On June 16, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, John D. Ehrlichman, Alexander P. Butterfield, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:56 pm to 1:35 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 737-009 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Say, not just for a price.
And these are just some of the things that we did in our perspective.
I've seen the cover of the journal.
Did you see the inside picture?
They said, oh, it's a hanging out thing.
Well, I'm glad we were there, right?
They're micrographs.
Micrographs.
Micrographs.
Yeah, this is very good.
The inside one is warm.
Very good.
All right.
And then, I'm sure this is a very, I mean, a Father's Day card from Julie.
Yeah.
And these, FYI, do you want to follow up with us?
We, you know, Don was there, so I asked him to support him.
He said, he raised a question about the, whether the afternoon guest had to wait too long or something.
At what time do you invite them for a roast?
I think it's usually 10 o'clock.
Oh god damn it, they shouldn't have waited too long when I was drinking.
I don't know what you meant.
They should never be before 10 because you never get a dinner.
But at any rate, they serve them champagne and they have music down there and almost everybody else is just thankful they got invited to get inside the door.
I sometimes wonder if you really should invite them.
I'm inclined to think that I'd rather have them, maybe about, put them in the big chairs, nice chairs, and put about 60 for dinner, and a hell of all these extra people.
Last night it was so cluttered up, it was so filled, and of course... Well, I hope we turn it down to about three or four hundred.
Good.
We make three or four hundred out of the other two hundred.
Well, we hope we're going to work on that.
I think it wasn't that.
I think it was Don and Ed and Adam and a lot of our own people who live in the White House should never be there as something that's crowded.
Because I think it should be new people every time.
I really do.
Yet every time it's a big fight with everybody who's been around.
Everybody has to be there because of the reason.
Anyway, what do you...
I'm always concerned about not seeing it.
But I couldn't possibly get the Mexican president out after he got a heartbeat anyway, and then had him take hands with 150 other guests.
Do you think so?
Yeah.
No, we just can't do that.
Because he's got to stand around and talk to some of the VIP people who are...
I think people who are there, have you got any complaints, Joe?
I think people who are there are very concerned.
We invite them knowing that they're not going to have it.
And I'm sure the people in most instances who are there, they're all told that way instead of the name.
They don't know.
god wouldn't be expected to understand what a thrill it is for those people who have never a lot of them have never been into my house could be in and all and they got to speak to presidents and two first ladies whether they should cancel them out yeah sure i don't know what else they can hear the jazz band and dance that they want to have our that's right it really is
No, there's no way I'll get hit on the head.
Thank goodness.
Well, I think we never have another one.
The one thing I'm concerned about is that Lucy may be invited too damn early.
They're really well taken care of.
They are.
People are down there and they give them champagne and they mill around them.
Most of those are folks who've never been in a revealed room or those other rooms.
And they roam around and you can't have them come later because if they come later then...
Holds up the shelf.
Holds up the shelf.
It's understandable that Don would think he was odd, because he's been here only when you immediately take him upstairs.
But I don't think other people do, and you cannot bring him in at the last minute.
No, we have enough time to shake hands and shake their hands.
No, no.
The time and the energy.
The time and the energy.
The people see them and they're man-lucky.
Well, and you talk to them when you introduce the facts and so on, and that's a big thrill for them.
Because they've been addressed by the President and that's, you know...
I didn't do that or nothing.
They all love it, really.
Well, I remember inviting them to stay there.
Most of them are deputy assistant secretaries and people of that kind.
Alright, so they brought them in and had a dinner, a reception earlier for them.
Those that came knowing they were coming home for the entertainment.
I told Colton they had to know that.
You know, there's a difference.
And people, you can't expect God to understand.
Sure, he thinks that you should be gracious, that you probably should welcome each one in, but they don't know what, there's just a limit to what one person can do, you know.
If you don't have anything on your mind, of course you could.
You could do nothing but shake hands.
I know it's a mistake, but it's fine.
But that, Matt, believe me, is not outside of his viewpoint.
They're, they're thrilled to be there.
Well, I'm glad that they have dinner so we can share them, because there'll be more.
Jeremy, I don't have to worry about any more.
They're a pain in the neck.
I swear, the worst thing you do is those goddamn dinners.
