On January 4, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:01 pm and 1:46 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 833-021 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Who would you like to see the closest to?
The speaker and the vice president here.
I thought perhaps... Vice president.
Next to me?
No.
The speaker should be to my right.
In my left.
The vice president.
Speaker.
That's right.
Everybody else.
Unfortunately not.
It doesn't make sense.
No, it's not.
I was just going to put the vice versa on the other side of your rectangle.
That's what we were trying to answer.
They're using visuals tomorrow.
But don't put it next to me, though.
That is a mistake.
Place it next to the speaker, then.
You have to have that.
The speaker should be certainly next to me.
But I think you could have Mansfield.
Let him be the right of the vice president.
Why does the center rank the house?
Why don't I have four on my left?
Who's the other captain of the house?
So we have Schultz as the senior captain of the house.
He said, well, I have Schultz.
I have four on my left.
Then Schultz.
Why don't you give the House a little bit of recognition on this occasion?
I always sit with the bad senators, and I don't, you know, they don't, I don't.
The Speaker of the Board between, in my case, and then the next one over, it'd be the Vice President, and Mansfield.
And then have the Speaker of the Board, and then Schultz, and
No problem.
It's perfectly all right.
That's the way it's going to be.
Just saying, we're messing it up a little.
We're going to mess up a lot of things, not protocols.
Thank you, sir.
Do you have any interest in going to one of the performances of the Chinese acrobatic team?
No, sir.
No, sir.
Okay.
I guess you wouldn't like to go to that place unless it's something that is for Haiti.
And I saw them.
God, that's what I want to see.
They got out of it.
It's Mrs. Nixon's money.
They got her as the sponsor or some patron.
She said she'd rather go, and I think you could present that to her.
If you go, you should go the first night.
I don't think she should go the first night, even though she's patron, probably.
Because the president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, who is the chairman of the evening and would like you to come backstage afterwards and read the truth, happens to be a very loyal and close friend of yours by the name of Charles W. Yost.
I don't think even Pat ought to be there.
Even in spite of the fact that she should go.
Will he be there the second night again?
I don't think so.
The opening night is some kind of a benefit.
Well, I would not do anything for you.
Good.
I don't know how the hell he can use it.
These people are all redeemed.
They move, they revolve from one place to another.
They really do.
Scott, I guess Scott wanted to go.
If I'm going to go with you, I don't go with you.
I'm not going.
Pat can go.
Okay, well, we'll see whether she wants to go, and then we can set up some other.
I think she virtually would be very helpful for her to go, but I'm just not going.
I don't think it's a bad idea for people to think I'm working with her right now.
What do you think?
I mean, why would I go after some acrobatic player?
It's the same thing, I'm sure, is that what you mean?
An acrobatic is just an acrobatic.
I agree.
I just don't want to see it again.
It's not the gym team.
It's a magic show and all that.
But this guy's quite an acrobatic guy.
I'm not interested in it.
That's all.
I'm not interested in doing that sort of thing.
I'm not going to use my time for it.
Well, you can get it to maybe Julie, but Julie would be great if she could go with her.
Dr. Rose.
Yep.
And a very good doctor there.
I couldn't get it out until this.
Maybe she's still infected.
Well, she may be.
I went to her.
You didn't sense the physical.
Maybe.
I don't think it's physical.
It may be.
She's seen it.
good shape and, you know, good spirits and everything.
And I raised, I kind of eased into things and wandered around.
You talk about Ed Sullivan.
I told her about Ed Sullivan.
I told her about, I let her in on a few things.
I told her that Chapin was sleeping.
I thought that was probably a pleasure because I don't think she likes him.
Well, she should.
He worked, she worked with him.
She jobs.
Yeah.
And I told her Klein was sleeping because I figured she'd hear about that somewhere.
It was better for her to know about it.
I put one to all the personnel.
He wasn't leaving by order.
Could you explain to him?
Oh, yeah.
The age factor.
Yeah.
And she's completely crazy.
