Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 801 › Conversation 801-003
Nixon & Ziegler on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Press relations
Tuesday, October 17, 1972 · 8:17 AM–8:34 AM ET · Oval Office · 14 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler to coordinate the administration’s strategy for the final weeks of the 1972 campaign. The discussion centered on efforts to discredit the media’s coverage of the administration and emphasized the importance of contrasting the perceived patriotism of the President's supporters—such as labor, farmers, and military families—against that of the liberal establishment and academics. The two also reviewed logistical planning for upcoming public appearances, potential radio addresses regarding tax reform, and updates on Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic activities.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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What I'd like to do, and you can call it and say it to me, right now.
In fact, just on a personal basis, he likes inviting me to have a cup of coffee, just to chat personally and off the record.
And he would come in.
And I was just ringing in to see if it was personal or off the record.
And I was talking to Zion's father and his grandfather both.
He was very intelligent with all of his problems.
What do you think?
He got some of the capability of his grandfather.
His father was actually accepted to training.
He was a hell of a people guy, too.
He wrote a superb biography of Churchill that died of sclerosis of the liver.
Yeah, he did great.
He did everything.
I know him well.
Nice fellow.
All out for our side.
This fellow who flew to the funeral with us.
The grandson who flew to the funeral with us.
That's De Gaulle, excuse me.
That's De Gaulle's grandson.
Yeah, yeah.
I was thinking of your press people as one of the worst guys.
He said it was slightly larger than the crowd had ever had in Milwaukee, for heaven's sakes.
I really think somebody ought to, not talk about it, but I think somebody ought to just treat the kids as, now look, we know Krauts.
Oh, he said, and not as large as Nixon's Krauts in 1968.
Nonsense.
Nixon said that.
Of course, I forget that.
Actually, it was about three times as big as the Nixon Kraut.
I was there.
It's a bit difficult.
It showed you what you're up against in the press.
That's supposed to be a fever.
It's not, apparently.
Right.
Right.
You know, I know Perry.
I don't know him well.
He's bad.
He's been bad for years.
He's just a liberal.
Boy, they never even miss an opportunity to give it to us.
They can, they will.
The post-war, the comments yesterday from McGregor and Dole, they followed us like a badge of honor this morning.
Good.
And keep on defending, keep hitting them.
That's what we have to do in the last three weeks, is to discredit the media.
They're about the only enemy that's going to have any effect.
I mean, it's going to have some effect.
We should discredit them.
I mean, not all, but most of the times.
And why do you think that's fine?
Because you put all this in perspective.
The big issue is
still it's so overriding you know to go over that pow thing speak eight minutes it was excellent and also led the tv news it was very positive very good the applause lines were in a
And then from there, from the president, you automatically drop down to all of this political beckoning and so forth, you know, which took up the rest of the news.
It was good from that standpoint, too.
I was particularly glad that Times picked up my comments, because I was hoping somebody would have gotten them.
the strategy i said i wanted to set the record for that i don't want to go after the election right it's because we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna have to election act like they're not soft i don't want them to know why it's another it's not just just a shot across the top i worried absolutely
That was the day I braved Maine.
That's right.
Before we left.
And Henry, too.
Remember one guy who squealed about the death of a single-sposed Hispanic guy?
He screamed at you.
Yeah.
It's going to rain World War III.
Don't you know that's wrong?
I remember you didn't.
It's great.
But I'm worried.
Boy, those wives aren't decent.
Yeah, they are.
The character, the character they've got compared to the business people.
And frankly, the educated cricks.
And the families, too.
That's why I stuck the business in with the meeting, too.
After all, it's a good way to take the time.
Because they are, most of the big business, the business council and the rest, are silent when you kind of make a tough decision.
They don't step on us.
It affects their bread and butter.
It's terrible.
The people that are the best, frankly, are the avenues, the hard hats, labor, the farmers, and the service people.
Interesting.
That's the only character I want to describe.
People who are the weakest, though, are the top educators.
I could have mentioned religious leaders, but they didn't want to get in a fight with the churches.
Going back to Cambodia,
at Laos during that period when we were with the college presidents came in here and that fellow from Vanderbilt heard, good God in heaven, these people were something else.
There were many things that were explained to us when we passed through the heavy water.
