Nixon White House Tapes ›Tape 12 › Conversation 012-128
Nixon phone call with Colson on Anti-war protests and Common Cause
Monday, October 25, 1971 · 7:37 PM–7:45 PM ET · White House Telephone ·8 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Charles Colson reviewed the status of recent anti-war demonstrations, noting that poor weather and low turnout had minimized their impact. They discussed a strategy to weaken the organization Common Cause by pressuring administration officials associated with the group to resign. Additionally, the pair coordinated plans to boost the administration's public image through economic messaging, specifically regarding public service employment and the promotion of favorable economic indicators.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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Hello.
Yes sir, I'm in front of you.
Any late developments?
Uh, no, I just looked here.
That's our chief.
Uh, no sir, the news was kind of quiet this afternoon.
Yeah, well, it's sort of a holiday, isn't it?
Yep, it is.
The only late development of any happy consequences is that we rained out all the demonstrators today.
Yeah, they had a problem.
They had a blessing to the left area, I guess.
I guess they're going to try their deal tomorrow now, huh?
Well, I was just reading a wire service story that said they called it off completely.
They only got about 400 out.
That's a little less than 10,000, isn't it?
Quite a bit.
400 persons showed up to Washington, D.C. around.
Nearly all of them were organizers of D.C. D.C. P.J.
Yeah, I don't know if they...
Yeah, they're holding right to the level, like, all while I'm on fire.
They sure didn't make much of an attempt.
The thing to do tomorrow is to just troop up very gently, and don't have any incidents.
Well, you have a marvelous contract, you know, and I'm bringing it to you very soon.
Vietnam veterans who went back to Vietnam in the day of the war.
We built it.
We built it.
Riot has to be insulting the Vietnamese people.
We have got some things started this weekend that I didn't mention to you, but there's an explosion on the town of Troy.
We discovered that a number of their policy council members have followed you over the fence.
seven or eight months appointed to different jobs, and I thought it would be nice to have a rash of resignation for that.
Can we tell him to do that?
Oh, I think so.
You know, we'll call up Will Eberle and Edmure.
Good God, Edmure can order it.
Well, he either does or he's out of a job.
I thought I might give you a little heavy hand in his favor.
Yes, and Eberle should too.
And one thing that I've been wanting to leave you with is April.
Absolutely.
But I think they overplayed the hand of it.
You know, after that vote, they kind of went to the board of directors and said, I'm going to put it to the venture.
Albert Ford, he's going to be furious about it.
Because who the hell are they to do that kind of thing?
So I think what I'm going to do this week is line up all of the people in the administration and say,
We'll begin to come into that front a little bit, I think.
I was just noticing, we've got some economic figures that we'll be coming through to.
I'm not sure what you guys need us to do.
at least the more retail sales figures although they're a little bit confused they think it's an adjustment they have to make but then we also have the way he goes into the showroom and the consumer buying projections and comments I haven't checked into what all of them are
Even despite the marketing?
Oh, yeah.
It's one of them.
Oh, it's down, of course.
That's right.
All right.
Well, we'll see if it's a good figure.
Sure.
All right.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's going to pick that up.
Yeah.
Well, we're not going to worry about the market.
The other things are more important.
You're on the right side of the issue.
I think that's the important thing.
We've got a great thing going on this week with this.
I suppose the letter from you to all the heads of all the local government agencies urging them to spend the money that we've given them to the public service at this point.
Right.
And we've put up all the money in that.
Yeah.
And the lowdown on it is in the higher end of the local government agencies and a lot of communities that have the money.
Yeah.
So a good letter from you, you're reaching there too.
Right.
And again, that puts you on the side of cutting out a poor community.
the local government.
Right.
So that's the, those kinds of things that we'd be doing when we had a couple of billions on the job for what they're doing.
I mean, the public gets the idea that, you know, that we really care about them.
Also, our roadshed, by the way, is just as terrific as any of the, the economic roadshed that we've now covered.
Yes.
About two days in the city.
And I've been looking at the local press, and I've always gotten about the, there's a big difference now.
That's good.
On the court?
No, well, they haven't asked specifically for that, but now they've gone to the court to ask for a general rule that they can ask you to do that.
But they're feeling the heat, you know, because every time people, every time we've had the momentum really going strong, you know, they've felt a feeling about the unit being weak.
Yes, of course.
I mean, they're a hell of a, you know, but they're just, you know, the way that we do because we keep everything, they won't get it.
We've got that area.
because that's part of the law, completely blocked out.
The fact that they were asking for it, I think that would be a good thing.
Well, okay.
Let's hope the figures don't worry about them this week.
Maybe they don't.
I think they're doing a good thing, but they're not too worried about it.
That's right.
Okay.
NARA Description
On October 25, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 7:37 pm to 7:45 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 012-128 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 12-128
90
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. 10/06)
Date: October 25, 1971
Time: 7:37 pm- 7:45 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Charles W. Colson.
News reports
-Demonstrators
-Weather
-Washington Monument
The President’s schedule
-Vietnam veterans
Common cause
-William D. Eberle
-Edwin D. Etherington
-Eberle
-Arthur S. Fleming
-Censure vote by Common Cause
-Carl B. Albert
Economy
-Figures
-Retail sales
-Consumer buying
-Commerce Department
-Stock market
-Possible letter from the President to local government heads
-Public service employment
-Publicity
-Nixon administration success
Democrats
-Request for air time on television
-Supreme Court
Economic figures
-Public relations
-White House strategy
91
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF
Tape Subject Log
(rev. 10/06)Also recorded on October 25, 1971
- 012-120 3:30 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 3:30 pm and 5:22 pm.
- 304-017 4:35 PM · 1 hr 19 min — President Richard M. Nixon, George P. Shultz, John D. Ehrlichman, unknown person(s), White House operator, Alexander P. Butterfield, and Rose Mary Woods met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 4:35 pm to 6:01 pm.
- 012-122 5:22 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, Alexander P. Butterfield, George P. Shultz, and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone from 5:22 pm to 5:25 pm.
- 012-123 7:22 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 7:22 pm.
- 012-124 7:22 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:22 pm and 7:27 pm.
- 012-125 7:22 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:22 pm and 7:25 pm.
- 012-126 7:27 PM · 7 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone from 7:27 pm to 7:34 pm.
- 012-127 7:34 PM · 8 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:34 pm and 7:37 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 012-128, October 25, 1971. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/012-128 (accessed September 18, 2026).