Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 22 › Conversation 022-067
Nixon phone call with Colson on ITT controversy and 1972 presidential campaign
Monday, April 3, 1972 · 3:19 PM–3:33 PM ET · White House Telephone · 14 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Charles Colson discuss administration strategy for countering negative press coverage, specifically regarding the ITT controversy and the 1972 Democratic primary. They review ongoing political efforts to mitigate concerns over food prices, busing, and the Vietnam War, while strategizing on how to maintain public support through symbolic administrative interventions. Additionally, the pair evaluates labor relations, highlighting the importance of securing the support of Teamsters and other key union leaders like James Rademacher to counter opposition from George Meany.
Audio
NARA Description
On April 3, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 3:19 pm to 3:33 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 022-067 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 22-67
Date: April 3, 1972
Time: 3:19 pm - 3:33 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Charles W. Colson.
[See Conversation No. 328-35]
The President conferred with an unknown person at 3:19 pm.
[End of conferral]
The President’s schedule
-Foreign policy matter
-Meeting with Ronald L. Ziegler
International Telephone and Telegraph [ITT] case
-George S. McGovern
-Questioning by the press
-Mistake
-The President’s view
-Primary
-Press coverage
-Staff
-Links with Edward M. Kennedy’s staff
-Mistake
-Taxes
-Investigation by the Committee
-Kennedy staff man
-McGovern’s statement
-Press criticism
Henry M. (“Scoop”) Jackson
-Criticism of New York Times
-Boeing employee
Media
-Coverage of Senators
ITT case
-Dita D. Beard
-Criticism of Vance Hartke statmentShow the rest of the log (131 more lines)
-Developments
-Time and Newsweek
-Public response
-Peter Lisagor
-Lack of evidence
-Colson’s efforts
-Creating doubt
-Public response
-Administration’s strategy
-Timing
Economy
-Food prices
-Colson’s talk with Albert E. Sindlinger
-Poll
-Public attitude
-John B. Connally’s remarks
-Upcoming Marina von N. Whitman briefing
-Wholesale Price Index [WPI]
Vietnam
-Public issue
-North Vietnam offensive into South Vietnam
-Bombing by the US
-Publicity
-White House strategy
-US withdrawal
-Democrats’ strategy on issue
-The President’s view
-McGovern
-Edmund S. Muskie statement
-Military action
-Disadvantages
-Public response
-North Vietnamese aggression
-Treaties
-Demilitarized zone [DMZ]
Colson’s schedule
-H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
-School issue
-Activities
******************************************************************************
[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 03/01/2018.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[022-067-w001]
[Duration: 4m 52s]
1972 campaign
Wisconsin primary
-Colson's prediction
-McGovern over Hubert H. Humphrey
-George C. Wallace
-Muskie
-Jackson
-Muskie
-Placing
-Television appearance
-Richard M. Scammon's observance to Colson
-Cancellation of trip
-State-wide television appearance
-Coverage
-Percentage of audience
-National Broadcasting Corporation [NBC]
-Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
-Milwaukee
-Wausau
-Meet the Press appearance
-Face the Nation appearance
-Colson’s opinion of performance
-Harris poll
-Press coverage
-National Broadcasting Corporation [NBC]
-Joseph W. Alsop article
-Negative effect
-Delegates
-Peter Williams and Richard J. Hughes
-Possible defection
-John J. Gilligan
-Richard J. Hughes and Peter Williams
-Strategy
-Gilligan defection
-Effect
-Pressure to continue as candidate
-Likelihood to dropout
-Staff
-Finance people
-George W. Romney example
-Decline as candidate
-Compared with Humphrey
-Pennsylvania primary
******************************************************************************
George Meany
-Withdrawal from the Pay Board
-James Rademacher’s criticism
-Threatened withdrawal from the American Federation of Labor-Congress
of Industrial Organizations [AFL-CIO]
-International Brotherhood of Teamsters
-Request for call to Colson
-Support for the President
-Teamsters and building trades
-Basis of labor support
-Frank E. Fitzsimmons
-Rademacher
-Catalyst role
-Talk with George T. Bell
ITT case
-Developments
-Other issues
-Food prices
-Busing
Busing
-Richmond case
-Importance
-Media coverage
-Department of Justice cases
-Frequency
-John D. Ehrlichman
-Public attitude
-Symbolic areas
-Richmond and DetroitTranscript (AI-generated)
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There's Mr. Coles.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Hello.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
I'm tied up on some foreign policy, but I couldn't resist the...
In a little break, sharing with you what Ziegler and I were just talking about, he says the press are pressing McGovern on that IT&T thing.
