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

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I would have rather got the same impression when our people called him, oh, no, but that wasn't that way.

No, it was different.

It was different, and you'd have to watch the two to really appreciate the difference.

You don't think it was exactly the same, huh?

Oh, not at all.

No analogy at all.

You took him in stride.

You were very gentlemanly.

Muskie was not.

Muskie was obviously irritated.

He was terribly evasive.

He just kept bobbing and weaving on the questions, and his answers weren't good.

I mean, you had...

crisp, factual, very precise, nothing vague about any of your answers in the Rather thing.

And Rather was tough on you,

But you handled it gracefully.

These guys were tough on Muskie.

There have been a number of columns on the Rather thing which are quite interesting.

And it doesn't bother me a bit.

Most of them, the TV columns, do not take him on at all, which is all right.

But they do say that it was one of those where both came off well.

That's quite interesting, isn't it?

Yes.

That's good for our side.

Rather people feel good about it, don't they?

How do they feel?

I think the CBS people were a little shaken up because...

Were they?

Yes, sir.

They never heard a word from us, but they...

They heard a good bit from the Heartland.

And I've been watching the letters to the editor column, which I think is very revealing.

No, I was, I think I, I didn't call CBS, but I had, no, I wrote Cronkite on another matter.

I guess that was it.

Well, Cronkite wrote you about the NBC day in the life of the presidency.

Yeah, I wrote to him.

Extraordinary letter from him, as a matter of fact.

Yeah.

No, these are not comparable, Mr. President.

This fellow did not show the medal.

You think that they got some letters from the Heartland on their other show?

Oh, I know they did.

And...

Well, we know of many they received.

What about others, too?

We have reason to think so, from what they indicated there.

Their mail was running.

It was heavier than we had generated.

And we heard from people who said that they had been incensed over it, mostly partisans.

Sure.

What we have to realize, though, Chuck, is that, generally speaking, people are on the side of the...

person being subject subjected to the inquisition you know uh rogers yes and he may have a point in that respect but i i don't think i think that's right if muskie had appeared bruised or had appeared offended or had been big about it but he was little about it and uh

And his people really personally raised hell with the other side, huh?

Yes, sir.

The thing about Rather's people, they could never complain that we raised hell because they didn't hear a word from us.

Not a single word.

You think that shook them up at CBS, huh?

Yes, I do.

And in fact, I've had some indications that it did.

It's hard to say.

We really don't know what's going on inside that place, except that one of their lawyers is a good friend of mine who feeds me things, and he indicated they were disturbed by it.

that they thought rather had gone on just a little too hard.

There's a difference between a senator who's a presidential candidate and sitting in the Oval Office.

The environment is totally different.

If he submits himself to meet the press, that's the name of the game.

I think the biggest deficiency was I've done meet the press at least a half dozen times, and you just have to sit there and take it, that's all.

You never control any irritation.

The other place that he's vulnerable as a result of this, and I think this one needs exploiting, is he's running on the trust muskie theme.

He's running on the theme that you can believe in him, you can't believe in Nixon, you can't believe in what the government says.

And this business of not disclosing his campaign finances, which they really just zeroed in on him.

Well, have we?

I guess we have, yeah.

Well, you haven't been a candidate raising money.

That's correct.

That's different.

And from now on, of course, we will.

We'll have Maury do that religiously.

But we're not being pious about it either.

You see, he's being self-righteous, so he has established for himself a higher standard.

Yeah, that's an amusing, interesting point.

Well, although don't they expect politicians to lie about that?

Yeah, but this is the one thing he's supposedly got going for him.

I see.

He doesn't lie.

Right.

And if that image gets tarnished, he doesn't have anything.

You know, I'll tell you one thing.

I'd wish they'd have Agnew next week.

Agnew is damn good on these programs.

He won't go on Meet the Press.

I've had a hell of a time with him.

I'm trying to sell him it, but he just doesn't like NBC.

He doesn't like CBS either.

No.

He'll do issues and answers, but he won't.

I don't know that he's unfaithful.

I might get him on one.

He's so good.

If he could get on soon.

I think, well, of course, they'd grab him.

And they could compare him.

You might just say, gee whiz, he's so good that he'll knock them dead.

We have Hugh Scott on Meet the Press this Sunday.

Maybe we can get Agnew on the week after or Face the Nation.

Maybe I can do it.

It's a good time for him to do that.

