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Conversation 032-127

TapeTape 32StartWednesday, November 1, 1972 at 7:42 PMEndWednesday, November 1, 1972 at 8:08 PMParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Colson, Charles W.Recording deviceWhite House Telephone
AI Summary

President Nixon and Charles Colson discuss campaign strategy in the final days before the 1972 election, focusing on the political benefits of recent confrontations between campaign hecklers and supporters. They agree that these incidents, along with their narrative surrounding Vietnam peace negotiations, are damaging Senator George McGovern's momentum and public image. Additionally, they discuss utilizing favorable economic data regarding wholesale prices and framing the election as a vital vote of confidence for the President's diplomatic efforts with the Soviet Union and China.

1972 electionVietnam peace negotiationsCampaign strategyGeorge McGovernCBSSpiro T. AgnewEconomic policy
AudioNARA Description

On November 1, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 7:42 pm and 8:08 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 032-127 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 32-127

Date: November 1, 1972
Time: Unknown between 7:42 pm and 8:08 pm
Location: White House Telephone


The President talked with Charles W. Colson.

        1972 election
            -Vice President Spiro T. Agnew’s speech in San Diego
                -Hecklers
                -George S. McGovern supporters
                -Committee to Reelect the President [CRP] headquarters
                -Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS] coverage
                     -Hecklers
                         -McGovern supporters
                -Agnew’s response to hecklers
                -Supporters
                     -Compared with Peter J. Brennan
                     -Assault on hecklers
                -Public reaction
                     -Colson’s view


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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 57s ]


END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
                                             91

                    NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                     Tape Subject Log
                                       (rev. Oct-06)


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       Vietnam peace settlement
           -Public reaction
               -Nguyen Van Thieu’s statement
           -Hawks
               -Fear of McGovern
           -Public mood
               -CBS coverage
           -Walter L. Cronkite, Jr. comments
               -New York Times
                    -Publicity
                         -Henry A. Kissinger’s efforts
               -Albert E. Sindlinger
           -The President's strategy
           -Negotiations
               -Public confusion
                    -Kissinger’s build-up

       Campaign practices
          -Hecklers in Boston
              -Clark MacGregor’s statement
                  -Wire services
                  -Networks
                  -Publicity
                  -Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS]
              -Boston
                  -Local reaction
                  -Police chief
                  -John F. Collins advertisement
                  -John F. Becker
                       -Polling
              -Public reaction
                  -Joseph L. Tauro
                  -Public reaction
              -Public reaction
                  -MacGregor statement
              -Today Show coverage
                  -[Patricia Colson]
                                     92

             NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                             Tape Subject Log
                               (rev. Oct-06)

       -Agnew’s speech in San Diego
       -Heckling of McGovern
            -Colson’s view
    -McGovern's campaign
       -Colson’s view
       -Fund violations
            -Robert J. Dole
       -News summary
       -Self-righteousness and rhetoric
            -Statements
                 -Extremism
                     -Philadelphia Inquirer editorial
                         -Vietnam
                         -Corruption

Vietnam
    -The President's strategy
    -Impact
        -New York Daily News poll
        -Louis P. Harris poll
    -Changes in public attitudes
    -North Vietnamese action
        -Possibility
        -Possible impact
    -Public mood
    -Colson’s talk with Kissinger
    -Impact of election
    -McGovern's statements
        -Thieu
             -R. Sargent Shriver statements
    -CBS comments
        -Tone
        -The President’s view
        -Colson letter to William S. Paley

CBS
   -Possible International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) strike

1972 election issues
    -Vietnam settlement
        -Impact
                                          93

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL MATERIALS STAFF

                                   Tape Subject Log
                                     (rev. Oct-06)

                   -McGovern's campaign
                        -Corruption issue
               -Vote of confidence for the President
                   -John B. Connally’s forthcoming appearance
                   -Troop withdrawals
                   -Dealings with Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China [PRC]


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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 1m 44s ]


END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3

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       Wholesale prices
          -Latest reports
              -Wage and price controls
              -Timing


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BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 3m 32s ]


END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4

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Transcript (AI-Generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

