Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 36 › Conversation 036-094

Nixon phone call with Colson on Vietnam Peace Settlement and Public Relations

Tuesday, January 23, 1973 · 10:49 PM–11:00 PM ET · White House Telephone · 11 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.Conversation036-094 on Tape 36StartTuesday, January 23, 1973 at 10:49 PMEndTuesday, January 23, 1973 at 11:00 PMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 036-094 ↗ · National Archives Catalog, NAID 417194623 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Charles Colson discussed the positive public reception of the Vietnam peace settlement and formulated a strategy to leverage this momentum against political critics and the press. They coordinated efforts to mobilize allies, including labor leaders, veterans' groups, and supportive members of Congress, to issue statements that would vindicate the administration's policy and neutralize anti-war voices. Nixon explicitly directed Colson to ensure the White House staff maintained intense pressure throughout the night to control the media narrative and rally the 'silent majority.'

Audio

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NARA Description

On January 23, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 10:49 pm to 11:00 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 036-094 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 36-94

Date: January 23, 1973
Time: Between 10:49 pm and 11:00 pm
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with Charles W. Colson.

       Vietnam settlement
            -The President’s announcement
                  -Julie Nixon Eisenhower
                         -Columbia Broadcasting System [CBS] reporters
                         -Tricia Nixon Cox
                         -Marvin L. Kalb, Dan Rather, [Arnold] Eric Sevareid
                  -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
                         -CBS coverage
                               -Sevareid
                                     -Colson’s view
                                     -Treaty of Versailles
                                     -Klemens Von Metternich
                  -National Broadcasting Company [NBC]’s coverage
                         -Howard K. Smith
                  -White House public relations efforts
                  -Congress
                         -Michael J. (“Mike”) Mansfield, Thomas P. (“Tip”) O’Neill
                         -57-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                          Conversation No. 36-94 (cont’d)

       -John G. Tower, Jacob K. Javits
             -NBC
             -Bombing
             -Israel
       -Hubert H. Humphrey, Henry M. (“Scoop”) Jackson
             -Lyndon B. Johnson
                   -The President’s comments
-Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Tricia Nixon Cox, Edward R. F. Cox
-George S. Christian
       -Colson’s conversation
       -Johnson
             -Praise
-Rowland Evans, Robert D. Novak
       -William J. Baroody, Jr.
Show the rest of the log (43 more lines)
-Attacks on “Doves”
       -Barry M. Goldwater
       -Tower
       -Walt W. Rostow
       -George D. Aiken
       -Robert J. Dole
       -Gale W. McGee
-Labor statements
       -George Meany’s conversation with Peter J. Brennan
       -Frank E. Fitzsimmmons
       -Thomas W. (“Teddy”) Gleason
       -Paul Hall
       -Cooper Holt
       -Jesse M. Calhoon
-Veterans of Foreign Wars [VFW]
       -American Legion
       -Prisoners of War [POWs] wives
       -Patrick E. Carr
       -Carol Hanson
             -Baroody
-Attacks on the President’s opponents
       -Silent Majority
-Newspapers
       -Editors
       -Martin S. Hayden
       -Herbert G. Klein
                                              -58-

                   NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

                                                                Conversation No. 36-94 (cont’d)

                        -Kenneth W. Clawson
                        -William Randolph Hearst
                        -New York Daily News
                        -Chicago Tribune
                              -Bombing
                        -Washington Star
                   -White House staff
                        -Ronald L. Ziegler
                        -Klein
                        -Haldeman
                        -Colson’s view

