Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 754-007
Date: Wednesday, July 26, 1972 at 12:22 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.; [Unknown person(s)]; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Sanchez, Manolo; Woods, Rose Mary; Butterfield, Alexander P.; White House operator; Connally, John B.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/754-007

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:06] Yes, sir.
[0:07] Okay.
[0:08] Come on over and sit down.
[0:11] I want to get a picture here.
[0:15] You and I are talking about problems you can testify about, so sit over here.
[0:27] No, you're here.
[0:35] Senator will be here.
[0:38] Bill, you sit here.
[0:42] I'll tell you, if you turn around at this point, I'll tell you.
[0:45] Oh, that's good.
[0:47] Yeah, yeah.
[0:48] Bill, that's marvelous.
[0:50] Did you attend it?
[0:51] Yes, sir.
[4:03] Which they do at Christmas.
[4:06] Which some of them, some Christmas aren't.
[4:12] Because of the subculture.
[4:16] If you do all that in your testaments, you can't do the questions.
[4:25] They were doing that.
[4:27] They were doing that.
[4:33] You know, one of the things I was thinking that we ought to consider
[5:01] I don't know that a prison giver isn't a prison.
[5:05] I imagine, of course, the Secret Service, and I'll raise hell about that, but a prison's the safest place in the world.
[5:13] I was thinking if you wanted to focus interest, if you wanted to really focus interest, I raised this with Hall a long time, and he said, Secret Service,
[5:24] You know, they're also security officers.
[5:25] I mean, this is an honest inquiry, but I'm just reliant, fatalistic about it.
[5:28] I mean, they shoot for George Wallace.
[5:31] They may shoot me tomorrow.
[5:32] That's the way it is.
[5:34] But I'll tell you what's been happening.
[5:36] I told you on Saturday afternoon at the Tennessee State Prison.
[5:41] And I went into a room, and I told the warden and the press and everybody.
[5:46] I said, well, 30 guys can talk.
[5:47] Because they're not going to talk to a lot of people.
[5:51] They're going to be honest.
[5:53] But they've got this thing that we're talking about today, the SEP staff program, which is a con to con program.
[5:59] And these guys, I've never had more fascinating things in my life.
[6:04] I don't know if this is working with either of your hands, but I'll just do a little checking, because I'm just concerned about an awful lot of folks.
[6:14] Yeah, that's where it might work.
[6:16] That person would be dangerous.
[6:20] But they are.
[6:20] But in town city, we cut our recidivism from 68% to 40%.
[6:23] There must be some variety going on down there.
[6:26] And I think that kind of a reason, if you carefully did it, I don't know.
[6:31] I suppose it's probably one of those things that a lot of people regret.
[6:36] Let's just take a look, frankly.
[6:38] There may be some other way we can express it, because this helps you express it.
[6:42] Maybe Billy Graham might be.
[6:43] You know, he and I have talked about this.
[6:46] Yeah.
[6:47] Yeah, there's mugs and dolls.
[6:51] to the television special.
[6:53] I'd do a concert, and he'd speak to them in 10 minutes or so.
[6:56] And maybe at your appearance at a place like that, a thing like that might be good.
[7:02] There's an idea.
[7:03] You were in Dallas at the time.
[7:04] Yeah.
[7:05] I know.
[7:06] He turned around the caravan.
[7:08] Oh, yeah.
[7:09] Well, I drank.
[7:11] That was a great bunch of kids.
[7:12] Ah, they were wonderful.
[7:13] Well, I'll tell you who I remember when you were here.
[7:17] I remember when you were on the screen.
[7:21] I think you and I would say that the country does a great job at record research.
[7:29] It's clean.
[7:30] It's patriotic.
[7:33] And it's fun.
[7:35] And, you know, you can have clean, patriotic, dull stuff that turns off the kids.
[7:39] But the kids, your stuff is good and clean and patriotic and gets them jumping and hollering, but not cutting each other out.
[7:46] Right.
[7:47] That's what it's about.
[7:48] And if you could keep that great tradition, you know, I'd be happy to let them camp all the time.
[8:09] I have three people up here.
[8:11] My great-aunt, my sister, and his father.
[8:14] Were they worried about your wife at first?
[8:18] No, we didn't have a baby.
[8:21] He's not a baby.
[8:22] That is my buddy.
[8:24] But it kind of happens to him.
[8:26] He's not a baby.
[8:29] He's a buddy.
[8:30] He is my buddy, really.
[8:33] I spent a lot of time listening to Mr. John Rawlings.
[8:37] Oh, he's a good man.
[8:38] Isn't he, though?
[8:40] I've never been to this place in Jamaica.
[8:41] I bet you have.
[8:42] I have this for us to say it's true.
[8:44] I loved it here.
[8:44] I think it's the kind of place you can go to really.
[8:47] Do you like it?
[8:49] I loved it.
[8:50] So we're going back.
[8:52] I did some concerts to raise money for an unwanted home for unwanted children.
[8:56] Thank you.
[9:01] Mr. President, I don't think I want to see you again.
[9:08] Why don't we stand up here?
