On January 23, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 8:32 am and 8:52 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 839-005 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yes, they did.
I thought this would be a good test to see how we got this right.
But it wasn't really a good test because we didn't have enough time, and we were on the floor.
They did send them down, and I did not have a chance to get together in the meeting.
So I just had to list them all, and I sent them to Bob Holden.
He had paid for the Tarrant Mania Jam, and of course, it didn't look that good for them.
Uh, but you started on something more.
You speak with it.
It was a great work.
Well, the one point that I just wanted to get at was to, uh, I, I, I agree.
I agree.
Sure.
The administration of the state department wrote it down the,
Well, they haven't been, really.
I mean, only when you've said they're very loyal and special.
We have only the Secretary of State, the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, and Ambassador Annenberg.
Wait, but is there...
I wouldn't have the Assistant Secretary unless he's... Well, there are 12 people.
We only have 12.
But when they have 12, we do not have to have 12.
That's my point.
Well, we're not at any.
We're at three or four.
That's all.
That's all.
That's all we ever do.
We never go below them unless, you know, before we go to the death office or after dinner.
That's all.
That's the sign that we can come for after dinner.
If he is gone, we can come after him.
Okay.
That's fine.
He's breaking down.
We can go here.
That's what I want to tell you.
I have it.
Now, one thing is that we have only the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Treasury.
Now, Bob, I don't know what you're trying to do with that.
Is the Secretary of Treasury coming?
You see, if he isn't, Schultz has been in the White House maybe 30, 40 times.
Then he should not be here.
The Secretary of State must always come.
As far as other cabinet officers are concerned, Rose, no cabinet officer here before should be allowed to come again until we get the new people in.
Is that what I'm saying?
New cabinet officers?
Then should we have the congressmen?
Is that the logical answer?
My God, Brandon.
My God.
Weller, you see what I mean?
You've got to get the balance between the labor and the other things so we can't.
Oh, but you're having me.
No, we're not having any labor.
The postman sent in.
We couldn't take all of it.
Well, you can't take all of it anymore.
He's got 500, but we can't take all of it.
No, we don't need to take all of it.
Those are just lists of people.
And then there are some people that I don't think we picked for certain dinners.
Like the fellow in Chicago was like, I don't know what that city comes from.
Which is just quite a big dinner to my understanding.
I didn't expect all those people.
Well, he just gave them the link, so we can take it.
And a meeting.
I'll talk to them about it.
As a matter of fact, I'm also an anti-contributor, so I really don't want any dinners or meetings at certain levels.
Well, I can send you a listing.
So that's the other one.
Well, let's forget this dinner next week.
We've got the other one.
There must have to be one in New England.
Yeah.
I was thinking maybe of...
Of either your commerce or somebody's top trade person.
See, the others are all homeowners.
See, all the others.
They do care about him.
And Brennan is the other one.
See, Weinberger is not new.
Malin is not new.
See, all of them have been here before.
And what I'm really trying to do is you watch it carefully to be sure that these are fully new except for the Secretary of State.
Because it would be noted, because basically the foreign guest would be on Brennan if the Secretary of State was not new.
Oh, yes.
And he should always be invited.
Yes, sir.
I would give him a call.
Oh, right.
Right.
And yes, they are mostly all men, so they go down to, because they're private secretaries, there's no word for somebody and so on.
So we have always allowed them 12 in the party.
Five.
So that's what's in there.
You, John, I was going to ask you something.
Also, you see the general page here.
No, no, I'm going to be working for the EOB, and we'd better be, because I just wanted to see if I could speak to you.
And, you know, I miss you.
Do you want me to hold up on this here?
No, I don't want to hear a call from the EOB, because I've got to, I want to be with her.
Okay, fine, fine.
Well, that's, uh, I don't have any problem.
I don't have any problem.
I was just making sure that we had the... You have your meeting with these people, and, uh... Well, we've had a lot of... And then we, uh... She did?
Do the best you can with Morris, because everybody's going to need to be... You know, not just political people.
Well, and Morris...
I've been here two or three times now, and he and I just go round and round...
people were here in 68.
They didn't get appointments like he wanted, but they were today.
But he, he says they weren't.
Well, he's got to tell me who they are, because every soul, every name he gave me, every card, I went over it again.
You remember that the Bison Horse didn't even have, good God, they didn't even have poor old Joe June.
I know, well, they never did any.
They never did any.
But they had the same people, Pete Jones and all of our wonderful friends, and, uh,
The rest of them, they never had any good ones.
Now, the point is that we did go through the list, but you're just seeing the more you do for some of these people, the more they say you're not doing anything.
Well, you know what it is, what he meant.
The California group, some of them, we couldn't get the names.
California will not give you the names.
They did this time because they selected them direct.
There are certain other states where you can't get the names.
You're right.
We never got any.
Sure, we can't do this again.
Well, I even knew some of the, most of the potential to create, so I don't think we missed many, but I'll ask because we missed them.
Oh, no, well, he gives.
The other thing on the Congress, I don't want any character optimization anymore.
I don't want any of the word lying down.
I'm not supposed to.
Did Timmons give you the top figures?
No.
Good.
The rest?
They didn't give me.
That's what we want to do.
We're going to now start to have a diverse people, people who haven't been here before, and so we're going to appreciate it.
Don't you think it's a good idea?
Yes, I do.
