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June 9, 1972

Introduction

This almanac page for Friday, June 9, 1972, 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, June 8, 1972

Next Date: Saturday, June 10, 1972

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 Camp David, Maryland

  • 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.

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)
      Friday, June 9.

      Ehrlichman was up today for a meeting with the President at 11:00. It's a beautiful sunny day. We went over to meet the President at Birch. He had a fire going in the fireplace, which was sort of incredible. The meeting covered the general domestic issues. First, however, he talked a little about State and the United Nations. Ehrlichman's just back from the Environment Conference, went over the lousy handling of arrangements and that sort of thing. Then on Ruckelshaus, the President's view is that he has to veto the Water Bill so that’ll screw up the environmentalists. He's got to keep Ruckelshaus in, to keep them happy. We talked about considering Jim Lynn from Commerce. He feels we have to allow Ruckelshaus because of environment, although he would be good at Justice and that Ehrlichman is to explain this to Kleindienst. Get the President out of it.

      On higher education they agreed they have to sign it, but blast the busing section hard so that we can establish a plan for busing. On busing it was agreed timing is the key thing, that we should wait until September for the Constitutional Amendment when school starts and busing is in people's minds, rather than doing it now and they're not worried about it.

      On the Water Bill, it's a bad bill and too expensive and so base it-- veto it based on Proposition 9's failure in California. The veto will probably be overridden but then we'll blame Congress for having to put in a new tax to pay for it.

      On the Veteran's Bills, he told Ehrlichman to make a deal with Teague to get us out of that. On HR 1 there's some concern that if we hang too tight on demanding passage of it, that it may actually pass and defeat our Machiavellian plot. Our Congressional tactic overall has got to be to screw things up. The President emphasized we need to develop key lines on each issue. Some positive points regarding our position. That we need savage attack lines against the McGovern positions. That we really need four major thrust lines on foreign policy: surrender, amnesty, leftwing, extremism. The way to handle McGovern is by attack, not positive. We can't use a soft-shoe approach. We need now to zero in on the four key thrusts. Get McGovern tied as an extremist. Don't give any ground regarding the fact that he's changed his position.

      The President then made the point that the difference between a conservative radical and a liberal radical is that the conservative is consistent. That's why he's conservative. Whereas the liberal will change in order to win. The conservative would rather lose and maintain his principle. The liberal would rather win and then try to bring his principles into effect. People around McGovern know what power is and they want it at any cost, so they'll change their positions to get it. We got to emphasize looking at his record. That it speaks louder than his words. His ADA voting record and so on. Use guilt by association by bringing in Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis. Recognize that a left-wing radical is different than a right-wing radical, that they all wore flags and rode police cars during the '70 election then took them off the day after the election, even Mike Mansfield. We should get a maximum of rowdy-- maximum number of pictures of rowdy people around McGovern, the messy kids and so on, while we go for the all-out square America.

      We have to take on McGovern now because we're in a race with the McGovern clean up. The best way is for prominent Democrats, veterans, labor leaders and so forth. Put the fear of God into people. On aid to parochial schools we’ll wait for the platform and let it be handled there but just be sure we do better than the Democrats.

      Then we got into the question of why the Nixon margin shrunk in '68. This is based on the Gallup poll. It shows him now the highest he's been, since September '68, versus the opposition, but oddly enough in exactly the same position as he was in September of '68. He thinks the margin shrank between September and the election because maybe running around the country and making speeches isn't the right thing to do. The momentum theory may be wrong. Secondly, that they had a big event, the bombing halt. Third, that we got shafted by the press, and this is the main reason. Our campaign made no difference because it wasn't reported.

      We then got the report from Colson on the Muskie press conference where he did not withdraw in favor of McGovern, which is good news for us. The President made the point strongly to Ehrlichman that we should tilt all issues to the right. That we should not blur the difference. We should work on the basis of winning over conservative Democrats, not trying to move to the middle or to the left.

      Abruptly at about 7:15 this evening the President called me and said he was going to go home. How fast could we get up his helicopter, and he whipped off at 8:00, so I drove on home a little later.

      End of June 9.
    • 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. 

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    Nixon Library Holdings

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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. XVII, China, 1969-1972

    China, March-December 1972

    Vol. E-1, Documents on Global Issues, 1969-1972

    Oceans Policy

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

    Nuclear Test Ban Issues; Peaceful Nuclear Explosions

    • 315. Memorandum From the Director of the Program Analysis Staff, National Security Council (Odeen) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, June 9, 1972

      In anticipation of the Verification Panel meeting scheduled for June 14, Odeen provided Kissinger with a 10–page briefing memorandum examining possible problems and options with the NSSM 128 study and the potential issues with verification.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Name Files, Box 829, Phil Odeen. Top Secret. As part of the meeting book for the June 14 meeting, Odeen forwarded the memorandum and its tabs to Kissinger on July 3. In his covering memorandum, Odeen noted that although Kissinger had decided the previous week not to hold the June 14 meeting, Odeen wanted him to see the meeting book. The tabs are not published as attachments to Odeen’s June 9 memorandum; however, the JCS memorandum referred to on page one is the attachment to Document 311, the David memorandum referred to on page one is Document 312, and the Analytical Summary referred to on page 4 is Document 313.

    Vol. E-4, Documents on Iran and Iraq, 1969-1972

    Iraq 1972

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

    U.S. Relations with India and Pakistan, 1972

    • 265. Telegram 7113 From the Embassy in India to the Department of State, New Delhi, June 9, 1972, 1525Z

      Ambassador Keating viewed the impending visit of outgoing Secretary of the Treasury Connally as an opportunity to take a step in the direction of repairing relations between the U.S. and India.

      Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 598, Country Files, Middle East, India, Vol. V, 31 Dec 71-July 1972. Secret; Immediate; Exdis. Connally resigned as Secretary of the Treasury on May 16. Thereafter he visited a number of countries around the world at President Nixon’s request to review with host governments matters of mutual interest. Included on his itinerary were stops in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

  • 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)