On October 21, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 6:08 pm to 6:24 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 012-053 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Well, what's new on the battlefront today?
Well, you've got everybody in the city of Washington guessing today.
That's right.
I guess everybody across the country, a good way to have it.
That's good.
We've got a few things good.
John Volpe did a fine job yesterday on Kennedy.
It didn't get as much national play.
Oh, I didn't see it in the press, at least.
Well, boy, he really, it made some late additions to the Post and a lot of publicity and
Good.
Boston Papers, New York Times.
Oh, good for him.
He really gave him a nut cutter.
He reminded him of the Morrissey nomination.
Good.
So I think John may be a fellow we can... John is a good fellow maybe to do a little hatcheting and we'll get people to start paying attention to him.
Well, I think...
I think we might build him up as a good political gut fighter.
He is good.
Got some good news coming tomorrow on the CPI, at least I think it's good.
What does it show?
Up two-tenths of one percent, which... How is it adjusted?
Adjusted and actual are the same.
Still pretty high, pretty high.
It should be lower than that.
Well, it's...
Not when you consider it's a composite of quarterly and monthly figures.
I think it'll be interpreted pretty well, Mr. President, because it was four-tenths of one percent in August.
It's down.
Yes.
And in June and May, it was six-tenths and five-tenths of one percent.
So I think that...
Is the stock market still reeling?
No, it held steady today.
Those people are just, that's the way they're going.
I just soon have it reel now.
I know this doesn't bother us a bit.
Well, it doesn't.
Not a bit.
The problem is a simple one, really.
You've got two things that happened up there yesterday.
I spent a hell of a lot of time on the phone last night.
They didn't think the prime rate went down fast enough?
No, no, that wasn't it at all.
Two things.
They think money is getting tight.
And the Fed is tightening the screws, which they are.
And redemptions of mutual funds... Oh, I heard about that.
Geez, awful.
Why are the redemptions going?
What's the reason for that?
Well, they're not.
I talked to John Heer, who in my opinion... How the hell did that story get out?
No, there are net redemptions, but the sales just stopped of mutual funds during the month of September.
They didn't have any more redemptions than normal.
Why'd they stop?
Well, they attribute it to a couple of factors.
One, the brokers got very bullish about putting people in blue chips, and they get them out of mutual funds to go into common stocks.
Oh, I see.
As the market went up, they didn't buy the mutuals.
That's right.
And so it was a bad month, but that plus tight money has everybody worried about liquidity.
The big password yesterday on the street was there's going to be a liquidity crunch that...
Remember, this happened right after... Well, what the hell is Flanagan doing?
Is he talking to Arthur or anybody?
I talked to Schultz about it this afternoon.
What's he say?
Schultz says that we've just got to lean on Arthur because he's... George is very worried that Arthur is tightening the screws much too hard.
Figures that with what you've done now, with Phase I and Phase II, that you... Schultz's theory is that with what you've done, Arthur assumes that this is the time to really beat inflation.
Well...
That's fine, but Jesus, let's not strangle the economy in the process.
I think that needs to be dealt with, and I think that George should talk to him.
Do I have one or two appointments to that board?
Two.
Two now, apart from two openings?
I think there's one right now, Mr. President, and then there's another one starting the first of the year.
And that's something that you might... Well, we're going to hang that over his head.
He's got his own candidates, but by God, we're going to get... Well, you might... We've got to get some people that are going to be more on our side.
Well, he's got his own, as you and I have talked, he's got his own axe to grind.
He just wants to be remembered as the chairman of the Fed that beat inflation.
Well, it's great if he doesn't put the screws on so damn hard that
he don't start cutting into unemployment, which is what I would worry about.
And that's what's happening on the street.
I got that yesterday from tight money, from eight different people.
And then I checked again this morning.
Have you passed it to Flanagan?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
We've talked about it.
Flanagan can raise all of Arthur on this thing.
I've got a few people to talk to him.
Connolly, unfortunately, is out of town.
I think Connolly is back early next week, and he may be able to do some good with it.
Arthur, he's really a goddamn cantankerous, though.
He is.
We had him, you know, and we brought him into the whole phase, I mean, the whole phase one thing and so forth, and he's had his way and everything, and
You know, and God damn him, he's now not playing the game.
I have never, Mr. President, since August 15th, been able to get him to, and of course I don't deal with him because he's never said a word.
And I've had Sapphire talk to him every week.
Tell Sapphire that everybody in the street is really taking him on.
Bill is up there, and I suspect he's finding this because it was pretty widespread yesterday.
Yeah.
