On June 15, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Ronald L. Ziegler, Henry A. Kissinger, Rose Mary Woods, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:47 pm to 5:25 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 735-016 of the White House Tapes.
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for others documentary stuff.
And we've got, as I knew we did, and I went back over to Spiegel to be sure, where we've got no problems.
Spiegel, who is the producer, is a huge, oafish looking guy with a trimmed beard and all.
But he, interestingly enough,
And the people that have been working on this, he was the guy, out of all the team that's working on it, that Buchanan was most excited about.
And Buchanan was the main backer of Stiegel.
But the guy who's writing this, writing the documentaries, is Sam Thomas, who is the guy that wrote Freedom's Finest Hour.
You wrote him a letter.
You saw this documentary he did, someone wrote him a letter a while back.
You saw the film.
The executive producer is a super conservative.
He's a Dean Birchcock guy, Warren Bush.
And the stuff that Wolper's doing, the other two documentary efforts that he's in now, are the National Geographic series, which is straight, you know, superb, marvelous film stuff.
But there isn't a touch of modern, new-go, old Wolper.
Wolper is the guy whose organization is doing this.
It was considered by everybody that it's by far the best documentarian in the business.
He's the guy who did the Kennedy film on the Years of Lightning and Days of Drums.
Who's the one who's doing it now?
Who's the one who's doing it now?
Yeah, and I don't know who's doing it.
I'll find out.
But Wolfer's other main series that he's doing now, documentaries, is the Appointment with Destiny series, which the
Lee at Appomattox was one of, and Papa Lincoln was another of, and is the best, by far, again, documentary series, historical series, and it's a super believe-in-American type series.
And all of his stuff is very fundamental, commercial-type film, and it's all done for television, not for theater.
And he's not a theater-type filmmaker.
He's a TV man.
Stiegel is clearly the best man in the field.
How old are you guys?
And they think you will think the same thing.
Oh, I said, I'm not going to look at it.
So I raised these doubts and said, you know, well, now, have we really thought this through?
Because from what I've seen, I had no feeling of this at all, no feeling of a problem.
They've been wallowing around in the film and all that.
And I said, well, Jesus knows.
You know, first of all, we have complete control, but in the second place, it's really easy with the amount they've taken.
Well, this is the way they work them.
They work them.
They'll make a minute fraction of what they shoot.
They'll make others a little.
The networks do that, even when they're working on files in order to get close enough.
All right.
All right.
Now, we still have total control over it.
And they were all just horrified at the guy's comment.
Couldn't understand what context it was in.
I was concerned about it.
Well, I don't think he made them wrong.
I don't think that that's as they, I didn't say they all reacted exactly the way they should, which was who the hell cares?
That's not what we're making them for.
There's no question that Dick Ward, I think, is about as solid a middle American as anybody who got around.
Yeah.
It's very much the, you know,
saying that we're in the right direction.
They have no fear that we're on this.
I didn't either, but I've got the one big problem.
I guess it's the use.
I mean, your idea of using it at the convention is excellent.
That's the only way you're ever going to get an audience.
What's that?
Buying the audience.
Minimum.
Well, minimal or not, it's better to get a million people.
You get a million rather than having a rally or 10,000 or 10,000.
There's lots of words in these papers.
Well, just a second.
We gave you quite a bit of activity today.
It's too bad to load everything into one day.
But what the hell?
It's not going to be big.
Well, it's all tied together well.
You know, the Kissinger thing is a separate story.
Your remarks tie into that story.
The manchurian things.
the soul of the thing will look at anything anyway, and it wouldn't, no matter what we did.
It will there.
It will there, if not here.
How about the astronaut?
Well, the astronaut is another separate story that we'll play.
So we have three separate stories in our small area.
It's too bad we couldn't do the astronaut story separately.
That's the one that would have been good, but we just didn't.
They're here today.
They were here.
Oh, well, we've done it.
They've been running stuff.
There was a feature thing.
