Conversation 851-003

TapeTape 851StartTuesday, February 6, 1973 at 4:49 PMEndTuesday, February 6, 1973 at 5:11 PMParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  [Unknown person(s)];  Woods, Rose Mary;  Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob");  Bull, Stephen B.Recording deviceOval Office

On February 6, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, unknown person(s), Rose Mary Woods, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:49 pm and 5:11 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 851-003 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 851-3

Date: February 6, 1973
Time: Unknown between 4:49 pm and 5:11 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with an unknown person.

       President's schedule
              -Departure

Unknown person left at 4:59 pm.

Rose Mary Woods entered at 4:59 pm.
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                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                      (rev. Mar.-09)
                                                             Conversation No. 851-3 (cont’d)

       Note to Jane Wyman
              -So Big

Woods left at 5:00 pm.

H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman entered at 5:00 pm.

       White House guest lists
             -Committee to Re-elect the President [CRP]
             -State Chairmen
             -Woods
             -Frederick V. Malek
             -Maurice H. Stans
                     -Dinner
             -Woods
                     -Memoranda
                     -Invitations
             -Malek, Charles W. Colson, Harry S. Dent
             -Invitations
                     -Quotas
             -Finance committee
                     -Invitations
                     -Stans
                     -State dinner
                     -Compared to political guests
                             -Social class
                             -State committees
                                     -Vermont, Maine, Delaware
                             -Entertainment

       Appointees
             -Caspar W. (“Cap”) Weinberger
             -Frank C. Carlucci
                     -Hold
             -Patricia R. Hitt
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                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                       (rev. Mar.-09)
                                                               Conversation No. 851-3 (cont’d)

                     -New position
                            -President’s conversation with John D. Ehrlichman
                     -Woods
                     -Robert J. Hitt
                            -Interior Department
                     -Labor Department

Bull entered at an unknown time after 5:03 pm.

       President’s schedule
              -Meeting with George P. Shultz and Arthur F. Burns
              -State dinner
                      -[Hussein, King of Jordan] Hussein ibn Talal

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:11 pm.

       1973 Inauguration
              -Vincent Persichetti
                     -Composer
                     -Exclusion of work
                              -President’s knowledge
                                     -Press coverage
                              -Inaugural Committee
                              -Haldeman’s conversation with Eugene Ormandy
              -Recitation of a passage by the head of the Screen Actors Guild
                     -Declaration of Independence
                              -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha
                              -Ormandy
              -Persichetti piece
                     -Commission for inaugural concert
                     -Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address

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**
[Begin segment reviewed under deed of gift]
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                 NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                     (rev. Mar.-09)
                                                          Conversation No. 851-3 (cont’d)

      [Dwight] David Eisenhower, II’s discharge
            -Report from Haldeman
            -Julie Nixon Eisenhower
            -Cmdr. Craig S. Campbell
            -July opportunity
                    -March
            -Early release
                    -Record
                    -Routine early phase out

[End segment reviewed under deed of gift]
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      Speeches
            -Radio talk
                   -Haldeman's conversation with Ehrlichman
                          -Preparation
                   -Scheduling
                   -Lead time
                   -Handling of issue
                   -Quality of speech
            -Republican congressional leaders’ meeting
                   -Roy L. Ash
                   -Phrases
                   -Quality
                          -Cabinet
                          -William E. Timmons
                          -Ehrlichman
                   -Number of lines
                          -Meeting before scheduled meeting
                          -Questions
                   -Republican Congressional leaders’ meeting
                          -Ash
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                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                       (rev. Mar.-09)
                                                                 Conversation No. 851-3 (cont’d)

                             -Talking papers

Haldeman left at 5:11 pm.

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.

