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December 2, 1971

Introduction

This almanac page for Thursday, December 2, 1971, pulls together various records created by the federal government and links to additional resources which can provide context about the events of the day.

Previous Date: Wednesday, December 1, 1971

Next Date: Friday, December 3, 1971

Schedule and Public Documents

  • The Daily Diary files represent a consolidated record of the President's activities. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    The President's day began at The White House - Washington, D. C.

  • The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents made available transcripts of the President's news conferences; messages to Congress; public speeches, remarks, and statements; and other Presidential materials released by the White House.

    Digitized versions can be found at HathiTrust.

  • Each Public Papers of the Presidents volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the White House Office of the Press Secretary during the time period specified by the volume. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the text note.

    To ensure accuracy, remarks have been checked against audio recordings (when available) and signed documents have been checked against the original, unless otherwise noted. Editors have provided text notes and cross references for purposes of identification or clarity.

  • The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other Presidential documents.

  • The Congressional Record is the official daily record of the debates and proceedings of the U.S. Congress.

Archival Holdings

Any selection of archival documents will necessarily be partial. You should use the documents and folders identified below as a starting place, but consult the linked collection finding aids and folder title lists and the collections themselves for context. Many documents to be found this way do not lend themselves to association with specific dates, but are essential to a complete understanding of the material.

  • Selective document listing

    President's Office Files

    The President's Office Files consists of materials drawn together by the Special Files Unit from several administrative subdivisions within the White House Office. It is the handwriting and sensitive papers sent to the Staff Secretary that now comprise much of the President's Office Files. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    President's Personal File

    The President's Personal File is essentially a President's secretary's file, kept by Rose Mary Woods, personal secretary to the President, for two purposes: (1) preserving for posterity a collection of documents particularly close to the President, whether because he dictated or annotated them, or because of the importance of the correspondent or the event concerned and (2) giving appropriate attention–letters of gratitude, invitations to White House social events, and the like–to members and important friends and supporters of the Nixon administration. This generalization does not describe all the varied materials of a file group which is essentially a miscellany, but it does identify the reason for the existence of the file group's core. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

  • The H. R. Haldeman Diaries consists of seven handwritten diaries, 36 dictated diaries recorded as sound recordings, and two handwritten audio cassette tape subject logs. The diaries and logs reflect H. R. Haldeman’s candid personal record and reflections on events, issues, and people encountered during his service in the Nixon White House. As administrative assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, Haldeman attended and participated in public events and private meetings covering the entire scope of issues in which the Nixon White House engaged in during the years 1969-1973. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    • Transcript of diary entry (PDF)
      Wednesday-- Thursday, December 2.

      The President made his old folks speech this morning, and it came out better than he had expected it to. He raised the question, by phone with me before he went over, as to whether it would be useful for him to take a swipe at the tax check-off thing and decided to do it, on the basis of talking about a $100 million program for the aged and saying this was a much better use of that money than for political campaign funds, as the Senate was trying to put through. He got a big hand for that. A lot of interruption for applause as he tossed out various little programs of $10, $15, $20 million apiece. He was glad it came off as well as it did, but pretty disgusted with the process by which he had to get the reaction. Later in the day, on the tax check-off thing, MacGregor got his maneuvering going and ended up with a deal worked out by Wilbur Mills, who decided to move to change it from an appropriation to an authorization and then to postpone it until after the '72 elections. And then Burns was going to move to eliminate the check-off altogether and authorize an appropriation not to exceed the limits applied for broadcasting in the Campaign Spending Bill. All this got jiggled around during the day and came up with a-- with basically the Mills Bill, as the President and MacGregor agreed that Burns should not go along with it that our position should be to oppose the whole thing right on through, but to hope that Mills won out, which is exactly what happened. So we came out the best we could have on it.

      He had a long talk with me during the day on speechwriter problems. He wanted me to talk to Price and really shake up the staff on the need for a whole different approach, on the basis that, in a speech to a live audience, you've got to say something of interest to the audience. He felt the aging speech, while it was okay because it was a programmatic problem, it still looked like writing by committee. There was no flavor and it was not for the ear and it was not in tune with the people. He's saying that he may go very hard the other way and just do all the speeches himself and let the writing unit do the statements and messages and that sort of thing. He feels that the problem is their obsession with being Presidential, that there's no fire in the belly except what the President puts in, and that he may have spoiled them by just using their stuff as the starting point, when they should give him a finished product. He's concerned that their stuff is sounding more and more like Eisenhower's––that is, consensus writing––and feels that maybe the problem is that it's bicycled around too much and there are too many ideas that take all the steam out of it. And he thinks they should cut down on the consultations.