It's interesting.
A little by-play on the CBS radio this morning.
There was a feature thing about how excited one of the astronauts was about coming to dinner here tonight.
In an interview about it, were you nervous about, no, I'm looking forward to it.
I get a chance to meet some really nice people.
It's going to be a big thing.
And that's
But that's, you know, just a little, just think about that.
They mentioned that, that after the dinner they were going to the President's Retreat at Camp David for a well-deserved day off tomorrow.
And they had a terrific reception.
He always made that point, too.
He did.
Oh, he made a hell of a point in this thing about, he said, geez, I was kind of concerned about going out on this tour because I heard that people were
He said, we've got a fantastic reception, great crowds of people.
He said, they're real Americans.
They wave flags, and they're patriotic, and they believe in this country, which was a damn good point.
Well, as a matter of fact, we helped the space program with that in Oslo, Moscow, too, I'm sure.
Because a lot of people are against space if they're doing something with the damn Russians.
Now, what can they do?
Now they've got to support it.
They're going to stock up on the damn Russians up there somewhere.
That's very reasonable.
But that's a little, you know, something we didn't know about, would have never thought of.
How did they hear about it?
There it is.
I had to, I had to write that down.
How did they test your name?
Did you say you were the whole thing?
No, I was not able to, but I've looked at a lot of the terms, but they work pretty well.
Well, ours is moving pretty straight on it.
I'm trying to get him to cut it off.
He ended up like that.
No, but how long did he say his statement running back?
No, it wasn't about 35 minutes.
That's it.
He just.
I may be wrong.
Why is it about 35?
He said he totally screwed up his staff that he may have liked to have.
He had his entire office in tears this morning.
Well, he worked until 10 o'clock last night, reworking his draft and making notes on his opening statement.
Then he left it in his office and said, have this for me when I come in in the morning.
Then he went home and took another copy of the same draft without his working on it, notes on it.
Got home and he started working on it some more.
Made a whole lot more notes into the night last night.
Got in the office at 8.15 in the
at work in the morning running a different signal.
And then the poor girls didn't know what to do.
And so there was these complete channels.
And he came in and was tearing papers out of the typewriters and everything.
And all the girls were breaking down crying.
And Higg was just standing there laughing, throwing up his hands, saying, what do we do now?
I mean, he was actually walking around, you know.
Have you ever seen a little kid, you know, just
Get back to this great view across the road.
Don't worry about it.
He was tired.
He's tired, uptight.
This is a big photo thing that he's going to do.
But Higgins is so marvelous.
He was laughing.
He said, well, we hit it this morning.
And Higgins laughed.
He said, there was no way we could win.
I don't know whether he's got the right pages or in the right order.
And it just doesn't matter, because he knows what he has to say anyway.
How long did you stay?
Three minutes.
Well, why didn't you came back when I did?
I did 15 minutes, and then we had a hell of a time.
Remember, I told my brother to get up there at 9 o'clock.
What time did we start at 9 o'clock?
It was about 9 o'clock.
Huh?
And Fulbright walked, they were starting without Fulbright.
They went up to get you and Fulbright wasn't there.
He walked in just as they started up to get you.
But it went well in your story, you see, what you said.
I agree with that.
No, but what you said, no rubber sand.
Huh?
You had a couple of rugged lines, no rubber sand.
I want you to question this and look into it.
I had a pretty good line.
I don't know whether they used it or not.
I had three or four points that were important there, which I knew Henry couldn't make quite as effectively as, why presidential intervention?
And I said, because
by the President, why does the White House have to do this?
Because, first of all, it's in about three or four different departments, but I said, second, it deals with the government, like the Soviet Union.
When decisions are made involving their vital security and various survival, they are made at the highest level, and discussions must take place at the highest level, which is, of course, I would say, after the benefits of state and all those jackasses, because they never do understand that the Communist Party General Secretary, the non-talking Secretaries of State,
And that's why I pointed out that they wanted us to prove that this was an interim agreement and that unilaterally cutting the defense.
