On January 8, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:42 am to 9:33 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 835-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
How are you doing?
Fine, thank you.
How are you today?
All the things they get to do, I'll tell you that.
the proper age and proper
No, because you can't... That's right.
You can't remember.
You think you will, but you don't.
There are too many things.
And I'm getting a new cassette rearrangement that he is going to pick one up, a sign, so that we should take a point off of my Vanessa's eye that we have.
These tapes are going to be about 14 minutes.
And so for my memorandums, the final ones I don't transfer them.
You just put them on those, and they're going to be less bulky.
I think that with those to be filed, he should pick up, among that is one that transcribes too.
The what?
He should pick up at the same time the transcriber to be filed away with them somewhere so that whenever they go to transcribe these for your book or whatever.
Oh.
That's a problem.
Oh, I see.
I see.
The other side.
Small changes, I don't know.
Oh, the other side.
The other side.
Does he mean the receiver?
It may be that in a lot of machines, you can do both.
So, uh, did I ask him if he could do that?
Oh, is he here now?
Oh.
I'll let you know.
Although they can't eat it, that's nice, because it just has a tree, we don't eat it.
I think that silver frame, that's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
That's what they wanted to do.
His voice, I was so proud.
He was so sweet.
We've got to get him in sometimes.
There's no reason why he shouldn't come.
No, I don't think we ought to be able to get him to come.
He's never come.
Well, of course.
We have everybody else.
I haven't written you a letter.
We've got our friends.
We're bringing all kinds of people.
You know, they should come.
I think it's strongly recommended that you forget the worship service the Sunday after the inauguration.
Why can't I do it?
Well, there'll be, say, 35, let's say, 40,000 people in town.
Oh, that's a lot of people.
Well, I've already got a lot of people asking to be invited.
For once, I've got to know if it's one of them, and if it's not, who's the last person on earth to mind one, which is kind of complex.
I know, I'll mention it to them.
But I guess what, you know, the actual reason we're trying to do it is to ensure that, you know, we're trying to take care of our ministers.
I know, but I think it might be a suddenly that the family could go out somewhere and we can take a church where we've got to be.
Maybe go out to help.
Yes, yes.
We ought to go to something.
But I think you see my point.
We make 300 people happy.
Yeah.
and $35,000 unhandy.
Well, let them all come like other people.
There are too many.
I mean, like all the ones who have participated in the past,
The other day, because Huffman asked to come and some others, and I asked for the whole list of the ones who have participated.
Invite them, let them go to the inaugural, just like everybody else does.
They don't all have to participate with them.
When you invite them, what happens?
Do they have to give them the right to buy?
Do they have to give them the right to buy?
Frankly, most of them have as much money or more than a lot of other people who will be coming.
Oh, sure.
Our minister always has a friend from life.
That's right.
And I have only concern about you.
Sure, they'll be mad if it's also didn't get them in, but the final one.
The only way that we could possibly take care of the worship services is
that and nobody else you could but people have been here they're always here and why didn't you invite someone like me across the country true true true but uh i see your point when you come to that and i say why the hell would you i you know you start on the lower road of the family where you got 200 of that we're not going to forget it's all under 200
There'll be at least 200.
There may be more.
On the name of God, it's going to be 200.
Because all of, you know, four years, all of the cousins have children.
They're going to bring them.
So far, we don't know if they're going to come in, but quite a few.
You could limit it just to the family, the family.
Oh, we'll let them all come through.
But they are, it'll be that none of them can have the chance.
And then I think in this next four years, we have to finish Pat.
She has to recite one at a time, maybe.
Her brother, one at a time.
I told her, if you'll make a note among things,
to use the overnight facility at the White House.
One of the times she has to drown, and that can be on occasion, so it's a little damn solemn.
Come in.
Have a drink.
It's 730 or so.
I checked out.
I said, I've got to go over.
When Bruce, they called in at Eisenhower.
Of course, Johnson.
Always.
He didn't get one damn about his guests.
He never even showed up.
But Eisenhower, always after dinner, went off and played bridge.
He never stayed to talk to his guests.
No, and the thing is, if Pat can either show them the house, or Julie can, or something.
Well, let's see how far they go.
Or they can just go upstairs.
They can go downstairs and
Unless we see it.
Oh, we can't fix it.
It's not working.
It's not working.
He doesn't want to do something else.
