Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 866-019
Date: Thursday, March 1, 1973 at 3:06 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Roth, Robert; Tkach, Walter R.; Wilson, Richard L.; Steele, John L.; Warren, Lucian C; terHorst, Jerald F. ("Jerry"); Ziegler, Ronald L.; Sanchez, Manolo
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/866-019

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] All right.
[0:02] All right.
[1:13] Your son-in-law is my guest at this dinner.
[1:17] He's a cocks.
[1:18] Oh, yeah.
[1:19] He's in the Navy.
[1:19] He'll give me a runner.
[1:21] I think so.
[1:21] He said he'll have tips.
[1:22] I know.
[1:22] Take that.
[1:23] See what they... That stuff you made in the basement last night.
[1:27] No, it's not ready yet.
[1:46] Ice tea.
[1:47] He makes ice tea with pineapple, which George Jones always drinks.
[1:53] Anything, right?
[1:54] Ice tea.
[1:54] Tea, potter ice.
[1:56] Ice would be fine, yeah.
[1:58] Ice tea.
[1:59] With pineapple?
[2:01] Yeah.
[2:02] They make it the way they make it.
[2:05] I'll take some hot tea.
[2:08] Go ahead.
[2:09] Mr. President, we appreciate very much your willingness to come in here today.
[2:16] This way, even though we have four or one of you, you're going to tell us you can't come.
[2:22] I would understand some way we could appeal to them.
[2:29] Well, let me tell you this.
[2:31] What I will do, though, which I think is a few folks know, they're about six of us of this type.
[2:41] I really feel it.
[2:43] You know, I ought to do that on the gridiron.
[2:44] We should always do it, and I think you probably have some priorities, but you've got the White House Correspondents, you've got the radio television Correspondents, so we have the White House Photographers, who I almost consider to be a lower form of life, but they are important.
[3:00] And then, of course, you have the women's business, and they're important, even though they're in the gridiron now.
[3:10] So I'm going to do two of them this year, you know, and I'm going to do the White House Correspondents, for example, and probably the radio one when it works out.
[3:21] But I definitely will do the gridiron next year and try to work again.
[3:28] In other words, you can do the gridiron two years at least.
[3:32] You've got to work with the others to do a couple of them.
[3:36] Two years in a row?
[3:37] 74 and 75?
[3:41] Thank you.
[4:06] That's the trouble with Trump.
[4:30] Well, everybody's going to be there.
[4:33] I'm sure you've got to get a bill back from Europe.
[4:35] He'll be signing the thing tomorrow.
[4:39] Yes, he will be there.
[4:41] And I'm happy, of course.
[4:44] I guess everybody else that you want, he's going to be there.
[4:48] It's a little hard to get a bill back.
[4:50] I didn't think we were going to make it until we got the P.O.W.
[4:55] thing worked out at 1130.
[4:56] Have you got it really worked out?
[4:58] Well, it better be.
[5:00] Yeah, they have the names.
[5:02] I think once they get the names, and they said that within 24, we think within 48 hours after we get the names, they start going back.
[5:10] So they should be coming in Sunday.
[5:12] I mean, they should be coming to Clark.
[5:14] Mr. President, let me put a little something in perspective.
[5:18] You already indicated that you have a pretty clear perspective.
[5:22] Some of us are talking on the way over here.
[5:27] We don't think anybody has really ever contributed more to the dinners themselves than you have.
[5:35] On two outstanding occasions, which you remember very well, and on many others, the first one being the checkers.
[5:49] Yeah, they brought the dog down.
[5:51] Yeah, the first one being the checkers.
[5:56] I'm not sure that sure this will work, but...
[6:28] I know that what your guests like, you know, when the president is delighted to come in and give a toast and all that things in the last, but so late, but you hear it so often.
[6:38] I mean, I'll say that in the White House for a response, and I'll go to the radio if they work their day out.
[6:44] I don't know about their day, if you're having a little problem with that.
[6:46] You have to rule, because if they run in conflict with the state, they've got to do it.
[6:53] But it's often occurred to me that
[6:59] Well, you wouldn't want to do the duet thing, you can't help it, but the idea of trying to create some kind of a number.
[7:12] You may remember Dick Eisenhower's first year, remember?
[7:16] When he did what maturity do, do you remember?
[7:21] They worked out Milton.
[7:24] Eisenhower stood up there at the restaurant, and Milton got up and did something.
[7:29] I don't know what it was called.
[7:31] And he worked it out.
[7:33] It didn't come off awfully well, but it was good.
[7:38] Let me say, I have an idea in the back of my mind.
[7:43] It might work out better during the course of the dinner.
[7:47] See my point?
[7:49] Or maybe in the end.
[7:50] There's no problem with that.
[7:52] What I'm thinking of, for example, is the grove things.
