Nixon phone call with Colson on IRS and Appointments

Hello.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Chuck, I just want to check on Webster to be sure, you know, I got the report from Dean, you know, about these five violations and all the rest.
And I said, well, I'll stick by him if he wants to fight.
Well, it's a little bit like Bill Casey's situation.
What he has, Mr. President, he had a
A very minor thing, which was where they filed a tax lien.
It was $200, but that was nothing.
I don't forget that one.
Yeah.
The other one about the others, where he, after audit, they disagreed with deductions he had taken.
Right.
And I don't know all the details, but he said, you know, he argued it out, and they had an audit in 67, 66, and he was in those days making a lot of money.
And so $5,000 or $6,000...
Yeah, my point is this.
Do we stick with him?
Well, I think he's the best man for the job, Mr. President.
Let's start with that.
Fine.
Okay, I think he's the best man for the job.
Let me, however, disqualify myself in one respect.
I've known Webster very, very well, and if he goes into the IRS, I've told him, and I don't stand to gain from this, but I've told him that I would
watch his practice for him i would i would help him you know by taking taking the young associates out of his office and just playing for him so in one sense i suppose i have a right we're not forgetting all that i had your interest for that should we stand by him or not i would yes sir all right all right we're standing by him the point is i told schultz that you know all these assholes that want to run away from people don't forget you know he was ordered during the time the democrats were in here and when he was a very active
a Goldwater Republican and a Baker Republican and ran Loyals for Nixon.
You understand.
I'm all for him and I just don't want him to look to fight and not run into the situation I did with Hainsworth and Carswell where they didn't stand up and fight.
They'd have a hell of a job.
You see the reason
I'm sorry about the tax bar and your former partner, Alexander.
Oh, screw Alexander.
I don't give a shit what he thinks.
I couldn't care less.
Webster's published more goddamn books on tax law than some of them here, and he holds these annual conferences.
Totally qualified professionally.
What the hell?
The guy... Yeah.
The trouble is, the guy's from...
He's Tennessee, and he's not trying to...
Although he went to Harvard Law School, he's not the stereotype that Cravath, Sweeney... All right, fine.
Your advice is to go forward.
Fine.
Sir, although I do qualify...
I mean, I want you to know that...
It'll be hell of a fight.
Well, no.
No, no, no.
I want you to know that since proposing him to you...
I told him I would take over his practice.
Well, I don't give a shit about that.
I don't give one goddamn about that.
But I don't, believe me.
Well, I don't give a damn about that.
I hope you do take over his practice.
Now, the second point is with regard to our friend from Illinois.
Yes, sir.
I asked him whether he wanted anything.
He said, well, he told Chuck and this and that and the rest.
But I haven't heard a damn thing.
Well, the thing he'd like to do, which I mentioned briefly to Bob and John and
I don't know whether I mentioned it to you, but Keebus Game was the FCC.
He'd like to go on that if he could become chairman.
Of course, he'd be tremendous.
Why not?
Well, he'd choke the hell out of the network.
Well, he's in the communication.
FCC.
Yeah, he'd be great at that.
And the difficulty is we've got Birch there.
How are they going to get rid of him?
Well, Birch has to leave by the end of this year in order to become, if he's going to run for the Senate in Arizona.
And he says he is.
Well, why don't we just put Steve Bradshaw on and then promote him up?
That would be the... Bradshaw hates him, doesn't he?
Oh, he despises the networks.
He would kill him.
He would do... Jesus Christ.
All right.
Follow through on that.
He's got enough money that he doesn't have to follow through on that with her people.
If that's what he wants, that's what he's going to get.
Well, he would be great at that.
You see, we can put him into the Nicholas Johnson vacancy.
Nick Johnson, the Democrat.
That is in June.
That's right.
But in June, we put him in that, and then...
move him up to Birch's spot when Birch leaves.
And Dave is wealthy enough that he wouldn't— All right, fine.
Let's work that out.
That's what I want to do.
Okay.
I hope your leg is all right, Mr. President.
Oh, shit.
Nothing wrong with that.
Well, I noticed you limping a little bit when you left tonight.
That's— Well, I've got this—I've got a pretty bad cut, but it's all right.
But you know, these people, the second night, the third night, and this night,
My daughters, as I told you, and Mrs. Dixon said, you know, they're so different from the people we saw the first time, whom they love because they're all of our old friends.
That's right.
But these, these have got, you know, they're conserved.
They've got, you know, they're schmaltz, you know, and they follow what the Jewish people call chutzpah.
Chutzpah.
Chutzpah.
They really haven't, too.
Oh, what?
They came to the line, you know.
They cry.