Bill, to hit Arthur on the fact that Arthur, you're looking bad in the street.
Arthur likes to puff up and think he looks good.
That's good.
That will bother him.
Actually, the lowering of the discount rate, I think, in terms of what happens, is probably more significant than what its psychological impact is, because that is going to be a spur to business.
And they'll get off the dime, I think, as soon as they begin to see it.
We've got our panels and our commissions going, and they can live with it.
George thinks that the third quarter was weaker in great part because of money supply.
I don't know.
I don't know.
He may be wrong.
It may be for other reasons.
I mean, who the hell knows?
Well, he thinks that from mid-August to September, that's what slowed down the third quarter.
On the other hand, it isn't any less than I was led to believe it was going to be.
I was told if it was over 15, it wouldn't be too bad.
That's 16.
And it came out to 16.
And you know, when they adjust it three more times, it'll be up to 18 or 19.
Oh, yeah.
The bastards always put out the low figure.
Every time.
And it goes right back over the...
Of course, the irony of that, Mr. President, is they put out the low figure now and they compare it with the revised, adjusted second quarter, which is up $4 billion from what it was originally announced at.
Yeah, it was $18 to begin with, now it's $22.
Right, so $16 against $18 wouldn't look too bad, but $16 against $22, which nobody stops to figure out.
That's right.
It can't just go up at all times.
It goes up by jags and so forth.
Well, everybody predicted a slow third quarter.
They did, huh?
Yes.
Oh, yes.
And...
They were very careful in briefing us.
And yet people are, except for this nut Janeway, everybody's predicting a good year next year.
What's your crisis?
Can anybody talk to him?
Has he so broadly played?
He's an egotist.
I know him from way back.
Well, I guess he's... Newsweek, but he's another nut.
Oh, he is.
And he's not taken seriously, but he does get publicity.
On the other hand, the overwhelming weight of it from
Heller, through the Time Board of Editors, through the Business Council, is a $100 billion a year coming, and that's a bullish hill.
I talked to Tom Miskell last night, the governor of Connecticut.
Yeah, good.
About his poll, about the poll.
That poll was in the news summary this morning.
It was published, yes, sir.
They released it.
I said to Tom, were you surprised by it?
And he said, no.
I said, well, it's pretty goddamn impressive numbers.
And he said, you fellas down there, you don't know this state of Connecticut.
He said, I'm a hard rock conservative.
He said, I had a
hundred percent aca voting record in congress and i was elected governor here he said this state has changed he said nixon would carry it today against anybody is that right and he said you ought to remember that we have the second highest unemployment in the country it's nine and a half percent yeah and he said if it weren't for that he said you just would be well he said you're sailing despite that and he said the people uh really in connecticut responded tremendously to the august 15th speech he said everywhere i go
i get a different impression of the president and people talk to me about him differently they say he's doing something he's take charge he's he's on top he said he's he's given people a feeling that he said the second speech he gave on phase two was a masterpiece because he gave people a feeling that they were working with him that we're working together to help and he said now they have the feeling they want to help the president and he said i think you would find that
He said, those figures are probably a little exaggerated.
But he said, not much.
He said, I think he would carry the state today against anybody and is doing well.
There's one bullish, upbeat ripple.
Say, Haldeman told me that the reason the Post doesn't carry Harris is they canceled him.
Well, we can't be sure of that.
That's the goddamnedest thing I ever heard of.
Well, you know, the...
They never did cancel him when he was kicking us.
Of course not.
The interesting thing about that is that they haven't run him now for four of his last polls.
His four most recent polls have not been run.
i've talked to lou he has a binding contract with him he's mad as hell about it oh is he god he says you realize that this is terribly important this is the one that's carried all across the country and what's he say well he said that he suspects what we suspect but he hasn't he has not written he went back and looked a column or a poll in nine months that has had anything negative on you
And he said, they probably just, they don't want to publish my stuff unless I'm kicking the hell out of the president.
And he said, if that's the way they are, the hell with them.
He said, we'll go to the Star.
I told him I'd get him in the Star somehow.
Absolutely.
But he did go back and inquire of the Post, and they won't admit they've canceled him.
And I'm not sure they have.
I see.
That information came from a second-level guy over there.
They may be just freezing him out for a bit.
Yeah.
To get him to come to them.
He isn't about to do it.
Play in there goes.
He mustn't do it.
No, he's all right.
Yeah, but we've got a few tools, too.
We've got some better ones as far as he's concerned.
Right.
Plus the fact he was terribly taken to that meeting.
