Wilkins
-News
-Congress of Racial Equality [CORE]
-Thomas G. Wicker
-Sander Vanocur
-Percentage of people supporting the President’s policy
-Comparison to New Hampshire primary
-Professors
-Telephone calls
-Computer
-Overall reactions
-Rowland Evans and Robert D. Novak
-Florida primary
-Wallace
-Archie Bunker
-All in the Family
Ziegler and Haldeman left at 8:04 am.Also recorded on March 17, 1972
- 686-001 7:51 AM · 23 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:51 am and 7:58 am.
- 686-002 7:51 AM · 31 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:51 am and 7:58 am.
- 686-003 7:51 AM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:51 am and 7:58 am.
- 686-005 9:54 AM · 41 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 9:54 am and 9:56 am.
- 686-006 9:56 AM · 14 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Barbara H. Franklin, Judy Kaufman, Jacqueline G. Gutwillig, Virginia R. Allan, Dr. Margaret Long Arnold, Mrs. Paul Bethel, Lorraine L. Blair, Julie Casterman Connor, Sarah Jane Cunningham, Robert A. Griffin, Maxine R. Hacke, Mrs. Charles M. Hamel, Margaret J. Mealey, Hazel Palmer, Mrs. Chapman Revercomb, Mrs. Daniel H. Wasserman, Irene Wischer, Elizabeth D. Koontz, Catherine East, Bertha Whittaker, and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:56 am to 10:08 am.
- 686-007 10:09 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 10:09 am to 10:13 am.
- 095-002 10:13 AM · 1 hr 24 min — President Richard M. Nixon and members of the National Security Council, including Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, William P. Rogers, Melvin R. Laird, Gen. George A. Lincoln, John B. Connally, John N. Irwin, II, Richard M. Helms, Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, Ronald I. Spiers, David M. Kennedy, Gerard C. Smith, Philip J. Farley, Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr., [Name withdrawn], Gen. Royal B. Allison, Paul H. Nitze, Henry A. Kissinger, Col. Richard T. Kennedy, Philip A. Odeen, Helmut ("Hal") Sonnenfeldt, and Gardiner L. Tucker, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 10:13 am and 11:54 am.
- 686-008 11:55 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:55 am to 12:00 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 686-004, March 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/686-004 (accessed October 3, 2026).