Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 781-010
Date: Monday, September 18, 1972 at 11:37 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Hicks, Jack O.; Keller, John J.; Rhatican, William F.; White House operator
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/781-010

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:02] How are you?
[0:04] Glad to see you.
[0:06] Glad to welcome you here.
[0:09] Yes, how are you?
[0:11] You mean the Queens?
[0:16] Well, you guys... That's right.
[0:20] We always have our formal picture with us.
[0:32] No, no, let's get one
[0:59] Well, I just want to wish you the very best in your activities.
[1:04] My father was thinking of writing my first campaign.
[1:15] I was mentioning his daughter.
[1:27] My oldest daughter, Patricia, was born in 1946.
[1:31] That was before they were born, of course.
[1:33] And I remember that first campaign, traveling through my congressional district in California, which was on the outskirts, the east of Los Angeles, that I visited the end of the American-Asian Veterans World War II, and that's just depending on the age.
[1:54] So I've known your organization all that time.
[1:59] And you know what service to this country is about, what your people do.
[2:06] And we want to support you in everything that we can with all of our limitations that we can.
[2:16] You can be sure that John Johnson, all of our lawyers, the door is always open here.
[2:22] I'd like to insure you .
[2:24] Your guy, of course, your boss, of course, you know, you've got to support those two, but when it comes to the disabled veteran, and you know, you've really got a heck of a strong case, and we just go balls out on that.
[2:46] Johnson knows that, you see, but you, but you call us a
[2:59] Yeah.
[2:59] Yeah.
[2:59] I tried to tell him he was going.
[3:01] Well, he'd come to Chicago, which was a long time to get there.
[3:08] See, I had a public convention in my entry to Chicago that day, a public convention that he flew out of here or something.
[3:19] But he's a strong man.
[3:21] He's a big man.
[3:22] But he was a big dude.
[3:24] Oh, he's big.
[3:25] Watch out.
[3:30] Good people, strong people.
[3:32] They had a terrible, terrible tragedy.
[3:34] But what impressed me is that those people, some of them were poor, but all of them were proud.
[3:44] And they had guts.
[3:44] They'll come back.
[3:46] They'll come back.
[3:55] The biggest crybabies I know were not the poor people, the working people, the rest of them were some of the bankers, big business guys that had five million and only two million left.
[4:04] I said, well, isn't that too bad?
[4:06] But the people that were doing it, you know, the people who lost their homes, I'm going to get a word with you that it's not going to work.
[4:12] Those are the people who make this country.
[4:15] You're over it.
[4:16] I mean, it's a little difficult.
[4:17] Yeah.
[4:17] I live about five miles from my home.
[4:18] I live in Boone now, of course.
[4:20] Yeah, Boone.
[4:20] Yeah, right, right, right, right.
[4:21] Sorry to have the race.
[4:23] I don't go to the tracks.
[4:24] My friend, Edgar Cooper, helped me with it.
[4:27] Now, each commander has the new presidential complex seal on it.
[4:35] There's yours.
[4:35] You've got these.
[4:36] You've got the old ones.
[4:37] Thank you very much.
[4:53] The same thing, it's as close, not as colorful as the seal.
[4:56] You see the seal on the road there.
[4:59] Thank you.
[4:59] That's all we got.
[5:00] How's that, Collin?
[5:02] Except for the wishes.
[5:04] We certainly appreciate your time.
[5:05] Well, it does.
[5:06] I appreciate it.
[5:08] I had an interesting guy come in a few minutes.
[5:13] He sort of reminds me of World War II.
[5:15] Bill Caldwell, who was retiring and all that, got in on this.
[5:18] And as I agreed with my parents, come in and get me to sign Bill's memorial for CDs.
[5:23] And when I was in the Navy, but in air operations, but when I was in the subject, and it's all on us, I lived with CDs.
[5:36] They sure did.
[5:37] They used to steal it.
[5:38] You know where Green Island is?
[5:39] Right off of New Guinea.
[5:41] I was there at Green Island.
[5:43] Right off of New Guinea.
[5:45] Right off of New Guinea.
[5:49] Right off of New Guinea.
[5:53] Right off of New Guinea.
[5:58] Right off of New Guinea.
[6:00] Right off of New Guinea.
[6:03] Right off of New Guinea.