Well, you do them well, but it's just terribly boring for you.
That's what I mean.
It's a, I, I never want to do without them.
Because two or three people told me how crazy we were last night.
You know, you've got a lot of things to do, and you sit there and talk to some woman, or maybe there's no lunch.
What the hell?
I know.
I personally, judging from the lenses that I've been through out of the country, think it is just a boring exercise, because you sit by two people you don't know.
Everyone tries to make it seem like some kind of conversation.
Well, I've been around that tracks so much.
I know, all these years.
The inane comments about how people see them.
Well, they only make it, they just thank you then.
Well, anyway, I'm glad that worked out the way it did.
Just so they understand, they're not supposed to come in and sit and have a nice little present chat.
Well, the next time, I'll be sure that they are.
I mean, you can't go slip in on things, but I know they're all told by people who, you know, work out, but...
Next time we head off, he doesn't show that they all know.
And they don't want to come.
Well, they don't.
They're compensated for not meeting the people.
He wasn't complaining about himself.
Well, no, I know that.
But he can't expect that all those people, 130, are going to come up and have the same treatment.
It's just impossible for you and for your visitors to do that.
Hold up the entertainment.
I think they do a good job over there.
I really do.
They try.
They work like hell.
Yeah.
And I think people are happy.
Because we get a lot of votes sometimes.
They're happy.
You made a lot of coffee in Michigan.
The Free Press this morning has a headline story for the effect that you are very skeptical of the ability of the busing amendments to cover the Detroit case.
and his big black tights.
And Bobby Griffin told Charles to sweat because he has a debate today with his opponent.
And he just wanted to be able to say that the governor is the only one that talks to the president.
So I told him to go ahead and say that he talked to you this morning and I covered the substance of your conversation.
He said he could say all those things.
And so he's happy now.
But he said he's got a hell of a play up there.
No one can run it out to the press.
Well, sure.
He's got a constitutional amendment, of course.
I also covered with him a point that you didn't get into with Milken, and that is that these busing amendments say the only cases that are staying are those that order busing to achieve racial balance.
And I said, I think you have to read Rob's opinion very closely to see whether he maybe has slipped by that knowingly.
by structuring it in a way that it couldn't be said to apply.
And that's another thing.
But our legislation does not.
Well, but theirs does, you see.
And that makes it much narrower.
Ours does not.
Ours does not.
And so he picked that up.
And well, we not only cover busing, we cover pupil assignment.
But for what purpose do we say?
Well, we say pupil, I forget how it goes,
pupil assignment, transportation, or so and so on racial or something on other basis.
I forget how.
You know, one thing about Bobby, right after I talked to him and after you had left, I almost called you back to tell you to call Greg.
I thought it was right on.
It's all right.
Because I didn't want him to, does he think he missed the story as a result?
No, he's not at all unhappy.
He agreed totally.
He wanted to be able to say, he's got a televised debate, he wanted to be able to say that he also has talked with the president.
And he wanted a different angle, so I gave him this other angle, and he said, well, okay, I'm going to say I talked to the president this morning.
And I said, okay, the president had a cabinet meeting, he had a meeting with Elliot Richardson, and then he talked to you, and then he met with the Mexican president.
So he said, okay, I'm going to...
So he'll work in it.
Well, Elliot is a very persuasive fellow.
Yeah, he sure is.
He's a very persuasive fellow.
It's good that you have a cab follow who's just as persuasive the other way.
Right.
Elliot is a good man.
And I can see why he believes this.
He believes it.
I don't know what your feeling is about the thing, but the way Elliot said, if we move this far, then we'd stick there.
But Cat doesn't believe that, does he?
No.
No.
That's my concern.
Whether we stuck there or not, nobody would ever understand it.
We've got to have clarity.
And that's always the thing that I'm troubled about in these things.
We may be right, we may be wrong, but at least our position has got to be clear so that people know where the hell we are.
Well, that's my view entirely.
We listen to him, and he knows we should sort it out and so forth, and he probably senses where I'm going to come out.
But my point is that it's a clarity.
And I also set it up a little in the cabinet meeting with Rose, and I said, now look here, don't move to the center.
I said, don't buzz up the initiative.
That was a powerful message.
