Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 797 › Conversation 797-030

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Vietnam negotiations

Friday, October 13, 1972 · 5:43 PM–6:03 PM ET · Oval Office · 11 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Ziegler, Ronald L.Conversation797-030 on Tape 797StartFriday, October 13, 1972 at 5:43 PMEndFriday, October 13, 1972 at 6:03 PMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 797-030 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with H.R. Haldeman and Ronald Ziegler to discuss administrative matters, including Oval Office furnishings, and casual commentary on the 1972 World Series. The conversation shifted to critical foreign policy updates regarding Henry Kissinger's ongoing Vietnam peace negotiations and the strategic timing of a potential ceasefire announcement before the 1972 election. Additionally, the group touched upon political campaign activities, specifically addressing allegations of "dirty tricks" linked to Charles Colson and the Committee to Re-elect the President regarding rival candidates Edmund Muskie and Henry Jackson.

Audio

Download MP3 · 15.4 MB

NARA Description

On October 13, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 5:43 pm to 6:03 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 797-030 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 797-30

Date: October 13, 1972
Time: 5:43 pm - 6:03 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.

        Fredrick V. Malek

        Oval Office furnishings
           -Thelma C. (“Pat”) Nixon
           -Lyndon B. Johnson
           -Mrs. Nixon

Ronald L. Ziegler entered at 5:44 pm.

        Media relations
           -Cincinnati television [TV] station
                -1972 World Series
                     -The President's schedule
                         -Non-attendance
                              -John K. Andrews, Jr.
                              -Detroit Tigers-Oakland Athletics [A’s] playoff game
                                  -TV viewed by the President
                                       -Amount of time
                     -The President’s view
                         -Cincinnati Reds hitting
                         -A’s pitching

                           -Reds
                                -Johnny Bench
                                -Pete Rose
                           -A’s
                                -Bert Campaneris
                                -Johnny Lee (“Blue Moon”) Odom
                                -James (“Catfish”) Hunter
                                -Reggie Jackson
                           -Reds
                                -Johnny Bench
                                -Pete Rose

Ziegler left at 5:49 pm.

         Oval Office furnishings
Show the rest of the log (69 more lines)
            -Abraham Lincoln statue

*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 4m 46s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1

*****************************************************************

         Vietnam Negotiations
             -Henry A. Kissinger
                 -Schedule
                 -Recent conversation with the President
                      -Nguyen Van Thieu
                      -Return from Saigon
                          -Hanoi
                 -North Vietnamese
                 -Settlement timing
                      -1972 election
                      -National effect
                          -Cease-fire

                            -Timing
                       -US troop withdrawals
                       -Prisoners of War [POWs]
                   -The President’s schedule
                       -October 25, 1972
                            -TV speech
                            -Kissinger’s schedule
                            -Speech
                       -Announcement

*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 2m 21s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3

*****************************************************************

       Watergate and campaign practices
          -Washington Post
          -Committee to Re-elect the President [CRP]
          -Edmund S. Muskie
               -Charles W. Colson
                   -Dirty tricks
          -Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson
               -Hubert H. Humphrey
                   -Innuendo
          -Muskie
               -Colson
                   -Columnist

*****************************************************************

BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 47s ]

END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4

*****************************************************************

Haldeman left at 6:03 pm.

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

This chair is comfortable, but it's not handsome for this room.
There's no question about that.
It's not.
Basically, it's not as it fits the room.
I don't know.
It's hard.
I've had a huge contest.
All right.
I think he's got another one.
I think I'll have Pat get one.
I think he can stay with that.
I think he might.
I think he can make a positive chair for me.
I have three paragraphs.
I'm now caught.
I didn't watch it.
I missed you.
All right, fine.
Well, don't say that.
Except for one inning.
Except for the ninth.
I think it's very difficult to do that.
I think it's one in.
The president will say it will be one in.
Except for one in.
That means one in.
and that he believes that
You might say, you might pick up Johnny Bench, Pete Rose from Cincinnati, and the wife from Cincinnati, and on the open side, I would say Rodriguez for outstanding fielding plays.
I think Hunter won the first game.
Yeah, I want to share.
I would suggest that you not get too high a chair, even more opposed to a chair, no question about it, a better design, a better looking design.
But if you get it very high, you're going to block out that one, that statue and the window.
I wish you could go over.
I said, look Henry, suppose you get over there and shoot us down the hill.
He said, well.
sorry, he's going to come back here, and I'm going to know it.
And then after the election, we're done with the check.
That's what we're going to do.
You can't tell them to go to the White House or whatever.
You can't tell them to go out before the election.
The real place you got something, he's got it.
We are in it.
He's got in trouble with the game and he's playing versus the other agency, high stakes on the other end.
It isn't being played in terms of the election.
That's the fight.
It's going down well.
We're just well off with it, just like it is.
It's going to help the bill.
This isn't that much of that, but I don't believe it.
Damn it.
But the main fight is, the main fight is it'll get the war behind us.
I agree that it won't have much effect on the election in terms of it won't make much difference in the vote, one way or the other, but it will have an enormous, it will make an enormous difference in national attitude because it's a load on everybody's shoulders.
You can't believe it.
We have a ceasefire on the 30th, 26th or something like that.
And all troops home and all POWs back by the end of the year.
It's something that's, you know, it's quiet.
That's the night that we would go on TV as of now.
And it gets back at 9 o'clock the night of the 24th.
No, no, no, no.
That was the night.
I believe if you were going to do it the next night, you couldn't do it.
I don't know.
I've got to prepare the speech.
Well, I didn't think you were going to do it.
I could do it the night after.
I wouldn't have to change it.
I wouldn't have to announce it.

— 1 min 7 s with no transcribed speech —

Yeah, I'm still crying.
Except for the musky stuff.
Some of it, I think, is Ozark Olsen's stuff.
Maybe some of it is.
Do you ever hear the story about the blood?
No.
No, I haven't heard about that story.
It sounds pretty funny, though.
It's a pretty funny story, really.
And I don't know how anybody can get very upset about that.
But there is this stuff.
There's a literature about stupid jacks and people who don't have any peculiar sex habits or something like that.
If they can hang out with somebody, they'll have a problem.
We put that on?
I don't know.
That's Muskie claiming that.
That's the one I don't know.
Oh, they put it on his letterhead.
Well, I bet he did it himself.
Well, there's a... What the hell?
This is what Muskie has told...
Somebody, one of Colson's source type people, Muskie has told him that he privately, that he suspects a staff member in his office.

Also recorded on October 13, 1972

  • 797-024 4:33 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:33 pm and 4:35 pm.
  • 797-025 4:33 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:33 pm and 4:39 pm.
  • 797-029 4:39 PM · 36 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, Alexander P. Butterfield, Stephen B. Bull, John D. Ehrlichman, and William E. Timmons met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:39 pm to 5:43 pm.
  • 797-031 6:03 PM · 6 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Manolo Sanchez met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:03 pm to 6:10 pm.
  • 797-032 6:11 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:11 pm to 6:15 pm.
  • 797-033 6:15 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:15 pm to 6:22 pm.
  • 797-035 6:22 PM · 12 sec — United States Secret Service agents and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 6:22 pm to 6:25 pm.
  • 031-038 6:45 PM · 18 sec — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Rose Mary Woods talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:45 pm and 7:07 pm.

All 50 conversations from October 13, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 797-030, October 13, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/797-030 (accessed November 2, 2026).