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December 6, 1971

Introduction

This almanac page for Monday, December 6, 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: Sunday, December 5, 1971

Next Date: Tuesday, December 7, 1971

Schedule and Public Documents

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.

  • 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)
      Monday, December 6th. This is the President's NBC Day in the Life of the President for television, and he really came on like gangbusters.

      They started the Congressional leadership breakfast meeting 15 minutes early at 7:45, and the President went full tilt, without a pause, from there through about 7:00, when he finally went over to the Residence to get ready for dinner. Then the dinner started at 8:00 and went through to 10:30, when he went upstairs for his interview with Chancellor, which ended a little before 11:00. All in all, it was quite a tour de force. He had the TV cameras in the office much longer than we'd expected them to be, and so they got considerably more coverage than they had planned or we had planned to give them, which is, of course, all to the good. His attitude was a little snappy at the start of the day, but it picked up considerably, and when he had me in at 9:30 for the staff period, he was cranking in, under full steam. He was talking to Bush on the telephone at the UN, telling him to hit hard on our India-Pakistan position and making that very clear, then he moved to set up a meeting on India-Pakistan with Rogers, Connally, Laird, Moorer, etcetera, which had not been on the schedule for the day, so that filled in the noon hour, and he ended up with no break at all at midday.

      He picked up on a couple of the items I reported to him. I said that they were going to make an effort through Butz and Hodgson to try and get some mileage out of the labor tie-up at the docks as it hurt the farm people, and he said, yes you've got to get them going on the, our Cabinet people to really hit this. It's hard to figure what the greatest failure of this Congress has been, revenue sharing or health or welfare reform, including the Social Security increase. That their main failure, really has been, the failure to deal with the railroad strike, and the dock strikes, and the terrible cost to the farmer and consumer. I want you to get the Cabinet officers off the dime, Hodgson and Butz, and all the rest of them. They should know we haven't hit this hard enough. They’ve got to attack and maintain the attack. We’ve failed to put this issue squarely to the Congress. All this, of course, said for the camera and done very effectively.

      Then he gave Ziegler a fill-in on the leadership meeting. Said he thinks the Senate will finish up this week. The House not until the middle of next week, but they'll definitely be back on the January 18. He went into great detail on the line Ziegler should use on the Sadat complaint in the Middle East, and the delicate tightrope we're having to follow, straddle in Israel.

      The John Chancellor and the NBC people were ecstatic with the way the whole day went, particularly with the amount of time the President was letting the crew stay in his office. Apparently, he was putting on the same kind of performance right on through the day. He had the Trudeau meeting at 4:00 for two hours and then the Trudeau dinner tonight and...

      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 16, Side B, Withdrawn Item Number 6 [AC-16(B) Sel 5]
      Duration: 15 seconds

      ...he was thoroughly disgusted with Trudeau who he hasn't liked much anyway, but who has turned into even more of a fag than he was before. And it's considerably more obvious his hairdo, and attitudes, and everything else are really repulsive.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      At the dinner tonight, the President got it all done in good style and in good time at about 9:30 or 9:45, having completed the toasts to and from Trudeau. Then he decided to launch into calling on people to make little talks. He ended up calling, I think, on eight people, including the Canadian Minister of Finance and the Canadian Minister of Commerce, plus Rogers, Agnew, Frank Fitzsimmons, Walter Wriston of the National City Bank, Connally, Pierre Renfret, and, I think, one other. But that dragged the thing on for another hour, and the President closed it with his 300 boys dying in Vietnam three years ago talk before he finally broke the dinner up and headed upstairs for his wrap-up interview with Chancellor.

      All in all it should be a fantastically good show for television and obviously was well worth doing, although I'm sure it really took a lot out of him.

      At the staff meeting this morning, Shultz reported that a good friend of his, O'Connell, who's very close to Meany, has seen Meany. And was one of the two or three people that has in the hospital, and gave him a pretty good report on the true situation. Apparently, Meany is in a coronary emergency section. He did have a serious heart attack. He's feeling good now, but he's still in very serious shape. The doctors say maybe he can be out in six to eight weeks, but he, they aren't allowing him to read the papers or see TV, and O'Connell thinks he's pretty well through as far as any active leadership is concerned. He also says that the labor people generally think Nixon is going to win, and that we, therefore, should be dealing with the international leaders, international presidents. Since some of them, at least, want to cooperate with us, especially with the thought that we might win.

      Shultz also expressed concern about the international monetary situation. He thinks we should try to get the gold price discretion question to the President. Connally disagrees, thinks it's better negotiating without it. But we have effectively agreed to change the price of gold. Therefore, we'll have to do so at some point. It would be bad to have a debate in March and April. It’s better to get it done now.