I said, at first, I said, Mr. President made no mistake, made no doubt that they were going forward with their program.
Therefore, for us not to go forward with ours, not to go forward, or worse, unilaterally to cut ours.
would destroy the chance, would have destroyed their consenting agreement.
So we're, you see, we want to lay that foundation for the future on the arms coverage, particularly on the battery crowd.
You see, it's a very, otherwise, they'll say we want
I don't know whether they carried it or not, but those are the points I made in my remarks.
They did?
They did.
It's probably worth noting, even though it's mostly in the writing press, Henry's were probably more technical factors.
Pretty much so, yes.
But you know what?
But they made the point that this was a very major thing.
This is the largest congressional briefing ever held in the White House.
and went through all of it.
It put the thing back up down the center, which is good.
The fact that we let it all down, we took it.
And they said it was that we were going to take three hours, and we took two hours and a half, which is, I don't know.
Henry felt it, because he was the one who told me he felt it.
Which is just, well, it didn't go, and we were going to.
I think he bumped a lot.
But he hadn't bumped it a ton.
Yeah, the Congress, Henry said the question very good anyway.
Most of them understand it by the time they get to the first year of college, of course, is that the thing.
I've been reading that.
Yeah, he does.
He understands it.
Well, I don't know.
I hope that I'm not bad at transferring into play.
It was particular.
Did they get out the idea of the...
cooperation with other countries and so forth.
I don't know what my son's name is.
Young referred to that because he wanted to eat them.
They're also good, these guys.
It's every time we can.
The other thing we can do, and they're good for square as if it went damn right as if it went, which will happen today.
Every time we get a drive back, that Soviet trip we went to, that is, they go over there.
Well, they were making the point about how all the astronauts are studying Russia because of the communication thing, because they all want to be a part of that mission.
Yeah, they're all volunteering for that mission, but they don't want to be in it.
And then Young went through the process of how it would work, but not in a technical way.
You know, he just showed how this is what you did with you.
You know, it was certainly interesting, man.
It led the networks.
It led all three networks.
It was a lead story for 24 hours.
A lead story for 24 hours.
The only one that didn't give it the lead in the paper was the time.
The time around the middle.
Of course, the start.
Yeah.
Well, see, the timing of the Pogorny release, at the same time, has stirred up, I think... Sure, plus the fact that China always had...
It may have stirred up expectations, but on the other hand, regardless of what is said, when they return, everybody's going to believe that something happened.
to take back the illusion that it's Chinese that are pissed off because somebody bombed them or something like that.
Here they are, we're mining, and we're bombing, and these Chinese are seeing the procedure, and people are rushing to asylum.
He said that the Chinese are going to be very concerned about the border, which is correct.
But now he hit it back the other way.
He said, well, Henry Kissinger doesn't travel with an empty suitcase.
I don't know what he's going for, but I'm sure there's something going on here.
Of course, we're not in work.
All right.
This is speculation.
Do you want me to say the word?
The only thing I said is Henry Kissinger.
Manfield had raised the problem, which is right, that we're concerned about, you know, these guys getting in front of the corner, three or four seconds away, and all of a sudden, some ball will drop on either side.
But I think it's, it keeps Manfield a little loose, too, though.
You know, he needs to keep small balance, and Ray going over there, and these guys aren't going to,
See, their tactics have been scare tactics throughout, you know, every time we do anything in Vietnam.
So it's right, what are the Chinese going to do?
What are the Russians going to do?
All that sort of thing.
But I, you know, no, I think that's, and I think that Echeverria, that's the way they pronounce it,
The reason I use Echeverria is that's what Henry Reeves grabbed here.
He said, it is Echeverria, Echeverria, Echeverria.
Get it right tonight.
But the Mexicans don't understand it.
I thought that little deal where he called the kids
He's really quite a politician.
He sure is.
Boy, and he was going to horse around.
