Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 024-109
Date: Monday, May 15, 1972 at 7:42 PM
Participants: White House operator; Colson, Charles W.; Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob"); Nixon, Richard M. (President); Felt, W. Mark
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/024-109
National Archives Catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/646314534 (NAID 646314534)

This transcript was made by an AI model listening to the recording (google/gemini-3.8-flash) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Speaker names are the model's inference. Verify against the audio before citing.

[0:00] OPERATOR: Mr. Mark Felt is calling the President.
[0:03] COLSON: Uh, hold on just a moment.
[0:05] OPERATOR: Okay.
[0:09] COLSON: Does the President, do you want Mark Felt? Okay.
[0:14] OPERATOR: Hold him on just a moment.
[0:17] COLSON: All right.
[0:23] COLSON: Put him on to me, please.
[0:24] OPERATOR: All right.
[0:25] COLSON: Hello?
[0:26] FELT: Hello.
[0:27] COLSON: Uh Mark, this is Chuck Colson. I'm sitting with the President. He just asked me to take the call. He- Can you give us an update?
[0:35] FELT: Uh, there's one subject. Right. Since the original reports were that there were three. Right.
[0:39] FELT: The other two were two teenagers who apparently were frightened and were running, and were taken into custody. But they have been released.
[0:47] COLSON: So, there's only one subject.
[0:49] FELT: Been released. There's one subject. His name is Arthur Bremer, B-R-E-M-M-E-R.
[0:57] FELT: He's a white male,
[0:59] FELT: and he's 22 years old. He's from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
[1:04] FELT: He's here in a car with Milwaukee tags. This is from his driver's license.
[1:09] FELT: He purchased the gun in Milwaukee.
[1:12] FELT: It's a five-shot .38 Special, one of those small models.
[1:17] COLSON: Yep.
[1:17] FELT: And, uh, he's in Prince George's Hospital, uh, with mainly contusions from being beat up out there after he shot Mr. Wallace.
[1:27] COLSON: Mhm.
[1:27] FELT: No one has talked to him other than the doctors,
[1:32] FELT: and no one will talk to him except the agents. We will interview him as soon as the doctors give us okay.
[1:37] FELT: Uh, tell the President that we have taken over the responsibility for his safety.
[1:44] FELT: And we'll- we'll have, uh, agents on duty out there in sufficient numbers to ensure that we can handle that.
[1:51] FELT: Tell him that we're taking over the full responsibility for the investigation of the case,
[1:58] FELT: because we have not only the assault on Wallace, but the assault on the Secret Service agent.
[2:05] FELT: Incidentally, he's out of surgery.
[2:08] COLSON: Uh Wallace is?
[2:10] FELT: No, no, the Secret Service agent.
[2:14] COLSON: Oh, the Secret Service agent. Right.
[2:15] FELT: Yeah. And, uh, he's in the intensive care unit, but the indications are that he'll be all right.
[2:21] COLSON: Mhm.
[2:22] FELT: Now, that's about the status of it now.
[2:24] COLSON: Do you have any indication, Mark, when they will begin the questioning?
[2:28] FELT: Uh, probably within the hour.
[2:31] COLSON: I would, uh, hope that your people would, uh, uh would urge that they be allowed to question as soon as possible and they not be put off on that questioning.
[2:39] FELT: All right.
[2:40] COLSON: And I- I assume you ask him a whole gamut of questions including political questions and his views on on other matters and-
[2:47] FELT: Yes sir. That's right. We'll we'll go the whole route. It's the indication-
[2:52] COLSON: Mark, hold on just a moment. Yeah.
[3:04] COLSON: We just, uh, [whispering] Wallace [/whispering] yeah, one of- one of my assistants was was just saying to me that he had had a couple of rumors. One is that that some Kennedy people were involved in that, uh,
[3:16] COLSON: that that this fellow and some of his associates were were Kennedy friends. And, uh, the second report we had is that the fellow is an anti-war radical.
[3:25] FELT: I would think the latter would be more likely.
[3:28] COLSON: Yeah, well, I'm sure.
[3:29] FELT: Um, I've heard absolutely nothing about that Kennedy angle, but I'll I'll sure and pass that along.
[3:35] COLSON: Well, be sure you be sure you push that, Mark, just to be be certain that they ask those kind of questions, you know, to get that kind of explanation.
[3:41] FELT: Yes sir. All right.
[3:42] FELT: What- what I'll do is be back in 30 minutes with another report.
[3:46] COLSON: All right. Give us, I tell you, if for some reason that they can't start the questioning in 30 minutes, let us know that.
[3:53] FELT: All right.
[3:54] COLSON: Uh, hold on just a minute.
[4:03] COLSON: Yeah, Mark, you can disregard John Ehrlichman's call, because we're we're taking care of it with you right now directly.
[4:09] FELT: All right.
[4:10] COLSON: He was going to raise with you these two rumors that we had heard. One, that, uh, anti-war revolutionary from, uh,
[4:16] COLSON: uh University of Wisconsin. The second is that, uh, he'd been involved in some political activities with, uh, with Ted Kennedy and some of Ted Kennedy's people.
[4:23] COLSON: So, that- But, I think both of those ought to be checked, because they're, as I'm told by my assistant here, they're they're running rampant as rumors.
[4:29] COLSON: But the President wants to be absolutely certain, Mark, that we don't delay in questioning. That's the most important thing, because-
[4:36] FELT: We'll push it as hard as we can. And also, give him assurance that we're taking the full responsibility for his safety. Now, that's something we don't ordinarily do, but I'm- [crosstalk]
[4:45] COLSON: That is very, very important, because if you remember the, uh, President Kennedy assassination, my God, they got right to him.
[4:52] FELT: That's we do- We don't want that to happen.
[4:55] COLSON: No, that must not happen. But the thing that that we really need is some in- information as soon as possible as to, uh, you know, how this, what this guy says.
[5:03] FELT: Now, particularly on these two rumors, I'll I'll have them raise those first.
[5:07] COLSON: Raise those early. And the moment you- Are you in direct-
[5:12] FELT: Be careful on that Kennedy one, not to, uh, not to create an incident, but just know what's happening to draw him out. Uh-
[5:18] COLSON: Yeah. Right, of course. Oh naturally, yeah.
[5:21] FELT: I- I think that's probably pretty wild.
[5:24] COLSON: Well, I do, too. But that's, I'm just telling you, those are the two that, uh-
[5:27] FELT: Well, we'll resolve both of them.
[5:30] COLSON: Yeah, my my guy has been talking to all the pressmen in the last hour and those are the two that have been floating.
[5:35] COLSON: So, the only thing I the only thing I would do I would hope that if apparently this fellow is not wounded seriously,
[5:41] FELT: Why no, I don't
[5:42] COLSON: they shouldn't hold up the questioning, because the longer, well, I don't have to tell you, the longer the fellow has to think, the less likely he is to come forward with,
[5:49] COLSON: uh, whatever his motives and objects were in trying to do this.
[5:53] FELT: No question about that.
[5:54] COLSON: Well, that just just move with some with, persuade the doctors that you want to get in there and talk to him.
[6:00] FELT: All right.
[6:01] COLSON: And give us a report in 30 minutes.
[6:03] FELT: Good.
[6:03] COLSON: Great.
[6:04] FELT: Very good.
[6:04] COLSON: Thank you. Bye.