On September 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 4:15 pm to 4:38 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 009-027 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Well, what's new in the battlefront today?
Well, today, I'm sorry to tell you, it was a little bit quiet.
We weren't able to get any of our guns out today.
Normally, we've got somebody going, but we've got Dole up in New York, and I believe he may answer Muskie from last night.
At least I urged him to, although we'll see.
I didn't get the C. Muskies.
I've been working on the press thing.
What was that?
God, he gave the most incredible speech last night, Mr. President.
I just looked at the Times and the Post.
I didn't catch him on the first page, at least.
Well, it was pretty well written up in the Post.
What he said, in effect, was that Attica slayings were a reflection on our society as a whole, that the
Oh, yeah.
The country was, in effect, degenerate and sick and that our systems were sick and interesting.
He's on the wrong side of that, let me tell you.
Oh, God, is he on the wrong side.
I told Ziegler today, don't be concerned that...
that Rockefeller's guards shot, I mean, Rockefeller's people shot some guards.
Absolutely.
People know who did this.
That's right.
Who threw the man out the window?
Well, nobody would have shot a guard if they hadn't been held hostage for four days by American prisoners.
And saved 28 others.
Well, of course.
And you know, the only mistake that unfortunately was made in Attica was the statement that their throats were slit if they weren't.
I mean, somebody just overstated the case, but it doesn't change the basic issue.
But he took on Rockefeller.
Oh, boy.
Well, he took on the whole thing.
He said that the frustration in our city, everybody is to blame.
He said the whole society is to blame.
You think he's basically just turning left then?
Yes.
I think he's getting very bad advice, Mr. President.
He went down there yesterday with a speech all prepared on the way down to talk about the economy, and he had already told some reporters he was also going to address busing.
And then, according to the papers, he hastily threw away the speech and wrote a new one because the Attica thing was hot news.
Well, he got himself in the papers by doing it, but I just don't think he... Interestingly, the governors, who are, of course, predominantly Democrat...
or majority at least, but not predominantly, majority.
He made this to the governors?
Yes, sir.
Well, I hope to Christ no Republican stood up for him on this.
Well, he was interrupted by applause only twice.
It was considered, and the papers reported that, it was considered a very poor performance.
A number of Republican governors afterwards said they thought it was in bad taste for him to have done it.
Attacked another governor.
That's right.
In effect, that's what he did.
And it was partisan, and it's going to be...
I don't know how many of these he can get away with, but it's going to start catching up with him.
This one we're going to hit him on.
I'm going to...
I don't know yet who's the right person, but... Javits is the best one.
Well, I might get Javits to do it.
That's a darn good idea.
I hadn't thought of Javits.
But we will get some people building this one up.
And his other statements are getting some play.
Bill White called me today.
He's doing a column on his busing statement where he thinks he made a terrible mistake.
where he came out against our position.
Right, where Thurman has hit him.
Has Thurman hit him?
Yes, sir, hit him hard.
That's good.
And that's beginning to get around in the south.
Also in the north, there is a committee that has a mailing now going out, which will be critical of your position on busing and praise his.
We're in the process of watching that.
But, no, I think he made a...
made a very serious tactical error with this yesterday.
I just think he clearly is on the wrong side of the issue, even if temporarily the bleeding hearts are cryable.
Well, even Severide and Reisner defended Rockefeller last night.
Another thing you ought to remember is that Rockefeller is still one of their favorites.
Yeah, his credentials are good.
They know damn well he didn't do anything unless he had to.
That's right, precisely.
It's a lot different than if Reagan had done it.
If Reagan had done it, they'd write him out of town on a stick.
Rumsfeld was at the governor's conference last night, and I heard from him this morning.
He said that it went over very badly.
He said there wasn't a good response to it.
He didn't really deliver it well, and that the governors did not take it very well, which I wouldn't expect they would.
That's a
That's kind of not kosher in that kind of a circumstance.
We have been getting today all the groups organized on telegrams and letters coming in on the federal pay issue, and that's beginning to look a little better.
The legislative people now are feeling much more bullish about the House than they were.
They think it might win it?
Yes, we had them in the Senate.
meeting this afternoon of all the Chamber of Commerce and Association people, plus some of Clark McGregor's folks, and they now are, their headcount now looks pretty good.
And so I think we'll, I think it should be, by golly, a straight up or down support the president on this one.
Well, that's what we're doing.
Support the wage, stop inflation, support wage price thing.
Well, it's really support the whole theme of national sacrifice.
Everybody's doing it.
Why should the special interest group be exempted because the
Congress caves into political pressures.
We'll get some heat built on that issue and very easily have our people turned on at it.
Well, they're going to get it six months from now.
Hell, they can get along without it for a few months.