He hasn't done one in quite a while.

He's awfully good on Q&A, and he must not hide that lie under a bushel.

His spirits are up, too.

He's good on Q&A, and incidentally, of course, Connolly's superb, but we can't use him politically.

But Agnew is, you know, I've never seen him do bad.

I've never watched him, but I've never seen bad reactions to what he's done.

He's been damned.

He's crisp.

He's very intelligent, smooth.

I mean, he's got class.

A lot more than Muskie.

If anything, he's a little too smooth.

But other than that, I agree, he's superb in a Q&A environment, and he handles himself beautifully.

That's a damn good idea.

I think right now I could talk him into it.

Just say that after Muskie's performance, for him to go on, you think it would be a coup.

Don't put it on me.

Just say that a lot of people in your shop have just said that, that he does so well that he can kill these bastards.

Well, he's very cooperative right now.

He got out a good statement on Muskie yesterday.

It didn't get...

the play that it should have.

Sure, it never will, but it will later.

Well, if we keep hitting it.

Right now, what the meteor is doing is very interesting.

They're building up the Democratic side.

This is their big... Building up Humphrey and Muskie.

Well, it's fine.

I mean, I think it's early for them to, and I think it helps us, by contrast, Mr. President, to be

totally non-political, all of the columns that are being written about the fact that you're not engaging in partisan activities.

I think that's great.

And let the other side be out there cutting each other up as they're doing.

They're going to reply to the State of the Union on Friday.

Yeah, that's fine.

That's just great.

Kind of an interesting format.

Yeah, I know.

Answer questions on telephone.

That's interesting.

With the congressional leaders.

Yeah.

That's a good gimmick.

Sure.

Well, I've done it on occasion.

Well, I don't think you know the way it happens.

The damn questions, they'll feed them all in, and they'll know what they are, and they'll answer them.

That's the way it works.

I think it's going to be a hard thing for them to draw the issues that way.

Let me say, as far as drawing the issues is concerned, that sort of thing in the middle of the day is dead-ass.

It's nothing.

That's why I'm glad we're doing it in the middle of the day.

I am, too.

They're giving them the same time frame, which, from our standpoint, I think is just perfect.

Fitz told me that they've been to him twice, and they've been pretty tough with him.

First of all, he takes all the credit.

He thinks that we made that move strictly for him.

Oh, balls.

Yeah, well.

Fitz knows better than that.

Of course, Fitz does.

But he just says that this guy can't deal with him.

Let him have it there.

We're not going to be worried about that one, believe me.

Just do the best we can.

Well, the thing I'm trying to get Fitz to do is to get him to go after Muskie.

He's paying no attention to Muskie.

I went back through the Manchester Union Leader for three weeks, and hell, you can't find anything about him.

Nothing, good or bad.

He builds up Uarty, builds up Ashbrook, and then has a couple of editorials a week that just cut the bejesus out of us.

And that's Loeb, of course.

He's got a one-track mind.

That's his being very, very helpful to us.

To all of his people, by the way, he told me...

He had what he called honor commitments out of them, all of the top fellows.

I was amazed at the list he gave me from across the country.

And he's also helping us on the West Coast stock strike.

I don't know whether he's going to succeed, but... Well, I hope he can.

I see he took another union in, too, with him, which is good.

Well, he's trying to take Bridges in.

And he told Bridges that he would not support his strike, which really drove Bridges right to the wall, which, again, Fitz did for us.

He sure...

He's a tower of strength.

Yes, sir.

And I think we're going to find him awfully helpful this year.

He's been, as I say, just spending his time recruiting and doing very, very well.

Some of the key areas, you know, that can make a whale of a difference because those fellows infiltrate the building trade.

Particularly in these key industrials, I mean, basically...

To me, it's New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois.

That's where it can help.

Yes, exactly.

Not so much in California.

That's a volatile state.

But those states, it can help enormously.

It can be terribly important in those states.

And he says we shouldn't write off Michigan.

I've heard others say that.

I don't know whether they're right or not.

Well, I...

I see no evidence that Michigan is any different than it always has been, other than Fitz saying that his people, who are, of course, very strong there, and the general feeling in the auto workers, which he claims is, whoa, they're having the best time they've ever had, and that they're basically conservative fellows, notwithstanding woodcut, and not to write it off.

Right.

Okay, you stay well, and I'm going to be busy this week, so I'll see you later.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 17, 1972

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