Basically, it's the establishment of the discovery
We have publishers.
We're getting that.
I refer to commentators, you know.
Right.
I know the difference.
Anybody ask you about any different version of the people that write the stories?
You didn't say publishing.
No, sir.
But the Times started to publish it.
Oh, I didn't push it.
I don't think I said publishing.
If I did, it's fine.
It's fine.
So I'm speaking at the times that I'm supposed to.
But you see, we're on a kind of a thing, which we, of course, shouldn't.
I've got to show you that we can.
It's happening.
All right.
Because all of the networks
carrying the response, you know, the clapping and stuff like that.
And from that audience to that audience.
Oh, Hale Boggs is messing up there.
Oh, sorry.
I read in the paper this morning, a lot of Will Rogers, one of those.
Do you remember that?
No, I don't.
Oh, you don't.
You're, of course, you're Will Rogers.
I used to like Will Rogers.
Well, that was an early days aviation.
It was not missing on day five of our last flight.
It was one of the first transponding fighters from the Great Explorers.
And the last of the Congressmen, I hope, in the name of Christ, we've got a candidate in the box of visitors.
We have a candidate in the box of visitors.
We have a candidate in the box of visitors.
We have a candidate in the box of visitors.
We don't look at it.
You made the announcements of the radio Thursday morning.
No, I left it loose.
You can't.
We were talking in there.
I think Bob has a suggestion about perhaps moving that to Saturday.
Thursday we have Psalm 2.
We have a lot of them.
We don't have it.
We have a lot of them.
We have a lot of them on Saturday.
Well, they're talking about one for Sunday on Monday.
Yeah, I know.
We've got another one for Saturday night.
Well, there was some discussion that John wanted to talk to you about the tax reform and whether or not we want to do it at this point.
Apparently, McGovern Friday night is going to do a speech on economy policy.
And this may seem to be a response from you to that.
The general feeling this morning in the meeting was that tax reform four or five weeks ago was something confident .
As John used the phrase, maybe we should keep it in the sock for now.
Why do it?
But John said he'd be impressed.
Well, there's one thing I want to get out of the tax reform.
I've got to get something out of the parochial school.
Chris, you could.
There are a lot of different ways.
You could let her out.
You could do that.
Your position is pretty.
I know it is, but McGovern has spoken since then in the public memory.
I don't have the hierarchy almost, but the public memory is very, very short on things like this.
I just want to underline it again.
Let's put it in there.
Well, I'll go over that.
I don't care about David Lewis.
It doesn't matter much.
But I believe we announced Philadelphia, of course, for the signing.
Right.
And there's a lot you don't say.
It looks frightening.
You announced it yesterday.
Yes, sir.
And New York, we're going to announce today.
I'll link that to the Daily News last night, so they have it this morning, and then we'll announce it today.
Good.
That's the stuff.
It's great to do that every time you can.
So then Kiss is going to...
I don't get to play today.
And then I announce at 11 he's going to Saigon.
Well, we don't know yet.
Well, I mean...
If he goes, we won't know.
Because it's still very much up in the air.
It's like whether...
I think he may have a big two days now.
He may have to come back.
Well, I'll check with you.
There are five points that he should come back.
We'll see.
All right.
Let's see if he can do that.
We don't have to do any radio.
Skip.
Move it to Saturday, I say.
I know I've got several to do if they want to drop off the tax and drop some on us.
And then we just put them all on the last page and do the reading one day after another.
We don't need it this week.
You have a trade agreement Wednesday?
Trade agreement Wednesday.
What do you have today?
Well, today we have the Kissinger Movement and so forth, how it works out.
Yeah.
And announcing the trips and so forth to New York.
In the meantime, we have to play exactly the same game.
We're not going to get knocked off balance by sharpies about water being the sabotage.
That's bullshit.
It's not worth it.
Let's have a squiggle.
Okay, I'll let you know.
Yeah, he's working at any time.
I need a half hour.
Could be at 5.30 today.
NARA Description
On October 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:17 am to 8:34 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 801-003 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 801-3
Date: October 17, 1972
Time: 8:17 am - 8:34 am
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Ronald L. Ziegler.