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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hello mr carlson god bless mr president that was a uh i guess my daughter julie gave me the best uh indication that it must have been good when i walked in she said daddy i haven't and she's a very fair person she said and chris agreed they've been watching cbs she said i have never seen marvin kalb
And Dan Rather and Eric Severite, they were green, hateful, disgusted, discouraged, and said that, well, the only thing, Severite said, the only thing about this is that there will be no elation.
It's just the fact we're getting our prisoners back.
But apparently the whole bunch is still doing just what I said, and I just hope to Christ some of our people are the bomb throwers, because this ought to get them off their ass, Chuck, if any can get them off their ass.
Have we got anybody?
Can we get Haldeman and all the rest off their asses to work tonight?
No, no, we're working.
Don't worry, Mr. President.
We are getting it out, and CBS was the only one that did this, and your daughter is absolutely right.
They look like they lost their last friend.
I mean, Severide said, well, this is the day we've always been waiting for, but now the question is, will it last?
Well, for Christ's sake.
Of course.
The question is, would the Treaty of Versailles last?
Of course.
What about the Madernich Treaty?
Would it last?
What lasts?
Next time anybody talks about seeing Marvin Kell, we should remind them that he was the one tonight who said, well...
South Vietnamese are very skeptical over this.
Jesus Christ!
After he's been one of the ones calling for a complete bug out.
So that's typical of CBS.
We got a very good, very good play on NBC.
And of course, Howard Smith acted like he was the cat that just swallowed the mouse.
I mean, he was smiling and they didn't give him very much time because it was interrupting a basketball game.
But a couple of minutes I saw of his was great.
uh and the main thing is what the hell are we doing though about getting our guys out chuck just to fight these people you know the congress is going to die i mean mansfield was almost he just turned turned green when i uh told him and he and tip o'neill tip o'neill was just dying at the leaders meeting he would obviously because he's a bolter he's one that was way out as mansfield was that's right they're sick tell you an interesting thing we talked also about some of them jumping on board you know nbc had a panel of javits humphrey tower and jackson
And the terror was absolutely spectacular.
He said, this vindicates the patience the president has shown in the face of tremendous domestic pressures, the lonely and difficult job.
We've come out the better because of his courage.
And then he just cracked a lot of the critics.
Oddly enough, Javits said, well, it would appear to me now that the bombing resulted in this agreement being reached.
I almost fell off my chair.
That's the Jewish-Israeli thing.
Exactly.
Humphrey was, he said, we are all so grateful and
How about Jackson?
And Jackson said, this is the night Americans have been waiting for for years.
They both, Humphrey and Jackson, of course, picked up your praise of LBJ, which they praised.
That really, you know, that was something that my daughters both saw, Tricia particularly saw, and Eddie Cox, she said, you know, that was because when I said the press, that he had suffered vilification.
Vilification, yeah.
They knew that I had, too, you see.
Of course.
But did they pick that up?
Oh, yes.
Oh, yeah.
I just talked to George Christian.
Just hung up from Chris.
What did George say?
Well, he was, and I must say, it was a very emotional thing.
He sounded like he was choked up.
Well, he must have been, because that was a pretty damn good thing for me to do, because LBG isn't a goddamn thing for me, as you know.
No, he said, you know, he said, well, we will never forget that.
And he said, you know, Chuck, how you feel about President Nixon while I felt that way about President Johnson.
He said that.
He said, I just can't tell you what that means.
He said, everybody who loved Johnson, and there'll be more of them coming out now, he said, they'll never forget President Nixon.
He was really... Well, this makes Johnson's place in history, you know.
Of course it does.
You made it.
You made it tonight.
It was a beautiful touch, Mr. President, because really what you did was to bring credit to yourself by giving him credit,
Because he stood against the same critics.
That's right.
And they drove him out of office.
He didn't do the right thing, but he stood against them.
But instead of praising, you know, instead of embracing those who have fought us, you... Well, I know those people that wanted me to, you know, to have the ear of good feeling.
Somebody wrote me a memorandum on that, and I told all of them, and I said, if anybody ever shows me that again, I'm going to flush them down the goddamn john.
You should.
I did not see it, but Evans and Novak were on Channel 5.
They do a metrometeor analysis, and Bill Broody's already came running, and he said, we've got to get the transcript.
He said, those guys were saying, we can't believe it.
It is one of the greatest diplomatic triumphs in history.
Well, can't we get some of our people to say that, Chuck?
Yes, sir.
Who the hell is saying it?
No, no, we've got, well, no, they are, Mr. President.
We've gotten about 30...
statements out tonight, and it's just a matter of, you know, they've got to take time to get them out under the wires.
Any attacks on the doves getting out?
Well, we've got a real... Goldwater, I know.
Goldwater.
We've got a beautiful one from Tower.
Of course, he did it on television.
He did it spectacularly well.
Christian told me that he's getting one out from Walt Rostow, and that's, you know, the Johnson side of it.
I talked to George Aiken, and he's sick in bed, but...
He told me basically what he was going to put out, which was damn good, you know, that you stood firm and that he'd stood with you last August and that when things seemed bleak at times, you'd always persevere.
But he'll do the right thing.
Let's see.
I've talked to Bob Dole, who's taken some great lines.
He was just relishing in it.
I talked to Gail McGee, who said that he would...
He would be, he was, you know, this is a moment he was waiting for to stick it to his colleagues who had...
