Nixon, Woods & White House photographer on State dinners and Vietnam War

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Well, I understand that you came to work 22 years ago.

I was going to say, it'll take a couple of hours.

Well, I flew up to New York last night to have dinner with my teacher.

Oh, that's where you were going to come.

What the... Well, I promised to go on.

It was a beautiful dinner.

Who was it?

Who gave it to you?

Bill Buckley and Senator Buckley.

in the New York Yacht Club.

Well, it's just beautiful.

And you know, they flew us all up.

And we got out here in a DC-3, and we were sitting and waiting an hour to take off.

And poor old Cat Weinberger was on the plane.

I felt so sorry for him.

No, just that we were so late, and everything was late up there.

But Roger Nelson was there, actually.

Thank you, his best friend.

I'm proud he was.

Jerry O'Bain.

I heard you know about this.

This is... Well, I've been here.

God, you can't be that old.

I'm not old.

You were born...

I mean, you were... How old were you when you came here?

I must have been about ten.

Ten.

Let's just take a picture.

Okay.

Let's do it.

Oh, God.

So we'll put it with your personal time.

He's consigned to everything.

Unless you want it somewhere else.

Oh, yes.

That's fine, a little print.

Yes, it's very well addressed.

So it's a very valuable book.

I'd like to show you those in case you run into them in the bathroom.

You mentioned that they're the same.

Yes, yes.

You sure about it?

I don't know if this sounds special, but it's a bag of antiques that you get.

I've got a lot of things in my drawer here.

That's why the whole library thing is going to be such a huge exercise.

We've got so many things to put out.

I don't know if you want to read it.

I'll read it.

Do you want to keep it in here?

Keep it in here.

Who's coming tonight for this dinner?

I'd love to listen.

We're going to, I think, take time.

We're going to take this place from the left.

She's a very good looking woman.

She's very bright.

Thank you.

We've started, we've marked, we've got a list by who are staying people, who are labor people, who are, you know.

I don't know when, I don't think I've got any plans, but they've got a hamburger on the seat, and we'll get them there tonight.

No, that's what I mean.

They're good.

I'm bored of them all.

These are political.

It's a good mix.

Mary Ann Ludwig.

Now, is she an actress?

Yes, she's a florist.

Her husband is an actor, and they're a very young, attractive couple.

They were at your home.

You know, the reception you had at St. Louis.

Yes, he's your old friend.

He supported you way back in the 50s.

You'll know him if you've not seen him before.

Yeah, I've heard of him.

Do you remember him?

I don't remember him.

Tedder is a very blonde young man, and he's very popular.

I don't know if he's legal, except from that reception of yours in the pictures that I did of him.

But I think mixing a few of those people who helped during campaign makes it interesting for the other guys, too.

Yeah, and you just can't have the fat guys, you know.

The thing that I want to do every weekend for R.A. Spiegel

But when I studied that list, he gave a recommendation.

We, for four years, we couldn't have anybody but finance people with dinners.

Right?

No way.

We just worked them out.

So what we're going to do, what I'm going to do is to work in a two-week evening.

So this evening, you can take more of it.

People will have a better time.

Yes.

We'll get his top big contributors in to state dinner.

What about an evening?

Isn't that great?

Yeah, the top one.

Wow.

OK. A dinner.

And it isn't hard because then you get an equal number.

Well, that's Julie called about her.

That's Anna Bird's daughter.

Oh, of course.

Of course, of course, of course, of course.

Anna's daughter.

Sam's daughter.

All right.

Now, see, those are your parents.

Some of those are chairmen.

Some of them are wizards.

Well, okay.

I don't know what he looks.

Do you support us?

Well, he was at that $1,000 plate dinner in Los Angeles.

And he's on the list of support.

We'll smack out afterwards.

I'll just meet the afternoon guest.

I can tell you what happened on the afternoon.

I think so.

But what happened is that they first told us they could have 300 in that room.

And so we sent over just 10 on the list because we had it first.

There are an awful lot just from the hill tonight.

Because then they chopped off the others that we got from Malik and everybody.

They said, no, 100 was all they could really handle downstairs.

So tonight will be sort of one-sided during the dinner, although there will be a few states and a few British.

That won't happen again, but they gave you their own.

Well, we're after dinner guests.

It doesn't matter what they come.

They're not here to entertain.

They don't give a damn who the head of state is.

They don't see the president.

That's right.

So they're after dinner.

It's the dinners that care whether it's heat or who's singing.

And we're going to have good entertainment for who's singing.

The carpenters as well.

And I have a lot of young people with the carpenters.

Well, the carpenters, they went once.

Somebody was in an accident yesterday.

So we're going to change that.

They can't come.

One or the other was.

Don't you work on that?

They're working on that right now.

I'm sure.

And we're going to have different entertainment tonight because Mary Costa broke her leg.

Broke her leg?

Just this morning or yesterday afternoon.

Who the hell are we having?

Well, they're working on that.

Oh, God.

But when the interpreters do come, then we get a lot of the young kids who really worked in the campaign, too.

Yeah, they'd be .

The evenings are really very excellent, I think.