The President's schedule
-Possible meeting with [Winston S. Churchill]
-Location
-Washington, DC
-Atlanta
-Recent writing
-Washington Post
-1972 campaign
-Atlanta
-Possible telephone call from Ziegler
-Randolph F.E.S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill
-Randolph Churchill
-Winston S. Churchill
-Drinking
-Gen. Charles A.J.M. de Gaulle
-Grandson
-Travel with the President to de Gaulle’s funeral
Press and media relations
-Reporting of crowds
-James Perry
-National Observer
-Estimate of the President’s crowd in Atlanta
-Compared to George S. McGovern’s crowd in Boston
-Possible reaction by the Administration
-The President’s recent crowd compared to crowd from 1960 campaign
event
-Washington Post
-Clark MacGregor, Robert J. Dole
-New York Times
-Support for McGovern
-Editorial staffs
-Life magazine
-Time magazine
-Issues
-Watergate
-Vietnam
-The President's recent meeting with the National League of Families of
American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia
-Television news coverage
-The President’s criticism of the Establishment
-New York Times
-Press reaction to the President’s May 8, 1972 decision
-Henry A. Kissinger
-Richard Dudman
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
-Prisoners of war [POWs] wives and families
-Businessmen
-Compared to other groups
-Ethics
-Hard hats
-Labor
-Farmers
-Servicemen
-Academics
-Religious leaders
-Academics
-Cambodia, Laos
-College presidents
-G[eorge] Alexander Heard
-Vanderbilt University
-Religious leaders
-Pacifism
-Establishment
-News commentators, publishers
-New York Times
-Washington Post
-Coverage by media
-The President’s remarks during meeting with POW families
-Amnesty
-POW’s
-Vietnam
-Amnesty
-Network coverage
[Thomas] Hale Boggs
-Disappearance in airplane crash
-Compared to Will Rogers and Wiley Post
-Political situations in Alaska and Louisiana
- [Nicholas J. Begich]
- [Don Young]
The President's schedule
-Forthcoming radio address
-Ziegler’s possible announcement
-Timing
-H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
-Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty [SALT] II
-Other radio addresses
-Veterans
-Tax reforms
-John D. Ehrlichman
-McGovern’s forthcoming speech on the economy
-Parochial schools
-Possible letter from the President
-McGovern
-Revenue sharing bill signing ceremony
-Philadelphia
-New York
-New York Daily News
Ziegler's announcements
-Kissinger's schedule
-Paris
-Saigon
-The President's forthcoming radio address
-Timing
-Tax reform
-US - Soviet Union trade agreement
-Kissinger
-The President’s forthcoming trip to New York
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 2m 53s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
*****************************************************************
Corruption charges
-Watergate
-Campaign sabotage
-Espionage
The President’s schedule
-Possible meeting with Winston Churchill
Ziegler left at 8:34 am.Also recorded on October 17, 1972
- 031-098 7:54 AM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:54 am and 9:12 am.
- 801-001 7:54 AM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:54 am and 8:17 am.
- 801-002 7:54 AM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 7:54 am and 8:17 am.
- 801-004 8:36 AM · 1 hr — President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, White House operator, and Andrew E. Gibson met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:36 am and 9:59 am.
- 031-099 9:12 AM · 48 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Ralph Marrinsen talked on the telephone from 9:12 am to 9:13 am.
- 801-005 9:59 AM · 14 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Stephen B. Bull, David C. Hoopes, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:59 am to 10:21 am.
- 801-007 10:33 AM · 17 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Ronald L. Ziegler, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:33 am and 11:06 am.
- 108-004 11:06 AM · 15 min — President Richard M. Nixon and members of the National Advisory Council for Drug Abuse Prevention, including James Q. Wilson, Wade Coleman, Richard S. Wilbur, Donald E. Johnson, Carl D. Chambers, Robert L. DuPont, Phyllis Harrison-Ross, Audrey R. Holliday, John J. Marchi, Beny J. Primm, Michael J. Quinn, Gale E. Sayers, Egil ("Bud") Krogh, Jr., Richard H. Nordahl, Lee W. Gladden, Geoffrey C. Shepard, Dr. Jerome H. Jaffe, Myles J. Ambrose, Dr. Merlin K. ("Morty") DuVal, and Richard L. Harkness, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 11:06 am and 11:21 am.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 801-003, October 17, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/801-003 (accessed September 25, 2026).