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White House Telephone Conversation 17-91
December 25, 1971
11:45 AM—11:46 AM
Participants: Richard M. Nixon & Melvin R. Laird |
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NIXON: | Hello.
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WHITE HOUSE OPERATOR: | Secretary Laird, sir.
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LAIRD: | Merry Christmas, Mr. President!
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NIXON: | Ah, you beat me to it! Yeah. Well, just wanted to wish you the best, and—
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LAIRD: | Well, that's [INAUDIBLE]—
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NIXON: | —hope you have, hope you have a good day. Are you home?
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LAIRD: | I'm at home. Got the family here. We're—
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NIXON: | Great.
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LAIRD: | —unwrapping presents and having a great Christmas.
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NIXON: | Yeah, I'll be doing that in about a few minutes, if uh, everybody and, uh, we uh, just hope that everything goes well and that, uh, we appreciate all you're doin' and everything, and uh, we'll, uh, get a little rest and get girded for next year.
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LAIRD: | Well, very good, and thank you for calling—
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NIXON: | Yeah.
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LAIRD: | —Mr. President.
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NIXON: | Well, we—just—ev—oh, incidentally: on that, er, matter that you're familiar with, er—
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LAIRD: | Yes.
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NIXON: | I think it's very important, and I've given the orders around to everybody, that we not allow this thing to hurt the, er, military. You know, we, er, we know it's wrong—
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LAIRD: | I know.
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NIXON: | —but we must cut it. So we gotta, gotta clean it up, but we gotta stand by Moorer and these fellows, because they are good guys. They just, they just got trapped in a system that was bad.
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LAIRD: | Bad, bad.
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NIXON: | Don't you agree?
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LAIRD: | I agree, Mr. President.
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NIXON: | That's my view, at least. So let—
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LAIRD: | It's, it's disappointing, and I know it is to you and it is to me, but—
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NIXON: | No—well, but—
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LAIRD: | —you've got to just, um—
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NIXON: | But what happened is that, as, as you pointed out to Mitchell, apparently, eh, you knew about this years ago. This has been goin' on for years. And they—
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LAIRD: | Yeah.
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NIXON: | —and it's just surprising they had it now, and I just think it's the way the system works.
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LAIRD: | Well—
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NIXON: | But now that it's done, we'll, uh—
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LAIRD: | And I'm not gonna go back down and read over all those things from Goodpaster and the rest of that stuff. I'm just gonna stay out of it now, and just shut it off.
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NIXON: | Absolutely. Leave it. Stay out of it, and let Mitchell do whatever has to be done. That way, we can stay sort of apart from it. Because we've got to work with these fellows, you know.
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LAIRD: | It is important.
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NIXON: | Particularly with Tom Moorer.
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LAIRD: | Right. And he's mine. You know, it's just too bad that—
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NIXON: | He's a good man.
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LAIRD: | But he's a good man.
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NIXON: | Good man. Okay, Mel.
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LAIRD: | Fine. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
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NIXON: | Merry Christmas. Right.
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LAIRD: | Thank you.
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