There were tears in their eyes.
It was the goddamnedest thing they ever saw.
What did you think?
Well, of course, I know about half of the ones that were there today.
I've known all of the ones who were early this week.
They're lovers.
I mean, when they do something, it's for love.
I mean, McCarroll, who seconded you down there today with his wife, and he's just...
God bless the president.
Did they have a good time, though?
You know, you see, all they do is shake hands.
But I hope they get them nice, you know, things.
Fresh months were lovely, Mr. President.
Fresh months.
And I had all the rest and the music and everything.
Well, it was beautiful, of course, Mrs. Nixon has done.
such a spectacular job with the House this year.
Everything is perfect, yes.
Everything.
They all felt good about coming, didn't they?
They felt great about coming.
The thing that interests me, and maybe we're still on the glow of the election, these people would go to their, they'd march off a cliff for you.
It's incredible.
Over at Blair House last night, the conversation during dinner, and then the feeling afterwards, and everybody coming up.
You know, the difference with the Republicans is that
And it's terrible because, I know, they're Republican.
We know them.
We love them.
But they're always bitching.
They're always negative.
Like you said, when you went to your old club and found that they were always bitching, why should they be bitching?
I know.
Good God, I'm fighting for their goddamn causes.
But these people, what were they bitching about that night?
What was it?
No, they were bitching that we've been too tacky.
No, no, too cozy, too...
Too friendly with labor that you play golf with me, but never with the business people.
Oh, screw them.
Yeah, I know.
That's awful.
But this crowd last night, they are just wonderful.
I mean, those labor guys, they're in our corner.
We'll get a question about all the old fits, for example.
I had a lot of his people, and I mentioned him to everybody.
Hell, they all know.
And Joe T. and the rest.
We're going to have them forever.
Yes, they're great.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, no doubt about that.
My God, that's one organization that I'm going to see that we control.
All right.
Fitz and I have already started to clean out.
We're getting rid of Gibbons.
We're going to put— The thing that pleased me was what Brennan said when he said, you know, he came to the line, he said,
I don't think you should know that I went to eight offices.
They didn't have your picture up.
I said, I put your picture up.
And she said, I put your picture up.
Now, goddammit, is that really true?
Here we have had Schultz, and we've had Schultz and Hodgson, both Nixon-Lyles.
Why the hell didn't they put my picture up?
Now tell me.
They don't think this way, Mr. President.
But let me tell you what Brennan did.
He went over there.
He walked through a few offices.
Couldn't find your picture.
So he turned to Bob Armeo.
very, very bright young Italian lad out of Rockefeller's office that he's bringing down here with him.
And he said, Bob, go tell the front office, Hutchins, that by 9 tomorrow morning, I want the president's picture in every office in the Lieben apartment.
By 9 tomorrow morning.
He said, ah!
He said they were running through the halls trying to clip out pictures out of magazines.
They ran out of pictures of the president.
But it's an order.
And it's in effect right now.
And Hutchins said,
Jesus, you know, of course he went along with it.
Hodgson didn't do it.
No, but he never, he'd never think of it.
Brennan goes over there and he says, by God, we're going to have American flags.
We're going to have American flags throughout this building.
We're going to have pictures of the President of the United States.
And there'll be no pictures of... And you see, Shultz didn't have any, and neither did Hodgson.
And Lord, they're totally loyal.
What the hell's the trouble?
Well, you remember what I told you when we talked about labor, that somebody has to go in there and clean them out.
And he's got a hundred people that he's targeted to remove.
BLS has now been, Moore is gone.
Is he?
Oh yes, he's, right.
And we accepted, he accepted his resignation.
And, right, we cleaned out all but one.
We had to leave one assistant secretary in.
And, of course, us or Reed, depending on what counts does, we'll keep in if he wants to stay, which I think he does.
Although us or Reed should go over to the job that counts now has.
But Brennan has just gone in there.
There's going to be, he's told them all, no more pictures of Kennedy.
He filed out Kennedy pictures.
There'll be no more Kennedy pictures.
There'll all be Nixon pictures.
President Nixon is the president.
And the American flag will be flown in the office.
Oh, Christ.
How does Brennan feel?
Was he pleased about the two evenings?
He is just so upbeat, Mr. President.
He feels great.
And, of course, he loves these kind of things.
I mean, those dinners he loved because they...
And he loves what's happening.
He is opening the doors.
Chuck, we're changing the whole thing.
Who ever thought four years ago, labor guys would be in this house with their wives and themselves
The thing that impressed me—most of them have tears in their eyes—it was the goddamnedest thing that my wife said.
And Julie, of course, was so sentimental.