Oh, exactly.
That's right.
I think we'll do all right on that, too.
Good.
If they ask me tomorrow, I may have an office suppress thing tomorrow, and if they do, I'll kick it in the ass.
That's a good one to kick.
Because the big problem we have with that issue is that it hasn't surfaced publicly very much.
No one's really aware of the issue.
And if you hit it tomorrow and it gets a little publicity, then that helps get the folks out and around.
It's tough to get letters.
Well, I'll say this.
One thing, just keep your... Maybe it was fortunate that in a way that that silly poll came up in the...
legislative leaders meeting.
Now the bastards are all read it.
That's right.
And we're distributing just that portion that relates to the federal pay to everybody again, although I went back and checked.
They all had it.
We sent it to their homes, their offices.
I'm sure you did.
I know, I know, I know.
The difficulty, we've been sending these through the National Committee, and I want to find a different system.
I want to find a way that we can send them directly from here.
We have McGregor's office sending them.
Right.
And call people ahead and say, this is coming up, and by God, look at it.
Right.
Mr. President, yesterday you mentioned Tony DeChant had said he wanted to come and see you.
I've just been in the process of checking that out today.
It was Tony who said it.
Yeah, he was the guy from the NFU.
Farmer's Union, yeah.
He was sitting...
Right next to the fellow from the Grange.
I mean the... Co-ops.
No, between the co-op guy and the other fellow.
Right.
He was two down from you.
That's right.
That's who it was.
Boy, that's a breakthrough.
I haven't the slightest idea what it's about, but he should be... Oh, well, I want to get him in right away because that's the kind of a defection that would carry a hell of a lot of weight and, well, some of the
The NFO and the NFU are pretty strong in a few of the key farm states.
There's an old man up in Minnesota, what's his name, not Fletcher, but a famous old man who's always been a friend of mine, but let's see, but he's about 90 now.
He may be
telling him to play both sides, which would not be surprising.
Well, I'd love to even neutralize him, because he's been, he's probably been, DeChant has been the most effective Democratic organizer in the farm belt.
If we were to pick off a fellow like that, it would have a damn good psychological effect.
At least you can talk to him.
You can talk to him.
Fine.
The governor's conference killed the Democrats' resolution on the economy pretty resoundingly.
Yeah.
Also killed a couple on busing, which I haven't gotten the details on.
For it or against it?
Well, these were resolutions by Carter, I think.
One was by Carter of Georgia, which was against it, but they killed that.
I think probably the issue was, it may have been the way the issue was framed.
All these governors do is just meet and pass resolutions, don't they?
It's really a dreary exercise.
Awful.
And apparently this one was a pretty poor one in terms of a lot of internal bickering.
Of course, they had everybody and his brother down there.
It's a damn waste of time, really.
Yeah, we sent everybody down.
Oh, God.
We had all the political people and Rumsfeld and Romney.
Really, it's more of an annoyance than anything else.
It's a terrible annoyance.
We're going to get into it.
Bill White, by the way, I'm going to say miles away from it.
Oh, I think you should.
Except, of course, you have this delegation tomorrow.
Oh, sure, that's fine.
Bill White was saying to me, Mr. President, that his soundings, he thinks that the hottest political issue today is busing.
He just thinks it's number one around the country.
He said all the others, he said effectively you've diffused the economic issue.
He said the people just aren't really worked up on that.
He said the issue that is
It's really turning people now is busing.
And Bill has a pretty good feel for those things.
Sure has.
Good judgment on what people are thinking of it.
But I don't think you could be in better shape than you are.
They don't seem to be too steamed up about yet about they will get, I suppose, about the queue and the election in October and all that stuff.
Right.
I know there are Democrats raising hell about it, but I don't seem to sense a great deal of steam up about that.
No.
People, as I've talked to them, used to bring up Vietnam as an issue.
They just don't bring it up anymore.
And I don't think people really care a hell of a lot about an election.
They don't care.
They know damn well we're getting out.
That's all they care.
They don't care...
really the only sleeper issue which is difficult for us is the pow issue that damn thing is uh just hangs around and we it's they're they're just holding them right over our heads it's like well that's just that's a tough issue there's no what do you call that blackmail no what's the word well it is it's it's ransom it's uh ransom is the word but it's something else they're holding them for holding them hostage holding hostage or uh know what when when you what's the word you'd use with say rockefeller and these
prisoners what did they what would you say they weren't trying to blackmailing blackmail is a different thing yeah they were uh holding prisoners for ransom but they were trying to extort oh i don't know they would yeah they were trying to coerce well i'll find the right word actually they were holding them hostage for their bargaining they're trying to bargain their way out listen i i think i know i have a pretty good idea on the public opinion on that thing
Despite the fact, despite the fact, it's unfortunate that they killed the guards, that the gunshots killed them.
