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February 26, 1971

Introduction

This almanac page for Friday, February 26, 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: Thursday, February 25, 1971

Next Date: Saturday, February 27, 1971

Schedule and Public Documents

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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)
      Friday, February 26.

      The Kissinger-Rogers thing goes on today, even though the State of the World is over with, now because of the Mid-East. Henry persists in rushing in to the President and telling him we're about to get into a war in the Mid-East. The President asks him what he wants to do about it. He doesn't have any ideas, except that he wants to take over. Says we need a scenario, etcetera. This stirred up quite a bit today. Henry had several sessions with the President between his various public events, and then the President saw Rogers later in the day, and then Rogers called to say he'd received the message from the Israelis that he had been expecting. The President told him to send it over and then told me to have it routed through Henry, and to tell Henry that's what we were doing. So I did.

      The real problem is that Henry becomes extremely emotional about the whole thing. Haig came in and talked to me about it. He said that Henry had not conducted himself well in the meeting with the President, and that the President had been very tough on Henry also. On the grounds that he didn't have any solutions, he just wanted to talk about what the problems were. The President's becoming impatient with the whole situation, and he's getting close to being ready to force the issue. He told Henry, before Rogers came over, to prepare a set of questions that they wanted the President to ask Rogers, in order to pin down what Rogers' position actually was. They did so, the President asked the questions, and Henry concluded afterwards that the answers were all unsatisfactory but was unable to tell the President what he considered satisfactory answers to be. So, we're back in the stew on that one.

      We got the Gallup poll today, and that's 52/35, which is a drop from the 56 they got in January but didn't release. It's the same as their last released poll in December, which was 52/34. The President didn't seem unduly disturbed by it. John Davies at Gallup feels the reason for the drop is Laos. The President doesn't buy that, but feels we're okay at 52. He did, however, decide to run one of our own polls this week and then another one after the press conference next week. Although, he's now saying he may not be able to do the press conference because of the Mid-East situation, which apparently really is tightening up pretty badly. But Henry, while he's right on that, doesn't seem to be able to come up with his approach to a solution.

      Had two public events over at the Residence today, George Bush's swearing in this morning, which went rather routinely; and the Adams portrait presentation this afternoon, in which the President did a superlative job of reciting some obscure John Quincy Adams history and reading a poem written by Adams while he was in the Congress. All this came out of Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln, which the President had been reading and found a couple of pages on Adams, which gave him some material that none of the writers had come up with and that none of the other speakers on the program offered; so he did very well on that one.

      He was pretty well tied up today, so didn't spend a lot of time in general chitchat. He decided not to go to Camp David tonight, even though he had sent the Connallys up there as weekend guests, because Pat's going to New York for shopping tomorrow.

      Later tonight he called Alex and said he would go to Camp Hoover tomorrow afternoon taking two or three staff members. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.

      End of February 26.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

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Context (External Sources)