Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 21 › Conversation 021-133

Nixon phone call with Colson on Wage Board and George Meany

Wednesday, March 22, 1972 · 3:24 PM–3:29 PM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.Conversation021-133 on Tape 21 (tape position 05:12:47–05:17:45)StartWednesday, March 22, 1972 at 3:24 PMEndWednesday, March 22, 1972 at 3:29 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 021-133 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 646310266 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Charles Colson discussed the political fallout following George Meany's resignation from the Wage Board, agreeing on the need for a hardline public relations strategy to frame Meany as an obstructionist to the public interest. The two men explored strategies for restructuring the board—potentially moving toward a wholly public membership—while leveraging the conflict to align the administration with the public's concerns regarding rising food prices. Nixon instructed Colson to pressure George Shultz to finalize a new board proposal and develop a stronger stance on controlling food costs despite potential friction with the agricultural sector.

Audio

Download MP3 · 4.6 MB

This clip was extracted from the full tape recording by Easy Nixon.

Listen to the full tape segment

Position in tape: 05:12:47 – 05:17:45

part B, 1:12:43

021a.mp3
021c.mp3

NARA Description

On March 22, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 3:24 pm to 3:29 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 021-133 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 21-133

Date: March 22, 1972
Time: 3:24 pm - 3:29 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Charles W. Colson.

[See Conversation No. 324-34]

     Wage Board
         -George Meany’s resignation from board
              -Ronald L. Ziegler
                    -The President’s statement
                          -George P. Shultz
         -John B. Connally
         -Frank E. Fitzsimmons
              -Statement
              -Public board
         -Leonard Woodcock
              -The President’s view
              -Colson’s view
                    -Edmund S. Muskie
         -Wages and prices
              -Public interest

     -New board composition proposal
     -Meany
         -Colson’s view

Consumer Price Index [CPI]
    -Herbert Stein
    -Food prices
         -Possible freeze
         -Meany’s statement
               -Farmers compared to unions
                     -Public view
                          -Farmers
                                -The President’s view
                                -Shultz
                                -Good season
                                -Meany

Transcript (AI-generated)

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

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

Things are moving well on that score.
Well, they're making progress, let's put it that way, and the director was very helpful with John.
On that score, the ITT thing is an indication of what we're going to be up against in the campaign, a totally biased, well-pressed thing, and that's why this Massey operation is so important.
really audit things, monitor things, and hit the networks night after night in the campaign.
It's got to be.
It's got to be done.
The reason I know a lot of fellows are saying, well, let's let the Dieter Beard case go away.
First of all, we can't make it go away.
It's not going to go away.
Well, Kennedy was in with Eastland yesterday just working him over.
Was he?
Hard to get Jeanine back on today.
bring in the chilly thing uh bring in the san diego uh life story what's chile got to do with the confirmation of clindy's of course not but they're they've got they've got a great uh fishing expedition going the reason that i am still breaking every thing i got to turn this one around is if we turn this around i think it'll discourage him i mean i think we
we got to meet him on some ground and beat him because otherwise this is the technique they would use the whole goddamn year they'll just put out some uh malcontents uh you know bitching about this settlement or that well christ they can manufacture stuff mr president and then you and then run it into the hearings you know this is uh this is an old technique by anderson and they just play hand and glove with them you know we we discovered this morning he had this san diego story
a year ago, over a year ago, and didn't go with it.
He was timing it, and they decided to go through life rather than Anderson.
There's just a pattern here of these guys working together.
They're all working together, sure.
Sure, to try to build this kind of a smear campaign.
Yeah.
But Skelly is a good fellow from ABC.
He tells me he's now been assigned full-time to the ITT case, and it's Bill Gill who... Gill's a good man.
Yeah, and John says he can start...
working stuff through him so we i hope you get one column written on let's not have a double standard in in uh with regard to the conduct of negotiate of uh of congressional hearings i mean that's a hell of a good story that sure is you have to tell willard edwards christ he'll write it in the chicago tribune at least yeah you know every one guy will do it i don't know anybody else well lesky will do it but he's damn close to us why don't you try willard edwards well edwards is a damn good idea uh he remembers he covered the hiss case
Yeah, I can know.
But our people should look up the editorials.
Have they finished that research yet?
They were written at the time giving the Committee of Non-American Activities unshirted hell for our procedures.
And we, of course, changed the procedures.
Now what the hell are they doing about this committee and its procedures?
That research hasn't been finished because I haven't seen it, but I will check.
Something that Hallett might get into.
He's smart.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll get him going back and working on that.
Well, good luck.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Yes, sir.
Hello.
Mr. Coulson, please.
Yes, Mr. President.
Hello.
Mr. Coulson, sir.
Well, the old man walked off.
Yes, he did.
Yes, he did.
I think he's made a very unwise move, but I just heard your statement from Ziegler read it to us.
I just stepped out of Schultz's office where we've been meeting, and I think it's excellent.
Well, the thing Schultz had prepared was just too bland.
Oh, I told George that.
We have to hit it very hard.
He can't do that, and you've got to hit him hard every day you can.
Exactly.
Use words like sabotage for men.
group representing only a small percentage of the 80 million American workers.
That's exactly right.
Things like that.
And doesn't George understand that now?
He does now.
You've got to hit it.
I've got George now stiffened up considerably.
And he understands that we ought to hit him again tomorrow.
Very hard when you have the opportunity or
when we announce the new board, which is what Conley's on his way over here to meet with.
Which we've got to announce quickly.
I hope tomorrow at the very latest.
The big question, of course, is Fitzsimmons.
He has now issued a public statement that he will stay on the board.
The difficulty is that having just one man on the board from labor is not good.
Well, what we've just proposed, what we're presently considering, Mr. President, is a public board and one man who's a labor expert and one man who's a
business expert, but not having it tripartite.
In other words, having it wholly public, but you could then have FITS redesignated as a public member.
There are some advantages in keeping him publicly split.

Also recorded on March 22, 1972

  • 324-030 2:55 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:55 pm to 3:15 pm.
  • 324-031 3:15 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:15 pm and 3:24 pm.
  • 324-032 3:15 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:15 pm and 3:24 pm.
  • 324-033 3:15 PM · 2 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:15 pm and 3:24 pm.
  • 324-034 3:24 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:24 pm to 3:29 pm.
  • 324-035 3:29 PM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:29 pm and 4:01 pm.
  • 324-036 3:29 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:29 pm and 4:01 pm.
  • 022-001 4:01 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked on the telephone from 4:01 pm to 4:03 pm.

All 38 conversations from March 22, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 021-133, March 22, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 646310266). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/021-133 (accessed November 4, 2026).