On March 2, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Ronald L. Ziegler, Rose Mary Woods, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:51 am and 12:16 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 867-008 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
That was correct.
It took care of it for a while.
20 questions on every subject that you think of.
I thought we were running out of time.
One of you.
Yes, sir.
You're coming in.
They didn't have any required very long answers.
The lead, of course, is that there are a lot of leads, but the key lead to the two devaluation, UP's leading, one lead to a two and the other to a devaluation.
Talk to Shane.
She's delighted with that.
That was put out the way you did it.
Then the aid, the Hanoi aid coming out of the security and defense budget.
They got their follow-up that they've always wanted, and that was fine.
It was a good tone.
It was a good tone.
I'm going to stay here because I want to ask, you're here, we'll talk about those friends of Mr. Kress.
Have you already worked that out?
No, I haven't.
I had the liberty to go over there.
what was his thought that he wants to
If you've got an idea of who we should give those to, Rose, why don't you work with me on the list?
You know what I mean?
Because that's special.
Those are coming.
I'm not sure.
Does he want to ask people?
Well, the last time we gave the first one, I think you said the last time you gave it to your top fan, and then you said to a lot of people.
How much are those things?
What do you mean?
How do you mean?
Maybe, maybe.
Should they go to the sky?
I don't know.
I don't know.
It seems to me that we ought to make a list of them, please.
You can't start with the men unless you get knocked along.
But I think people like the top political ones, and some of your good friends, if you can't reach them, start with the ones that aren't active in the enemy.
That's right, that's right.
And?
Some people who aren't, well, I think it's quite a very good job that you all are saying.
I think it's a very good job.
We started on that.
For example, we ought to get one.
We ought to get one to Julie and Trisha.
Well, Julie and Trisha, I think all the ones who did that, it should have one.
I don't know.
I don't know that Don took because he didn't work in the campaign at all.
Well, I think you just, you know, cover the rhymes too.
Well, that's what I mean.
Then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then,
Well, now the line that you have, it says, let's make the next 40 years the best 40 years, you know, that's pulled out.
I like to go to the bank.
I'm quite sure that if you ever get it, it's going to make a lot of money.
Let's use it.
Let's use it for our effective purposes in the bank.
The immediate benefit is you always get something.
And I see it in the interest.
In other words, they should have something, you know, like...
Krista and Eddie and James and Julie should have one.
Oh, yes, they do.
That's right.
Oh, sir.
You gave your media fans, I mean the brothers, you gave all of them on music box, you know.
Did I?
When?
Well, you had emailed to them after the Congress, to Eddie and Don and to Brian.
Oh, good.
These are great.
Those are very good.
People would love to have them.
And there have been, you know, there really have been some publishers.
You work me out a list.
I may want you to talk to so that I don't have to do this check around with people.
You can check with Ronnie or her client.
Or I could go for him.
around here, the people that were in the campaign and so forth, that would mean just one hell of a lot too.
You know, and then we'll do it.
And don't worry if we don't cover everybody because it's like a dinner.
My gosh, I'm going to tell you what we should have seen.
I saw this list.
I worked on trying to push away the poor from others who wanted in.
You know, I made a crack.
I really killed them.
I know that it's more sophisticated, but I don't think anybody presented it.
I said, you know, Miss Madam Prime Minister, the tables are crowded tonight.
I said, why?
I said, the normal procedure when we have a White House dinner is always to invite about 100% more than we expect.
Because we always, a lot are coming forward, and we get turned down.
I said, listen, Miss Madam Prime Minister, we had no reducers.
Everybody came.
I had never seen her.
You should have seen the jewelry.
Oh, God.
I saw emeralds.
I saw diamonds.
Some of them are theirs, and some of them they rent.
They're just like the ones that go down to my house.
I saw one that had a...
The carriage was so big she had to wear it on the third finger rather than the fourth.
They rented it?
The one on the beach, the one on the carriage.
They rented it.
But let me say, no, this group was so high class that it was not a carriage.
This was a very, I mean, it was in good taste.
It's not that, you know, you've got the Jewish parties on a carriage.
It's just a carriage.
But, my God, I never saw the better, it's the best carriage I've ever had in my whole three years.
Well, they have all-nighters out there.
What else did they have to do?
I must say, though, I...
I was going to say, why do you think... We tried, but it was all hard to squeeze in.
Well, I didn't think that we had Billy Graham and John Connery, except that the Cadillac was only two years old.
Well, there were a few others, but there were a few of them, too, because you just...
To fight off the people at Shriver, and Max Bishop kept adding, and the people who saw him.
I was going to ask you to do one thing.