She said, They were so nice, Daddy.
They were such nice people compared to the Republicans.
They're warm.
They're warm.
They're feeling.
And they really identify with—well, they identify with you and, I must say, with the country and with Mrs. Nixon and Julie, too.
That was lovely.
Oh, those women, my God, a couple of them said, we'll never be the same.
And Mrs. Galtieri, I watched her.
I wish I'd given anything to a film of that.
She was just following you every move.
And I watched her, and all of a sudden a tear came down.
And I went over to her, and I didn't know what it was.
I could tell by the look on her face.
And she said, I love that man.
I love him.
And they all mean it.
Oh, they're great.
It's been a...
The press is having fun.
They were trying to find out this afternoon, all of those witches over there were trying to find out from the press corps, where did this list come from?
And they were buzzing.
They'd never seen a group like this coming through the White House.
This is the Jackson thing, you know?
Yes, sir.
People coming in, no mud in their shoes, but this is the new majority.
It's the new majority.
Did the press get the point?
Well, I grabbed the Helen Thomas and the
that ball from Newsweek and somebody from some other bitch I've never seen.
And they all said, where'd this list come from?
And I said, this is the middle of America.
This is the gross section.
This is the new majority.
And they were all, how come we don't see many blacks here?
And I said, well, there were blacks.
They've got about five or six, sir.
I pointed them out.
But they're, you know, you can tell the press are, this is killing the press corps, Mr. President.
Is it really?
Oh, sure.
Because what they're seeing is,
is the Nixon majority, and they're seeing middle America coming into the White House, and these bitches who write for the Post and the New York Times want to write about all the
Mrs. Tootley Foots and her minks coming in from New York, you know, and the beautiful people.
All of a sudden, they see ordinary people coming in.
Instead of the beautiful people of the Kennedy era, what they're seeing are the John McCarrolls, who's a welder and a foreman out of the United Auto Workers plant.
And the point is, the president likes them, and they like him.
That's right.
Oh, my God.
Did they get that across?
Yes, sir, and I steered a couple like McCarroll over to the press, because Christ, I mean, he talks about you like...
Mikey talks about God.
He remembers the telephone call and all the rest.
Oh, sure, Mikey.
Oh, God.
And, of course, the speech, the great speech.
I tried to steer a few of those types to the press, because they're the enthusiasts who really can spell it out.
It's a great thing.
We're going to win the press, but we're going to win these people.
Oh, you've got these people.
Well, they are ours, and then we're going to...
Work on all of them.
Well, we did all fits.
We got him, haven't we?
No, certainly.
He said, he told me, he said, Spirit, you and me, you know what he really said about this fellow?
I think I did.
I think I heard it.
Gibbons.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
I heard it.
I put his wife in here.
I said, Gibbons.
Fuck him, he wasn't with us with it.
That's the way I feel.
He's dying for me to get in with him now, because he says, you know, he wants me in as his counsel.
He said he wants to clean them all out.
He said he wants nothing but Fitzsimmons, Nixon, Loyalists.
And Fitz just says to me, we're going to clean them up, get rid of all the people that we can't trust.
Get clean people, young people, good people, Joe T. types who are honest.
Get some young ones in.
And that's a powerful organization.
That'll be at three million people by the end of next year.
How are you getting your count?
Was he lost or gained?
I haven't got anything since I talked to you yesterday.
That was the Arizona count.
Get that work out.
Yeah, you'll see Scammon on Sunday.
He's coming to the church service.
Wow.
He gave him a little nudge because I'm relying on him now to get me the last three or four that will be settled.
It's going to be there.
Dammit, I know it is.
Missouri's the big sleeper in there where it's not all in.
And I'm just convinced on that final canvas we'll pick up what we need to itch by that Johnson march.
Missouri now, we won't have the tell us until the
Yeah, the note here, the eighteenth, I guess, yeah, eighteenth.
Longer, yeah.
No, that's eighteenth.
That's—oh, it's Monday.
If we get that Monday, I'll know then whether we're over or not.
But West Virginia, they say now is—they've had some problems still.
So they were supposed to have been—and they're not in.
So I don't have anything.
But what about Arizona getting that $30,000?
That scamming is working out for me.
Because they have to go back and redo their own calculations.
And Dick may have that.
Dick was out of town today.
I tried to reach him.
But he may have that by over this weekend or Monday.
We'll get it up there.
One way or another, we'll get it up there.
I'd love to.
I'd just put all the frosting on, wouldn't I?
But it's... God, when you see people like this...
I loved them.
Yeah, what it really proves, Mr. President, is the wisdom of the strategy, you know, the issues that got these people who were standing up for the country.