She said, you know, it would be nuts not to get out now because he'd be 60 years old by the time he turns over and he wouldn't be able to get a job anymore.
Now he's, she saw that right away.
Did you talk about Alex?
What about Alex?
responded well to the Steve thing.
She said, I used the Julie coming back as my way to get into it.
I said, we've got to get all these things worked out because you and I have got to be sure that this thing works with Julie so there's no problems on it.
So I think it's going to work out.
She said, both Pat Nixon and Julie have told her that they like Steve.
She said, I think that's going to be a very good movement.
That'll work well.
Steve can work well with
Julie's going to have a problem with Lucy.
And that's something that she said Julie will not report on that.
I mean, she will have a problem with Lucy.
Lucy doesn't have a problem.
But Lucy can't outmaneuver Julie.
But she could.
Lucy's so stubborn.
Well, you know, that won't work.
And so I went through the shifts.
That's good.
Well, I'm glad you did it.
But I think it was good in how all this worked out.
I'll forget it.
And then I went through all the list business and how we handle those, and I'm sending a memo to all the people that should do lists, and we're working out the way to do the quota zone, and she seemed very pleased with that.
And then... Oh, how do you... How do you explain to her?
Well, I just went through, I said, we've got to work out a way now of dealing with this that you know we're... Did you point out the fact that
Yeah.
We went into the Stan's problem and the new majority thing, the need to get out of that.
And she said, yeah, we've got to.
She said, I won't have much of a problem now because the old friends, we've had all of that.
And they're covered.
So she said, the big problem is going to be Stan's and the new financial people.
We should not know how many there were.
And also, she said, we've got the new celebrities that we've got to work in.
And she said, I've got the list on that from Caldero and Sutaro.
And we'll check all those against what we got.
And she's all, seemed to be in good shape about it.
The Ned Sullivan thing, she thought it was a smart coincidence.
I think it may work out.
She was very worried.
She said, my God, I heard somewhere you were going to make Jim Reynolds head a protocol.
And I hope you can undo that.
And I said, well, it's been a long time.
And she doesn't like Zelda.
She said that Zelda would be a walking disaster if she has the protocol aligned.
And she thinks Frank Borman would be marvelous.
I said, what would you think of that when you work it out?
I tried to get her in on things, but also open all of what I thought were the sore areas
It's just a little care and all that.
You can drop it.
So she feels she's in on some high driving.
This is an afterthought.
I said, you come in and see.
Hey, Lee, she loves Al.
Hey, everybody knows he does.
So she came in.
Big deal for her.
Get, you know, any music box.
But she had a lot of bitches.
I mean, you know, she said that a beast when Julie's going to see her and nobody works over there like we do over here.
Oh, yeah.
You know, all that kind of stuff.
I don't care what we do.
We work too hard.
She's always bitching.
I said, hey, did you see this?
You know, he always goes about it.
You know, he says it's always like right in the teeth because they can't name everybody who's in here.
Well, not maybe part of it, but it's her, you know, he said everything was wrong.
She wrote me memos, you know, and we would talk about things.
She didn't.
She, everything was wrong in the campaign.
Well, she'd get it all wrong.
As I say, I think Carter Rose's problem is she gets the goddamn phone.
And she, and it's hard to listen to people bitch and whine all the time.
You've got it in another way, you've got a few phone calls, but you've got her on your end ready to come in.
Charles and Earl and all the others, you know, they've got their problems, and you've got to listen.
They sure do.
Huh?
They sure do, but that's, that's not, you can... Well, they can deal with her.
No, it's harder for her, I think, because you can't, those people you can't deal with rationally.
Yeah, her kind of people.
They're selfish, her kind of people, yeah.
They're not so selfish.
They don't know what's going on.
What I really want, and I want you to get it from me, is the tape.
In other words, whenever I send them to do one of these private memoranda, which is basically a talking paper, which I will write mainly to Bob.
I'll just write a private memoranda.
The girl is to type one copy, deliver it to him, and bring me back the tape.