      He left for Key Biscayne after the Golda Meir meeting and a swearing-in ceremony for Butz, who was confirmed today. The President blew the swearing-in a bit, in that the reason for rushing it was so that Butz could announce a big corn purchase deal tomorrow, but the President kept alluding to it during the ceremony, which takes the steam off of it , especially when MacGregor came in afterwards and told me he had learned that Ralston Purina had brought-- bought two million bushels of corn yesterday afternoon––or this afternoon, I guess––which creates a monumental problem, since Butz has just come off the Ralston Purina board and Hardin has just gone on it. Hopefully that won't get out. Anyway, he went on to Key Biscayne tonight, and presumably he'll stay there for the weekend.

      End of December 2.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

  • The National Archives Catalog is the online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records. It is the main way of describing our holdings and also provides access to electronic records and digitized versions of our holdings. 

    The Catalog searches across multiple National Archives resources at once, including archival descriptions, digitized and electronic records, authority records, and web pages from Archives.gov and the Presidential Libraries. The Catalog also allows users to contribute to digitized historical records through tagging and transcription.

    Nixon Library Holdings

    All National Archives Units

National Security Documents

  • The President's Daily Brief is the primary vehicle for summarizing the day-to-day sensitive intelligence and analysis, as well as late-breaking reports, for the White House on current and future national security issues. Read "The President's Daily Brief: Delivering Intelligence to Nixon and Ford" to learn more.

  • The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Visit the State Department website for more information.

    Vol. III, Foreign Economic Policy; International Monetary Policy, 1969-1972

    Foreign Economic Policy

    Vol. V, United Nations, 1969-1972

    UN Finances and Reduction of the U.S. Assessment

    Secretary-General Succession

    Vol. XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971

    South Asia Crisis, 1971

    Vol. XIX, Part 1, Korea, 1969-1972

    Republic of Korea Troops in Vietnam and Force Modernization, April 1971-December 1972

    Vol. XXIX, Eastern Mediterranean, 1969-1972

    Turkey

    • 451. National Intelligence Estimate, Washington, December 2, 1971

      Source: Central Intelligence Agency, NIC Files, Job 79–R1012A, NIEs and SNIEs. Secret. The CIA and the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State and Defense and the National Security Agency participated in the preparation of this estimate. The Director of Central Intelligence submitted it with the concurrence of all members of the USIB, except the representatives of FBI and AEC who abstained on the grounds it was outside their jurisdiction. A note on the cover sheet indicates that this estimate superseded NIE 29.2–70, Document 428.

    Vol. XXXVI, Energy Crisis, 1969-1974

    April 15, 1971-March 11, 1972

    • 96. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, December 2, 1971

      Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, PET 3 OPEC. Confidential. Drafted by Brown (E/ORF/FSE) on December 7 and approved in U on January 10, 1972.

    Vol. XXXIX, European Security

    MBFR and the Conference on European Security, December 1970-December 1971

    • 81. National Security Decision Memorandum 142, Washington, December 2, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 364, Subject Files, National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM’s), Nos. 97–144. Top Secret.

    Vol. XLI, Western Europe; NATO, 1969-1972

    Western Europe Region and NATO

    • 76. National Security Decision Memorandum 142, Washington, December 2, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 364, Subject Files, National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM’s) Nos. 97–. Top Secret.

    Vol. E-2, Documents on Arms Control and Nonproliferation, 1969-1972

    Nuclear Test Ban Issues; Peaceful Nuclear Explosions

    • 306. Memorandum From the Director of the Program Analysis Staff, National Security Council (Odeen), to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, December 2, 1971

      Odeen reviewed and evaluated three resolutions before the UN General Assembly urging all nuclear powers to halt nuclear weapons testing.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1328, NSC Unfiled, 1971. Confidential. Sent for urgent action. The attachments are not published. None of the options on page 5 are marked. Haig forwarded Odeen’s memorandum to Kissinger under cover of a note in which he observed that State and ACDA wanted the U.S. to agree with the Canadian resolution while Odeen and Merrit thought the U.S. should abstain. Haig recommended voting no on the Mexican and Saudi resolutions but abstaining on the Canadian resolution “to reflect a degree of difference in our attitude.” Kissinger wrote “Agree” at the bottom of Haig’s note. (Ibid.)

    Vol. E-5, Part 2, Documents on North Africa, 1969-1972

    Libya

  • The Kissinger telephone conversation transcripts consist of approximately 20,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger’s telephone conversations during his tenure as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (1969-1974) and Secretary of State (1973-1974) during the administration of President Richard Nixon. Visit the finding aid for more information.

    Digitized versions can be found in the National Archives Catalog.

Audiovisual Holdings

Context (External Sources)