It's nice to have a shoe in the other foot.
You know, I didn't think he made that big a blunder, but... Well, whether it's a blunder or not, of course, I don't want him to blunder too much.
I want him to do damn well.
I don't think it's going to hurt him in the primary, but the point that I make is that
These guys are now, you know, they're swinging wild as hell.
They sure are.
And on this one, I don't know, he, of course, his staff is interlocked with Kennedy's, and maybe that Kennedy put him up to it.
But Jesus Christ, I don't see how they can make such a hell of a boo-boo.
Well, we got word last week, Mr. President, and it was through Kennedy's staff man on the committee who was overheard talking about this,
that they were investigating the taxes paid by AT&T last year.
Oh, that's great.
But to say that a corporation, even a small corporation, would pay taxes, for Christ's sakes.
It's just unbelievable, you know.
They know you couldn't get away with a thing like that.
Well, he sure stepped into it.
There's no question about that.
And the press have just jumped all over him.
Of course, what just amuses the hell out of me is the way Jackson has become...
He just tore the New York Times to shreds.
I saw that.
Fantastic.
I watched him on television, and it was the first time Scoop Jackson's ever been animated.
He was just... Well, they were, because they'd taken him on, what they... Well, they said that he had a Boeing employee.
Oh, yeah, the Boeing thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he just went after the New York Times.
Well, of course, the thing is, the media are just making all the, you know, the senators and so forth, and...
Of course, I was amused by Dita Beard saying that Hartke looked on the IT&T as his private airport.
That's right.
Airline, airline.
They kind of stuck it in Hartke over the weekend.
That played fairly well, I thought.
But the IT&T thing, Mr. President, has taken a little different twist.
You know, there's a time in Newsweek today saying that maybe pushing it too far and maybe the public is going to
and get fed up with it.
I noticed Lissagor sort of picked that line up.
Yeah, Lissagor had it.
That's right.
In a strange way.
But that's all right.
That's right.
The way these things go, they never all run the same way.
They all...
And also the point is, as Lissagor said, they've got to have some concrete evidence now.
That's right.
They're still damn short on it.
Well, they are short on it.
And it just may, you know, all our efforts to turn it around may not, but maybe just the passage of time will turn it around.
Well, no, no, the efforts to turn it around were essential.
Because for two weeks at least there, at least you began to get some other kinds of evidence.
You see, the efforts then, despite the fact, you know, you didn't have the big break, Chuck, as I was telling Holland, but I mean, if you hadn't, what you did do was to create some doubt.
Without your efforts, there'd have been no doubt.
That's right.
I think it has done that.
It's just been the charge, and I think all of that has had its...
has had some effect.
Well, it may begin to seep into the reporting.
You may find that it's so goddamn confused now.
The check I make around the country, for little it's worth, people just don't know what's happening.
And they're kind of sick of it.
It almost may have run its string.
And if we're successful in turning it off Thursday, I think a lot of people will say, well, let's
breathe a sigh of relief.
That's still the tactic, isn't it, to go all out on Thursday?
Oh, yes.
Nobody's running away from that.
No, sir.
No, sir.
We dug in to make a big fight on Thursday and then see where we go from there.
I think we may just pull it off.
I talked to Sindlinger today, Mr. President, on a happier note, and he said that there's a little change in public attitudes on food prices.
He said we've made a little dent.
A little dent, yeah.
That Conley's thing was...
very very well received and good but it's still the number one issue and still people are still talking about it but he said we've we've taken the steam out of it taken the heat out of it yeah yeah and we've got some more things planned this week we're going to use marina whitman to good brief on the wholesale price index on friday so she can talk about food prices yeah and just keep the heat on that one because i think if we yeah
Well, let's tell you, that's always a different issue each week.
This week it'll be Vietnam for a couple of weeks now, and that's all right, too.
let that let it roll well that that won't hurt us that's uh well as long as it rolls uh i mean it's it's vietnamese fighting now thank god not america that's right except in the air and i think most people don't mind us dropping a few bombs on communists oh hell no no we that one can't hurt us and it right we did a i think in this regard all of our folks did a good job of building up to this i mean this hasn't come as any great
Terrible shock or jolt to people.
Well, let it ride for a while.
Let people be worried about Vietnam for a little while.
The fact we're getting out and we're down to less than 70,000 by the 1st of May.
Who the hell's going to worry about that now?
Also, our Democratic friends
They play with a damn tough issue if they play with Vietnam.
Oh, they sure do.
Except for McGovern.
They all got us in it.
Yep.
Muskie's already jumped on it today, warning against any precipitous U.S. military action.