Then I'll put the tape in my private bottom.
I'll write, say, see, I just want to have a record.
Then if I ever...
and I'll run the damn case again.
So get the tapes.
We got a little girl out there that did it.
She'll have the tapes.
Tell me, what does she do with those tapes?
She's done destroyed them.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
We received them in 1995.
Those things that I have done, private memoranda that you have, I want all those tapes for myself.
I have a place where I keep them.
I want them.
So you grab them.
I'll do that.
All right.
There are lots of them.
Take a little bit.
No hurry.
No hurry.
Then the next day or two,
I just hope that, I just hope that my Steve is gone.
He is the one I'm worried about.
I don't, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, I had a good talk with Haig last night.
He incidentally brought up his sort of convention that Henry was not holding her substantially responsible for the arrest of Henry, but without intending to do so.
He said because Henry had called him that morning, the Sunday morning.
Oh, really?
And he said, you know, he does this.
And I said, you know, I agree.
He called me and he says, you know, I can sort of tell whenever he's got something he's worried about and he wants to purchase off of it, he calls and tells me, you know, I agree.
He said that there was a follow-up, I think it was Negro Pontiac or something.
Yeah, and they were saying they were going to get rid of him because he'd done something.
What I was concerned about is, goddammit, getting rid of people.
It was tough as hell.
They loved you that much.
What I meant is, who is Negro Pontiac?
What do they think?
He's a legal period.
Henry said that he was going to get rid of him, but he didn't.
Didn't make his house.
He's a little too soft, I think.
more than the leaking.
I don't, I didn't, I didn't understand they thought everybody had leaked.
He's their, he's their super expert Vietnamese.
He said he, he's the one who speaks all the Vietnamese dialects.
That affected the bombing now.
Of course, Hayden, you see, Hayden doesn't belong to a lot of that staff.
He's very into Winston Lord, too.
Is he?
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
I think he's Tucson.
Yeah, Hayden come charging in.
You know, when Henry was over there and Hayden wasn't there, Hayden would be all worried.
He'd say, Henry's over there with those goddamn doves.
You know, they're going to talk him into something.
They didn't.
And Hayden...
Well, I appreciate you doing the gross thing I'm going to give you these days.
No, that's not important, actually.
No problem.
We have got to, one of the things is we have to, that's where you need the deputy.
You need a nice little deputy, not a deputy, but a big, strong, ballsy guy with presence.
As a deputy, he could be in arms, helping you out with being in arms.
So, you basically need a camp coat.
You know, unfortunately, I had a camp coat.
I was
I think he's going to surprise you.
in the presence, the guy has nothing in personal, you know, he doesn't have a substitute for him when he's breathing.
That's all.
Right, it's like a man who lives in the deep of the day.
It's like, it's all right, it's all right.
You don't have a dream until it's signed, until it's agreed.
Of course, Rogers forgets that it was not us who put out the fact about the agreement.
It would be funny that so many people, if everybody ever lightly overlooks that, would have totally have ignored or forgotten the fact that we had put out the goddamn fact that we almost had the agreement.
They put out the fact that we almost had the agreement.
Rogers also mentioned, he was right about this,
later that the Jews don't have any pictures.
Maya, the lovely, got told.
Good.
So whatever you see and hear, I'll make that point down too.
He should be absolutely cold.
And he forgets that.
But boy, he doesn't.
Well, yeah, he does realize, because they read him all the papers.
He knows what's covered.
They make a big thing out of that.
How many times did they shake hands and how much, how broad was the smile?
That's a bad picture here for everybody.
Oh!
I remember when I saw him, I said, God, call me at 8 o'clock.
8 o'clock, I said.
We stopped the smiling picture.
Let me stop it.
He was smiling again two days later.
What happens is that Henry can't, you know, he's always looking out to see if there's anybody in the press.
He sees one of them.
He smiles at them.
Well, how are you?
He should pay no attention to the press.
You've got to be stone-faced as hell and act as if they're never there.
That's what he's got to do.