He'd stick around a woman over.
No, I didn't.
The next time, he'd wave and press it out.
He never stands at the bottom.
He says, up here, you know.
You're talking about Hector Maria this morning.
After he had, he had made a, he had made a, you know, nice, warm, like all of that.
About twice as long, but it was nice.
But he had said it.
how the President's trips.
He made a nice compliment.
Look at the future of the children in the world.
And he said, he looked over and he said, here's what this is about.
It's about, I see these mothers with their child children in their arms.
And we're working for those children and the rest.
Then, after he finished his remarks,
Slacker guys, by the way.
Slacker guys.
Two left, two left.
Just tourists.
One was a countess.
Huh?
Huh?
She was, huh?
But what?
Oh, yeah.
You know what she does?
The tall one was?
The tall one is a countess who writes about motorcars.
And she said, I was so glad to see you have the recognized motorcar racing when you had them here at the White House.
And she said, she saw one guy, I don't know, the champion rider who
So there we stood.
He knew exactly what he meant.
And I came.
I wouldn't mean he finished that.
And I gave him his abrazo.
It was about time.
But he was worthy of it.
The abrazo worked for him?
Worked for him.
That was the place he would not have got out of the car, because he wouldn't have had a reaction to it that way.
It fit.
I just had a call.
I came in from Senator Messiahs.
And he said he had done a lot of thinking in the last 48 hours.
And he's concluded that last year, the vote for the Mansfield Amendment
Did you hear the crack he made about Mansfield?
It's the greatest thing I've heard in my life.
I said I didn't hear it.
This is the best crack I've ever heard.
I began my speech like that.
So when I was asked by the senator to appear at the dinner, I looked at the voting records, and I knew it had to be a fine party.
That just tore the place down.
I had another one with a friend.
I said, I first met Senator Mathias in 1968 at the Republican Congress.
When we were both working for Arkansas, I joined President Nixon in 1969.
I have the impression that Senator Mathias is beginning to join in the 1970s.
Well, that's exactly what I thought.
Well, I see this evening there were wealthy people who would be...
But he had some Democrats there too.
Sure.
But a lot of his Maryland support is pro-Mixon.
Oh, yeah.
Some of them thought so.
They supported it because they don't like what we do.
It was the Senate that did the siding that we had to do.
Right Senate.
Right.
Yeah.
He's conservative.
He's a nice guy.
He's, you know, who he's related to, of course.
The woman.
Oh, yeah.
What's her name?
It puts up all of their own.
What you can't tell me about these opportunistic liberals is the sanctimonious, you know.
In fact, we bought him for one speech for a vote.
Yeah.
And that's where it came down to.
We've got a... That's great.
I'm just saying, Ron, it's really remarkable what a tremendous play that China announcement has gotten, you know.
And the way this has been something, the way that you take the initiative that way on that.
You can't have it every week.
Because it came again as a surprise that no one expected.
No.
They were totally, totally surprised.
And it played, it was good.
No one knows.
We planned the date.
We planned the trip, but we just...
But nevertheless, it worked out perfectly.
That's right.
I mean, we...
But it's working out beautifully this way.
You want a knife?
Yes, sir.
I've got some work to do.
And then when Rod sticks up and I'm over there, I'll take care of it.
Don't answer.
He was in bitching, so we didn't answer before he got out of the way.
Got out of the way.
Has no contact.
You don't need it.
That stuff runs around there just looking for contacts.
You don't need any contacts.
You don't need any numbers.
Nothing.
Walk out of the lobby.
Walk out of the lobby.
Walk out of the lobby.
Unfortunately, you don't buy any goods there.
You know, which are in question.
Most of them are exposed.
You don't know what you get.
No doubt.
I'm doing a documentary on you this evening.
Maybe I'll get in some of these comments.
Good idea.
I'm saving myself for the West Coast.
Yeah.
I gave, uh, I read Ebert's account.
It's rather, it's, it's, uh, rather his, his analysis of what's going on in Vietnam.