[9:32] You have it in the White House.
[9:33] Let's have it in the Oval Office before the Blacks.
[9:36] Here's a John the Black, and a couple others.
[9:38] This is the picture.
[9:39] And, of course, there's the President's flag.
[9:40] And I'll show you this because I'm going to give you something that has it described.
[9:44] And here's the seal of the President's flag.
[9:48] It's always in this picture.
[9:53] There it is.
[9:59] of the services, the Marine Corps, the Army, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Air Force.
[10:10] And those always go with who retired presidents.
[10:13] Thank you.
[10:15] So now we'll take our picture in front of this.
[10:17] Is that all right?
[10:18] All right.
[10:18] Come on.
[10:19] Hey!
[10:19] Come on.
[10:19] Come on.
[10:21] Right here.
[10:22] Now look right out here.
[10:23] That's nice.
[10:24] That's nice.
[10:28] That's right, that's right.
[10:30] Now that's a good answer.
[10:35] I'm just trying to be a video pick.
[10:58] This is a piece of student, a professor, Anna Heard.
[11:00] If you want to get around that, that's how you can see it better.
[11:04] He had it made.
[11:05] I mean, there's only one of its kind in the first world.
[11:09] It's made.
[11:09] And the seal is inscribed on it.
[11:11] Oh, that's beautiful.
[11:12] Oh, that's incredible.
[11:14] Thank you.
[11:15] It's beautiful.
[11:16] This is from China.
[11:18] It's a dwarf tree, 30 years old.
[11:21] It's really old.
[11:22] It's got 30 years.
[11:23] This is real.
[11:23] Did you bring that back?
[11:26] One of my secretaries here brought it in.
[11:29] We always put out state gifts, things of that sort.
[11:35] This is a music box.
[11:41] Over here, what do we have out this week?
[11:44] This is the Prime Minister of Australia.
[11:56] That's the most important thing.
[12:00] Julie did that on election day.
[12:02] She did it before election day.
[12:04] It's cruel.
[12:04] It's cruel.
[12:05] It's cruel.
[12:06] Well, we're very honored that you're taking the time.
[12:13] Oh, listen, I'll tell you what John has done for this country.
[12:16] Well, I want you to know that we pray for you today.
[12:23] Thank you.
[12:24] And whatever we missed, let us know.
[12:27] I appreciate it very much, very much.
[12:29] We've done so much already.
[12:31] I'll show you what this is.
[12:34] These are new.
[12:35] We have the old ones.
[12:38] See, here's the same color.
[12:40] I'm going to cover it.
[12:43] Bill, you don't have one of these.
[12:45] You've got one of the old ones.
[12:48] Oh, thank you very much.
[12:53] Let's see, one other thing that I forgot.
[12:57] Did you get an axe for your husband?
[13:01] No, I didn't.
[13:02] You may not, but your friends.
[13:07] Bring an axe.
[13:13] He said, have you ever heard of anyone who had the nerve to go to speak to the
[13:43] to the people you know this morning
[13:58] You know, a couple of nights I didn't even have a chance.
[14:02] No, I had to go borrow something from June or Reba.
[14:05] I went to the airport in L.A. and went down yesterday.
[14:08] And it's true.
[14:09] You were in L.A. yesterday?
[14:11] Yes.
[14:11] You must be bush.
[14:12] I mean, you're a very young dog.
[14:14] I'm sorry.
[14:14] I get tired.
[14:15] I really do.
[14:17] When he left for Nashville yesterday morning, he had four of our daughters.
[14:22] He had four of them.
[14:23] He had six.
[14:24] And one son.
[14:25] Four of them.
[14:27] Seven.
[14:28] Six daughters and a son.
[14:30] Six daughters and a son.
[14:32] The little bullpens for the daughters.
[14:36] You get three bullpens and a little pen for that.
[14:41] These are little things.
[15:01] That's all we got, California.
[15:05] This incident is very interesting to me.
[15:10] It's the reproduction by a British artist of what the White House was back in the middle of the 80s of the 19th century.
[15:22] You see, at that time, the Tonic River or some tributary used to come right up to here.
[15:29] And here is the lawn.
[15:32] Theodore Roosevelt was the man who designed and built this wing, and this wing, and these wings, put on.
[15:38] And later, at a earlier time, there's a memorial.
[15:42] And that's the way that my house was built.
[15:44] Of course, it was not there then.
[15:47] Well, it burned.
[15:48] No, before this.
[15:49] It burned before.
[15:50] Before this.
[15:51] This was the reconstruction.
[15:54] Well, we thank you very much.
[15:57] Good luck and we wish you the best.
[16:00] We hope that sometime in the future we have you in the White House again.
[16:08] We were very happy to meet you.
[16:10] It was a great show.
[16:12] Thank you.
[16:13] There you are.
[16:15] Take your bowser back.
[16:16] Oh, good.
[16:18] Thank you.
[16:19] That's fine.
[16:19] You had a fine picture with those.
[16:23] It was fine.
[16:24] I should probably use it.
[16:28] I don't know why.
[16:29] I don't know.
[16:30] Yes, ma'am.