He's glad to do it.
He came in last night.
I'm going to fix it.
So it's just bad.
We've got to fix it.
For God's sake.
He doesn't want to do it.
We have probably seen 10 movies down below.
That's right.
Maybe 15.
15.
Maybe last night.
They shouldn't fix our doctors.
That's right.
We told McCormick one time that time.
No, well, there are people who have.
You know, I mean, and I think that not below brothers and sisters.
I'm not saying have all the cousins.
No, don't get that cousin thing.
But you had Andy's wife, and you had Dawn.
Oh, those people who passed from Connecticut, the one who took her shoes off.
Well, sorry.
They were nice people.
But what I'm saying is, they're not the people you want around you very much.
But we don't need to do that in here.
We don't need to do that in here.
No, no.
We just do.
I'm going to have more of them, but they're staying overnight.
It's a pain in the neck.
But they're riding, obviously, overnight sometimes.
Yeah.
Because that is sometimes a situation like that.
But I feel the loss of wearing a boat.
You know, this is a great, great honor.
That would be marvelous.
I'm moving tonight, you have stuff.
Oh, sure.
We're having to take care of it, so I really want the best of you here.
Well, anyway, everybody's...
This is Emily.
We got it.
There's a commission on highway safety, which has term appointments.
One of them comes up, it's a three-year appointment.
So they're going to .
It's basically, it's prestige.
It's very important, very important.
I mean, my God, 55,000 people get killed on highways, and of course, he's very experienced in this.
I told him that when they raised it with me, because they, you know, I told him we don't order something .
I said, what about narcotics?
But we don't have anything that's really needed.
But coming back to this thing, I would certainly, certainly, certainly do it.
But on the church service, Rose, I'm afraid it's too far down the line.
I think, though, that your point is true, comes as well as it is.
Then I think we should do an anti-glitz.
I think we should do an anti-glitz for the administration, right?
And call it the inaugural to those who participated in the... Then you have to have the... You have to have the various senators.
Oh, absolutely.
And the senators in Congress and the jackasses on the inaugural committee.
Which isn't a bad idea, too.
But I think you're right.
I don't think you're going to make $300 out of that crowd.
Because they're all in town.
You can take $300 the next week.
Because, you see, we've had people like Bunny Lasker ask.
Because his bride has never been found.
Ask one of the church groups that you are.
Anna Chanel.
Anna Chanel called last week.
Be sure we get on that.
Well...
And I don't, you know, I just don't want, I just think that maybe if it's announced and it's a definite thing.
And I had a letter from Janice and I'll send you.
I don't know what you think of her.
I think she's a terrible phony.
And I know that she's...
I don't know her that well.
Well, she's in business, you know, with Jack Anderson.
Jack Anderson?
Oh, yes.
She has several enterprise that they're involved in.
I know that Louie...
I do know from the papers.
And I do know from the papers that she is, and it gave a name to the restaurant or something, that they are jointly together.
And that old goat, you know, bought her apartment.
Oh, they've been pals together for years.
She's very happy.
She's a topper.
I don't believe in all of that shit.
Well, I believe that I've seen them together before.
And Tommy Corcoran, I know.
And Tommy Corcoran on the board over there.
He doesn't have a separate question.
But she had sent a letter asking when she'd be appointed.
And I didn't bother with it.
And I don't know whether she did or didn't.
She sent it down to my desk saying she'd be appointed to your special.
ambassador to the party, because nobody else understands the party, even if it's already on the line.
What I would do, yeah, I know, what I would do with that party is just sort of get some routine.
Take off.
You know, they never reach the site at the light of day.
We all... No, no, there's no request.
You just say that I want you to shoot it.
He is, but did you notice how well he worded his letter?
Yeah.
I put that note up.
I'll find out.
So Jeannie Dixon is the one that sent that letter.
I know.
So that's the point.
She didn't know about it.
Do you hear it?
Yeah.
What?
He left.
If we ever could get him over, I said, she thinks he wants to be like a John Collins.
Great.
And he's right.
Great.
Great.
Right.
You have this number, so you have the data.
Again, you told me to send it to Colson, but we always .
Doctor, we can find that agent.
No problem, I'll find him today.
We have a record of the date of the letter and the date we found it.
sitting there at the bottom.