But despite that fact, I think most people support the governor in his use of force to put down a riot in a prison.
Absolutely.
I think so.
Don't you think so?
Yes, sir.
Bob may have told you that the people in the surrounding areas up there just have, I mean, they've,
started talking about niggers and resurgence of very, very strong feelings.
He, I guess, heard from Barbara Conable or some of the cars, I suppose.
But it's, no, I think there's any question that while it's a tragedy that guards were killed, how the hell else would you get in there?
Of course.
But no, I think people, there's any question that people respect
understand and applaud the use of force.
You have no choice in the circumstances.
That's the difference between anarchy and government, civilized society.
You just can't afford to do otherwise.
I've been getting your weekly reports on the Emergency Employment Act and they're beginning to crank that up.
Oh, they are getting a few hired?
Well, they're making some progress.
They're at least able to report now several thousand jobs filled.
I'm keeping the steam on them hard so that maybe in the next figures we'll begin to get some benefit from that.
Oh, well, it isn't going to have much of a blip.
What's really going to affect this economy is its own movement.
It's, my God,
We talk about 150,000 jobs like that.
You're going to get a hell of a lot more by half a percent of the savings starting to go into, you know, trade.
What the hell?
Well, half a percent would give it a tremendous shot in the air.
That's a great deal.
And that market came back a little bit today.
It did.
Well, it was up.
I'm not concerned, incidentally, about the market this time, Chuck.
I noticed it dropped yesterday some points.
But I think it's just marking time for...
in this period, but 900 is about what it's worth.
Yes.
That's my opinion.
And it went down to 901 and then today started to move back up, so it's not going to... Where did it end today?
I don't have the closing, Mr. President.
At 245, it was up three points, small volume.
I was told yesterday that all of the...
heavy investors, the big funds and institutions, are trying to get into a cash position because they expect after Phase 2 announcement to have a big surge.
And they want to get liquid so that they can buy on the...
I'm going to indicate strongly tomorrow that Phase 2 will, there will be, well, I'll repeat what I've said, that we've decided there will be a follow-on program for wages and prices, and second, that it will have teeth.
I'm going to use that term.
That's a good phrase.
Well, the way I'm going to put it is this, that I've decided that you can't have jawboning without teeth in the jawbone.
And that'll grab them.
That's a good phrase.
I just thought that up a few minutes ago here.
Well, that's a little bit of the attitude right now is the uncertainty over what comes next.
And also they see the labor guys squealing in the Congress, you know, milling around.
They don't know.
But I must say, I think we've done as much as we can to keep the offensive, you know, the
Thank God we did the speech last week.
That was good.
That was excellent.
We kept the initiative.
And Detroit next week will help.
It should help some, yeah.
Well, I think you really have the lead on this issue.
There's just no way they can take it away.
And if you look at it realistically, if we're successful mobilizing on the outside and if we keep our friends on the Hill steady on this one, there's no way they can take it away from us.
I just feel our friends on the Hill, of course, as you know, public support tends to erode.
I mean, as you go, the longer you get away from the announcement.
But on the other hand, you put it in terms of do you want to keep wages and prices down, people say yes.
And we've just got to keep the heat right on them on that.
Well, we'll do that.
We've got such great stuff here.
You know, my God, these polls are fantastic.
Yes, they are.
And they continue strong.
You know, the Sendlinger second bull was even better than the first one.
Does he have a second one?
Yes, sir.
Oh, I didn't know about that.
When did it come out?
Last week.
And we've gotten that around.
And supporting the price freeze?
Yes, and showing that the level of consumer confidence, I don't have it in front of me, but showing that the level of consumer confidence was remaining.
high had turned up what dramatically shifted right after the freeze and was still right after your announcement and was still up and that buyer expectations were up in other words consumer buying plans had remained high and that for the first time union families now were more in support that was the interesting thing that there had been a slight shift and union families were now more supportive of the freeze
than non-union families.
And that one, that got a little bit of publicity.
I mean, he's riding a very, very rough horse here.
I'm telling you, he's gone a little too far in his rhetoric, too.
He's looking very good.
He's in a very dangerous posture.
I really think he is.
I think he's overplayed his hand.
People have got to just get up and say that
What I'd like to see is some guy say in his speech, we've got a president that'll stand up to an arrogant labor leader.
That we can have one of our guys.
I mean, like some guy over there that doesn't have any support.
It ought to be done.
It'll stand up to him.
That's what the country wants to hear.
I think that's the feeling they have, and we need people saying it.
I don't want to say it.
I don't want to tell that officer, but I think some senator...
Okay, fine, Miss Prism.
Thank you, sir.