Well, it was a message to the other people, too.
That's right.
Don't move to the center of the environment.
Don't move to the center of the atmosphere or anything else.
Well, anyway, I think I said that.
John, as I'm sure you know, my main concern is that I'm not so sure it'll work.
I'd be delighted with the test.
Elliott's against the test.
He thinks it has to be tested.
Well, no.
He thinks that's a problem.
He's afraid that what'll happen is it'll test and then it'll go back to the Congress and get kicked around and never come into being.
And Elliott is a guy who still talks about the things he accomplished in the Eisenhower administration when he was assistant secretary for legislation.
And I'm sure he wants to be able to point with pride in a solid accomplishment of ATW, you know.
But...
I think one thing you ought to tell all of you is this.
You are talking with Congress.
Look.
I see.
I'm sure you know, Kelly, that you are one of the few members of this cabinet who lives in the President's future plans.
and say anything to anybody because he doesn't want those in Arlington who gave him the question correct.
And he knows this is a hell of a tough one, because there might be some old rich who could do damage or anything.
I agree with that.
I agree with that.
He's stuck out with a strong following.
As a matter of fact, he could do a attorney general, couldn't he?
Very well.
Very well.
We really needed an attorney general.
You know what I mean?
With all my talk about the toughness and the rest, I wanted the Attorney General to have that good water.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, he's that.
He's that.
He was one of the best Attorney General's that Massachusetts ever had.
The other thing I was thinking of was that, and I think he'd do the court well too, wouldn't he?
Yeah.
He'd be independent as a hog on ice.
But he wouldn't be radical.
No.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Elliot is an interesting guy.
I would always feel more comfortable with Elliot in the cabinet than I would on the court.
The court's got to be frank with the people.
I had a long talk with Berger, and I told him I wouldn't want to make any Jewish appointments.
I told him, I said, I'm going to give you some, I'm going to watch out for the good judges that are beating around the corner.
Mainly because we've got to try to sell it.
Berger is not like that.
He has spent enough good
He sent me an autographed picture of the old court the other day with Harlem and black in it.
And he said, I thought you'd like to have this for your collection.
Many people refer to it as the beginning of the end.
And he's taking considerable pride in the new court and the new direction.
The thing about Eliot is, if you say to him, Eliot, the president wants you to jump, he will jump.
But he has a terrible problem here.
I don't know what it is.
From Moynihan's writing and Rivikov's writing, his whole staff is bugging him.
Hodgson's bugging him.
After all, we didn't cooperate with Stamper, and Elliot feels it's his obligation to get it and make a record.
I am concerned about getting a little break.
That's my concern.
He took a little liberty.
If they make a deal later, that's something else again.
I don't know, maybe, like this.
But listen, let them decide what they're going to do in their platform.
I think we ought to wait past the Democratic platform.
That's my view.
I tell them it's my political judgment that for us to move now would give them an opening to say, well, the administration is compromising, and so we've got to get better excuse for compromising.
And I'd rather leave him hung out there and let's move.
We'll take a look at it right after the Democratic convention.
They are not going to come up with something responsible in the Democratic convention, John.
Not on your life.
I doubt that they will.
I don't think they can when that delegate makes up.
I think Kleining's got a very good point on that.
It's a really spooky bunch of people, by and large.
Okay, I think that's good.
I think that's a good formula.
Now, I'm going to wait until I have to get back.
It was really great, though.
No, we're writing a platform.
It's all written.
Is it?
Yeah, it's all finished.
If you'd like to see it, I'd be glad to send it down to you, but it's done.
Well, you might send it around.
Frankly, you can editorialize or do letters in terms of getting some striking language.
You might have Sapphire also see if you're doing it.
All right.
I don't mind if it's in the platform.
It can be a little bit sapphire and satiristic.
I want my speeches.
Okay.
What do you think?
Fine.
Fine.
I mean, on the platform, it's really hard.
I hate to talk about it, but they don't mean to call me.
I don't.
I don't.
But if they just avoid lawsuits.
Well, if we could get some...
I'll tell you, he talks about how people go to the bathroom during a reading of the platform.
I've seen the plans for this, and it's not going to be much better than it ever has been.
They've got to put some stuff on, some movies and that sort of stuff.
