Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 724-005
Date: Monday, May 15, 1972 at 4:54 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Shultz, George P.; Weinberger, Caspar W. ("Cap"); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/724-005

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[2:54:27] Well, with regard to this business, the least of our concerns is on Soviet spy, very simply enough.
[2:54:39] That's what I think.
[2:54:41] The other things are going on, so anything you want to get on with it?
[2:54:46] They recouped Besson.
[2:54:47] They opened the road between Birmingham and Besson.
[2:54:55] Well, I don't know how seriously they'll try to hold it, but if you remember that Besson was besieged for four weeks before they lost it.
[2:55:04] And it was a big headline when it was lost.
[2:55:07] It's a good headline in the Washington Star.
[2:55:09] Saigon, truth retakes.
[2:55:18] We'll see you later.
[2:55:21] What is the situation tonight?
[2:55:24] I'll call you.
[2:55:28] Thanks, everybody.
[2:55:37] Hi, how are you?
[2:55:40] Yes.
[2:55:45] It's a hell of a thing.
[2:55:47] Did you have a chance to talk to him?
[2:55:51] Well, let me come directly to the point.
[2:55:53] It doesn't involve any more money for us.
[2:55:58] It doesn't involve any more money for us.
[2:56:09] When I had John and I planned on this for a year, I think he only agreed to come three years because of very strong personal considerations.
[2:56:19] The year ended in December of last year.
[2:56:24] I got in and I talked to him and he was telling us, you've got to stay on.
[2:56:30] I said, you've got to stay on for the rush.
[2:56:33] I'm just wondering, you had any report on the walls and walls?
[2:56:37] No.
[2:56:37] He was shot?
[2:56:38] No, he was shot in the arm and in the abdomen.
[2:56:42] Alabama, yeah, probably is.
[2:56:44] An Alabama state trooper was shot.
[2:56:46] His secretary, Ms. Thompson, was shot.
[2:56:49] What was that?
[2:56:49] A machine gun.
[2:56:51] He had a Smith & Wesson pistol.
[2:56:54] Black or white?
[2:56:55] White.
[2:56:56] About 35.
[2:56:57] What is he?
[2:56:58] He was caught.
[2:56:59] Oh, yeah.
[2:57:00] He was caught.
[2:57:01] Wallace had to be serviced.
[2:57:03] Yes.
[2:57:03] One of the agents was shot.
[2:57:05] Yeah.
[2:57:05] What was the struggle?
[2:57:07] What...
[2:57:09] I don't know.
[2:57:10] Who is the guy?
[2:57:12] I don't know.
[2:57:14] He had Wallace weapons on and all that sort of thing.
[2:57:22] I don't know.
[2:57:23] Wallace's condition is.
[2:57:25] And that's...
[2:57:27] there's an unconfirmed report from the doctor who treated him on the scene and said he had no pulse but that doesn't necessarily okay anyway the thing is uh we're considering that i think we probably recommend that you not do this movement because you'll be out there trying to press and i don't think you want to be um
[2:57:52] We're trying to find out what happened.
[2:57:54] There's nothing wrong with him, and that's one thing.
[2:57:56] Well, if he's living, I don't think there's a problem doing it.
[2:58:00] I mean, I shouldn't.
[2:58:01] I mean, the point is, if he's in the hospital and so forth.
[2:58:06] Yeah, you sent your physician over to check on him and to offer the services, but that's the word.
[2:58:12] He's right here.
[2:58:14] There's no problem if he's living.
[2:58:15] You know what I mean?
[2:58:18] Do you think so?
[2:58:19] Because it's shocked, you can't cancel something.
[2:58:23] No, that's right.
[2:58:23] We've got to get a statement out by you before that, so we've got something covered.
[2:58:29] You mean he dies while I'm there?
[2:58:31] No, I mean a statement on the shooting.
[2:58:33] Oh, sure.
[2:58:34] So that's being prepared now?
[2:58:35] Yeah.
[2:58:39] That'll be encouraging.
[2:58:43] Well, anyway, so my arrangement with Senator Connolly was that he would leave.
[2:58:50] We're going to announce it tomorrow at the
[2:58:57] He will also, in his own voice, as he did last week, make a query and make no doubt escalation into it.
[2:59:05] That's good.
[2:59:06] The political thing is no problem.
[2:59:08] He's not going to say it right now.
[2:59:10] I mean, he's going to say it right now.
[2:59:12] It's a great loss and so forth that had to happen.
[2:59:16] So I'm naming George as Secretary of the Treasury.
[2:59:18] I'm naming you as Director of the OPM.
[2:59:20] And then you're the pick of you and George.
[2:59:22] So we have George as the guy who did the budget.
[2:59:27] I mean, it's your system, so that's all there is to it.
[2:59:30] That's all you want?
[2:59:31] You should be the first to know.
[2:59:32] We were going to try to tell you before you got here, but I couldn't lie.
[2:59:34] I got somebody for 15 minutes to take an hour.
[2:59:40] Well, anyway, it's something that, of course, I mean, you have a very great response.
[2:59:45] You work very closely with your member of the Troika, Quadrat, and all that jazz.
[2:59:50] It's like the most important bunch of people.
[2:59:55] be just tough politically.
[2:59:59] The economy would be a great loss.
[3:00:00] But on the other hand, he had a point in one sense that he said, as the campaign approached, he would be in an increasingly difficult position if he wants to be political.
