On February 21, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Rex W. Scouten met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:38 pm to 12:49 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 859-036 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
We're stuck with the ability to maintain that equipment.
The low returns, the basic equipment.
in this area where you'd be here and that's just a combination that's what i'm
pick the colors, because she does much better judgment.
Let me ask you this, though.
Where does this come from, folks?
Well, it's in the shop area.
Yeah.
And what about the expenses and so forth?
Is that the IMF giving it to us?
They're giving equipment.
Equipment.
They're putting in equipment.
I think they're going to give us the grades.
Yeah.
And what about the others?
Well, we've been going along and running into problems and solving them as we need and trying to go as fast as we can.
I couldn't tell you right now exactly, but it'll be.
Of course, again, there will be some improvements to the shop area.
There'll be some problems, too, but we can write some of it off.
Well, and renovating our fire system and sprinting system.
Well, which we'd have to do.
So we can write some of it off.
But we're coming along.
Of course, we've been working on it.
It's been a lot of work.
And I would hope that it will be March 20th we're shooting for right now.
But we're hoping, well, in, what, two more weeks for it to dry before they put the wood down.
And we need that much time anyhow before they lay the wood on the concrete.
I feel at least about that, uh, you know, just the inspector, I mean, I thought that my reason for putting it there, and your other comments, because I don't want the impression that you started putting it forward, and I don't want to have a great experience with that case.
Yeah, I, you know, I, I share that, and I'm going to be honest with you, you know, I have to deal with other people up to this point, and, well, what I got back was, you know, this is what we were charged with.
I had understood that they had, uh,
they give the criminal they put in this webinar but we had to prepare the area for them i you know i think i think you should have a place over there you need it and i don't see any problem with that except i don't want to you know see what we can do yeah it's you know the thing we've had a lot of people working on it so it's you know it's no secret
We've had to have a lot of people involved.
Again, I think, I would like, I would hope that we could write a certain law that would offer disimprovement in the area, but that's... You write it off because you mean it's a... To the government expense, and we're making certain improvements in there, but we can only go so far with that, too.
The name of the kitchen is perfectly...
Yeah, and it's 10 years old.
The air condition should be replaced in any event.
As far as the shock area is concerned, you know, there's a situation there.
Some of that would have to be ordered.
We haven't done anything at some point, so it's not real.
Well, to be honest with you, no.
I know, frankly, we're losing space.
We're losing space now.
We're badly in need of it, but...
We can make out.
It's not going to be that big a problem to us.
It's just a matter of rearranging.
Well, I think in the end it'll work out.
It's a loss of storage space, but other than that, we can rearrange things and it's not going to be a problem to us.
There's so many things that we need here.
There's so many different ceremonies.
Where are we going to go?
Well, we have a warehouse, our warehouse on the airport, where we can't keep a lot of things.
We can make up pretty well, just we have to haul more things back and forth, but there was not enough storage area when the house was renovated, frankly, and we've lost a lot since then, but we make up pretty well.
No, we make out all right on that.
There's no problem.
You know, I know you're concerned on the cost.
I do not want to.
We'll have to.
There's people who would like to contribute something.
Well, I'll pay more close attention to the cost, but it's going to be considerable, I know.
Well, to be honest with you, I'll just send a memorandum back saying that hopefully it'll be $13,000 or something donated.
What is it?
I don't know.
It's going to be a lot more than that.
Yes, sir.
A memorandum of $13,000?
Who's going to donate that?
I don't know.
I got this memorandum from Bruce Curveye, so I don't really know.
Bruce Curveye.
Who?
He's a staff secretary.
Oh, yeah.
Bruce Curveye.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I think we'll just have to come out at a halfway honest figure of what the added cost would be to put it in.
But again, I think it's something that's needed in the house.
I guess not $50,000.
I think we can probably write some of that off, though, honestly, write it off.
Well, that's all that we could.
It seems like a lot of money for a one-lane alley, but there's been one heck of a lot of work went into it, though.
And believe it or not, it's the only place in the new residency swing or west swing where one will fit.
It's the only area.
I know.
But it is needed.
You know, we need some recreation, having taken the pool out.
We have no recreation area at all tonight.
It's a shame.
That's so nice.
And that's the thing being it, then.
We're going to have, you know, like, we'll have a remote control unit at the back where you can swim in.
If you come down on an ouch and you swim, flip on the lights and flip on the equipment, you know, you don't have to wait for anybody or anything.
I think we'll put in some, just have portable chairs in there because there's not much room.
And then if you want chairs, fine.
If you don't, we can take them out.
Yeah, okay.
Well, we'll have them, and then if other people come.
Yeah, we haven't had any.
Well, we'll make it, I think we should make it as nice as we could, as we can.
Okay, all right, all right.
We'll, we'll see what she would like to do.
Fine.
All right, and then we'll, we'll come up with a, what I figure, feel an honest figure.
Well, suppose, suppose we can, let us suppose we can say, uh, we've got to get a, say, a $50,000 copy.
that's in the ballpark.
But considering that some would be written off as expenditures that you'd have to make anyway, would you think that would be a reason?
Right now, I'm guessing not.
Okay, now there's many questions raised.
The amount, you should say, the amount is being contributed by the bowling people and by the president.
Of course, the renovation costs are being contributed by the president.
Right, and a lot of .
Just like .
Well, a lot of the work is being done by the press.
We've been done quite a lot of the heavy work while you were away .
um the problem we have there basically is the filipinos
as someone that is white, because otherwise it looks like a colored or lower class, you should talk to Big John about the reason for it.
We don't want to change the timing of that.
The President has felt concerned, particularly when we have non-white visitors and that most of the nations
And we're all being served.
And that doesn't look right.
That's what he understands.
He understands.
There's no problem with John and Nora's quality in Harlem.
He has just a lot of great serving.
It's not a very prestigious position anymore.
We have no appeal here, sir.
We pay the... Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm actually somebody who can't pay the money.
We went to all the caterers.
We went to people we don't trust.
We don't want to make any, I don't know if it's a favor, but we're trying to do.
And when it hits, we get down to the part of telling them the scary investigation.
to tell people what they asked for all these years.
And nobody will work.
And honestly, if we're doing it right,