But the television has not got that.
Well, I'm not so sure we want people to notice it.
I'd much rather that it didn't get a lot of notoriety.
If we get a big platform scrap, then that's news, and to the extent that we decide against somebody and for somebody else, we're in trouble with the people that we decided against.
So rather than to have winners and losers, we want to make this a fairly calm operation, if possible, and...
We're going to go to Florida and monitor the thing, and hopefully no news will come out.
If there's no news on the Republican platform, I think that, at least my concept is, that's a good day.
But maybe I'm wrong.
The reason we didn't have hearings around the country was to just take the thing out of the papers.
You've got a record.
We don't need a platform.
No, that's right.
I really believe they're going to have one.
I mean, I always believe in scare-tacking with our own people, but I really believe they're going to have one.
I think they have opened Pandora's box by some collection of their goddess, John.
I mean, and it's going to be a rattle.
And I think we're going to be out biting and twisting and turning for life.
Yep, on welfare, for instance.
They've had hearings.
National Welfare Rights Organization came in and shook their finger under the platform committee's nose and said, if you want us, you've got to go $6,500.
But you come up with something else, too.
You take even the issue I mentioned, the issue of amnesty.
Yeah.
They'll never go the Lincolnian way.
I can't even mention that at all.
Why the hell wouldn't our own people do the research?
That's just a simple matter.
Yeah.
I wouldn't have known it, except I had known it.
Read a little Sandberg, and I just heard the, you know, because of the poetry, and I hadn't realized it.
I had this mythology in my head that Lincoln was a very nice guy.
Of course, if the mythology goes out of it, he'd call in some widow.
That's right.
Or he'd say, or a mother, just, well, I'm an electric son.
But as far as Lincoln's general intimacy, or specifically, provided they must return to their units he served, or...
I didn't know that.
It really is, and it's something we really capitalize on.
Because those who are for dynasty take the idea it was a moral war, and they were right to leave.
And they, therefore, should not serve.
And the country's moving to that.
And I do not allow them to get away with this idea that they can come back and serve the Red Cross.
Hell no.
They go there.
They go there, and they do the damage.
I don't want to send them to Vietnam.
That's not going to kill me.
Well, no.
The war will be over.
There's nothing going to happen to them.
See, I've taken that view myself.
I've said afterwards, we can take a look at the situation.
That's right.
Well, I am aware of the length of the analogy.
But I'm also aware that he may have served.
I think what we have to do now is we've got to honor the kids and help them.
Foolishness.
And some of the wildest people in Canada are sleeping.
If they had, I'd never...
Then they say, all right, fine, you can come back, but you have two years of service, and now you've got to serve four, or something like that.
Make them pay.
Don't you agree?
You can't let them come back and get all stuff free.
You'll break down their whole system.
That's for sure.
Because I don't believe it's for sure.
In fact, this whole conscientious objective thing bothers me, honestly.
It's all about service.
They've
you know, made it possible for a guy to go work in a settlement house or something instead of going in the service.
He becomes an educator.
And he gets into all kinds of community activities.
He gets people whipped up in blacks and so on.
It's a bad deal.
Well, I'd like to wait now with Elliot until, like, you get back to Florida.
Get back one night or something.
Okay.
Good thing the parents of your having been through it
then I would propose that we not say anything publicly until after the Democratic Convention.
And we can use the excuse that the Senate Finance Committee hasn't yet come out with its bill.
So really, we don't have that alternative in front of us.
It would be three weeks.
Well, I may be done.
I may do it.
All right, if you do, then you can say we are on H.R. 1.
We understand the Senate Finance Committee staff is going to present a bill.
Obviously, we'll study that when it comes out.
Senator Ribicoff has a number of proposals that we have already studied.
Our position right now is H.R.
1.
Next question.
And you can say that is a compromise bill.
It's budgeted.
We think it's sound.
It has strong work requirements in it.
You can emphasize the points you want to emphasize and make a pretty well-rounded answer on it.
We'll get up.
I want you to get to Elliott, though, in terms of the long haul.
As you know, as you know, we do need him for other things.
OK.
I will.
And frankly, I don't think you can stay in this damn field anyway.
It's a lousy deal that you don't even know.
