Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 19 › Conversation 019-087
Nixon phone call with Colson on Vietnam War and Presidential credibility
Tuesday, January 25, 1972 · 10:17 PM–10:24 PM ET · White House Telephone · 7 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Charles Colson discuss the overwhelmingly positive political reception of the President's recent televised speech regarding Vietnam. Colson reports that various political figures, media commentators, and interest groups view the address as a major triumph that significantly bolstered presidential credibility. The two men analyze the favorable reactions from both conservative allies and former critics, concluding that the speech effectively neutralized ongoing domestic opposition and shifted the national focus away from concerns regarding the federal budget.
- Vietnam War
- Presidential credibility
- Public opinion
- Political strategy
- Charles Colson
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
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Good evening, Mr. President.
You sure as hell pulled the rug out from under them tonight.
That was just superb.
Oh, my God.
I think it's a blockbuster that's very hard to describe because I don't think the full impact, I think the country's ecstatic and excited, but I think the full impact we haven't felt for a few days.
I think it's just going to
What it's going to do is, as our friend Lou Harris said tonight, the most perceptive comment of any I've got, he said, the biggest gain is going to be in presidential credibility.
He said that people are now going to believe the president, they're going to trust him, and they're not going to question him because they know he's tried.
They know he's really, well, and he's done more than his critics were urging him to do, and he hasn't talked about it.
And he just said it was a smash hit from the standpoint of not only the Vietnam issue, which is important, but credibility.
He said it's credibility because now, he just said people are going to be much more trustful.
They're just going to say, well, my God, all this.
And there'll be a tremendous, he feels a tremendous sympathy that people will say, my God, that man has just taken all of that heat and
And he's been doing all these things and hasn't been talking about them.
I think it's going to, I just think it's superb.
But the other side will get at it.
Why were we secret?
Why didn't you say it before?
What are we trying to do?
Well, I think we can knock them down, Mr. President.
I tried to find them.
Well, you can get some people, good groups like the U.S.
I didn't know.
They're all coming together.
Britain, the POWs.
Yes.
we're uh we're getting to the dow as we've gotten to all the major groups and they're all even the hawks who i expected to find giving us a little trouble are are very strong i mean they're they're a thousand percent it was interesting ashbrook wasn't critical he said he he commended you for refusing to bow to the pressures from the left and uh
and expressed concerns with the P.O.W.s, but he didn't attack us as selling out, which I thought he might.
No question.
I talked to Brad Morris, who's been a liberal on the war issue, but a good man.
He said, the one thing you've done, and I'll quote him, he said, you got McCloskey by the ball.
And he read me his statement, which was just fantastic.
He said, as a longtime supporter of the Mansfield Amendment and its predecessors, he said, I...
I want to say that the President has been right all the time.
He's long viewed leadership that goes beyond anyone's proposals, including McCloskey's, and then he quotes some of McCloskey's from last year.
Howard K. Smith asked me, I called Dr. Howard, and his commentary was superb.
He said, well, he said, he said, if you're talking to the President tonight, please give him my personal congratulations.
He said, I just think he has answered every single criticism.
He said, I
sat down at night and tried to think of everything that people were criticizing the president for, and he said he answered every one of them.
And he said, I just marvel at the man.
He said, for what he's been doing and for not letting on.
He said, I just marvel at him.
And he said, the Democrats have got no place to go on this issue.
He said, he follows it.
He said, it's just superb.
I congratulate you, and I'm proud of you.
He really was very effusive.
We hope our leaders tomorrow are not negative about this.
Well, I was sitting with them in Clark McGregor's office, Scott Ford, Les Ahrens, Bob Dole, and they just broke into applause when we finished.
They just were gasping.
I think, yes, sir, they were, oh, gee, they were really, Bob, especially Dole, and they all found the wires, and it's all running over tonight.
There's been no negative.
Fulbright has been out.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, of course he is.
He just sputtered.
In fact, he missed the whole point of it, really.
And he's running for cover.
I wonder if we'll hear from the Kennedys and the Muskys.
They're going to be doing it.
Thank you.
Young Doug Hallett got so excited, Mr. President.
What do you think?
He's a pretty bright boy.
Oh, he just...
He thinks you've just scored tremendously.
He...
He called Kingman Brewster again, and he really put it to him.
He said, now, God damn it, you've been wrong all this time.
You go to admit it.
Brewster said, well, I'll tell you.
He said, if I understand the president correctly, he said, I want to read the full text.
He said, if I understand it correctly, I have been wrong, and I'll admit it.
And I'll support him.
So Doug walks into the lion's den.
He does that thing.
But I think we're going to find some of that.
I really think we may find some people there.
Okay, boy.
Okay.
One thing that's good, of course, is that the budget would be the big issue for the rest of the year.
Oh, that's kind of... Oh, gee.
Well, I think you kill that for the rest of the week.
I don't think people are going to be thinking much about the budget.
You knocked that one right off the...
Put that back with the course of the head.
I hope so.
Well, it was great, Mr. President.
Goodbye.
Thank you, sir.
NARA Description
On January 25, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 10:17 pm to 10:24 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 019-087 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 19-87
Date: January 25, 1972
Time: 10:17 pm - 10:24 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Charles W. Colson.
The President's previous speech on Vietnam
-Possible effect
-Colson's conversation with Louis P. Harris
-Presidential credibility
-Public sympathy
-Possible reaction
-The President's opponents
-Veterans groups
-Veterans of Foreign Wars [VFW]
-Prisoners of war [POWs] wives
-Reaction
-“Hawks”
-John N. Ashbrook
-Left-wing
-POWs
-Colson's conversation with Brad Morris
-Paul N. (“Pete”) McCloskey, Jr.
-Mansfield Amendment
-Colson's conversation with Howard K. Smith
-Colson's meeting in MacGregor's office
-Hugh Scott, Gerald R. Ford, Leslie C. Arends, Robert J. Dole
-J. William Fulbright
-Edward M. Kennedy, Edmund S. Muskie
-Douglas L. Hallett
-Call to Kingman Brewster of Yale University
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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal Returnable]
[Duration: 1m 30s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
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News focus
-Budget
-Effect of Vietnam speechAlso recorded on January 26, 1972
- 019-081 10:10 PM · 18 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-082 10:10 PM · 16 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-083 10:10 PM · 12 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-084 10:10 PM · 3 min — Henry A. Kissinger and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-085 10:10 PM · 10 sec — Henry A. Kissinger and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-086 10:10 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 10:10 pm and 10:17 pm.
- 019-088 10:24 PM · 7 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 10:24 pm.
- 019-089 10:25 PM · 20 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 10:25 pm to 10:44 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 019-087, January 26, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/019-087 (accessed October 24, 2026).