[8:00] Were you there to hear that old Bill Thompson is now dead and I get to prove Sean K. Thompson's memory?
[8:08] No.
[8:09] You heard of that one?
[8:10] That's supposed to be one of them.
[8:12] Friday night.
[8:12] Yes.
[8:13] And it was very well done.
[8:16] Mr. President, looking back on some of those records, in our later years, we probably had a distinguished line.
[8:28] Oh, yes.
[8:31] Say, if we invited him to stay, would that in any way embarrass or paralyze you?
[8:37] No.
[8:38] No, no, no, no, not at all.
[8:39] I think that would be great.
[8:42] I mean, they'd love it.
[8:44] Would they understand?
[8:45] It depends on which one.
[8:47] Well, of course, it would be great if you could have the...
[8:52] I was thinking, we're at the time, but you can't...
[8:57] Like next year, I would say next year, if you had us head of state, that would have given added the deals for future.
[9:05] I think it'd be great.
[9:06] Well, the reason I say we have to plan, we have to invite you six months in advance.
[9:13] What we could do, we could work with you in terms of the state schedule, and I could have a follow-up.
[9:21] You know, I could do the, you know, the route, you know, the things.
[9:24] You take, for example, a life, like tomorrow, uh,
[9:28] Well, now, this is my error here.
[9:30] She's a real man.
[9:32] No, you've got some that he, for example, would love it.
[9:35] He would love it.
[9:37] He would be great.
[9:39] And also, he might perform.
[9:40] That's right.
[9:41] We'll work with you on that.
[9:57] Now, the possibility of heat is good, too, because we have a meeting with heat every year.
[10:02] It's now almost annual, and usually in December, January, if we could move it to, say, 1st of March.
[10:12] From what you're saying, Mr. President, I'm going to be president next year.
[10:17] If you're otherwise unemployed, please be my general chairman.
[10:30] Now, this year, you could have a, you could have, if you just put it together, I might be able to arrange it.
[10:42] Just think what a good effort to make with Maxine Cheshire and Frank Snyder.
[10:52] I hope you got the, you got the, you got the knocker work.
[10:56] I mean that.
[11:00] What I mean is I've never talked to her, and therefore I don't relate to who she is.
[11:08] I know all the others who don't have her, and the rest they can't.
[11:31] but I don't, she's been around, but she never, she'd never come up into the day.
[11:37] Well, no, she does.
[11:37] No.
[11:38] You don't have any ideas about how you might contribute to this particular performance?
[11:47] To come?
[11:48] No, I can't change that.
[11:49] No, I can't change that.
[11:51] You mean to offer you something?
[11:54] What do you mean?
[11:55] Or give it to the vice president.
[11:59] We're having some questions.
[12:01] external forces here.
[12:03] We've battled the wind a little ways.
[12:05] I think most of us feel we've battled as far as we should.
[12:10] We're trying to...
[12:11] The wind?
[12:11] Yes.
[12:12] We're trying to create... We're trying to maintain the traditional... That's what we're trying to do at the second.
[12:21] We think at the moment, at the second, that it's a primary event.
[12:26] The actual arcade... Well, sure, relax.
[12:34] We have a problem.
[13:03] I forgot his name.
[13:06] He's from down here in Virginia, a sergeant, Colonel Belay.
[13:12] And we were waiting on the State Department.
[13:18] They were waiting for this release, and they said Mannhart was going to be on the list.
[13:24] I'm afraid they're getting too close.
[13:27] They may have to take Doug Ramsey, who was held at a big con.
[13:31] He's out of the country.
[13:33] But these, they're going to have to come.
[13:35] We're only going to have three.
[13:38] We're only going to have three.
[13:41] I have a big fan of McCain's.
[13:43] I mean, of these people, well, they're going to have a lot of their own.
[13:48] Everybody remembers Debbie.
[13:50] Everybody's heard of her recently.
[14:00] I talked to the Apple last night.
[14:04] He's still hoping.
[14:05] He's on this new list.
[14:06] Well, isn't he there six years?
[14:08] Six years ago.
[14:09] Six years ago.
[14:11] Right?
[14:11] Well, the Apple busts a little bit, too.
[14:14] I hope we'll get him to the amount.
[14:17] I mean, it's true.
[14:19] It gets very funny when you don't pay for it.
[14:31] I didn't know somebody.
[14:33] She was the wife of one of the enlisted men on the ship that was in Saratoga.
[14:39] Remember, we were there.
[14:42] She was wearing a bracelet.
[14:43] She said, do you know where this man is coming from?
[14:46] It was Jack McCain.
[14:47] I said, well, I know who he is.
[14:51] She didn't know who he was.
[14:52] He was wearing a bracelet.
[14:55] I said, he's the son of the admiral.
[14:57] I said, well, I'm sure he's alive.
[14:59] I said,
[15:02] I have not exploited.
