On April 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:36 am and 8:58 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 709-002 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Some other notes, which I may have covered, but I did report them a couple of days ago.
Growing out of the period of the Kennedy visit, when we did their records, I invited Dr. Rogers.
On Sunday, I had called him back around 4.30.
He was gone, and I had told everybody to leave, to have the White House operator hold my calls for the rest of the day, since I wanted to spend the time with all of them.
It was a matter of a mind-based nomination.
However, at 6.30, the operator called and said, well, here's the system I'm talking to you in.
I called him back.
He was not there.
By 7.30, I reached him at his home, carried a paragraph.
His main concern seemed to be to get off the wicket that Larry had put us on, to the effect that we would not negotiate until all South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, got out of South Vietnam.
I told him that that, of course, was not our position, but that we should do everything possible to avoid undercutting Larry.
That the term of not negotiating while we had a gun in our head certainly was one that we could use.
the job because he knows that the senators will whine around.
Uh, about the bombing, you know, he was away.
I told him that I thought he ought to take them home.
And he said that he didn't even feel like he should take any of them home personally.
He said also that the American muskie might not be there, the American tree was burning, but the fact that when you get a muskie on, you've got to spend a total of credits on it.
I am precisely on the fifth.
Everybody I was very proud of was talking to me about this.
The conversation during the day on
We're very frustrating since it was difficult to get anybody to move since we were out of touch.
Mentally, the responsibility to get Fannin to suggest to Irvin that we let them have money with the expectation that Irvin would turn it down unless he'd get the whole White House staff.
But by 7.30 or 8 o'clock, we have not heard back from Mitchell and I assume he did not accomplish his mission.
It is obvious that Mitchell is more concerned about getting Lanky's confirmed than he is about the potential bombshell that might result if
At least it goes into your control of collecting bombs during the 1970 campaign in Korea.
Your role was virtually legal.
But on the other hand, at this point, it would sound that the Viking people and their heroism sort of pale.
I encouraged all of them to get some sort of text written for planning this withdrawal.
We apparently had not done this because we didn't want to leave any indications around the staff that we were considering this.
I had recalled at one point last week that Colson's group at least had something prepared.
I also told Baldwin that I wanted him to ram her up, ghost her, and fire her head on an international domestic front.
It will be interesting to see what they're able to do with this respect without behind cutting.
Baldwin has been very good about not insisting on the cat meeting, even though I offered to have him.
My guess is, apparently, it's a good idea.
Just to bear with you.
I told Tom that I thought we should tell Tom that he should wait until after the progression trip before raising any ideas of...