I would like for him and his mother to be invited to a dinner, just to pretend.
Because he had asked for his mother, according to Pat, to come.
And we didn't, couldn't invite her.
Well, it got to be two of his friends, and then his mother, and then his father.
And we were just so proud of him.
We didn't invite him and his mother.
Oh, so I think that's the father.
All right, all right.
But boy, was he great.
He's so, he's so great.
I didn't think it'd be good to have him and his mother.
I think it's nice to have him.
And the point about him is that he didn't come to you.
He invited me home, but he didn't come.
It didn't come to that.
No, he said, no, he says, I have to be the solution for it.
Well, it showed he was fantastic.
Unbelievable.
He got two honkars in that room.
Well, and you can understand that, because when you're going to make a speech... Well, you realize, too, that what he did, he bled down for almost an hour.
Totally bled down.
That is a hell of a thing to do.
I was thinking one thing I might do, I've got an old family, that I may write a short line and suggest that I would like for him to be invited to a company in the Army Symphony.
It would be beautiful.
And the Army likes it.
And that would be a way to pay him off.
That's so funny.
Somebody said the other night that, you know, that's all I think, so they talked about this, but the French attorney came into town.
Talked with Edward Williams, who will not handle the case.
But he won't.
He's the post-Colonel.
And they said that this very smooth guy, I don't understand.
And when it started to, he came in town.
So when he said, well, my client is willing to make one statement.
And that's what he said.
Well, he'd be willing to say that, if necessary, he'd increase the price by five dollars.
I think that's funny.
Fair.
I'll tell you the truth.
She's a bad person.
I thought we had to have some.
Well, you see, the Italian Prime Minister's coming.
I had already invited him earlier.
It would have been a terrible affront to him if we had not had him.
And so now it will cool off.
I know what he's going to question.
How do you feel?
Well, he's a great entertainer, but that's the way those people always talk to each other.
They really do.
Well, look, if it hadn't been for Tom and I, but at any rate, Cheshire has been asking for that for a long time.
Sure.
It's like, it's like, it's like, I say through person's life, you know.
Yeah, I was going to say through person's life.
It's already been done.
I went down here to get my coat.
Joe McCartney had it around the throat.
He was going to kill me.
And he had the piercings shaking and crumbling, and I couldn't come out.
And so Joe received that name and that line.
And then you're killed.
He would have been doing it.
I always thought it was the biggest thing.
It was the bad timing.
It would have been awful.
I don't know.
It would have just injured him so to speak.
That was a great conference.
It was great.
But Tom Mullenhoff, has he lost his mind lately?
Tom Mullenhoff had an operation.
I'm doing everything I can.
Well, that's right.
We had a nice meeting.
He was handled well.
He was handled good.
I saw him at that party when I had this over with him.
And he, I really, I think the poor guy lost his mind.
But he was handled well.
Who was the girl that asked the question about the deed going on?
Leslie Stoll of CBS.
Leslie Stoll.
I hadn't heard that voice before.
That was the one question I didn't know.
Yeah.
What is the, on the other thing, though, you've got the, are we getting pretty good acceptance from the Congress in this?
Are the Democrats going to come or not?
Or only the Southerners?
It's a pretty good acceptance, but I tell you, I think the ones who regret now having this group
I noticed that Timothy's family, somebody who regretted church the last time, he invited them already the next time.
I think that makes it cheap.
No, no, no.
Well, not for this one.
He just said it was over there.
But I don't think we should do that once they regret it.
No, no, no.
The point is, if you regret it, they regret it, particularly if they don't let you know.
Well, but if they regret it and they're not sick or they don't check, if they regret it, we could have just used that time.
That's right.
But if they just regret it, don't invite them again.
That's right.
You just take those, and don't you just rule them all out on that, because he's not supposed to do that.
But that's what we're doing.
We're doing it only so we can say we've invited him.
I know, and if you think... We've invited him a lot of times, and we've just got to say we've invited him, so we've done it now.
And the church is what the Catholic connection is.
I had hoped you would, well, we can't.
We didn't have a choice.
We should have loaded more of our Catholics in the back.
Yes, we have no choice because we have a hundred and six.
Oh, Rose, do one other thing.
On the church service, I want to open the upstairs for them.
That gives them something extra.
Even though most of the Congressmen have seen it.
But they all love the other church, and I don't mind it.
I can't for the evenings because Sammy Davis will be sleeping up there.
For every church service,
Well, this one, this congressional one, I didn't generally, I would like that as a policy, yes.
I was going to say, the congressmen have all been through it last night in terms of regressions.
I'll see about that.
