Nixon phone call with Colson on Media relations and Vietnam War

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Hello.

Yes, sir.

Well, how'd things go yesterday on the news?

I guess the casualty thing was played all right?

Oh, they played very well, Mr. President.

Actually, all three networks carried it.

As has been going on all week, CBS gave it a fantastic story.

It was the lead on

Yesterday morning, CBS Morning News, and the fascinating thing was that they played it as an extremely positive story.

The same fellow who hit us two weeks earlier said that last week was the best week in six years for Americans, that the war is winding down, that it isn't what it used to be, then had some interviews.

in-depth coverage, and the networks gave us excellent coverage last night.

And as you probably have seen, the printed press has been very good as well.

Yeah.

But it's kind of significant.

The two networks played it just about straight.

CBS gave it a heck of a puff.

So I called Stanton today.

I thought that with the things they've done for us this week, I had an interesting conversation.

I said, Frank, I have called you when things have been a little rough, and I just want to call you and say you're a man of your word.

You've straightened things out.

He said, well, you're goddamn right I have, and they're going to stay straightened out.

And he said, you're just seeing the beginning of it.

So I hate to...

Hate to build up any false hopes.

All right.

Well, maybe he may be shaken.

I think he had a hell of a scare, and I think that he put himself in a bad spot.

He also thinks we may be around a while.

There's that very much in the picture.

But he said to me, don't you worry.

He said, it's not just a one-week thing.

I'm not doing it just to repay you.

And he said, it's going to continue.

We're going to continue to play things fair.

We're going to continue to get both sides.

He said, let me give you an illustration of the problems.

He said, one of my commentators was on last night and questioning Charlotte Reed's appointment to the FCC.

And he said, you think you've got problems?

He said, we've got to deal with the FCC.

He said, I'm just about to fire someone in the news department.

So I think we've gotten this guy out.

We've got them in tow at the moment.

It's a question of holding them there.

Good.

Thank you.

Our sea pole, Mr. President, is great.

We're going to see that that gets a major distribution.

Well, it doesn't show any particular...

you know, jump, but except that it's solid.

Well, it shows six points up from May, which I think is... That's all that matters.

Well, it's something else to this, to the China thing.

I think the...

The China thing was, of course, a very positive thing.

But I think in terms of public approval, you'll find that that's the kind of a thing that will continue to build.

It ought to build, yeah, because the China thing hits particularly your people in the sort of the leader types, the intellectual types, and so it simmers down.

It fills through.

It'd be very interesting to see what Harris comes up with.

Gallup, I think, is just going to show the same.

Of course, he says he didn't poll until Saturday and Sunday, and he doesn't think it really reflected, but

I have some doubts about gallops up a little.

I don't know.

I just think there's something a little fishy there.

Oh, there is.

No doubt about it.

decided that we'll try rumsfeld uh working with gallup he went to school with george jr at princeton uh claims to get along with him well knows them well so we're gonna work with him on the china thing hell they ought to be gaga about that oh they i'm sure we can then uh and then and you know chuck what the hell that's how they they they uh all these things we don't want uh i mean the figures aren't up there i mean we don't want them to lie about it but uh

They can trim them a little one way or another.

Well, there are ways they can do it.

And I think Don is the kind of a fellow who would.

I think actually the main problem we have in terms of poles and everything at this point is that

This basically gives us an awfully solid base to build from.

And it's going to help enormously with the opinion types.

I mean, they're going to have a hell of a time taking us on for a while on this area.

Then, of course, the war comes and the trip itself comes.

That all helps.

Now, on the domestic side, though, we still have a hell of a drag.

And that drag is mainly psychologicalism, that things are so bad.

I mean, despite the numbers that you get on CPI or the rest, you know, things are pretty goddamn good.

People are just... And the reason that people feel badly domestically is the media.

The media have hammered it right into their heads.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

Well, if we can...

We generally get a reasonably fair break from ABC if CBS starts playing ball with us.

We may just turn this around.

That's right.

It doesn't take a hell of a lot to do it.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Nixon phone call with Colson on Media relations and Vietnam War

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on July 23, 1971

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