      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 16, Side B, Withdrawn Item Number 7 [AC-16(B) Sel 6]
      Duration: 10 seconds

      And he thinks it's a good time to go bilateral with Canada, Brazil, and Mexico, which we can do this week. Connally thinks that is a good, that part is a good strategy.
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      End of December 6th.
    • 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

    • 84. Memorandum From Secretary of the Treasury Connally to President Nixon, Washington, December 6, 1971

      Source: Washington National Records Center, Department of the Treasury, Records of Secretary Shultz: FRC 56 80 1, JBC Memoranda for the President-71. Secret.

    • 85. Memorandum for the Record, Washington, December 6, 1971, 4 p.m.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Subject Files, Box 356, Monetary Matters. Secret. The meeting was held in the Roosevelt Room. Prime Minister Trudeau also met with President Nixon the same day.

    International Monetary Policy, 1969-1972

    Vol. IV, Foreign Assistance, International Development, Trade Policies, 1969-1972

    Foreign Assistance Policy, 1969-1972

    Vol. XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971

    South Asia Crisis, 1971

    • 232. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Washington, December 6, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 37, Presidentʼs Daily Briefs, Dec 1–Dec 16, 1971. Top Secret; Sensitive; Codeword. A stamp on the memorandum indicates the President saw it.

    • 234. Minutes of Secretary of Defense Lairdʼs Armed Forces Policy Council Meeting, Washington, December 6, 1971, 9:37-10:40 a.m.

      Source: Washington National Records Center, OSD Files, FRC 330 76 0028, Office Chronological Files, Aug through Dec 1971. Top Secret. The meeting was held at the Pentagon.

    • 235. Minutes of Washington Special Actions Group Meeting, Washington, December 6, 1971, 11:07-11:56 a.m.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–115, WSAG Minutes, Originals, 1971. Top Secret; Sensitive; Codeword. No drafting information appears on the minutes. The meeting was held in the White House Situation Room. A briefer record of the meeting, prepared by James Noyes (OASD/ISA), is in the Washington National Records Center, OSD Files, FRC 330 76 0197, Box 74, Pakistan 381 (Dec) 1971.

    • 236. Letter From President Nixon to Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev, Washington, December 6, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 497, Presidentʼs Trip Files, Exchange of Notes Between Dobrynin and Kissinger, Vol. 2. No classification marking.

    • 237. Minutes of National Security Council Meeting, Washington, December 6, 1971, 1:30-3:30 p.m.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 999, Haig Chronological File, Haig Memcons To Be Done [1 of 4]. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. The meeting was held in the Presidentʼs office in the Executive Office Building. The time of the meeting is from the Presidentʼs Daily Diary, as is the fact that Secretary of the Treasury Connally was also included among the participants. (Ibid., White House Central Files) Handwritten notes on the meeting were taken by Haig, who subsequently expanded the notes in the course of dictating the minutes for transcription although he did not complete them. The typewritten transcript runs through the first half of the meeting. Thereafter, the available record of the meeting is Haigʼs handwritten notes, which are cryptic and difficult to decipher. The typewritten transcript and the handwritten notes are in the same file. A brief summary of the substance of the discussion from Haigʼs handwritten notes follows the typewritten transcript.

    • 240. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rogers to President Nixon, Washington, December 6, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 37, Presidentʼs Daily Briefs, Dec 1–Dec 16, 1971. Secret. A stamp on the memorandum indicates the President saw it.

    • 241. Message From the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the United States, Moscow, December 6, 1971

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 497, Presidentʼs Trip Files, Exchange of Notes Between Dobrynin and Kissinger, Vol. 2. No classification marking. A handwritten note on the message indicates it was handed to Kissinger by Soviet Chargé Vorontsov at 11 p.m. on December 6. The message is neither addressed nor signed.

    Vol. XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971-May 1972

    Announcement of Summit Through the South Asia Crisis, October 12-December 1971

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

    Canada

    Vol. E-7, Documents on South Asia, 1969-1972

    India and Pakistan: Crisis and War, March-December 1971

    • 161. Conversation Between President Nixon and Secretary of State Rogers, Washington, December 6, 1971, 9:19-9:24 a.m.

      Nixon and Rogers discussed the crisis in South Asia and the bleak prospects facing the Pakistani Government.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Recording of conversation between Nixon and Rogers, White House Telephone, Conversation No. 16–14. No classification marking. The editor transcribed the conversation published here specifically for this volume.

    • 162. Conversation Between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, December 6, 1971, 6:14-6:38 p.m.

      Nixon and Kissinger discussed the crisis in South Asia, focusing on the approach to take with the Soviet Union and China, and the best way to deal with Indian Prime Minister Gandhi.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Tapes, Recording of Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, Oval Office, Conversation No. 630–20. No classification marking. The editor transcribed the portions of the conversation published here specifically for this volume.

  • 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)