1. Home
  2. Research
  3. Almanac

February 5, 1973

Introduction

This almanac page for Monday, February 5, 1973, 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, February 4, 1973

Next Date: Tuesday, February 6, 1973

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.

  • 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, February 5.

      Staff meeting. Got into a bunch of personnel problems. Pat Hitt is being eased out of her assignments at HEW and is apparently planning to quit, so we talked about how to forestall that. Jack Miller is lobbying hard for anything he can get. Dole is pushing for the President to drop in or-- everybody is pushing really for everybody to drop in at the Dole dinner at the Capitol Hill Club tonight, which, of course, he won't do.

      The President got into schedule questions, said he would do up some solid domestic type meetings this afternoon. He's dropping his plans for California and looking to having a Cabinet meeting, but feels he can't do it next week, because they'll all be out doing Lincoln Day speeches. He's thinking of going to Florida for a couple of days over the weekend.

      We got to the VP problem, and he was concerned as to what Kissinger really wanted done there. Henry's pushing hard that the VP has to be back by the 9th before he gets to Hanoi, and the President doesn't really know the reason. A little later Henry came in and made the point that it's imperative that the VP not go to CINCPAC when he's in Hawai’i, under any circumstances, and the President agreed, because it would put a war emphasis into the peace trip. And the President made the point that while he was out in Asia, he should have done orphanages and economic development sites and not had a huge Secret Service and go into hiding. What makes a trip like this is not the meetings, but the color. He's got to learn to think in color terms, not substance. He'd get much more publicity if he tried to avoid it. So, I’m to message him saying he's not to do CINCPAC that a rest stop in Hawai’i is OK, but he shouldn't stay there. There must be no military overtones on the peace mission and I should tell him the President now doesn't know his plans. That the Vice President should go ahead and spend a few days in California. The President will probably be in Florida, or maybe still California for the weekend.

      The President raised the problem of David's situation in the Navy and wants a report. Apparently his CO gave him hell for trying to get an early release, and the President is now very upset because the plan for the early release seems to have fallen apart. I checked this with Scowcroft later, who says that's not the case, but I'm going to have to follow it up further.

      The President had a good meeting with Tom Whitehead and Colson on the whole TV thing. He urged Whitehead to be controversial and to be heard. Then hit strongly the point that we need to wind up on a position of where the Administration stands, make the new Cabinet aware of the position and so that no one's taken by surprise. We need to staff out the proposals though, so that Whitehead won't be shot down when he does launch something. The President told me to set up a meeting with Ehrlichman, Shultz, Colson and Whitehead to go over this, making the point that we can fight the nets but not if the locals won't back us. The question is what Congressional backing we have. We must mobilize a program on this, get Klein and all the people to back it. We should thoroughly air it with no question of where the people stand. Don't leave Whitehead out front. Develop a PR plan to get at it, use White House people, Dick Moore and so on.

      On Cahill's stuff, they just said that they'll report to the President on the question of prime time access. The President's not clear on it. Obviously, it's a battle of Hollywood versus the nets. Colson says there's no dispute on it. The President says we need adequate PR that we should not appear to be trying to affect network news content. We can't make it look like Colson and Whitehead have done this. We have to pull everyone together. And on public TV, they told him they're moving all public affairs out of public TV to keep the government out of propaganda. Whitehead feels that the best course is to kill the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by defunding it. The first step is to get rid of public affairs programming, feed their own internal quarrels. The President said he'd get the staff this week, told Whitehead not to do anything without staffing. That there are a lot of yellow livered people around here. That we get in this fight, everyone should shut up, no sniping or bitching afterward. Do the staff work ahead of time.

      He then met with Sindlinger, Dick Howard, and Colson. The President told Sindlinger he'd like to have him poll for us, but we don't want to compromise his independence. He should continue in the public polling area. Sindlinger gave an analysis on how to hold the Democrats for Nixon, says they're the key to the nation, the 19.5 million Democrats who voted for Nixon. They voted for two things: one, the President's Vietnam stand; and two, his wage/price freeze. Now both of them are gone. The war is over and the wage/price freeze has been dropped, and the problem is how to keep these people. Most of them are ethnics and labor types. His poll now shows 26 percent saying they're Republicans, 33 percent Democrat and 29 percent Independent, with 12 percent having no interest at all. He makes the strong point that the United States now is divided into three parts, with three totally different attitudes in each. One-third in the South, one-third in the big cities and their suburbs, and one-third in the balance of the country, and the approach to each of these is different from the others.

      I met with George Bush. He's concerned about the battle between Hugh Scott and Dent, the problem with Kalmbach, and his relation to the National Committee, the question of ambassadorial appointees, Jack Miller's job, a Spanish speaking person in the White House, etcetera. It was a good general session, and, I trust, satisfactory from Bush's viewpoint.

      End of February 5.
    • 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. X, Vietnam, January 1973-July 1975

    Neither War nor Peace, January 27-June 15, 1973

    • 8. Memorandum From Richard Kennedy and John Holdridge of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, February 5, 1973

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 112, Country Files, Far East, Vietnam Negotiations, Hanoi Trip, February 1973. Secret; Sensitive. Sent for action. Brackets are in the original. The memorandum summarizes the interdepartmental group paper prepared in response to NSSM 167, Document 4. The paper, February 2, is in the National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H–Files), Box H–195, NSSM Files, NSSM 167. A covering memorandum to the paper, February 3, from Jeanne Davis, states: “This paper will serve as the basis for discussion at the Senior Review Group meeting on Tuesday, February 6, at 3:00 p.m.” No record of that SRG meeting has been found.

    Vol. E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973-1976

    Bangladesh

    Vol. E-11, Part 1, Documents on Mexico; Central America; and the Caribbean, 1973-1976

    Dominican Republic

    • 328. Telegram 481 From the Embassy in the Dominican Republic to the Department of State, Santo Domingo, February 5, 1973, 2115Z

      Summary: The Embassy reported on the Dominican Government’s reaction to news that a small group of leftist guerrillas had landed in the country.

      Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files, 1970–1973, POL 23–9 DOM REP. Confidential; Immediate. Repeated to Port-au-Prince, Kingston, and CINCSO. In telegram 488 from Santo Domingo, February 6, the Embassy reported on repressive measures taken by the government against its domestic opposition, noting that one-third of the capital’s radio stations had been shut down. (Ibid.) In telegram 584 from Santo Domingo, February 9, the Embassy reported that scores of opposition party leaders had been detained and that the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo remained cordoned off. (Ibid.) In telegram 747 from Santo Domingo, February 20, the Embassy noted the population had reacted with apathy to news of the killing of alleged leader of the guerrilla band, Francisco Caamano Deno, in a firefight with the armed forces. (Ibid.) In telegram 797 from Santo Domingo, February 22, the Embassy reported that tranquility was slowly returning to the country. (Ibid.)

  • 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)