Nixon phone call with Colson on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Press Relations

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Oh, yes, sir.

You home?

Oh, no, I'm in the office.

Oh, my God.

I talked to Sigler, and I think he's finally gotten a message on the TV and so forth.

He was really disgruntled about the television coverage of the press thing and so forth and how they build up McGovern's thing and play this as a solely political thing, and particularly NBC said it was just so bad.

I said, well, Ron, what do you think about it anymore?

He says, never.

I said, oh, really?

Yes, sir.

He said, the written press is fine, but he says the television is screwing us.

And so he said, just don't do it anymore.

Well, I'm not sure that's the right answer either, because the written press doesn't matter, Chuck.

We can't realize it.

It doesn't make a difference what we get in The Star and The Post and Mary McGurk and the rest.

Screw them all.

I mean, it doesn't make a difference.

All that matters is TV.

I think he's going to play it this way.

I think Ron is being very—you know, he's going to be a fighter.

Oh, yeah.

No, that's true.

And that's going to make us crap.

And we'll get screwed, but the networks, we're just not going to allow them to do it.

Well, that's interesting, because I didn't have a chance to watch the networks tonight.

I've been trying to clean things up here, but I had two of my people watch it.

I talked to Dwight Chapin, for example, who said that he thought we were coming out great, that the news, the press conference was leading, that they were carrying our points.

that on CBS they carried your voice on the congressional spending versus the, in other words, they obviously didn't have any film to carry, but they carried your voice and then had the words up on the screen that if there's any tax increase, it'll be a congressional tax increase and not a presidential.

Well, maybe Ron is, he's more talking about NBC, which really burns him.

Well, yeah, we've all been having a hell of a running fight with them.

And I wouldn't judge it yet until we see, I haven't seen the damn thing, frankly, but...

This week we've had a hell of a break with CBS.

I just think we cracked them at the right time, and it's been having its impact.

I mean, last night they ran three and a half minutes of McGovern's campaign snafus, and that's all they did.

They didn't do any yesterday.

They had none of his live campaigning yesterday.

They had all of the things that...

where he's screwed up, you know, where he's been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Right.

Well, Ron—Ron, of course, just—you know, I've told him to be—now, don't be taken in like we were in 68.

You know, he provided him that we all were, including all of them.

And I said, no, we're not going to make this mistake again.

So he's watching it very closely.

Of course, Shurtz is—which we're doing better than we think.

Yeah, I have a memo from Shurtz, and it—now,

Bear in mind, he starts out with the Edith Ephron syndrome.

I mean, he totally believes that these are evil bastards who are trying to destroy us.

All right.

The two weeks that we had a rough go with CBS, he was in here just tearing his hair out.

I had him in here yesterday.

I've been getting my reports from him quite regularly.

And he says, you know, this is, we're just doing great.

Get his appraisal of tonight's, will you?

Yes, I'll get that, how bad it was, and then pass it on to Ziegler so he'll know.

Of course, I have no regrets of press conference, because having done it, I don't have to do any more.

Well, there's more to it, really.

The more I thought about that press conference today, it's a hell of a cheap way for us to make some points.

National leadership.

Yes, sir.

And just what Lubell said, you know, it's the president's in charge.

Now, we do know television is dominant, but it isn't exclusive.

I agree.

People do listen to the radio.

The radio is a hell of a tool.

People driving home in their car hear, well, the president said today, they hear your voice.

Because today, I don't know why we haven't done that before, but putting the tape out was a hell of a good idea.

And people hear your voice on the radio when they're driving home in their cars.

There's the president.

He's in the White House, and he's not going to allow taxes to go up, and he's not going to sell out South Vietnam to the communists, and he's not going to.

uh answer these cheap charges of mcgovern uh and he's going to be on the radio saturday to talk about texas they'll certainly none of them ron said none of the written press apparently picked up the uh business about uh wally that's in the wires was it yes sir or the wires used it hell yes well he didn't ron didn't see it in the star apparently well i didn't read the story article but what does the wire say hang on i'll find it uh but

I was just looking at it and impressed with it.

I'm delighted.

Well, they put it rather high up in the story.

I was surprised because I remember we talked about...

I've seen someone newsman who's owe us his 25th news conference since his inauguration almost four years ago.

It was the seventh news conference this year.

It was not broadcast or telecast.

Schultz called in tonight, Mr. President.

He'll be interested in this and got a hold of Meany.

And Meany's reaction was, great!

I'm sure that the president's coming.

It's a great event.

There'll be just the right kind of people there.