Hello.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Well, anything new tonight?
No, the hecklers, the McGovernites are really stirring up the animals, however.
They're really raising hell with the vice president today in San Diego.
Oh, did they?
And they were out in front of the headquarters here, and of course that follows the... Yeah.
This will backfire on them, though, if it keeps up.
I mean, if it becomes part of the... Tonight it was CBS, for example, tonight.
I didn't see all the nuts, but I did see CBS.
Said that these were McGovern supporters who were heckling Agnew, and a couple of scroungy kids standing up, and Agnew, he kept his cool.
He got a little angry, and then one of the fellows in the crowd who looked just the
The picture of a Pete Brennan type just walked over and smashed one of the demonstrators.
Good.
Oh, God.
Knocked him cold.
Good.
And so the footage came.
From our standpoint, the footage came out fine.
I just don't think people like that.
The Vietnam thing, I think, is playing all right.
The two...
flashback was strong tonight, but when you think about that one, Mr. President, the talks have absolutely no place to go.
I mean, it sure as hell not going to be... Well, they can sit it out, I suppose, and this and that, but good God, they can't go to McGovern.
No, and I don't think they'll sit it out.
McGovern scares them, and for a whole variety of reasons.
I'm not at all worried about the right.
I just think we want to keep that hopeful business alive.
CBS, I mean, that hopeful mood.
CBS was throwing a little cold water on it tonight.
It's
Cronkite was, as was to be expected.
He said that hopes for the settlement were dimming in Washington now.
But I suppose some of that we're going to get from CBS and Post.
The Times has been playing it, I must say, to their credit, they've been playing it pretty well from our standpoint.
Henry's worked pretty hard.
Yeah, I guess Henry is able to control that.
But it's going fine, and as I say, the Sinlinger stuff, we've got to expect that the, as I told you, that the whole Vietnam thing is going to be quite confused and all that in this period, and we've just got to stand firm.
Well, I think the confusion is fine, because people interpret confusion as being, that's the way people are when they're negotiating, and the thing that we want to do just for five days is keep...
keep the prospect alive that the war is coming to an end.
I mean, you can't build people up quite as high as Henry did, saying, pieces at hand, and then let them all the way down.
You can't throw cold water on them after they have had warm waters.
But thus far, I think it is plain just right.
The McGregor statement, which Clark got out today, which was a real nut-cutter at the demonstrators, is moved on the wires, at least, so we may make the network sound.
Well, unfortunately, as a problem we've been having, they didn't get it out.
We got it out.
Our people got it out, but the wires didn't move it until 4.30 or 5, which makes it hard.
I don't know if it did not make CBS, which is the only one I watch.
What about in Boston?
I hope they're kidding.
Hell of a local reaction.
The police chief up there is putting out a blast.
Collins is going to run that to...
as I told you, and I tried to get Becker tonight, and I didn't, but he's polling every day, so he would pick up a reaction to it.
I may still get him tonight.
I'm convinced, though, from... Well, I've had two other unsolicited calls from Republicans who said that people were really incensed over it, but from the Democratic areas...
I haven't checked anybody beyond Collins.
Of course, what Joe Toro found.
Toro did call back and say that a hell of a lot of people were talking about it.
I think it will help us up there.
I think that's going to be just at the right time, really.
Just five days before.
People do resent it.
The McGregor statement is excellent.
It's getting enough play that it ought to...
Sure as hell ought to.
It'll get some sort of a kick.
You know, and people see it, Mr. President.
My wife said she saw the Boston thing on the Today Show this morning.
I didn't realize it was on, but apparently film footage of that.
And then tonight, Agnew being heckled by identified McGovern supporters.
I don't think people like that.
Our people are not doing that to McGovern anywhere.
Some of the Labor fellows did at one point.
Oh, we've been very, very circumspect.
We really have.
I mean, considering the provocation.
That's right, and the pious self-righteousness of this son of a bitch.
Yeah, that's right.
We're going after him tomorrow, Doliz, with some more fundraising violations.
I'm not sure those do any good, except they keep it fuzzed up a little bit.
Sure.
And that's a value.
You asked me earlier about the news summary.
just beginning to creep in, Mr. President, a backlash to McGovern on being quite so self-righteous at the same time that his rhetoric is so extreme.
I think so, huh?
Yeah, I was noticing a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial today, and that's not a paper that's always with us on everything.
No.
