Nixon phone call with Colson on Unemployment figures and Vietnam War

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Mr. Carlson, Mr. President.

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Hi, Chuck.

I wanted to be sure that you got to Scali the importance of, and maybe have him get it to Klein and others, of really riding that fact that the month's casualties, the lowest four weeks since Saturday, you see.

It's the lowest four weeks, I think, since 65.

We got the figures this morning, 64.

64, but it has to be because, you know, it's only 80, and it's...

It's lower than it was in a week a year ago.

That's exactly right.

So this is lousy.

It also just proves a lousy thing, I bet you see.

The networks last night unhappily just picked up the weekly figure, although they all reported it, and they didn't pick up the monthly figure.

We got it to them, but they didn't use it.

We did have Dan Hencken this morning over at Defense have a press conference as he was leaving for Japan with Laird, and he hit the monthly figure very hard.

All the networks were there.

Also, Scali has...

He's on top of it.

He's talked to the news magazines.

I think we'll get a continuing play out of it.

We've got the headline of the story tonight looking... Yeah, well, they did have to, wouldn't they?

They did.

They threw in there a line that maybe it's a statistical fluke, which some damn fool at the Labor Department said, but...

If I can find out who it is, he'll be the first one of the casualties of the Lord High Executioner.

Wow.

Did somebody at the Labor Department say it was a statistical fluke?

Yes, sir.

We'll...

it's uh typical of what these bastards in the bureaucracy i want i want i want uh really now we told everybody is supposed to be here now i'd find out and then he's got to be fired that's right if he said it i gave the orders it was clear didn't i oh and i gave the orders in that economic thing now it's clear and we're

And Hodgson is helping you on it, is he?

Oh, he briefed, and he did a beautiful job.

I know, but is Hodgson helping you on the investigation?

He will, yes, sir.

Get Silverman on it.

Tell him, I want the guy's name by the night.

There'd be no question about it.

We'll get this one.

It's not attributed to anyone.

It just says the Bureau of Labor Statistics attributed the sharp decline in the jobless rate to a statistical quirk.

But that won't carry.

The big story, I mean, it's...

Makes you mad when you see that, but it doesn't hurt us.

The big story is running.

I talked to Howard K. Smith, and I think he's going to give us a good story on it.

Scali has talked to the other two networks.

Well, it is.

I suppose it is some statistical.

Then it must have been a statistical fluke that went up then.

See my point?

Just the point I made to Smith, and he said, hell, he said.

It had to be wrong.

See, the up figure is wrong, too, then, John.

He saw that, didn't he?

Oh, yes, and he said the point is that it's moving fast in the right direction, and that's what really counts.

All right.

So we'll come out of that positively.

That's great.

Brennan went out of your office.

How was Brennan feeling?

He went out sailing, Mr. President.

God, it just was what was needed.

And as we were walking out, he said, you tell the President, he said, there's 250,000 of my boys up there, and we're with them.

Of course, he was just elated over it because of what you said.

We'll see that it's carried out.

now you'd be of course as you know we've got a plan on fletcher we can't knock him but fletcher shouldn't say those things we've got to get him out of that line of fire and put him in the national committee or something he agreed this morning while we were meeting he was meeting with her and it's a great idea and it gives him more opportunity they can pay him a little more money and send him put him on the road well it's good but not just talk about this thing this is he loses friends with this he's a he is a good political property but

But you see, he hurts it.

That thing about the hard ads was, I couldn't believe it when he said that last year.

That, I'm sorry to say, was awful.

Yeah.

Well, he meant, but you see, he's got this thing that he thinks the Philadelphia plan helps us.

The Philadelphia plan is right, but it hurts us.

That's right.

And I kept telling Schultz that all the time.

I said, Jesus, you know, Schultz and Garment and the other guys all think, isn't it great that we have the Philadelphia plan?

I said, fellas...

It's fine that we're getting these blacks into the jobs, but boy, it's killing us with our constituency.

They're now beginning to realize that it hasn't worked either.

You can't force these things.

They've got to be... You've done it so beautifully with the schools.

We should be using the same technique in this area.

Brennan Field knows you're going to follow through on that.

Get that New York plan approved.

Get something approved before his meeting, if you can.

I will, Mr. President.

Tell him that I've got to have that approved.

And I'm going to send...

I talked to Ehrlichman right after the meeting, and I will push it this week, and we'll get it through.

I'm going to send Keshen up to those meetings because he gets along well with those hardheads.

And we'll have some good news for them.

The Fletcher news is probably the biggest thing we could do for them when that happens.

They'll understand it.

Although, we don't want them to

We don't want a big story out that we can Fletcher or anything.

Oh, no, no.

Fletcher wants to do this, yeah.

And they don't want that either because that will just, that'll make it worse.

Well, yes, so we can produce something for Brennan.

Now on, of course, the wage price board, there's where we've got to be tougher on them because we've got to keep their noses to the grindstone on that one.

I gave him, after the meeting, I gave him all the figures of all the settlements that have been reached, and he hadn't seen these.

He thought they would be very helpful.

He's going to,

send them to all his friends in the state organizations most of it doesn't affect new york as i recall anyway does it no they're doing pretty good yeah we've only we've only reversed a couple of settlements you know most of them have been what have come through in the in the normal course we we've discouraged them from doing outrageous settlements but we really haven't over you tell him about the unemployment figure any chance i gave him that on the way in yes sir he must have felt pretty good he was very pleased about it the point he made to you as he was going out the door is a very important one he said you can

But in the building trades, it's not the national leaders.

It's the state by state.

He keeps his very close ties with DeLuca in Pennsylvania and the key people around the country.

That's where those fellows have an awful lot of power at that level.

I think we'll do well with them.

We have to kind of keep nursing them along.

Well, we particularly want to...

Let them know we appreciate their support on the war.

By God, I mean, on the national loyalty thing.

Jesus, that's great.

He kept repeating your statement afterwards.

He kept saying, you know, he said, the president is such a gentleman.

He said, all he asked me to do was support him on national security.

And he said, isn't that, of course, I've been hitting Brennan that he's got to support us politically.

But he said, the president's such a gentleman.

All he wants is the country's interest.

He was very impressed with that statement you made.

That's the way to get his other interest.

And that's the way, exactly.

All right.

Fine, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Nixon phone call with Colson on Unemployment figures and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on July 2, 1971

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