The, uh, the, the, uh, most of the pompous, uh, I suppose profound political commentators would, uh, scoff at any suggestions.
raised the crown of a whole city.
Very good.
But that is exactly what the Reds do.
And that's people in this highly partisan...
We'll always hear your wails.
You don't want to say yes.
I'm sorry.
I can't be with you all.
Yeah.
I, uh, yeah.
Yes.
I, uh, I appreciate the, uh, the advice.
I appreciated your invitation to attend the game in person.
Uh, unfortunately, uh, I don't have power, lack of power, that's,
Unfortunately, Congress, at a time when I go, I happen to be concentrating on writing the inaugural address and preparing several messages to Congress.
It's probably just as well
Because his letter was very gracious, and wishing you the very best this year, and, you know.
She probably does it because her brother played for the Redskins, Ernie Pinkerton.
Do you know that?
I don't know that.
Ernie Pinkerton was the great blocking back in the University of Southern California in the early 30s.
Probably the greatest blocking back in college football history.
And then he
Well, she knows him well, and before that letter came, she said that she had talked with him.
But he is the friend.
She said that the entire funeral was her.
She feels that he feels he could be another comedy.
Because he probably is disgusted with that other group.
And look at the job he did on Bobby's day.
I should say, when he
Defending Baker, but do you know that by defending Baker, he kept LBJ out of that?
And how he did it, I don't know.
You know, as long as I didn't LBJ train Bobby Baker to do that.
Well, I remember.
And you know, you don't get that in a conversation.
Came in with nothing.
Well, no, I remember Frank telling me when they were doing a lot of work out in the vet, they used to use contractors just to get calls directly from Bobby Baker, from the man.
And I know, you know, we know they trained Bobby because Bobby was just a boy when he was there.
They kept a contract that they had to give them.
Sometimes it was $85,000, sometimes it was cash.
They knew that.
When you're, uh, you might feel it as I can't entertain the very, uh, you might call me because you're inviting all of the bunch.
Yeah.
One reason being about him, too.
He is such a good light to him around.
I mean, I'm trying to do that review.
I mean, I've got to have the officers, everybody else.
Like, I'm going to get Roy Ash in the day.
I saw him on the street yesterday.
He and his wife will write it.
Apparently, it's either he or his wife or Catholic or both.
Do you know something?
We've got three Catholics in the cabinet.
I didn't know that.
It's just Catholic.
I don't know, but I saw him outside of church.
Sorry, he was at 22.
Normally, I wouldn't see him.
Oh, was she?
Yeah.
But, you know, I thought, the only reason I said hello to him...
I thought, well, gosh, you know, they've been hitting at him, and so I said, oh, Mr. Ash, you know, called him, and I said hello.
You know, I didn't think he knew who I was, but he seemed so pleased with me.
Sure, he's a good man.
You know, what the heck, every company has its ups and downs and so forth.
What the hell, they're living in a great company.
They've had some ups and downs.
Yeah.
They've done a lot of promoting, but, uh...
Okay, well...
He'll, he'll, he'll just let it go.
He's, he's good.
And I think... You know, all that SEC, the one that Lasker wants is George Koch's son.
He isn't a really big kid, is he?
Well...
I don't think so.
No, he isn't on the big list, but George was our finance chair.
And he's a hell of a guy.
I know.
I like to do it for him.
I mean, I would do it for him, but it's not... Yeah.
There we go.
Yeah, the thing that I think that Julie talked to me on the way up to, when we went up to Alamo, that dedication...
about what I thought about, you know, the plan for her to take over.
I think it's the greatest thing.
Well, you know, Pat was racing out about it yesterday, not about Julie taking over.
He thought maybe Connie should stay on and handle the rest of it and so forth and so on.
But I should deal with it.
Connie stays on and Julie won't.
Julie won't go to the job.
I don't want
because I don't want her to take a day-to-day jab into the National Committee.
There are a couple people she could get, but she talked to me about that launch, fires from life.
Right.
Julie did, anyway.
And then I talked to Bob, Bob Holtman came in and talked to me.
Yeah.
It was a girl who was either with the committee to re-elect or the National Committee.
That's two or three, I don't know where my, two or three, oh, I don't know.
No, no, I'm attracted
beautifully in Florida.
Who was that?
Well, Bob was going to get a name, and I'm going to ask the name again.
They ought to have that.
The Jewelry just stayed on top of the whole thing.