Well, actually, we've got a good reception in New York.
And we booked.
With the Chinese or other?
Both.
Both.
But I confirmed it.
usual kinds of problems you have here.
There are some people who are for what you do, and some people who are not for what you do.
Some people are worried about what the hell Congress and Senators can't even reflect their doubts and never their hopes.
And they're always bitching and whining and so forth, and whining and moaning, and I don't answer my mail, and so forth.
There's a vote of 16 to 10 in the Senate.
Well, you have a situation for him where he never wants to do anything else.
It's something that's trying to affect you.
You don't want to keep solving it.
I'm sure you shouldn't take it wrong.
It's a better detection.
You would say I'm a very cooperative neighbor.
So you can't, you're so welcome to not say a word forever, because you can't sit here and involve each other in a conversation.
Is that right?
Well, I think my view, my own view, is that you're actually, yeah.
Are you really?
Oh, sure.
Well, then he's talking.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Okay.
That was the key question.
I told Rogers, oh, we'll see.
But they thought you had to say something, actually, or before that.
I?
Yeah, I know.
But they, did they have to say something?
Yeah, Rogers told me, like, well, it doesn't.
You agree?
Yes.
I think we ought to keep all the attention on the negotiation.
And the way you do that is by refusing to talk about anything else, because of the negotiation, which is an unassailable position.
They got into a fight against it.
People, our friends there are saying, and this is the anatomy, they buried, and also they buried him, or something.
Which probably would explain why we not considered a necessary bomb and accomplished it.
They answered why.
And what we accomplished, they wanted me to say it.
I said, I totally agree.
I said, I just can't say it enough.
Even though I say that we bombed because they were, you can say it later, as long as I can say it.
And what we accomplished, we came back to the ocean within eight hours after we made an offer.
Right?
Sure.
But I can't say it enough.
That's right.
Because then what they have to do is say, no, we didn't, and walk out.
You can't humiliate them at this point.
It's a real problem.
I'm just not going to worry about it.
You just have to take the heat.
You've got to take the heat now.
When it's done, if it comes out, it's fine.
If it doesn't, we'll fight it, and I'll explain.
Rogers is much more bearish than Henry in all the negotiations.
They're probably both reflecting their wishes more than their evaluations.
Well, not the Rogers senses.
He thinks we can get along, but you say, you know, it takes several weeks.
Henry feels abused.
Too bad, but it'll be good to get both Rodgers cleared out.
Because they're both able men, but they don't get along.
And they're just not going to have any stand to deal with each other.
So we'll have Richardson, Rush, or somebody to push him up.
Damn good team of players.
There's nothing quite as yesterday's story.
You take in the abacus, and I can't remember what he said or how he explained it, but it's far over.
The abacus is over, it's over, it's over, it's over.
Then the goddamn thing is over.
There's not any difference.
And if anybody were to give one damn leak layer to the other, I could explain it to you, but I understand it.
I mean, the abacus is different than the abacus.
The press continues to give the abacus.
But Bob, the press and our critics are giving...
And our friends who are fighting this, they're gay because they want to attack us.
It's a basis for attacking.
Can we agree?
Yes.
And our friends in the press, which there are a few, are basically making that point and making the point that the bombing, they're explaining why you bomb, are they?
Sure.
And anybody who really cares...
In the first place, why in the world do you have to explain?
I can't imagine anybody is simple enough not to know why you bombed.
Of course.
I mean, you bombed because they quit talking.
That's right.
And you said all along, if we didn't talk, we were going to bomb.
We were going to have a war or a settlement.
That's right.
We would not have exploded.
We would not have made it.
That's right.
They are prisoners.
ceasefire, and the war.
We longed for the purpose of helping and the war.
Now, if, as a result of the bombing, we never got back to the peace table, then at some point, we would have had to go out and do something.
That's right.
That's policy.
seems to me answers the question of why were you bombing.
And I don't see any, it seems to me they're still riding on the question of why are the hillbilly guys venturing so much.