He does it well.
It's perfect.
That's going to be a tough spot to fill.
And you don't.
Yeah.
It's very terrible.
I mean, it's almost impossible these days to think of anybody that, you know, if you ever get a chance to, whether it's state events or anything.
Yeah.
Well, it's done again.
You cannot continue, you see.
You cannot continue this old passenger syndrome.
I mean, it's not a healthy thing.
It's been absolutely indispensable up to this point.
And we would never even agree with Kelly.
I don't know whether he's even faced up to that.
But he should have walked in himself.
He should have done what he did.
He should have stopped us on top.
Don't you agree?
Oh, certainly.
But you cannot have this whole thing of having, you know, you're dead meat.
Nobody in his right mind would take Secretary of State on their hand and get us through today.
That's what it means.
That's true.
That's true.
Well, as a matter of fact, I think if you approach anybody in the second term who understands how things have been, they don't want to talk about the whole White House staff relationship to the captain.
And a guy's going to drive a hard bargain with you if he's on his toes.
You know, the more I think of John, it's hard for me to believe that the Democrats can help make the government.
I really don't see how they can.
I've noticed just a small thing.
You know, Godwin of Virginia is, of course, but was a conservative governor.
He was in the party last night, and he said, oh, you're going to get more Democratic votes.
You're going to get a new Republican.
Of course, he's coming up.
I know he is.
I know he is.
But he's a wonderful guy.
Yeah.
highly respected by his fellow governors.
I don't know if Bob told you that Dan Martin, who has been a very strong, well he was in the Kennedy administration, he's been a very strong Jackson man, came up to me in Los Angeles.
Dan Martin?
Yeah.
He was Undersecretary of Transportation under Kennedy.
Oh, yeah.
His father was governor of the state of Washington.
Now I have to tell him.
Oh, yeah.
He's a big catalyzer here in Southern California.
Oh, really?
Yeah, a big tall blonde guy.
And he came up to me after my talk.
He's on the board of Pepperdine.
And he said, okay, I'm ready to sign up.
And he said, it's obvious school kids are going to make it.
And he said, everybody else I look at over there scares me to death.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, even when I said he didn't want to hear it, I said it was Gallup who showed the same thing, so it must be the same.
He had the pristine time.
It's only 25%.
How can they not let him in?
How the hell do you deal with the consensus around grants at 25%?
You could if he came from nowhere.
See, he's not a dark horse.
You could take a dark horse.
Now, that's the way you bank it.
That's the way I think.
The delegates that have gone to this convention aren't like people that have ever been in politics.
So they believe you should be given an order.
And I would suspect that there are a vast number of who think that, sort of like our conservative Republican friends, that the ideal is paramount.
And so I think it's conceivable.
It's wrong, but it's conceivable.
Let me see what I've got here.
I'll tell you what it is.
It's just a book of cartoons.
I don't do trips.
But then, I don't think about art.
Sorry.
Let that go.
This is all I've seen.
I don't need to see other things.
No problem.
I wonder how safe he is.
I'm not very good at this.
These are, you can see, these are all the letters I've seen.
I mean, if I was to paint like this, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go, I'd go.
John Conner, that's true.
Well, he didn't say how bad it is to talk to you, but he was trying to call you yesterday.
He just came in and said he was there.
He's now on camera at 3 in the morning, so maybe later today.
Well, I don't think I will not be able to make a call.
I...
I will be on the phone.
The point is, I will be on radio the whole time.
I'm not getting any calls from my wife.
Yeah.
Food price.
I saw that on Mary.
I think we're on top of it as well.
Maybe Schultz is getting a plan around Gracie.
And Schultz will have some material for his first week.
They're going to work on the week.
On the change storage as well.
Not only the change storage, but also on all the alternatives with regard to freezes and controls and all the various things that may be available.
So, don't... Just by the quote from the first week, I get back...
Well, the main problem there was the tracers might have run away and have done something crazy.
So I couldn't just leave that there.
I really couldn't.
Did you read that book?
I started it last night.
The Javits and Javits and Javits and Javits and Javits and Javits and Javits and Javits and
Right.
He turns up and he slings out.
He does what he wants.
Well, you know, this whole thing right here, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a
Yes, sir.