[3:00:11] As Secretary of the Treasury, it's very difficult.
[3:00:18] Well, maybe he can think of some way to be helpful on the outside.
[3:00:23] I wouldn't be surprised.
[3:00:24] That's a great mark of confidence, Mr. President.
[3:00:26] I appreciate it very much indeed.
[3:00:27] Well, it's a tough job, and you've had one of the toughest means jobs that I've had.
[3:00:30] You know, being director of the budget is tough, but after all, you've got a satisfaction knowing it's important.
[3:00:43] Yes, it is important.
[3:00:44] And how this will be important, so...
[3:00:49] There you are.
[3:00:49] Do you get any payments?
[3:00:50] Do you get any payment increases?
[3:00:51] He gets a thousand dollars on a level three to three or level two.
[3:00:56] He gets a couple thousand dollars, I think.
[3:00:57] About a thousand dollars.
[3:01:00] A couple thousand.
[3:01:02] Twenty-five hundred.
[3:01:04] Does he get a car?
[3:01:05] He's already got a car.
[3:01:07] That's not fair.
[3:01:07] What does he get that he doesn't have now, then?
[3:01:13] The office.
[3:01:15] His office is the best office.
[3:01:18] Well, I would hesitate to have you say it, Mr. President.
[3:01:23] Why the hell should you take his office?
[3:01:26] Well, because he has a great desire to serve the public and to do what he wants to do.
[3:01:33] Serve the President.
[3:01:35] And everybody will know that Weinberger has really been unleashed now.
[3:01:40] We've unleashed Weinberger in many ways.
[3:01:43] Well, that's very unleashing.
[3:01:45] When you look at these in Shanghai, somebody said that was an empty cannon, not an unleashing white burger.
[3:01:51] You'll go after him.
[3:01:53] Well, it is.
[3:01:54] As you may be interested to know, Secretary Conway came over to the opening of our spring here for the budget.
[3:02:04] and gave a point of view about how the budget should shape up and the importance of people working on the budget, bringing you a real alternative in terms of a tight budget that would not make it necessary to have taxes go up.
[3:02:21] And that could only be done by the people in the budget work.
[3:02:27] And I think he really did our people a lot of good and gave them a lot of help.
[3:02:33] We have to have that kind of a budget.
[3:02:34] I'm totally aware of it.
[3:02:36] That's going to require vetoes.
[3:02:37] It's going to require- Very good.
[3:02:39] I must say that the information that this was the kind of fiscal policy we were going to pursue was presented to the business council in a very general way by Herb, and they took it very well.
[3:02:50] They were very delighted.
[3:02:52] The business council either wants that or expands it.
[3:02:54] Well, one of the two, yeah.
[3:02:56] Those bastards are never going to get it.
[3:02:58] At this point, they understand what might be coming.
[3:03:01] Don't count them.
[3:03:03] No, no.
[3:03:04] That is the most pusillanimous group of military people I've ever met.
[3:03:09] They were very big on price controls a while back.
[3:03:12] Yeah.
[3:03:13] Price controls.
[3:03:14] What are you going to do about it later?
[3:03:16] Yeah.
[3:03:16] All right.
[3:03:17] What are they going to do?
[3:03:20] They'd like some cars.
[3:03:21] Mm-hmm.
[3:03:25] No, they are really a sad lot.
[3:03:27] I mean, they're wonderful men.
[3:03:28] I mean, nice people.
[3:03:29] They play tennis, golf, bridge.
[3:03:32] They swim.
[3:03:33] They go to the right places.
[3:03:36] Nassau at the right time of year.
[3:03:38] Palm Springs and all the rest of them.
[3:03:42] You know, they're not gutsy.
[3:03:44] Kendall is very unusual.
[3:03:45] He has guts.
[3:03:46] Yeah, he's over there because we recommend him.
[3:03:48] It's an incestuous inbred group.
[3:03:50] Most of our members have got about as much steep character as the college president, and I need his college.
[3:04:05] There was never any doubt about George, Tommy, and I agreed.
[3:04:11] And Tommy and I also talked about you at the release.
[3:04:26] We decided this a month ago.
[3:04:28] I couldn't tell anybody.
[3:04:30] Nobody in the staff.
[3:04:32] We had to keep it quiet.
[3:04:35] I killed all of them.
[3:04:40] But it was a unanimous choice.
[3:04:44] Two of us, three of us.
[3:04:48] Thank you, Mr. President.
[3:04:48] Thank you for speaking to that.
[3:04:50] It was a funny little story.
[3:04:51] I don't know whether it will come out in Russian translation, but it's true.
[3:04:55] The Russian, after his meeting with Kissinger, was telling a Russian story about the...
[3:05:08] He was expressing his contempt for the educated elite
[3:05:14] He said, there was this peasant who had his boy at school, the boy had gone to school, and they went out to the barnyard and saw two chickens.
[3:05:25] The boy said to his father, there are three chickens.
[3:05:29] He said, what way do you mean three chickens?
[3:05:30] He said, there's one chicken there, and one chicken there, and there's one chicken inside of one chicken.
[3:05:40] And he said, look, since that's all you learned in college, my mother did this chick and I did this chick, and you can have the third chick.
[3:05:52] You've got a whole nation of resources.
[3:05:55] Anyway, so much for the professor group and Professor Schultz, and now we've got Secretary of the Trade.
[3:06:02] The stock market went down 50 points.
[3:06:04] But don't sell, no.