He seems to be rather me about things.
Well, I think, I think we've broken the record.
He says again, oh, they're going to do something on the 21st Division.
That's for two years now.
He just, I don't think you'll do anything about that division, do you?
Uh, uh.
It was pretty good at the Delta, but once it came up into the third quarter, it just turned into a disaster.
Let me tell you, whatever happens at Enlock, Henry, it has been a very good story for our side.
And the reason it's been a good story, in my view, is it's shown the refugees come out.
It's said it's been a 68-day siege.
Of course, they say it isn't like the NPN, who is psychological.
in this respect, they are not worth a damn in offensive actions.
And they fight like tigers on the defense.
And they're afraid of the North Vietnamese, and they're afraid to be captured.
And so you get them surrounded, and they fight like demons.
That 6th Division was a disaster.
The 22 Division was a disaster.
survived a post-war extremely well when they were surrounded.
Did you show Henry what Alsop wrote us about John Mann or something like that?
I'm going to invite Alsop over to see that.
I'm going to get the freedom medal of his son over and let Alsop come in and cover all of you.
He was not that bad.
He was a great painter.
Remember the time he came in and saw me here?
I just stood in the flag with him.
He had a grip of steel and strong.
This was when it was tough, right?
I didn't know him.
I think we've broken their back everywhere they've tripped away.
And I hope they'll attack anyway soon, because if we're not going to make it with 105 P-52s there, I mean, with 105 soldiers, we have 180 people.
to find it out.
You see, Ben says, we're talking about your bombing today.
He said, well, pretty soon there aren't going to be any military targets left, and all I'll have to bomb is civilians.
He also said, in case your cousin doesn't travel with an empty bag, if you travel with a full bag, or just a
If you know something, Henry, it's God's sake, I know it, Mr. President, that you got to know I received in Moscow within two weeks of the mining.
I received in Peking within five weeks of the mining while they're clobbering to beat Jesus out of North Vietnam.
And, I mean, if you imagine how the Mexicans would feel if you received somebody clobbering the hell out of them.
In Washington, you've got tons and tons of them.
Listen, as much as I love the Mexicans as a people, I just say, thank God, they aren't white in Vietnam.
They are the most unorganized.
I mean, it's really, you can see why you always have the cracks about the Mexican army, can't you?
I don't know.
I don't know why it isn't.
It's just their whole approach to life.
They don't worry about it.
No, they don't, man.
Everything, you know, he brought with him, Henry, on this trip.
He went over there and on and on until it never stopped.
My God, he had a president.
I was the president of the Senate.
He had three labor leaders.
He had four business leaders.
And of course, four cabinet officers there.
And the president of the Supreme Court.
And the president of the Supreme Court.
And they all made a tremendous pile when they were, when they were in the government.
Have you ever seen the Aliman Cove?
Acapulco.
And you stayed there until the job?
Yeah.
No, I don't worry.
I think they had that whole cove, and the jolly one and his whole cabinet had houses extended all the way around the cove.
Right?
Yeah.
Tremendous places.
So that's what they inherited now.
Yeah.
He also has the same thing for himself.
What about the other guy there?
Has he got a place there?
That's good to hear.
Have you seen those things?
I've seen all of them.
That's why our dad said, you go to Puerto Vallarta, you can sell your stuff.
All of a sudden, this is what the government made of them.
They just feel like, oh, it's just a way of life.
I mean, that's just part of the plan.
The president becomes a multi-millionaire.
And then because he gets some business interests lined up for himself.
You know how keepers came?
It was for just two years.
That's right.
The Cuban, and I met, he's probably a lawyer, but the Cuban Minister of Education came over to the United States, this was the other, the forecaster, years ago, came over to the United States, and he brought with him
He bought that damn island.
He was getting all that from everything from the hotel down.
He had nine million dollars and he put a couple million in there and bought the whole damn thing.
Since then he's died and his wife, I mean it's over.