And tell the president I'll look forward to seeing him there.

So he's not worried about it.

Now, as I said, you'll get them to request the Marine...

They already have.

That's already taken care of.

And the Drummobile Corps is to be there, too.

Oh, yes.

We'll do that.

And I can make my little pitch that the Marine Orchestra has always been led by Italians.

You know that, of course.

I use that at the Mitchellville.

You know, Jefferson, when he set up the Marine Orchestra, went to Italy for the people, and then part of them in the United States.

And then the leaders of the Marine band since then have been 60% Italian.

I did not know that.

As an ex-Marine, I should have.

That's great.

I think we'll get on Saturday.

I just have a sneaking hunch that Meany is...

I have a gut feel that he's beginning to move.

And boy, if he does, Mr. President, that's what we need to firm up the Democrats.

When Democratic blue-collar people see Maney endorsing or coming damn close to endorsing, they're going to think it's an endorsement.

Just that picture from that dinner, if it's done right, is a big plus.

I have a gut feel he's going to go even further next week.

I really do.

in the next two weeks.

He's putting out a statement just ahead of a government's so-called peace pitch.

We've got to have him in that ninth and tenth deal, too, you know.

We've really got to hit them awfully hard.

That's when he's doing it.

His article, his signed article for the AFL-CIO Federation is they're going to put out as a press release the afternoon of the ninth.

And Jesus, it cuts and it talks about 25 years of bipartisan foreign policy, Republicans and Democrats alike, and that the country can't afford the

the isolationism and the give up.

I mean, he's got good, you know, colorful, meaning languages.

Incidentally, rather than running next week the, for the first three days at least, the, you know, the hard hat ad, I think we ought to run the national security ad.

Well, we've had that this week.

I see.

Maybe it's too much.

Yeah.

The one I'd like to do, and I've proposed this to Bob, and he's, I think we're seeing if it's possible, is that to

spinning face because that talks about amnesty.

God, I still think we're not—I mean, that's one we've got to make more of.

Connolly will buy it, won't he?

I think he will.

By the way, in his TV appearance, he's got amnesty in there.

You asked me about that, and I—frankly, I had forgotten, but he's got a good page on amnesty.

Not a good page.

He's got about five good, tough paragraphs on amnesty.

live with their decision.

I do not buy Mitchell's point, incidentally, that the amnesty turns off the young.

Neither do I.

Do you?

No, sir.

I've had a hell of a fight with people around here that turns off the young, so it turns off the young.

Well, any young that the amnesty issue turns off aren't going to vote for us.

And that's partly Lubell's point, you know, that the young are interested in the economics.

That's the young we're getting.

I just, well, I'm very hardline on this particular

Good.

You know, these issues, I still say, have been the winners.

The amnesty, abortion, and pot.

We can't talk about abortion.

I know that.

But it's being talked about in the right places.

Brother Mike Belzano, I assure you, never leaves an audience without talking about it.

That brings them out of their seats.

But those, to me, are vote-turning issues.

And the game in the next four weeks is just as simple as

as this, we have to hold the Democrats that we have with us.

And we hold them by continuing to remind them that this guy stands for things they can't buy, and that there's respectable Democrats for Nixon that they can be associated with.

That's done.

That's it.

We've also set up McGovern on one point, that his coming out with a peace plan

whatever happens in the negotiations, we'll blame it on him.

Oh, yeah.

Well, he's just dead wrong on that issue.

I talked to Harris tonight, who—or do should have—well, he said he just came back from the Midwest, and he thinks we're missing a boat by not attacking McGovern more on economics.

And I said, well, it's coming next week, Lou.

We've been sticking to national defense.

He said, why?

He said, attack him for wanting high prices.

He said, that's still his people concern.

And I told him we were going to do that, but he said, it's about—

wage and price and food controls.

But he said McGovern is out of his mind to be going with Vietnam next week and building it up into a major speech.

And he said that there's just no way that he can win with that.

Whatever vote he's going to get on that, I hope that's true.

He may come up with some brilliant scheme, but who knows?

Oh, I don't think so, Mr. President.

I think he's going to make an emotional appeal.

He's going to hold up a

It's going to hold up the bomb like it did in Philadelphia and say, this is what we're dropping on those poor North Vietnamese.

Right.

No, he's on the wrong tack.

He's on a tack that's not from his standpoint.

All right.

Well, we'll watch it.

OK. We'll kick you out.

Yes, sir.

Nixon phone call with Colson on 1972 Presidential Campaign and Press Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on October 5, 1972

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