The main thing there is you don't look at the entertainer shaking hands.

Yeah.

Obviously, I know they're not doing well, true.

We shake hands with everybody, and that's just it.

And it's just great.

Yeah.

I think we, and I think by all means, we should have Ben Codman for an evening at the White House.

We haven't had him.

For an evening?

I think we should be invited to Jess sometime, but we haven't had him for an evening, and I think he's magnificent.

He's always good, and he's our friend, and I'm sure he'll visit you any time you ever come.

And the other one that I like to say, William.

Yes, yes, William.

We did have him on.

Not Andy, William.

Not Andy, the piano player.

R.F., R.A.

Well, there were, but don't worry about it.

Would you make a note to Julie that there are no certain chances for her to be able to do it?

What are the areas where there are no certain chances for her to be able to do it?

I don't get it.

Or a flag.

You can't call it a flag these days.

You don't have to do it.

I couldn't see it in our version, but I don't know what she looked like.

But that girl sat on the far-spangled banner, has a voice that is fantastic.

I don't know what kind of she normally sings or anything.

Well, we could check her.

The other one, of course, agreed to what it was saying to the councilor's family.

Oh, yes, Aaliyah Bryan.

Oh, Leah Tom Price.

She's great.

She's great, but the question is whether she's a non .

They haven't together .

I don't think she's ever been .

I don't know .

Yeah, but I think before, I think I remember Sharon Boyd was talking about her a long time ago at some point, because I can check that.

He's quite good at this sort of thing.

Yeah, because he moves, he goes, he listens to so many of these, goes to so many of these things in New York.

Sometimes in New York, in New York, yeah, I saw this sort of fascinating old building.

All kinds of people.

And everyone's saying they have never been more proud of you than your press conference the other day.

Well, Eric, I did after your speech on the peace thing, because you said you did that.

without almost taking, you know, it was done so beautifully in the right tone and everything.

But your press conference yesterday, again, in the way of Glenn Garman and Ray Price and I were talking.

It was just really... Glenn Garman.

Yes, he played the, he played the, what did he play?

Piccolo, no.

Oh, he played the clarinet.

The clarinet, clarinet.

He played that with American partners or whatever his name is.

He played at the Carlisle Hotel.

It was a great piano player.

And he was really good.

He was really good.

And they heard the press conference.

They worked there.

No, no.

It wasn't on TV.

Well, no, but it was the people had read it in the paper who commented on it.

But it was, I couldn't hear it because I got about four phone calls.

But it was on, we could turn on stations.

Oh, yeah, on the radio.

Six or something on our television set.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, is that right?

And that's how Lenin was considered.

And they were pleased with him.

Very, very.

Well, I'm not giving any quarter to all that energy.

The reason the liberals are for amnesty is that they want to say that those that ran away did the moral thing.

If I give amnesty to these people that ran away, a few hundred, then I am deliberately condemning two and a half million for being immoral, including 50,000 that died.

The guys that ran away are the immoral ones.

And they're the ones the country can't ever depend on.

And they shouldn't.

I don't think there's a... How are they coming on your diet?

I don't know.

They take Budsie and Tamana.

I'm the guy.

What are you taking?

You're not cholesterol, I understand.

No, type of drugs, which they discovered during the Korean War.

Cholesterol is not what causes heart attacks or stroke.

I don't think they are, is it?

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

The thing about it is that whatever it requires, I don't think I would do it myself.

Well, I'd take that.

I'd take that.

I'd take what Paul really knows better.

He's a great blood specialist.

Lon Thompson is the doctor I'm going to.

And he's known in his area as a specialist.

Well, he is, if you read his book, it's on blood chemistry and blood chemistry.

He believes it has an enormous effect on health, everything else.

It's a nuance in some people.

It's old, but it's new.

Most doctors don't understand.

But all that thought, he just knew it.

Oh, I know.

He's great.

He writes.

I'll talk to him and tell him about it.

Why don't you talk to him and tell him that you've got, I think, a good idea.

First, if you want to call it, I want to appreciate it.

I appreciate it very much.

Second, that I told a couple of people to read his book, The Upgraded Version, because I know what they were talking about.

You know, because I, you know, somebody that's sort of down in time.

relationship, from physical to emotional, from emotional to physical to the stress, you know what I mean?

I said, your cholesterol go up in direct relationship, you're watching him through.

I said, the diet all sunk.

I said, that's not a great deal.

I'm sorry, both of you.

Todd and I remembered that he had spoken to me about blood chemistry, and I had asked him a lot, but he had talked about the arcane, and we just wondered if it was something else.

What's it called?

What's the medicine called?

It's a popular name.

It's something very new.

There are different phases, though, and my type, it's typo, what's the disease called?

Typoproteinemia, something.

And this is the family.

I'll say it's all right.

Yeah, it could be.

Yeah.

I'm very lucky in one sense, you know, both my mother had colostrums and my father had ulcers.

I think I'm ready.

I've got a way down the left.

Yes.

Okay, well, Mr. Conner, I'll take care of yourself.

Okay.

Thank you.

Nixon, Woods & White House photographer on State dinners and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on February 1, 1973

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