So I think they will do it, yes, sir.
I really do.
Well, let's kind of take that now.
How about getting Meany and others here to work on that tonight?
Brennan has talked to Meany tonight, and Meany said he would put a statement out tonight.
I have...
Just put Fitz's statement out, which stabs it right at him.
I've just talked to Cooper Holt, Mason, Teddy.
Well, we're going to do Teddy, Paul Holt.
Paul Holt would be great.
Jesse Calhoun, right?
Good, good.
How about Cooper Holt?
And even the Legion ought to be for this, for Christ's sake.
Oh, yeah.
Well, Pat Carr from Louisiana, who's the head of the VFW, is coming up.
He's going to hold a press conference here already.
And he should stick it to the critics.
And how about getting a...
And also all the other organizations.
I think how to get ahead of the POWIs, wouldn't that be a great boy?
That was an eloquent thing we said about them tonight.
Just magnificent.
Can't you get one of those to say something?
Yes, sir.
Has anybody thought of that?
Oh, yes, no.
Rudy's been talking to them this evening, and that gal Carol Hanson is just... Get her to come out and say something.
She's the most articulate.
In fact, I think she said she was going to be on NBC tonight.
I haven't...
I haven't seen it, but I think she's going to be good.
Well, let me tell you, if there was any time you kicked ass and then get anybody in, if anybody's home, I don't care who it is, even the tiniest people in the administration here, if they're at the Kennedy Center, get their ass down here and work tonight.
You understand?
We're right here.
wires, you know, all that sort of thing, Chuck.
You've got to do it because this is like November 3rd, but even bigger.
Even bigger because basically what we've got to do now is to put it to the critics and draw the line.
This is when we have the silent majority of us rise now.
I really feel this very strongly.
Oh, I feel it just as strongly, Mr. President.
This is an opportunity that you don't get, except maybe once in a lifetime, to really clean out the other side.
But I...
I think you're going to find, I really do, that we will get that out.
It's going to take us, and we're going to have to do it every day.
We're just going to have to keep banging at it.
Right, right.
The press people ought to really hit this, too.
God damn it, this is time for some of the editors and the rest.
Well, I told Clayton, what the hell is he doing?
Oh, he's here.
He's calling out of this.
He has a list of 35, and they're writing the rest of his work.
I told Clayton, you know, this is the kind of thing that we're,
Randolph Hearst will do a front-page editorial on, you know, the way he did.
Sure.
That's right.
That's right.
We'll get a lot of that going.
The New York Daily News will... That's right.
They should.
...the big play, and even the Trib, which left us on the bombing in December, as you know.
I think they'll come back in Chicago.
Did they leave us on the bombing?
I didn't realize that.
Yeah, the Trib did.
First time that I guess they have...
Why'd they leave?
What'd they say?
Well, it was a little bit...
I'd forgotten that.
It was a little bit like the Starz reaction.
You know, they just said, well, we've... You know, they ran out of gas.
Yeah.
They were running low, but they'll be with us.
I mean, we are going to...
I told our boys tonight, and I'm sure they're going to do this, not to waste time with anything other than... What we did worked, you mean, or what?
No, no, not to waste our time with any other than we know are sure things, like get that first flow of editorials coming.
Don't...
Don't try to convert somebody at the first blush.
Let's get the rash of editorials where we know we can get them that'll crack at the critics and play you strong.
The people that write good, emotional, strong stuff, the New York Daily News kind of thing, or Martin Hayden's kind of... One thing about the New York Daily News, it didn't depart on the bombing, no.
Never departed once.
That's one thing.
The trip probably, I don't know, they probably got some editor over there.
Well, it was wishy-washy.
It wasn't a real... You're sort of worried about it.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, keep the heat on, and what time is it now?
It's now 11 o'clock.
Call me at 11.30 and tell me what the hell these people are doing, because I don't know what I've...
I'm not...
I mean, getting after the rest, but Ziegler's supposed to be working on this, Klein's supposed to be working on it, Halleman's supposed to be working on it.
We are.
But it's your job to see that the whole goddamn thing is done.
This is a big deal now, Chuck.
This is the last hurrah, as we say.
Well, it... And let's make it a big one.
It is, Mr. President.
I think that one of the problems that we... Yeah, people just don't want to... No, no, no, no, no.
People want to do it.
But they don't know what to do?
No, no.
It's just that you can't get on the wires right now.
The wires are just...
Now, the machines are just running out your stuff and reports that are sent to you.
I see.
It'll be two hours before they will start picking up.
Well, if you get anything at 11.30, you can call me back, okay?
I'll call you at 11.30.
Yes, sir.

Also recorded on January 23, 1973

  • 036-091 10:44 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Raymond K. Price, Jr. talked on the telephone from 10:44 pm to 10:47 pm.
  • 036-092 10:47 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 10:47 pm.
  • 036-093 10:48 PM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 10:48 pm.
  • 036-095 11:00 PM · 44 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone from 11:00 pm to 11:08 pm.
  • 036-096 11:00 PM · 24 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:00 pm and 11:08 pm.
  • 036-097 11:08 PM · 37 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked on the telephone from 11:08 pm to 11:09 pm.
  • 036-098 11:09 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:09 pm and 11:13 pm.
  • 036-099 11:13 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 11:13 pm to 11:17 pm.

All 102 conversations from January 23, 1973 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 036-094, January 23, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives (NAID 417194623). Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/036-094 (accessed November 2, 2026).