HALDEMAN:– all I'm saying, sir, is that the outcomes are arranged. In advance. It's worked out beforehand who goes over.
PRESIDENT NIXON: Who goes over WHAT, Bob?
HALDEMAN: Over. Wins. It's a term. The point is both wrestlers know the finish before the bell.
[EIGHT SECONDS OF SILENCE]
NIXON: Now hold on. Hold on, Bob. You're telling me Bruno Sammartino...you're telling me that's fixed.
HALDEMAN: I'm telling you the result is determined,
sir.
NIXON: The man's been champion seven years. Seven years, Bob. You don't, you don't do that by...nobody arranges seven years.
KISSINGER: Mr President, with respect, that is rather the point. A genuine athletic contest would not produce so stable an outcome. The very consistency is the, ah, the tell.
NIXON: The tell. Listen to him. Henry, you've never been to a match in your life.
KISSINGER: I have not had that misfortune, no.
NIXON: Then how the [EXPLETIVE] do you know?
KISSINGER: Because, Mr President, the dramaturgy is transparent to anyone who has studied the...it is theatre. It is morality theatre. The hero, the villain, the foreign menace who is vanquished. It is Wagner with folding chairs.
[TWELVE SECONDS OF SILENCE]
NIXON: The bodyslams are real. Don't tell me the bodyslams aren't real. I've seen a man land. You can't fake a man landing.