Why don't you start with the one that ended it?
No, the regressions have been through it.
And the old ones have all been through it.
Why don't you start with your next one, then?
Go for it.
take care of quite a lot while we're talking about gifts well there are about um there's a special one that's on time i mean if you gave those members before the 15th convention
There are about seven pair of those left, if you want for some special people sometimes.
I should let you know.
Okay, well, tell you what you do.
Watch the daily schedule, and if you see somebody on at some time, it would mean a great deal to, you know...
That's why I told him.
Oh, I didn't know he was calling.
Well, you follow up and tell his wife that I called.
Well, they'll know.
Maybe.
Oh, they know.
They know.
We got a letter from him already.
Oh, good.
I called.
I called George Bell to see if he could be taken.
He's sick.
Is he bad?
I don't know if he's sick, but the nurse said he's too weak to talk.
Well, I'm sure he was ill and stopped a long time before he really, you know, retired.
I've been anxious.
I can't wait.
I don't know why.
There's so much of that, every time I pick up the phone.
Well, I've heard of it.
Here's another thing, and I've been asking the other thing.
Do you have these plates that we're going to have to go stand by here for ?
Would you like that stand on the back of them?
Sure.
Remind me of those two, I just don't want them.
The only thing, I never ask for these people, and I've got a figure of them.
Yeah, we're having to think about these.
And what we're doing on the music box, if you decide to use those as you thought for second, that's a long thing.
Yeah.
We're going to have to do that.
Yeah, that one's hard to play with another.
That woman is fabulous.
I know she is.
But anyway, she's great.
She's very nice on here.
Thank you, Mother.
She's been there a long time.
I know Mary Jane wanted to try to get that job, and I think it would have been a great error, because this woman is so great, and I've had to handle all kinds of things.
Well, anyway.
This, I'm going to just send it to the, you know, library, because we don't want to keep it.
I'll put it over to you, Bea.
I have a lot of those things.
That's good, Mary.
People love to see those things.
I'll show them all.
The last one's over there.
Yeah, the last one's over there.
And then Mary Brooks is going to send over to me today, and I can get another second lady.
You know, the mint makes a separate channel.
And they're coming.
They want the back of it, something about teeth.
But they want you to, you know, I'll show you.
These are just the mock-ups.
Okay.
I see that great face of Finley.
He's a nice guy, but he's not very profound.
Paul Finley.
All right.
He votes for this.
He votes for this.
All right.
All right.
I mean, it's good.
Yeah, they can't.
They can't penetrate.
I don't know.
The rent control, of course, in some areas, the sea fire answer ties in with the Southeast Asian thing.
We've already mentioned the part about where the money will come from.
Amnesty, they may pick up again because that was
in particular context with that UPI poll out today.
So UPI would probably give that a .
You know the UPI, you had to poll the Senate?
Right.
Absolutely.
Sure.
The black answer was to knock that out of .
Gray is way down.
That's a third, second, third-day story.
The Watergate stuff will be at the bottom of the story.
Well, it may be the second, but it's the first time I've said a second or third-day story.
Also, I got a notice around the seventh stage for some future things where I said I would not comment on a hearing on some process.
I wasn't going to comment on Watergate calls on repeal.
And it also wasn't going to intend to cooperate with Earth as long as, did you notice I said this, it was...
That's going to be, that story will carry because he's structuring his hearing not to do that.
I may be wrong.
I might be wrong on that.
Dean is a fellow.
You ought to get by and say what you expect the community to have.
And also, you can add this, for example, by a barrier.
No hearsay of this.
No hearsay of this.
No association.
The way you handled the Dean thing was so good to show.
Of course not.
Well, of course not.
Your couch is not going to go up there and testify.
Just like the recent president.
Sure.
But we said we'd branch information.
That's right.
So you have the proper circumstances, and then we would kind of do it for them.
But devaluation, you said.
Well, Mitchell's thing was handled well, but that's not common.
Mitchell wasn't there.
What could we say about that?
Well, you're not going to make it hit.
Clark's question was one related to a principle.
Yeah.
Because for me, it's the hearing, and I'm not going to comment on the hearing.
But if you could so descend and look into us, we, I think you should follow the practice, unless we find that the jury goes overboard, like you can say, in some kind of a compound, a charge or an adherence, or a court, a closing process.
Unless we make a command decision at a certain time, it is so unfair that you have to come to rescue.
In other words, it's the job of an authority.
All right.
But you know, I'll show you, these are just the mock-ups.
I'll show you, these are just the mock-ups.
I'll show you, these are just the mock-ups.
What other things do they do?