I remember when people around here thought it was kind of corny to wear that American flag.
God, that was the smartest thing.
I wore one tonight.
You noticed a hell of a lot in the line are wearing them.
And the last two nights.
They noticed, too.
Oh, damn right.
I mean, Bowlby, Bowlby was good.
Yes, he was.
Yeah, he was damn good.
And then finally we launched Scali.
And that's great.
That has great effect on the Italian Scali.
He was at both of these Blair House things.
I made him come over to him.
Of course, he spent a lot of time talking with Italians.
He spills off an Italian, and they spill off back at him.
The Italians will see the significance of this.
In fact, they'll know— We have an Italian in the cabinet with full cabinet status and ambassador to the U.N. Full cabinet status.
That's what I told him.
That's right.
Well, that's—and we're getting some other names now.
We're getting some others for— Give me one pull.
I haven't got a pull yet.
Oh, you—with that fellow on the line tonight, Mitchell Kobolinski, we're trying to put him in the immigration service.
He wants it.
He's a good lawyer.
Good background for it.
Good.
And so that's the immigration service for him I'm trying to put.
All right.
put through our system because...
Put him in.
Yeah, he's a little rough, but...
I don't give a shit about that.
That's right.
Well, we've got another one, another home builder, too, from Chicago.
He's our guy.
Put him in.
That's right.
He's our guy.
We've got to pull in there.
He's absolutely our guy.
All right.
I talked to Paley yesterday, Mr. President.
Well, good.
I was going to ask you about...
No, I never got a chance to.
I called him up and I said, I'm sorry, I haven't been able to talk to you, Bill.
He said, oh, can you see me?
And I said, well, I think so.
I said, I have one thing I want to talk to you about.
He said, fine, I'll come down tomorrow.
And I said, no, I can't see you tomorrow.
He said, I'll come down Monday.
And he didn't want to talk to me.
He was just dying to come see me.
So I figured I'll let him come in.
And then put the Klein thing to him.
So I'm seeing him Monday at 1 o'clock.
Until I meet Klein, period.
Oh yeah, I'll just say, look, you guys are crazy because if you can hire all the executives you want, that isn't going to solve it.
You're probably going to put somebody on the air who is going to give balance to all the goddamn slamming that we've been taking from Rather and Pierpoint and Severide and Cronkite and I guess Shore.
I'm going to make a real pitch on it.
I'm sure Herb would love it too.
So that would help us.
And also give Klein plenty of money.
Oh, they got the money.
They got the money.
They sure as hell do.
You'd think they would think of that, but there's the goddamn rock.
You'd do it.
Oh, I'll put the screws to him.
He was so eager, the fact that I would call him and be willing to talk to him.
My God, he wanted to come down first thing this morning.
I got him last night.
He wanted to come down this morning.
I said, I can't do it.
So he'll be here Monday, and I'll put the screws to him very hard.
So we want Klein, and he ought to put him in there.
They ought to have balance in their show.
And Klein is a hell of a guy, television personality.
Sure.
And they ought to have a little balance in the goddamn thing.
That's right.
And they'll put him in, and we're still going to figure.
I still got some ideas of ways that we'll put the screws to these fellas.
I know.
You know, I think there's an interesting thing happening, which Bibi mentioned this to me tonight, Teddy Kennedy's speech, you know, which was very conciliatory.
Yeah, but I was wondering about that very shrewd comment, as I told you, about that son of a bitch Harriman, where Harriman said, this is very smart.
He said he nicks it up so he can kick him later.
Yeah, that might be so, or he might be getting a little bit worried about
being known as the point man against a president who was at this moment in history as popular as—I don't think any president could ever be more popular than you are today.
I think Teddy may be sensing this, you know, and he may, as some people say, he's got problems of his own that are going to develop.
Well, you've got other problems.
The point
get to your friend that knows Kennedy and tell him to get to Kennedy and say, look, for Christ's sakes, let's get along for a while and you've got your time.
That's what I was thinking.
I believe that's what Kennedy is...
I think he's throwing out that olive branch deliberately.
I think he doesn't want to tangle with us right now.
And we're getting that same kind of feeling from the media.
Oh yeah, Paley's going to jump on an airplane to come down here.
They're scared of us.
First of all, they know that
I think they now know we mean business.
We're not sucking around with them.
The election's over.
They've got to live with us four years.
They know that.
And I think giving that interview to Jack Horner was one of the smartest things that ever happened, because then I gave CBS a hell of a roasting ass speech, which got a lot of publicity.
And then we've been leaking stuff to the Star.
And I think they all of a sudden figured out we mean business.
That's right.
And they're scared as hell.