It's in the lead editorial entitled, A Rattled Senator McGovern Loses His Balance Again.
And it really...
Apparently they used one of the fact sheets we sent around, because it really talks about all the very extreme statements that he's made, and how far off base he's been, and how now he's trying to get on both sides of Vietnam, and this strident escalation of his attacks on President Nixon.
He said originally the incumbent Republican administration was described as corrupt, and it was the most corrupt in recent American history.
Finally it announces the most corrupt in two centuries of American government, and goes on to say this is just, he's over,
overblowing it and being mean.
It's quite a sharp editorial, but there are others creeping up like this.
I really think that especially if he really swings wildly, I don't know, I guess he can't swing much more wildly than he is.
I suppose the Vietnam thing, of course, is the big issue, and that's going to be very hard to judge, you know, how they'll react with the...
But we've just got to play it cool.
I don't really think at this point in time, I just think that vote right now is very solid.
There isn't anything that would jar it significantly, Mr. President.
I mean, when you get the New York Daily News polls taken a week apart, showing absolutely no movement, really, of any one point statewide, the Harris poll, which Lou doesn't
pay so much attention to the head-to-head as he does to the internals of it, what makes it up, the image and stuff, and the issue stuff.
When all of that is as solid as it is, and we've come all this way with, you know, the really very, very solid support for you from the very outset, nothing in the last few days is going to change it unless it were enormously dramatic, unless, you know, the North Vietnamese were to invade.
Oh, they are.
You know, something...
If they do, we might make an asset out of that.
Well, that's right, you could, although you don't want to unsettle people.
I think that... That much, no?
No, I don't think we do.
I just think we want to keep...
In my view, they're not going to invade, because they don't think they've got the stuff.
Oh, no.
Well, I... No, I didn't...
It would take something really dramatic.
I think if the people just... We may have to...
I told Henry this afternoon, he may have to figure some way to give signs of activity.
If the people just think this is rolling on, and if you
If the thing does get too hot, then at some point we can make the point that we're just not going to do anything right now because of an election.
We're just not going to let it.
But the McGoverns made it impossible to negotiate.
Yeah, well, that's another way to put it.
That's right.
And he damn near did this morning what he was saying about, well, there won't be an agreement now.
And the two is blocking it at the very same time that Shriver is out saying, well, if I were two, I wouldn't sign the agreement either.
Jesus, what a bleep.
Ass, I mean, they really, they look asinine.
I don't think anything, I'm not worried at all about a little bit of pessimism creeping into the CBS report tonight.
That doesn't bother me.
As I told Henry today.
They're doing their damn to CBS, of course.
They really are.
To prove their case.
Boy, they are really showing their colors.
Well, that's all right.
I will remember.
I wrote Paley a one-line letter today and said, after watching last night, obviously there's no need for further conversation.
That's good.
get that jabbed into them.
That's good.
They'll go a long way before they get anything, I hope, out of anybody here.
They may be on strike.
The IBEW has walked out on them, and their contract is over, and they have no new contract.
It'd be too bad if they went out this weekend, wouldn't it?
Sure would.
Good night to a nice bunch of fellas.
Mm-hmm.
But certainly, Mr. President, I would not at this point have any apprehensions over the way the Vietnam thing has played out in my mind is perfect.
I think it hit like a bolt out of the blue.
Frankly, when I think we needed it, I think it broke McGovern's stride.
I think he was beginning to make some points on us and on the corruption issue.
Just wipe that away.
That's gone.
Now we're talking about this issue, which is not really his best issue.
It's our issue.
Well, the idea of...
And I still like this, and Connolly's got it for tomorrow morning, the idea of a vote of confidence for the president to strengthen his hand so that he can, so that the whole world knows that the American people stand behind him as he now, the final stages, he's brought 500,000 men home now, we're at the final stages of peace in Vietnam, and strengthen his hand for the major goals of peace in the world and his dealings with the Soviet Union and China.
It really is, that's the way people feel.
I think if we just, you know, take something awfully dramatic to shake it loose on.
We got good news.
You know, what's that?
Good news tomorrow on the wholesale prices.
Is that right?
Smallest monthly increase since the controls went on it.
Right.
That comes at a very nice time for us.
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