And Connie's around, frankly.
Connie's too flip, just a bad image, and the only time it makes a break is when you put Jewelry in.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Because, um...
And there's no way Julie can't run if Connie's going to be the top dog over there.
There's no way.
And I think Julie can do a lot with her mother because she'll be able to talk with her.
She'll be able to give her a call.
Now, I thought Ann Armstrong came in here today to talk with me a little bit.
And I told her to work with Julie and that they should both plan good things and Mrs. Nixon things.
But you can't do that if you've got a carny in the middle.
You can't do it.
You've got two problems there, which you should be aware of.
And her way, Lucy's quite difficult, too.
I know.
Lucy's very jealous of her priorities and every social thing.
She's got to do it her own way and so forth.
Well, she gets in the way and she should do it.
She has.
I said, you've got to be, you've got to get around them all.
I gave her that job.
I said, because we should use the White House more.
And he overcame us.
There's one third of the time here in Kentucky.
What?
Lucy's been at least a third of the last four years in Kentucky.
Is she?
Sure.
She's very good at standing there and greeting people and smiling and looking pretty.
Actually, the one that does the work is Rex.
That's right.
But the other thing is that Julie can't have any of them sniping at her when she takes them away.
Julie is the right girl.
She is pleasant.
She knows what she's doing.
She's organized.
She does more work in a half a day than Pat's entire staff does in a week.
Julie just said no nonsense.
I think if we give a few of these, and I'll find out the name of that girl and then see if it's the same one that Bob had heard about.
Bob didn't just say that.
That's right.
And the elephant isn't strong enough to handle it.
We need somebody who can still be late and give me a hand.
You'll be able to see the broker between here and the, you know, you don't need to have all these spikes between what's so-called western and eastern.
Yeah.
We're going to, that's going to work out well because we've got the seed now.
It's going to do a lot of the schedules.
Most of the schedule stuff, if they can't get along, they have to.
So Julie will be able to get along there.
And the other big advantage is that Julie can go upstairs and talk to her mother.
The other girls couldn't.
They can't.
Pat doesn't want to see them.
And you could get an answer.
Well, if my name is Stuart, she won't answer the phone.
No, I know.
She'll say, I'll get an answer.
And sometimes, she'll say, my name is Dallas.
So I told Julie, I was absolutely elated.
She asked me if she could come over and talk to me any time.
I said, Julie, you can come to me any time.
Julie, you've got to use her in a way that I don't want her to get hurt.
But she's strong.
I don't want her to get emotionally distraught because of her mother.
Well, it won't be her mother when somebody, some cat down below.
Now, Sigler will be very helpful.
Sigler will, he's obviously been depressed
I'm going to get the name of that girl, and I'll give it to Bob, because he was thinking about the other girl.
See, the women's press are terribly hard to handle, because they're basically jealous and catty and so forth.
The men's press are bad, too.
The women's press should be there to write social money, and they want to write political
very little credit for it, due to the fact that, well, take a look at, although she's not part of it, but take a look at, see, they call her Thomas.
She goes there, she didn't give a damn about the ladies wearing it, whether it was a beautiful man or not, whether the toast was great, so she's only there for some reason.
Trying to dig out, this will be it.
It'll be.
That's one thing they do a lot of.
Our guests, all guests, when they come to the White House, they're very excited.
First week, they're so excited.
They're wondering.
They come there, and some of them look at them, and they say things that they shouldn't.
And it's in the papers.
I don't think there's any way that Julie can run a party if you leave Connie behind her spot.
Well, you see, Pat made a big mistake with telling Connie.
I think Bob's already told Connie.
He sure is.
But Pat made a big mistake of letting Connie walk upstairs, and Connor ended up saying she was going to stay right away.
Or anybody else even lettered her every name that was cold.
Well, Connie's had her day.
She said, follow up.
Connie had made $12,500 before.
Is that right?
Frankly, that's right.
That came in at $3,000.
But the thing that is bad about this, it was not Mrs. Johnson who publicized what she did.
It was Liz Carpenter.
Pat Nixon has done much more.
But this girl is not capable.
She doesn't take the time to try to tell Pat Nixon this.
You don't think so?
I do not think so.
She's terribly afflicted with the newspaper people.
She doesn't talk on the phone to them.
She didn't die at the convention.