It doesn't matter anymore.
I don't understand.
I think because they're reflecting what they got at home over Christmas, which was why, and that's from your friends as well as your enemies, why did we have to go back and bomb Samoa?
And at that time, you could see why.
I mean, you could see why people would ask the question.
I mean, it's a legal leg.
But I wonder if maybe it isn't.
Anyway, let me say, you would think, I take care of these guys talking about it, that it's nothing compared to the Capitol here, nothing compared to the Fourth Amendment here, nothing compared to the Hades, right?
Because basically, you are talking, right?
I believe the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recognized that.
Withheld anything until after the inauguration.
Did you say Terry was going to go to New York?
I'm not sure.
I don't know what she said.
Someone else must have told you that.
And she was planning to go.
The last I heard, she was going to go out west.
San Francisco.
Wow.
She was supposed to hang around.
I mean, she's a pretty girl.
Yeah, she's a good South Carolina, middle American type.
I lived in a deli about that subsidizing.
I taught to Kevin about that.
He was moving on.
He had talked this last year.
already made major cuts, and they're moving on to program cuts, which is the other stuff.
A lot of this stuff, you know, is set in in contracts, and all they can do is dry them up from the other end.
He said, on defense, we're doing reasonably well.
On AEC, we've done quite well.
On HEW, we have not done well, because it's all set up under these advisory commissions.
And he said, I've got to, just when I get in there, I'm going to drive to all those 10 commissions.
And there's advisory boards that spend these grants, you know.
And he said, I can give it to a lot of the people left over from Johnson and before.
But can't they be changed?
So he's going to just get rid of them altogether.
He said, you don't want to change them now.
What you want to do is just eliminate them and then stop spending the money.
And they're not required at all.
Some of them are, but some of them aren't.
The ones that are, he'll put the right people on them.
The ones that aren't, he'll get rid of them.
And he said, it's a mess.
And he hasn't really made the progress he wanted to make at HEW.
But he is, he's gotten it started.
And he hasn't gotten it done at events.
He completely agreed with the idea that there ought to be a crash effort, especially against MIT.
And he had already talked to about it before Elliott gets over there.
And he'll get rushed to .
My view about it is not because it's MIT.
But because I do not think that the Defense Department should give contracts to individuals who are against defense.
Sir, that's what it's all about.
Captain made exactly that point.
These people are against defense.
These people are against everything that we're doing except giving them the money.
That's what we're going to find out.
And if they're against defense, they're very allowed to disarm them.
God damn it, they don't get the money.
That's what I mean.
You should spend the money on people who believe in the program.
Remember, I tried something here that didn't work.
I tried it.
I said that every, that they should put out some sort of directive to every defense thing, that every, every, those who
all professors who are working at beneficiaries should vote as to whether or not they want this money.
Of course, we didn't do it.
I shall talk to you about it.
Well, he's basically, you know, everybody's always going to think of what the hell it was previously, and I know how he feels.
He sees the university people and all the rest of it.
Find out something for me.
How well does the Dragon Lady know that you, you, I don't know.
I'm not as well.
And then, don't mind if you know what you're checking this.
Who is the individual in this country?
Other than leading out any military like Westmoreland who may know him the most and best and so forth and so on.
The Dragon Lady has just occurred to me in a few generalities.
If you know about those Chinese volumes we've got in the album, or the two sets, one's in the State Department, where's the other one?
I don't find that.
They're here somewhere.
Yeah.
I thought I would give that a second.
I said, I don't want it in the next monograph.
What the hell do you have?
A Chinese scholar in the current, this is all in Chinese, and you have two other people there.
Oh, yeah.
They'll value that library.
That'll be one of the kingpins of it.
People will come here.
Now it's so easy to get places you ain't no problem with.
I had a thought on this odds and ends department thing.
It appears to me that it's just gonna, we're gonna have to have the problem.
Why don't we take a couple days a week where we do an opera?
But when I met as an artist, I mean, you just gotta have
And it's worth doing.
I had a baby.