And he puts down reasons for each person that he puts down.
That's it.
Good.
How?
Which is the way they should do it.
They need to have a way of measuring whether somebody else is more important.
Yes, they had both right on all that.
That's what he was doing.
Oh, they usually, because they don't want to get into it.
I don't understand that.
They naturally put the...
The ranking people.
But they gave us some good names of people who were friends.
You know, they always had the same.
I'm not going to let him come, boy, every time.
But you know, somebody's funny in Sapphire, because he's married to a British woman.
Every time he's asked him to come, and every time there's a Jewish in the end.
Sapphire?
And I just talked to Bob about it.
Well, no, Rosalie, that's Sapphire.
Well, they should be.
They should say, no way, that's Sapphire.
You know, and I think... And he sounds so far away from Sapphire.
I mean, he's writing his own book or something.
I mean, I like, you know, I'd love to do it, but I've got all the love to come.
Some don't give a damn about coming.
Oh, they all love to come, but they don't ask.
Some don't.
But I mean, some don't care that much about it.
But you know, some have wives that love the sort of thing, and they love to come.
But we can't do it.
It's not fair.
It is not.
It's not fair.
And it's one thing.
What really convinced me of it was when I had the national committee, which was a boo-boo of them.
Yes, we were all so busy at the time.
At the time of the inauguration, we were running over things to do, and I said, that would be nice to have a national committee.
And I didn't want to be seeing my wife.
I said, fine.
I hadn't forgotten.
We had had the whole goddamn national committee in September.
The whole bunch.
The same people came through the lifeline.
The committee changes, which whoever suggested that didn't know.
We could have done that.
We wanted to stay over a day.
Some did, but it's all, you know, I just know that you'll have a time limit, but I've given the orders around here, and I've told everybody, no, there's not going to be two-time people unless there's a hell of a good reason.
Not on the staff.
Not on the staff.
Not on the Congress.
And the leaders are going to be told.
We're trying to get in people that have never been to the White House.
Yeah, I'm finished.
He is.
I think he should.
I'll tell him.
He had one problem with one of our leaders.
Here.
Oh.
What?
He's terrible.
I can't stand him.
He always complains about his wife.
He never asked me anything.
No reason to have an answer.
Bullseye should never come.
Saxby should never be allowed on the ground.
Why not?
Well, Saxby and I have some faces on those things.
But I didn't know, so Sam Burrow was asked.
Oh, yes.
Every time there's a British person because his wife is British, every time there's a Jewish person.
He's the only one who understood it.
And, again, here's the truth.
Chase and Mossbacher said somebody called and said the Prime Minister was a good friend of Bo's.
You know, like Britain told him so few times.
They've been here.
They've been here every day of that last four years.
We have done enough with Mossbacher's 18.
I thought he was going to be the ambassador for Britain in 18 other days.
We've got a few other people.
We've got a few other people.
He's never given it.
He hasn't given it in 68 years.
I think he's a nice, blessed fellow.
But there are a hell of a lot of delightful people that we like to have.
Nestled into the life of us when we have him with us.
You know?
And this job is a real challenge.
I know that they work really good.
But nevertheless...
But I think all the ones who are related to T-Brain, I think Don and Sister, I don't know who they are.
He brought in people like Turtles Martin.
He always says Turtles is related to that.
Turtles is not related to us at all.
He keeps telling everybody.
I love him, though.
I bet he's fine.
I love him.
Don was at 45,000 people.
Huh?
Don was at 45,000 people.
Is that right?
Poor man's down there.
Yeah, because did he take Reverend Kaufman in?
No, sir.
He wanted to.
John was demanding that early in the afternoon.
And I told Ned no, and I said, here in the town, just call Julie or Pat and get back to them.
But it has to stay around this, because the boss doesn't know Reverend Kaufman.
He's new up there.
Wait here.
And anyway, there's just no reason to incidentally have to search
The worship service was not the best.
We had to have the jackasses.
Many of them were jackasses.
You had a few like Bill Murray that worked their tails off in the inauguration.
Most of the other members of the committee, and most of them didn't do a damn thing, except, you know, they're like warts.
Well, that's what you told me.
Oh, I know, I know.
And we should have had the others too.
The members of the committee.
No, not the committee.
Most of the members of the committee went over there.
The committee of the re-elected, most of them were overpaid.
And no, I think they had the right people.
No, no, no.
I said the members of the art committee.
That's what we had in the church.
I said that's what I wrote.
No, that's who we had.
We limited it to that.
Yeah.
Otherwise, we couldn't have everybody want to come.
We had a lot of requests on that.
Yeah, but we had a perfect answer.
Also, we had the problem with Billy Graham and that type of people.
They will not do ecumenical services unless it is an official thing.
See, they have a rule against it.
Oh, I see.
And many Catholics don't like ecumenical things unless it's an official thing, see?
And that was really beautiful.
And the way Billy Graham covered up and, you know, I was sitting by Mrs. Magnum and she said, oh, she
gave me his schedule for his program, because he didn't know he'd get one.
And so she said, oh, my.
But he is, he is.
He's slow.
Why are you saying that?
Why are you?
I suggested that number 10, because I thought it would be good rather than sad for her.
He's slow.
Thank you.
That's so good.
Thank you.
Would you like tonight to be a day where we have an all-day for two years of classes with you?
Okay, and then when you do give them, you're going to give them all three at the same time.