If we do mean business, we can do them a lot of harm.
Whitehead is giving a speech next week, which is going to shake the hell out of the networks.
I clear that it's tough, but he'll be giving it his own views.
Each one of these things, they understand what the hell the name of the game is.
And if we can continue to play it rough, we'll bring these bastards around.
I was going to stick with...
Webster, okay.
Yes, sir.
Fight it out.
Oh, hell.
He's a good—he's got many, many Republicans.
And tell him to get the friends to—get all of his friends lined up there for him, you know, so that we don't have a situation where it's just him against us.
Oh, no.
No, he'll get a lot of help on the Hill.
And he's got an awful lot of friends up there.
And his—when his fellows—it's not like
There's nothing here that they can really make an issue out of.
He thinks they audited the hell out of him because he was an active Republican during those early 60s.
I think that's probably true.
Right.
He's a fighter, and we'll get him through.
Brock is his closest friend up there, and I'm sure that— Brock?
Yes.
Brock is a friend of his?
Oh, he is.
You tell Brock, God damn it, we've got to get him in.
I thought I would call Bill and just say, look— This is a must?
Yep.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
Well, I hope your foot is better, Mr. President.
Don't let that go.
Oh, don't worry about the foot.
It's just a little infection, but it'll come out.
Oh, Jesus.
Well, have him watch it.
Oh, there's no problem.
No problem.
No problem.
It'll work out.
Too important.
Right.
Now, you know, we're—
We've got a tough problem in Vietnam.
Henry's going to give a briefing tomorrow and it'll be pretty tough, but also not in sorrow—not in anger, but in sorrow.
And then on the—about—we're not going to do it Sunday, but on Monday we're going to start Mom and the Bastards.
I talked to Hague this afternoon and I— What do you think?
Oh, I think you're absolutely on the right course.
I mean, it'd be nice if the—
If the North Vietnamese gave, they didn't, to hell with them.
I think the American people are solidly with you, and I just don't think you have any problem at all.
I think if Henry handles it, you know, we're still totally open to the negotiations, but not until they're ready to come back to their position, which doesn't close the door.
I think the way you outlined it yesterday is
I gave him a line to use, and I hope he gets in.
I know he will, where I said that what we want is not—after the longest war, we don't want a short peace.
That's a pretty good line, isn't it?
That's a damn good line.
Damn good line.
But I don't think you have to worry about— We'll take a little outcry.
A little bit, sure.
You know, people who say, oh, Christ, why are we bombing them and all that?
That's all right.
Most American people probably want to bomb the bastards.
I think they do.
I don't think they want to be pushed around.
Well, I'm damn sure that our majority, our constituency sure as hell doesn't want to be pushed around.
And they don't want to sell out.
They want to go out of there and they want you to tell them that we're going out in a way that is honorable and it was all worthwhile.
That's what they want to hear.
And until we can tell them that, their attitude is we're not going to be pushed around.
I don't think you'll find that the mood of the country is— Now, one thing I want you to do, though— Yes, sir?
I told Holloman today, I guess he's been in touch with you, but the main thing is I want you to mobilize—
all of our people to be all out when the bombing starts.
Absolutely.
They ought to hit, you know, the VFW, the American Legion, the hard hats.
The refs saying, thank God we're doing what we ought to do.
Right, right.
Will you do that?
We'll do that, Mr. President.
We'll get them—they'll come out for us.
We've got the right ones.
We've been spending time with them this week.
We'll have to get Meany lined up, of course.
Meany will be fine.
We'll have to tell Henry that he ought to maybe go over and have a little chat with Meany and tell Meany, aw, good God dammit, let's go.
Yeah, that would be a good idea.
Either Henry or Haig or Meany.
Maybe Haig more than Meany.
Yeah, Meany thinks very highly of Haig.
Haig, but rather than Henry because Meany is a little bit anti-Semitic.
Yep, he is.
And suspicious.
Hague is a good Catholic boy.
He likes Hague.
No, I really don't think there'll be any problem.
I think he'll get a little ripple.
The Marvin Kalbs will get all excited.
Oh, screw that.
Exactly.
People don't follow him.
God, I certainly heard that.
That's one thing that this group that we've had in this week are unanimous on.
You talk about any of the network commentators, Jesus, they just...
They regard them as the enemy.
I think that's one thing.
That's one thing we've done with middle America.
We've destroyed their credibility with people.
Okay.
Get that goddamn percentage up now.
Yes, sir.
I'll work on that this weekend.
You're a scammer.
Okay.
We'll do it.
Thank you, Mr. President.

Nixon phone call with Colson on IRS and Appointments

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 15, 1972

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