My healing was going on maybe Tuesday and Thursday.
And then every other day, go for the one event.
Now, by an hour, what I meant is that would be four 15-minute seances of people that I may want to see.
The figure 15.
Don't ever get to that business that we had for a while where they ran 12 through an hour.
I was here two hours.
Nothing is less.
Problems are not going to be less.
Nothing is less at the moment.
Some of them, like that trucker at the eartop thing, those are easily done in five minutes.
I know they are.
It's schedule 15.
Right.
Then I can make a total.
Or something like that.
See what I mean?
Schedule 15.
I don't like ever to feel rushed.
But just say, all right, we've got four.
That way, too, Bob, they'll be more selective.
So they'll end this on the floor.
So Tuesday, Thursday, you can work that out.
Plus doing one each day on Monday and Friday?
Absolutely.
Every other day on here.
Oh, Wednesday.
I think Wednesday should be clear.
Or should we?
Yeah.
So you have the option to go up to Camp A?
Yeah.
But on Monday and Friday, I'm here.
Always have one event.
But try to make a real good event.
In other words, that's something people can work on.
You know, they've got all these things that have come up.
And they could say, well, we're eventing for the day, this is, you know, and so on and the other thing.
I'm not sure you really need to, see, that would be, I think you need to, that's 10 of them, 10, I don't know, let me say I don't think you need it.
And I don't think it's an improper use of time
It's basically a way, in a sense, that the president is in contact with the outside world, not just the world of the goddamn Congress, and the world of his own staff, and the world of, you know, you see what I mean?
I need that.
And I'm a senator.
I don't have any solicitation.
Somebody from around the government, you know, I have the ADC chairmen, some of the many people I don't normally get to see,
They can be working on these things.
They know it's 15 minutes.
I can do a few of those, although I don't let them.
I told you that earlier when the Schultz bill that I had is available now.
We're all of a sudden not doing that.
But, you know, there will come times when pressures will come on.
But what I need to have, it seems, is just as good now then for me.
Otherwise, I'm going to get into the pattern too much.
I'm simply talking to people.
I have to talk to people.
I've got two.
You just shouldn't do that.
I've got to sort of, sort of be exposed on that, frankly.
I thought of it last night, to the trucker of the year.
Not a bad idea.
I don't mean for the purpose of the picture, but for my purposes.
I don't see the trucker.
You see him, you know, being, here he is, out there.
Okay, well, I think that's what we'll try to avoid.
No, no, no, no.
After Congress, yeah.
They've got some three appointments, assistant secretary appointments at agriculture that...
They want to announce, they want to bring them in?
No.
No, they don't want to bring them in.
They just want to announce them.
Are you okay?
Oh, yes, I am.
One is, you're going to move up to assistant secretary for marketing.
All right.
William Irwin, I don't care who has been over there, they're going to make his assistant secretary of the rural.
He's apparently done a hell of a good job.
And John Knievel, who is general counsel of SBA, they're going to move over to general counsel.
Good political type.
Things like that, you know, I really understand.
I'm not going to get into those.
And, Alex, I didn't think you wanted to.
Unless you think, whenever you think there's a political choice, you ought to ask me about it.
Well, there are, all these are political.
I mean, the question is political.
What I say is, where there's a kind of a political choice, down the channel, maybe I get into, like, Dixielandry, or, so that, I, the more I think about it, the Johnny Foster of the ABC, or, well, some, offering, offering both.
Either one.
ADC would really be better for him.
He came out of Livermore.
Alamos really is not a... Why don't you step up and put him in ADC?
He puts him in the big league.
He stood up apparently.
He has a very good signal part to move up to a gun.
So he is not a good man in that, in where he's doing, in my opinion, because he is tied into the old madness kind of philosophy, and he's tied into a whole lot of bad contracts, Bob.
I don't know, but A.C. can't do any harm there.
Right?
I look at that stuff, and he's...
I see him in the middle of a tree, and...
You want to meet over there?
I'll be in a real minute.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.