Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 786-011
Date: Monday, September 25, 1972 at 10:48 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Bull, Stephen B.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/786-011

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] How do you think of the, uh...
[0:14] The election they had.
[0:31] I would certainly, it's a new one, it's what it holds, that's fine.
[0:40] I would certainly know, be sure to go to the rest of these people who've done this goddamn thing.
[0:47] I mean, that's something that, frankly, with Eisenhower, Bob, they did it one time, and I remember the sons of bitches didn't come in, they never got a picture.
[0:57] You know what I mean?
[0:59] You can do them all here.
[1:01] You could have Tyler in every morning for breakfast and every other night for dinner and he'd say, why don't you ever have me for lunch?
[1:24] That's just John's stock and trade.
[1:27] It's his way of working.
[1:28] It's to keep the kind of man that he is.
[1:31] Keep the medieval treasure.
[1:46] But you also do one other thing.
[1:51] In the study of agencies and so forth,
[1:54] There are a lot of little things that are stuck in the cracks that we don't know about that I want the boys to get at.
[2:01] One is the emergency control agency, which is Jackson Creek.
[2:08] I told you.
[2:10] And that budget, that is $9 million.
[2:12] So there's a lot of people.
[2:14] First, I've got to know how many people there, and I really want to know, are appointed by me or the Secretary of State or the Acting Director.
[2:23] In other words, how many are subject to
[2:25] Second, then it's like the CIA, that none are subject to change.
[2:30] Then what we do is we, of course, will cut the son of a bitch in question right down to the nut and not allow any jobs to be built and so forth and so on.
[2:42] What I have in mind is that a number of these agencies like that, we can have it double-stranded.
[2:47] We can have it delivered.
[2:50] We can have it, say, at 50%.
[2:54] say we want to cut a 50% by, not by ripping, but by simply not replacing.
[3:00] And then where it's like, maybe not Social Security checks, we don't have any checks.
[3:04] See my point?
[3:05] We know there are differences.
[3:07] Where there's a curve, in other words, where it's a think tank, basically, a policy-creating thing, there should be a 50% cut.
[3:14] Cut the son of a bitch to the heart.
[3:17] Where it's basically an operating agency.
[3:20] then maybe it requires a few more.
[3:22] Although even there, I think if you cut down some of them, they do while they're outlawed there, you can make efficiency use.
[3:33] Our problem is, at the moment, you've ordered the cups, and I noticed this when we were at Weyberg's, and what happens is that the vacancy hits,
[3:45] cut the operation, and those people that are on the creative side, we want to get the, and it's the creative side that we want to cut.
[3:54] So, if you could start with that, that would be helpful.
[3:59] What do you think?
[4:02] Absolutely.
[4:04] That is what I'm talking about.
[4:07] You think he understands your...
[4:12] Yeah, but I think we've got to end this.
[4:14] You see, look, every now and then our department, we've got all the other people that grab your meeting.
[4:24] Well, here's what you would do in the White House.
[4:26] I can assure you, you would say what they would do.
[4:28] They'd say, well, we'll cut the numbers, the monitors, and the number of the waiters.
[4:31] And Matt says, that doesn't matter.
[4:34] You may need more monitors or more waiters, but they'll leave a lot of people at the higher levels.
[4:39] Right.
[4:40] Right, right, right.