[15:31] I remember one of the biggest fans was one of the little guys stood up, you know, and he was talking about the fine Lewis Lewis.
[15:43] Nobody ever heard of him since.
[15:47] And the crowd hit the way it came apart.
[15:51] Of course, that shows what kind of membership you are.
[15:53] And what kind of guests they have.
[15:58] All your publishers and the rest of it.
[16:09] That's what it is.
[16:10] I don't remember the name.
[16:13] I'll never forget the answer.
[16:16] You know, I would suggest that if you want to think of that other thing, and Ron, you check quietly with Henry to see whether or not you want to think of it.
[16:34] If we can get heat
[16:38] He can do a single life, they say.
[16:41] He's terrific.
[16:43] He's a classical author.
[16:45] We wanted to speak
[17:10] I don't know what he can do.
[17:15] He can speak as a third party, a third voice.
[17:18] And if you're going to get him to speak, that would be better.
[17:24] He'd rather do that.
[17:29] But he has a surprising good voice.
[17:34] And if he didn't get him, I'd say, I'm going to praise him.
[17:39] That would be too late.
[17:42] His visit will occur this year.
[17:46] The date is not yet set, but it won't be next year.
[17:54] Join live.
[17:55] See me.
[18:11] What about this?
[18:13] What does he call it?
[18:14] Does he get the stand or does he get a seat this year?
[18:18] Well, I don't know.
[18:20] We're getting some attention from the skits.
[18:22] We're getting some attention.
[18:24] Oh, God, yeah.
[18:26] We've got the... Well, let's see.
[18:28] He's got the...
[18:29] He's got the pseudonymis fracture.
[18:34] He's got to get your complexion.
[18:40] Well, we appreciate it very much.
[18:45] We will pursue this idea.
[18:48] Yes, we'll do that.
[18:49] The idea is that if you can't get heat, you know, there are a number of... You take it all the way up, like the shot of Iran.
[19:05] He's got a lot of glass...
[19:09] Oh, they're going to give him a picture, too.
[19:33] Get out of here.
[19:35] Thank you, sir.
[19:36] Thank you.
[19:37] I'm supposed to make up a speech.
[19:42] Have you read this speech yet?
[19:46] No, sir.
[19:46] I hope you're all in good voice.
[19:51] Well, we've been spraying our throats three nights a week.
[20:05] Thank you.
[20:07] Sure.
[20:08] Well, one of these guys is basically a decent man.
[20:12] And it's nice of them to come in and try to get some sex.
[20:20] And that's a good idea.
[20:20] We'll get eaten.
[20:21] Then I won't have to do so much.
[20:25] Also, if we have a foreign visitor, they won't be quite as removed.
[20:30] Don't you think so?
[20:32] I'm trying to be.
[20:40] Uh, let's see.
[21:10] How many of your names are in the book?
[21:22] Well, I don't know.
[21:24] How many did she get?
[21:25] I don't know.
[21:26] I don't know.
[21:27] I don't know.
[21:28] I don't know.
[21:29] I don't know.
[21:30] I don't know.
[21:32] I don't know.
[21:39] I think I would throw in my coals, how much I can.
[21:44] People, you know, you'll have some of the officers around, some of these guys, like Dick Wilson, who, you know, should be a sponsor.
[22:01] They don't.
[22:10] Wilson's a classy guy.
[22:10] He's a great gentleman.
[22:14] And he knows they've made a mistake.
[22:16] And also because he feels they've gone too far on the issue.
[22:24] Wilson is a good man.
[22:27] And Jerry Charles is a good man.
[22:30] Jerry is more than rare.
[22:34] He's practically a...
[22:37] I'll call him what he is.
[22:39] Is he?
[22:39] I'm not sure.
[22:41] I'm sorry.
[22:43] Steele's, Steele's a good man.
[22:48] It's all wrong.
[22:49] Well, wrong, basically.
[22:52] But he's not a vicious man.
[22:54] No, he's not.
[22:55] There's a difference.
[22:56] I don't know.
[22:56] I'm a liberal.
[22:56] It's just a question.
[23:00] I'm looking for it, of course.
[23:01] Yeah.
[23:04] But we'll have to consider which one of those gridirons I do the right way.
[23:10] I'd rather do, frankly, I don't have to do it, but we'll basically do it next year.
[23:19] But it's just as well we didn't do it this year.
[23:23] No question about it.
[23:24] As people understand, it's never been mentioned.
[23:27] My brother's never mentioned it.
[23:28] I've never mentioned it.
[23:29] Wilson's never mentioned it.
[23:31] None of it.
[23:32] But they all know, and they all agree.
[23:33] Well, never.
[23:34] If you're not going through the government.
[23:38] One conversation amongst us was about the government coming to the inauguration.
[23:45] There's more conversation about that.
[24:07] Thank you.