1. Home
  2. Research
  3. Almanac

November 29, 1972

Introduction

This almanac page for Wednesday, November 29, 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: Tuesday, November 28, 1972

Next Date: Thursday, November 30, 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.

  • 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.

    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, November 29.

      Started first thing this morning on a lot of miscellaneous stuff. Said he wants to get things going now on the Foundation, and he wants Ehrlichman, Colson, and me to get together on the list of who we should purge, what people we can change. Seems there are plans for his outside organization and the inside structure to work with it, and so on. He wants to be sure that Colson steers Ehrlichman the right way on all of this, also. Miscellaneous personnel items then and during the day, thinks we ought to consider Gray for Secretary of the Navy. Push Malek to GSA. Don't let him take OEP. Save OEP for the right person. I tried GSA on Malek, and he won't take that. He's very disappointed in the whole situation, but I think in the long run, he'll end up going back and taking the Deputy job with Roy Ash. Wants to know where we'll use Barbara Franklin, thinks we ought to use her in the political office, or at least consider that. Wanted to check me in on Evelle Younger for FBI, or for Deputy Attorney General. Looked at what we're doing on Hodgson, said Rumsfeld can have the OEP, he'd be good on that, great for foreign policy and so on, then he could change later. Wants to consider Bull as Appointment Secretary, we've got to have a guy who loves people. Need to work Rogers and Balzano into the political group. Picked up Mitchell's suggestion of Ogilvie for the FBI, wanted me to have Ehrlichman check that out, and also talk to Charlie McWhorter on that as a possibility.

      One big item today was the whole Bush-Dole situation. President talked to Bush this morning, told him how we stood with Dole yesterday. And then said that Bush should do nothing until he hears from Dole. But that when he does he should take the hard line that he must be named as soon as the Committee can act, because he's got to bring the new Ambassador up and indoctrinate him, and so on. President told me to tell Dole that I had great news, that we got Bush, that now we have to play with great skill. That we should --that Dole should come up to Camp David next Wednesday to finalize it with the President, and that he should take the initiative. That he should go ahead and talk to Bush, but the President has told Bush that he's his choice, and that's set. The sooner we can get the word out and name the thing publicly, the better. President said if this poses a problem, we should let the whole thing go public and fight it out with Dole if necessary.

      I got ahold of Dole and gave him that message. He got the point -- he at least seemed to -- and said he would talk to Bush. That he was in New York and would talk to him in the morning, also he was going to be talking to John Mitchell and would review it with him. President got all excited about the Pat Nixon January 1 thing, and they've decided now not to go to San Clemente because of the grounds, and said he's going to stay in Florida, but still thinks she ought to go out. He raised it with her at dinner, apparently and she's agreed to do it, and now President wants me to push the thing through with Klein, etcetera, and get it set up, which I'll do.

      Got into the Kissinger problem a little. I met with Al Haig, at the President's request, and told him that we we're going to have to do something to deal with the problem. That we'd probably have to bite the bullet soon, but in the meantime we had to get things under control. Al said he understood perfectly, that he was very concerned. Henry, in his view, is completely paranoid, is on an up-and-down cycle all the time, and he has bottomed out on his down cycle now and is coming back up, but was in absolutely terrible shape in Paris last week and handled things very badly because of it. And that he was in even worse shape in Vietnam before that. And basically the screw-up was Henry's fault, in that he committed to final negotiation and settlement before he really should have, which really screwed things up with the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese.

      Al feels that Henry needs a very good, long vacation, and that we should be sure he gets it. He thinks the trip this week will go all right, and that the deal is locked now, so there's no problem with Henry going, but as soon as he gets that done and gets back, he should take off. Said he understood completely the problem of the Italian woman's article, and that Henry understands it too, but that that was part of the paranoid-type stuff, and just one of those things.

      Apparently the meeting with the South Vietnamese envoy didn't go very well. The President spent a long time with him, about two and a half hours. The net result was the President softened a little bit, which was bad. They're going to have to meet tomorrow to try to clean that up, but the South Vietnamese, after the meeting, came back and told Henry to tell the President they would probably have to go it alone. And that we should just go in, make a settlement to get our prisoners back, and stop the fighting as far as we're concerned, and let the Vietnamese go on fighting it out. They don't seem to understand that our Congress won't continue to supply them, if they take that route. And that they have to go along with us on the settlement, a point which Henry will have to get across to them (and the President) in the meeting tomorrow.

      End of November 29.
    • 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

Audiovisual Holdings

Context (External Sources)