She let the other girls handle every press call.
What did she do?
I don't know.
Well, the thing about Connie is that I think
And see, when she puts her hat, she's different.
Pat doesn't see this side of her.
When she goes up to talk with her, she's gay.
She's up.
That's what Pat likes to do.
Yeah, she is.
That's right.
She's a very... See, when it turns into being a little bit crude and split, then it's a different thing.
But I don't think Julie can do the job with her down there because she's successfully...
Really, not just by two of the others?
Yeah, I mean, Julia should not have anything to do with the press.
Oh, no.
Well, let me find out right now the name of the other girl.
She's got to do somebody right now to get the other girl.
Well, Connie isn't gone yet, though, is she?
Oh, I'm not sure, Connie.
Okay.
So I'll find the name of the girl, because he was going to look and see.
He was going to check on the one he knew about, too.
I don't know that William Sutter is our enemy.
What are you going to do with the seal?
You're not going to take the seal off the seal?
Just the rock from the end?
Yeah.
And it's a terribly modern thing.
And it is not easy.
I mean, it takes away from the beauty of the ceiling.
I forgot to get out of the planter.
I don't care.
Did you put your coffee picture?
Yeah.
Did you put your coffee picture, California coffee picture, in your office up there?
Yeah.
Does it look good?
I bet it looks good, doesn't it?
Yeah.
That picture is so alive and pretty.
Well, all the time.
She's just got a great problem.
I wasn't ever liking anything anybody else suggested.
I know.
Something good.
So, I'm so pleased with her.
That's why I think Julie and Ann Armstrong and several other people get her busy.
And the only way to get her busy is to have Julie being able to get to her all the time.
Yeah, and Julie will almost shame her and do anything.
And I explained to Ann Armstrong, I said, this is a job where, I didn't say anything, you know, anything, no problem.
I just said, I said, you know the job they did with Lady Bird and all these things, it's all prepared, everybody else did all these things.
And I said, we haven't done enough of this with Mrs. Nixon and my information, and when we haven't, we haven't gotten the publicity.
You'll never look at her.
outside the city.
And you see, that's what you have to work for.
And she has to go to a place...
I don't know if it can be saved, but I told her that I'm not the only one.
I told her that I'm not the only one.
I told her that I'm the only one.
She said she's not organized and she needs an A.A. to leave.
She'll get one.
She'll hire one.
Yeah.
But she should hire.
She should get a man.
But she has already said she needs a man.
So that it also doesn't look like a women's thing.
Exactly.
But even get the little school students interested, because this is the biggest thing happening.
Get the thing moving from one end of this government country to the other, and make everybody proud of it.
And we did great talk, and I suggested to you that we had a meeting.
Some program ought to be put up by the foundation or something like that.
Right.
Essays.
pictures.
and you have to go through a whole realm.
There should be another prize.
There should be one for college-age students, one for high school, one for grade school.
We have this competition throughout the country, and it should be prizes of substantial amounts of money.
I think it should be, too.
In my case, my thought is that Stephanie sends Pat Nixon out to award that prize.
All right.
Hold up the center aisle, or, unless you bring them in, but I think you get better press if you send it past the aisle.
But anyway.
I had a few of them now.
I mean, all the messes I do, I didn't have a chance to mention them, except in passing.
When I said that, I guess in passing, he said, my God, he said, I did that because I had to go to the back of the county.
He said, what?
And she lives so far, it's a big expense even taking her home and bringing her back and social things, because they live way out beyond earth.
They bought this great big house and her husband's a, he spent it in real estate and all that kind of stuff.
How many children do they have?
They have no children.
There's no problem with that.
They don't have to worry about them.
No problem.
No, they're supposed to make a lot more out of it than they ever gave.
Sure, sure.
But I think, I'll go find out the name now.
But I thought it was right.
Once you go to Matt, and he had to, I'm sure because Pat had already told her she could stay.
That's the point.
I agree with you.
I mean, I haven't done it that much.
Well, and Julie once mentioned a buyer's girl, a buyer's buyer.
I had an idea.
You did?
Yeah, I saw it.
She's a big, friendly girl.
And she's a hard worker.
She's a hard worker, and it may be that she won't.
She might not have it.
She might not have it, but basically, we can look at the end and see how people got on with this here.
Yes, ma'am.
All right.
You see, did you?
Yes, I have.