Well, you know, they'll try to capitalize on it, but I don't think they can make it stick.
I just don't think...
Precipitous?
Now, is he really there?
You mean bombing them?
Yeah, I suppose he's referring to any kind of a military reaction.
I just think he hurts himself because people...
I see the North Vietnamese as the aggressors.
In this case, you see, they came across the DMZ.
That's right.
In direct violation of treaties and everything else.
So what does the United States do?
Sue for peace?
Mm-hmm.
Hell, you've got to do everything.
I hope you had a good weekend.
I did, Mr. President.
All of them told me you got in on a school thing, and I said, God damn it, we'll work that out.
I couldn't quite resist that one.
That's right.
You did take some time off.
I did.
I just cut off the telephones and stayed around my home and walked through the woods.
Good.
It was very useful to take a fresh look at...
— 4 min 52 s with no transcribed speech —
We had a good break over the weekend on the Meany front with our friend Jim Redemaker taking him on.
I don't know whether...
I didn't see that.
You saw that.
I missed that.
Well, Redemaker said he criticized him for walking off the payboard.
And, of course, Redemaker's an AFL-CIO union president, so that's a real break within his ranks, and Redemaker threatened to get out of the AFL and join the Teamsters, which...
And then called me.
That was one call over the weekend I did take, called me to say, tell the president that I'm with you.
That's good.
That's three or four hundred thousand members.
Let's just keep very close to our teamster friends, too.
That is our power center.
It really is.
And the building trades.
You see, what Fitz has done for us is to give a guy like Rattamaker the courage to come out publicly.
And he'll keep the building trades coming around on us also.
uh so it he he's a catalyst in the sense that he can bring others he gives others the courage to right to stay on our side or to come over to our side that's right and he's a strong guy we'll keep him right he was very pleased with this meeting he called over the weekend with didn't talk to me he talked to george bell with some things he wanted but he remarked on how
happy he was and how generous you'd been with your time that's all we need yes sir we'll do it again later too well we will keep that one very close okay well anyway you don't have to worry about itt now thursday uh that's the first time that we'll have anything on it yes sir yep there's nothing i don't know of anything that will
pop before then.
We want to keep the heat on our issues.
Yeah.
Hit the food prices.
Food prices and the busing thing.
I think the interventions, I think, will have a good effect.
Well, the Richmond one was marvelous.
Richmond we knew would have a good effect.
Because that is symbolic throughout the South.
And that got an enormous play.
And I
I still say we can catch heat in the editorials, but the folks understand when you go into a case like Richmond, they know what that's all about.
And I understand Justice has them scheduled out one a day.
That's good.
I've asked for the schedule.
I haven't seen it today, but we should have one major case that we go into.
Right.
Well, John Ehrlichman's back now.
He can write a little more on it, too.
That'll help.
Well, that helps keep the story alive if we can just keep going in, and it reinforces the people's attitude, not only in that area, but
Richmond and Detroit are symbolic of larger areas.
People know what those cases are all about.
Right.
Well, okay.
Don't push too hard.
As I say, get ready for the bigger battles.
Thank you, sir.
All right.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Also recorded on April 3, 1972
- 328-030 2:43 PM · 21 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Ronald L. Ziegler, and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:43 pm to 3:05 pm.
- 328-031 3:05 PM · 54 sec — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 3:05 pm and 3:19 pm.
- 328-032 3:05 PM · 6 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 3:05 pm and 3:19 pm.
- 328-033 3:05 PM · 15 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 3:05 pm and 3:19 pm.
- 328-034 3:05 PM · 12 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 3:05 pm and 3:19 pm.
- 328-035 3:19 PM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:19 pm to 3:33 pm.
- 328-036 3:55 PM · 28 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:55 pm to 4:26 pm.
- 700-009 4:27 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:27 pm to 4:31 pm.
Related conversations
- Nixon, Haldeman & Connally on 1972 Election and Campaign Strategy August 2, 1972 · 1 hr 4 min
- Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on School Busing and ITT Case March 14, 1972 · 1 hr 56 min
- Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Labor relations and Busing January 27, 1972 · 1 hr 17 min
- Nixon, Ziegler & Kissinger on White House Press Strategy and Busing March 7, 1972 · 22 min
- Nixon, Ziegler & Haldeman on Press relations and Economic policy March 24, 1972 · 35 min
- Nixon, Colson & Eisenhower on ITT controversy and Dita Beard March 18, 1972 · 2 hr 14 min
Cite this conversation
Conversation 022-067, April 3, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417193099). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/022-067 (accessed October 29, 2026).