Nixon phone call with Colson on Edmund Muskie and 1972 Presidential Election

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 6 minutes of this recording (about 21% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Hello.

Good evening, Mr. President.

You're checking on your health.

How is it?

Oh, it's fine.

Thank you, sir.

Much better.

I feel much better.

Good.

Fine.

Good.

Anything else new?

Well, a few things today.

Most of the news we made was the report on Hitler's trip.

Yeah.

It played fairly well.

Yes I did.

Good.

Right.

Get Muskie on bussing, too.

Put Muskie on the side of bussing.

I want a massive campaign so he's on the side of bussing.

The little project is not enough, Chuck.

I want a massive public campaign that Muskie is for bussing.

All right?

Sure.

It's a Richmond case.

Well,

What I'm really saying is this.

Get Agnew to hit it.

Get Journey to hit it.

But get everybody to put Muskie on the side of busing.

He is for busing in Florida and nationally.

And let him deny it.

Now, but this must start tomorrow at about 8 o'clock in the morning, okay?

You're right to work.

Good.

It's a major issue.

And we've got to put him on the spot.

that he is for bussing.

Muskie is for bussing and have everybody else attack him for being for bussing.

Tell Agnew to hit him on it.

I don't know.

Just put out that he is for bussing.

Everybody, every speaker should say we disagree with Senator Muskie being for bussing.

That's the line.

That's right.

Right.

What is your general thing?

I wrote a little memorandum to Haldeman and I, because the people who drew the blue summary indicated that the reaction to Hoffa thing was overwhelmingly negative.

Well, maybe it will, it is, but I don't know.

What do you find?

Is it overwhelmingly negative, half negative, about...

I'd say it was about 50-50, but not as much as I thought it would be.

You're male.

Not pretty heavy, not heavy, yeah.

I think it's a sensitive and not bad pressure, but I think it's better to go to dry.

You don't think it's a big issue?

I don't.

No.

You notice Humphrey was sort of, came all out to the space shuttle.

And which one was it, Humphrey or Muskie, that decided they wouldn't go on the busing issue?

No, that was Humphrey.

Yeah.

Humphrey wouldn't come on the busing issue.

He refused to say what if he had been moved to the Hoover thing.

Oh, the Hoover thing, yeah.

Well, let's get Muskie on that.

Are people going to push him on that or not?

We've got to get Muskie, you know, out on the limb on some of these critical issues.

Now, get a massive mailing in Florida that he's against JFU, a massive mailing in Florida that he's for busing.

And, you know, that's the thing to do.

And Mitchell, of course, will cooperate.

Put the necessary funds...

getting mailings to every democrat that he is for busing that he is uh against hoover and he's against the space shuttle but on the basis that it came from him i think hubert may do better in both of these things

Oh, he's with us, I know.

But how is he going to play this?

Is he going to play scoop now?

It's a matter of facing things publicly.

that uh well i can't can't agree with muskie on bussing i can't agree with muskie on space shuttle right those those two subjects i think could really kill muskie

The main thing is to get Hubert to do well, not all of them.

Very hard there.

There there must be a very, very strong mailing.

Must be, must be.

Right.

That's another area that's important.

Also in the north, it could be the Buccaneers, UAE, and ISIS.

And I think that's a very big one, even up in the United States.

Oh, yeah.

Put it in Milwaukee, the Polish war.

Well, that Polish war, they had quite different elements around the country.

And people made war going to the D.C.

I think Humphrey's taking the center now.

That's good.

Yes, he's going to get out of Vietnam.

What do we do about that?

Because you think New Hampshire may be more

Because of lobe, they'd be more toxic.

How'd it go?

Cracked.

But they picked up the vestibule.

It did not feel overwhelming.

They tried to be more consistent.

They wanted to be more authentic.

They're all there.

It's basically patriotic.

There was a whole ton of people.

I don't know if you can actually hear it.

The difficulty is we don't have anybody up there except Yardy.

Is Yardy going to do anything in New Hampshire now?

Well, I think he will with both of them.

I think they'll do an excellent job.

I mean, I don't think it's hard to just put more votes than people in the back to the same number.

It's really kind of an average to keep on going.

If you keep musky below 50% there, it may not be possible.

Well, that's what they call it.

That's what they call it.

It's good in Pennsylvania.

It's good in Indiana.

It's good in Tennessee.

It's good in Illinois.

The main thing is to get out of Massey, you know.

But what we really need is to start to look like a good state government.

Good luck.

I know about his problem.

Right.

Okay, anything else new?

Yeah.

That's good, that's good.

I don't want it to be, just let it stay where it is.

21 million and down one point.

That's good.

Right.

Yeah, I know.

Right.

Okay.

Well, I hope you feel better.

Fine.

Good.

Bye.

Nixon phone call with Colson on Edmund Muskie and 1972 Presidential Election

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 13, 1972

Cite this conversation