Office of the Historian

254. Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Chief of Staff (Haldeman)1 2

Washington, March 17, 1972, 3:05–4:37 p.m.

[The tape begins in mid-sentence.]

Haldeman: …biological weapons signing, which we turned down. Henry and Bill both ask that you reconsider and that you go, because Dobrynin has urged that you attend because Kosygin will attend the ceremony in Moscow and the British want Heath to attend the ceremony in London. The concern is that if you do not participate it will look like a rejection of Dobrynin’s demarche on [unclear.]

Nixon: All right, I’ll do it.

Haldeman: And also that you might have [unclear] the China thing—

Nixon: Do I have to say anything?

Haldeman: Yeah, you’d have to say that it’s a great thing [unclear.] Now we can move it to the [White] House if you want to instead of doing it at the State Department.

Nixon: Could we do that for a change?

Haldeman: We can, but it’s about 70 Ambassadors for that little [unclear] so it’s -

Nixon: So we should do it at the State Department?

Haldeman: It’s a big thing. We could do it in the East Room with all of them sitting in chairs if you want them to. It’s a little [unclear.]

Nixon: Do it up at State.

Haldeman: I think somebody——somebody will say you’re downgrading the State Department again.

Nixon: Go ahead [unclear.]

[Omitted here is discussion of another topic.]

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Conversation No. 323–33. No classification marking. The editors transcribed the portion of the tape recording published here specifically for this volume.↩
  2. During this discussion, Haldeman convinced the President to attend the signing ceremony for the Biological Weapons Convention.↩