Oh, Rose, I don't have a lot
Uh, I had to go over to some other, include the, uh, you know, some of the managerial people and things and so forth.
What I had meant to say that they should sort of get evens and arrests and things like that.
You see it's a big, big matter.
I mean, here's the Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Missouri, the state general, uh, the state general, and so forth.
There are 20 people on there that have re-elected the president.
There are 2.6%.
It's not Rosa's fault, because Malik, you know how he is.
He does it in the book.
But I just want, when she says no, I directed her that until the Spanish's list are completed, no more committee to re-elect me.
After all those people that are, they got Gloria and all that stuff.
Oh, that's right.
I don't know how it happened, but I must have sent the list for the dinner and heard that.
They did the last time, too.
They had six of them on last time.
I caught up with them, wrote them around the roads and said, don't do this again.
But she said she'd already sent the invitations off to this one.
But it shows you that when you have, as I told you, if you've got a pusher like a Malik or a Colson or as Harry Kent used to be, their names will go in.
Yep.
Of course, they should.
See, the way it's supposed to be set up is on a strict quarter basis.
And you can, by setting a quarter, you eliminate that.
In other words, Rose sends it out to them.
Probably to the quarter, at least.
It's just got to be the other way around.
It was my mistake in suggesting they ever be one.
That was the next text you reviewed about the X Factor and the brain and what it did on it.
Well, you know, my heart is just not certain for any time on this one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did they ever resolve it?
I don't know if they resolved it.
Well, they resolved it.
They were going to resolve it simply by putting a hold on it.
They didn't move on it for now.
I'm not so sure it would be a good idea to find a different place for it anyway.
That's what I told her.
The problem we have with it is that it will reach all the hell around here, you know, the roads, the water, the wall.
And it can only come out of any hole.
I don't know if there's any other thought yet.
Where is he now?
Interior.
Is he still there?
Oh, yeah.
But he, yeah, he's running a bubble party.
He's going to go, too.
Well, it shouldn't be in the customs right now.
I mean, but nevertheless, so...
I was curious, not that I was strong, but what the hell was some sort of parish that the inaugural or something like that did?
Oh, the composer?
Yeah, the composer, I guess.
I never heard of him.
I just didn't know him.
I didn't even, and I'm being blamed for it, which is kind of fascinating that it came in here, and I never knew about it until I read about it in the paper.
Well, we don't know anything about it in this case.
Somebody asked me.
They are.
I never heard of it.
Is that right?
I don't know.
I never knew nothing about it.
What do you think happened?
I think they made the right decision to be perfectly frank.
Sure, Michael.
That's an odd-damning, maddening choice.
I thought you were going to talk to Armitage, though.
Did he ask you about it?
Yeah, when I talked to Armitage, this had all been settled.
He didn't even raise a question about it.
The question he raised with me was whether that guy, that actor who did the recitation, whether he should do
But an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, or an excerpt from Longworth's Keowathan, I said, the Declaration of Independence.
I didn't have a lot of trouble deciding that.
And Ormandy completely agreed.
But he said that there were some people who were arguing to do something with Keowathan.
He said it wouldn't fit the music anyway.
And did I think it would make the Declaration of Independence be much more fitting if it was period 76 or something?
For the inauguration, for the inaugural concert.
To do with Lincoln's second inaugural.
The Lincoln's second inaugural says we'll keep fighting until every drop of blood is been avenged by another drop of blood.
A few glorious lines like that.
Yeah, with that, there's some pretty gory stuff.
What's the situation on?
I have got to talk to Campbell who is on this technique for David.
Campbell does understand, however, clearly, and his instructions from David were,
to explore the July opportunity, to keep the March opportunity open, you would see the problem.
I thought it all costed just over three months to have any kind of a mark on his record.
As I understood it, I thought that's the only way it was.
No, sir.
I mean, they finally said there will not be any mark on his record.
early face out with a group of others.
He's not knocking anybody else off, but when he applied, he's ordered for it, vying for it.
They're trying to face, I'm sure, some of them.
There'll be a bigger bunch in July, but...
tomorrow.
This is 5 o'clock.
I said I couldn't do it because I have no time to prepare it.
I've been there with eight people already and so forth.
But I think you've got to talk to John and any of these others about this.
I've got to have some time to read the goddamn things before, you know, to take out the words that I don't use and so forth and so on.
If they decided and if they know that they're supposed to
I actually was supposed to have met him on the weekend for delivery Tuesday.
Well, I can't do it tomorrow.
I just got put back the day it was done.
I can't.
I can't.
I have no time to work on it tonight, Bob.
So I can't do it tomorrow.
So I'm going to work on it tomorrow night and try to do it Thursday.
But they ought to give me a little more lead time.
That's one of the things.
I mean, if I get about three days on the bench, I can work it in.
I just may not do it.
I think you'd better just talk to John while I go, and I'll see you at 6 o'clock.
I just hate this.
I think we're handling the issue rather well at the moment, and I don't want to throw a bad speech in.
Do I think so?
That's it.
See, I've got to feel out about it and the clauses and all that, sir.
That cabinet, that leader's thing this morning was not good.
It was not a good deal.
I mean, they just didn't get it across because they don't understand phrases.
We've been around the tracks all night.
Yeah, well, the other time, I mean, that conversation, you know, we get these things, man.
We get the cabinet and they're asking, are people ought to do better on those things?
God damn it.
They'll sit and prepare as they will.
I, I, I, this is, this is, again, this is an issue that's in this case, that, you know, having him in this monitor, that, you know, on his own work, he can't, he can't see, he doesn't, because he can, he can't say, well, the convention calls us in this or that, the other thing.
That's not him's issue.
He, you see, the judge isn't,
I saw that paper, it's that thing.