Of course, Southeast Asia situation.
I don't believe it.
Black male man.
I see that great space.
He's a nice guy, but he's not very profound.
Well handled.
Conley is just not...
I mean, it's good.
Yeah, they can't.
They can't figure this all the way around.
It's a good trade for them, but they can't penetrate.
That's the one way to do that.
That's right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
rent control of course in some areas the sea fire answer ties in with the southeast asian thing we've already mentioned the the part about uh where the money will come from and the sea they may pick up again because that was the wall handled in particular country
What are the things that they are, that they believe are true?
Of course, Southeast Asia's situation allows a gamble, you know.
D.O.W.
D.O.W.
Blackmailed man.
Well handled.
Conley.
I mean, it's good.
Yeah, they can't.
It's a good trade formula.
You know the UPI, you had to poll the Senate?
Right.
Absolutely.
The black answer was to knock that out of control when you said.
Gray, who else would you do that?
That's right.
The rent control, of course, in some areas is a fast start.
The sea fire answer ties in with the Southeast Asia thing.
We've already mentioned the part about where the money will come from, the VA. And the sea, they may pick up again because that was well handled in particular context with that UPI pullout.
This way down, that's a third, second, third day.
So the waterway itself,
will be at the bottom of the story.
Well, it may be.
It may be.
The first time I said it, it's a 400-day story.
Also, I got that, you know this, Ron, you said the state versus future things, where I said I would not comment on a hearing on the process.
I wasn't going to comment on Watergate calls on repeal.
And it also wasn't going to happen.
And we would go back to the UPI and probably get better.
Where I said it, maybe it got better.
You know the UPI, you had to poll the Senate.
Right.
Absolutely.
As long as, did you notice I said it was a, what did I say?
Both candidates were political parties.
That's going to be, that story will carry because he's structuring his hearing not to do that.
I may be wrong, that's my understanding.
The black answer was it knocked that out of control when you said.
Gray is way down.
That's a third, second, third-day story.
The waterway itself will be at the bottom of the story.
Well, it may be the second, but it's the first time I've said a second, third-day story.
Also, I got a, you know this, Ron, you said at the stage there's some future things where I said I would not comment on a hearing process.
Right.
It wasn't going to come in on water, it was going to come in on the field.
And it also wasn't going to be able to corroborate with Earth as long as, did you notice I said this, it was a, what did I say?
Both candidates were political.
That's going to be, that story will carry because he's structuring his hearing not to do that.
I may be wrong, that's my understanding of this.
I might be wrong on that, Dean.
You ought to hit me, but I'd say we expected that you'd even had this investigation.
And also, you'd have had this, for example, by a bearer in the presence of the Chiefs.
No hearsay of this.
I might be wrong on that, Dean.
You ought to hit me, but I'd say we expected that you'd even had this investigation.
And also, you'd have had this, for example, by a bearer in the presence of the Chiefs.
No hearsay of this.
Well, here's the evidence.
I don't know what else to say to you.
You wouldn't handle the Dean thing unless you saw what's going on.
You wouldn't handle the Dean thing unless you saw what's going on.
Of course not.
Well, of course not.
Your couch is not going to go up there to testify before.
Do you like everything I said?
Sure.
But we said we'd furnish information.
That's right.
And that's concerning.
And then we would kind of do it for them.
But evaluate.
Well, Mitchell's thing was handled well.
But that's not coming.
Mitchell wasn't there.
What could we say about that?
Well, you're not going to make a hit.
Clark's question could just tell.
Of course not.
Well, of course not.
Your counsel's not going to go up there and testify about it.
Just like the recent president.
Sure.
But we said we'd furnish information.
That's right.
So you have the proper circumstances, and then we would kind of do it for them.
But the valuations, you said.
Well, the Mitchell thing was handled well.
But there was one related to a principle.
Yeah.
This relates to the hearing, and I'm not going to come up with a hearing.
No, but you could still have said it would end to us.
I think you should follow the practice, unless we mind and carry those overboard.
That's not confidential.
That's what we say now, then.
Well, you're not going to make a hit.
Clark's question was one related to a principle.
Yeah.
Because for me, it's in the hearing, and I'm not going to comment on the hearing.
So does that look into it?
We, I think, usually follow a practice unless we find that the period goes overboard, like you can say, except not on the compound, charges are made in hearings, or in court, unless we make a command decision at a certain time that is so unfair that you have to talk to the president.
In other words, it's the job of an authority, like you can say, to answer these matters, to get these in, except not to ask them, except to get them sent to the compound.
In other words, it's the job of an authority.
All right.
All right.
All right.