And, no, I don't think we'll have a... We don't have to worry about that at the moment, but I'd like to... Gallup come out Sunday now?
That was the plan, yes, sir.
We don't know what it is yet, though.
No, I haven't asked Rumsfeld.
Well, he'll tell us.
They haven't told him he's going to call us when he gets in.
They would have to, if they're out Sunday, though, they'd have to be... Well, they may not go Sunday.
They may be...
I have an annoying feeling, despite all their talk about purity, that they're close to Kennedy.
Well, I've had that feeling about Gallup for about eight or nine months.
Which has Karras.
I have.
I've talked to Harrison.
He just thinks they're crummy pollsters.
He said they don't ask in-depth questions.
He thinks they've gone a little soft.
He said that George Gallup and his son go over to the Nassau Inn and drink over their lunch and write their questions.
He said they're not really...
He thinks they've just become kind of a second-rate polling outfit.
But I don't...
I've thought they're dovish...
instincts have influenced them over the past year.
Yeah, but they told Rumsfeld that, as they said, there had been a dramatic upsurge in support for the president.
So on their first 800, then they haven't heard a word from him since.
They may have just flushed it.
They'd have to come out with one soon.
Actually, Mr. President, they have to find that because I'm now absolutely persuaded from
Harris, Becker, Sinlinger, anywhere you go, and talking to people, you find that...
There seems to be something going on.
Oh, there's a hell of a lot.
You've got just to...
The Supreme Court thing is going to shake the bastards a little.
Well, they may turn them down, but if they do, at least I won't tell you what they are, but I'll tell you this.
Each one was first in his class in a damn good law school, so...
well that takes care of the excellence argument you know what i mean what do you think of that i think that's outstanding and one was a clerk to a supreme court justice excellent so god damn it uh and both are conservative as hell that sounds awful good we've first in his classes you know something what the hell i i was i was high in my class i think i was i was third but
Jesus Christ, you know what I mean?
You've just got to be a real bearcat to be first.
It takes some doing.
In any class.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
But these bastards are a bunch of snobs and so forth, and Mrs. Gunner, the excellence thing is totally answered by this.
They're never going to get at that again.
We went through all the editorials this afternoon, Mr. President, of all the major newspapers, and it's striking the number that have said that what we need is...
excellence, what we need is superior legal instincts.
Is that what they want?
Well, their speech will satisfy them.
We've got a list of them.
On the other hand, I also talk about philosophy.
I say that we also need somebody that has a, as I call it, a conservative judicial philosophy, which means that on those cases that involve a delicate balance between the rights of accused and the rights of society that
that it is essential to protect society as well to protect the accused.
I'm hitting that because that's the only thing that the people are interested in.
They don't give a goddamn about excellence, you know.
No, they don't.
Not one bit.
No, they don't.
This is all editorial crap.
The people care about the philosophy, and I think that was a hell of an issue in 68, and I think it would be one that you...
I'm going to crack it again.
It's a mandate, really, that...
This will kill them, too.
The excellence thing will kill them, and I'm going to repeat that again.
Well, the thing that I'm delighted about, we're going to call all of these newspapers tonight.
On the excellence thing?
Yes, sir.
I'll point out this fact.
Both of these men were first in their class.
Both were Phi Beta Kappa.
Oh, that's great.
Both were Phi Beta Kappa.
Both were first in their class in law school.
Not second, not third, but first.
Excellent.
And by God, that's awfully hard to beat, Chuck.
I know well.
I struggled.
Well, we all did.
What the hell?
I mean, you're lucky to get...
even pass.
I made fourth in my class.
I consider that pretty stiff competition.
I think this is excellent, Mr. President.
The one thing that I'm just ecstatic over is that this cuts the ground out from under me, and it's now about the fifth time that you've
cut an issue away from the Democrats.
Sure, they all thought we were going to go out.
We were just sticking those other people out, as you probably guessed.
We had to play around with it, and the way they were putting out was blocking backs.
It was like a screen pass, basically.
Well, you see, the thing that you have going so strongly right now is exactly that, that you're totally in command, that you upstage them, that you're out front, and this is another thing, just like
In the pattern of China and the economy.
Oh, they're dying.
Ziegler says they're climbing the walls.
Well, I think it's just sensational.
They cannot find the names.
And they may find it before.
Well, news is going on now about 630.
I don't think they've got it yet.
Well, they'll be.
They do leak it.
I'm going to kill somebody because I have really sworn.
Only three people know.
That's a good way to keep it.
Okay.
Fine.
Good luck, sir.
Thank you, Mr. President.