Nixon phone call with Colson on ITT scandal and Richard G. Kleindienst

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Hello?

Yeah.

Well, you had a long day.

Yeah.

They interviewed Flanagan?

why in the hell did he go on you mean flanagan went on nbc flanagan had no business going what did he go on about what in the name of god did he do well apparently the

And he cooperated with them by giving them audio.

Of course I figured they'd have him on all three.

with her family and David.

If it takes several months, David and Eddie will be prepared to hear her whenever she can do it better than she wants it to.

And I think that's a big point about her not being able to handle things as good as she wants.

She's getting to be able to prepare for it when I'm ready to go find her.

Go find her.

That's it.

But ABC gave him a good break.

That's one network out of three.

33 and a third percent.

But my God, I don't know why Flanagan went on without consulting anybody.

Well, I gather he consulted Ziegler.

I told Ziegler.

Did Ziegler know about what was going on?

Yeah.

I just told him, you know, I just knew my time was...

That's all right.

Well, we have to watch our people.

The White House staffers are going to stay the hell off the television.

Unless they're on, unlike if we put Henry out on something or a galley or something.

But for Christ's sakes, the Flanagan has got to keep the goddamn...

Yeah, and this is kind of a controversy.

He went and the media just knew.

Right.

And as Russ said, he got it.

He was jumping right down that throat and that press conference.

But I must say...

But he reacted roughly to it.

That's for him.

Yeah, and he called the...

I don't know if I mentioned this.

He called to say, I want to thank you.

He's never had a better press conference than this.

I know he's ready to go to bat again.

Yeah.

He's getting a little deep.

He looked good tonight, I'm going to say.

And ABC, he was beautiful, because he got into about a minute and a half, all of the crazy things.

The guy that was sitting with him, he called the telegraph before him.

Larry O'Brien, before him.

And the general tenor of the night was not bad, because they had a lot of good friends.

And the doctor, what I mean, he's now in his 70s, 60s, 70s.

And yeah,

I'm afraid that's one thing that isn't going to happen.

Well, we'll just do our best.

but in any event they now now we move on though to the other plan is

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

No option, but you mean to have, uh, find these to...

I know, we are.

Sure, I know.

And as a matter of fact, he's done everything.

With the media the way they are, they've done a great job.

The headlines and the...

Except for an occasional break on TV, we can make a mention of the lower end of it.

It's been like you called me today.

Oh, yeah.

You said that mail approvals over the weekend were really heavy on the side of the direct development of the company.

And the female attitude was to be there.

Yeah.

Well, I think our problem here really is to get the, we've got to get the Glendys thing, we've really got to cut our losses.

I regret to reach that conclusion, but, you know, it's a shame for a decent man to be pilloried, but he's a guy that realizes if he isn't going to make a truck, he may as well.

That's right.

Yeah.

but you can't do it in the election year

With everything you had.

Yeah, they picked up now at $600,000.

That's their big thing.

Didn't it?

Oh, well, that's good.

Well, don't watch it all.

But anyway, I know what they would play, though.

They'd pick up that.

Or it's the White House call.

Isn't that it?

The point is that they... NBC had fun, I guess.

No, CBS had fun.

That's right.

NBC had a good opening, but they didn't use our guys.

They just said that they were not a good group.

I had Marlo Cook, who was the only one who used our guys.

What's ABC?

ABC.

Now, the wires I have in front of me, there's four pieces of wires...

No, but the networks, Chuck, they are...

The TV is just hitting... Well, we'll try to find ways to... We're bound to find it.

Oh, you've got Easter coming.

You know.

It'll give us a little rest, but...

going over their heads is a little hard, Chuck.

Well, it may be that the plain beast move is the only thing that will do it.

But if, has anybody talked to plain beasts along these lines yet?

No, uh, what I, what I thought we should do is, is you have a regular warning to people that you plan to do that after.

Yeah.

And give us it.

And give us your report.

If, if it looks like we can get it up, uh, in our own fillings, we don't want to push you to do that.

But if you want to do that, you've got to, um, you've got to push it to do it.

And the second step is that we get even more cooperative on it.

If we don't,

um

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, grind them right, but down.

But it'll be on the airways for another month, Chuck.

That's the point.

Oh, hell, I won't talk.

Well, he's going to have to talk to Mitchell about it, too, you know, because Mitchell is a big thing as well.

He's going to have to tell him about it.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if that man were to tell you about it.

I think that's true.

What I told him about it, I told him about it.

He's going to have to tell me about it.

Has he?

Yeah.

At first, he said, oh, he's out.

He's going to have to tell me about it.

The only issue they've kept going back on is the food prices in some regions.

We can try not running out.

They know we can do it.

This one is like a dragon to the musketeer.

I'm going to agree with that.

That makes it even worse.

As far as the fire, we haven't.

I like that.

That's true.

But if you keep it on long enough, it does hurt.

Right.

Just killing.

Yep.

Well.

Hmm.

Yeah, he'll be a strong.

Right.

Yes.

Okay, well, maybe something else.

Let me get a break out of this yet.

We certainly haven't received any breaks.

We've tried to make a few, but we haven't gotten any breaks, have we?

I agree.

You've got to get it to a head and get the damn thing over with.

We just cannot have it hanging in there in the Senate for...

fight it off so that people wonder, well, Christ, there must be something wrong.

Yeah, that's right.

You've got to figure that...

they're getting a mass evils from media unbelievable he was on himself

I see.

But why do they hatchet him, Mark?

Is he just fixing cases?

He's crooked?

Yep.

Oh yeah, you've got to expect that.

deadly answer.

Try another one tomorrow.

Okay.

Nixon phone call with Colson on ITT scandal and Richard G. Kleindienst

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 28, 1972

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