Watergate Trial Conversations

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MEETING AMONG PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON,

JOHN B. CONNALLY, JOHN D. EHRLICHMAN, CLIFFORD

M. HARDIN, JOHN WHITAKER, GEORGE P. SHULTZ,

J. PHIL CAMPBELL, DONALD B. RICE ON MARCH 23,

1971 FROM 5:
05 TO 5:38 P.M. IN THE OVAL OFFICE

PRESIDENT:
Hi, Phil, how are you?

CAMPBELL:
Mr. President.

PRESIDENT:
Sorry to keep you waiting.

CAMPBELL:
That's all right.

PRESIDENT:
I suggest that we sit over here everybody.

More room and, uh -- [coughing] Sit down.

UNIDENTIFIED:
Yeah, this --

UNIDENTIFIED:
But --

UNIDENTIFIED:
Oh, that's all right.

UNIDENTIFIED:
I had that Senator [unintelligible]

UNIDENTIFIED:
Came in and got me nervous, uh, he --

UNIDENTIFIED:
If he'll go with you, well, that's great.

UNIDENTIFIED:
Very clever.

UNIDENTIFIED:
Phil, uh, [unintelligible]

PRESIDENT:
They're counting on Hubert.

UNIDENTIFIED:
Concentrate on Hubert.

PRESIDENT:
Hubert is supposed to have told Meany that

I, uh --

SHULTZ:
I don't know that you've met Don Rice, from

the Office of Management and Budget.

PRESIDENT:
Yes.

SHULTZ:
Don Rice.

[Several [Unintelligible]

voices]

RICE:
How are you?

SHULTZ:
I talked with Meany this afternoon about the

SST.

PRESIDENT:
What'd he say?

SHULTZ:
He said he was all out on it. If there was

anything we wanted him to do, he wanted to

do it. He'd be ready to do it. They --

PRESIDENT:
Well, could you ask him to, could you ask

him, could you phone him back after this

meeting and ask him to call Hubert Humphrey,

with the understanding he, uh --

SHULTZ:
Yeah.

PRESIDENT:
Hubert Humphrey has told everybody that he

was going to be for it. And he understood -

- only because Meany was for it.

SHULTZ:
That's right.

PRESIDENT:
Because Labor was for it. And, now that we

understand he's wavering in it, he 's

breaking. And that Hubert Humphrey's vote

may make the difference.

SHULTZ:
All right. I'll call him. He said he -- he

had been calling me and that he had quite a

few disappointments, he said. But, anyway,

I think we're working on it and we will

continue to work on it.

PRESIDENT:
And he, however, is apparently not doing

much.

SHULTZ:
That's right.

PRESIDENT:
Uh, uh, uh, well, we ought to review this,

this situation with regard to milk. Now,

uh, John, would you express your views, uh,

to us all -- you expressed them to me this

morning. [Coughs] I had a [unintelligible]

you fellows heard their story today.

EHRLICHMAN:
It's dead. It's --

CONNALLY:
Well, Mr. President, I don't -- I understand

you did meet with 'em -- But I don't want to

try to go back over the economics of it, uh,

I'm not --

PRESIDENT:
How about the politics? Can you --

CONNALLY:
Uh, I'm not trying to talk about it or

discuss at any great length the, the

economics of it, but as far as the politics

are concerned -- looking to 1972, it, uh, it

appears very clear to me that you're going

to have to move, uh, strong in the Midwest.

You're going to have to be strong in rural

America, uh, and particularly that part of

the country. Now, there are a lot of things

that you can't do, uh, with respect to

farmers. They're almost, uh, beyond help at

this point. Uh, they feel like they are.

They don't feel like anybody's trying to

help them. Uh, every time they turn around,

they hear somebody talking about, wanting to

increase imports on beef from Australia to,

to -- in behalf of the consumer. Hog prices

are down what, uh, fif--seventeen dollars

HARDIN:
[Unintelligible] dollars from twenty-nine.

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