On June 6, 1973, White House operator, President Richard M. Nixon, and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 8:46 pm to 9:07 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 039-129 of the White House Tapes.
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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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?
Mr. Coulson.
Hello?
Yes, sir, I'm a citizen.
The 4 o'clock right here program rerun.
She told me it was just great.
Oh, is that true?
She said the best thing she's heard in the whole darn business is finally somebody said something.
Well, that just makes me feel more...
Well, isn't that sweet?
I must say, that got me feeling very good.
She just wanted me to let you know that.
Well, you're very kind.
You're very thoughtful.
I'm not kind.
How about that?
I'm just saying the truth.
I'm going to keep it up.
Tell me, how have your reactions been since I talked to you earlier?
Haven't stopped.
It's been incredible.
Senlinger saw it last night.
He said... What did he think of it?
He said he thought it was...
He said he was very generous.
Oh, what did he say?
He said he thought it was the best thing he'd seen yet on this.
Good.
On the Watergate defense, he said that, you know, what the public wants is to know that the president was not involved.
He just came home from a Teamsters negotiating meeting.
They're having their sessions right now.
God, they all came running up to thank God and give him hell.
That's what we wanted to see and hear.
So it's had its impact.
Good.
The papers around the country picked it up.
Did they?
Yes, sir.
The only two that didn't are the Post and the Times.
Well, they didn't even pick up that whole story on the buggy.
Buggy, no.
God.
They totally ignored it.
Well, it's the double standard.
I just can't believe how outrageous they have been in their coverage of this.
Horrible, horrible coverage.
Well, they're out to get the president, Chuck.
Well, that's what it is.
I said it.
I got it in at the end, hard.
I was just winding up, really, to let them have it when we ran out of time.
Another time when they get the Brisbane thing.
But I'll get it on CBS.
Yeah.
They want to do a morning interview, and I'm negotiating, telling them the hell with that.
I want an evening interview.
Sure.
If they want me to do it, I'll do it this evening.
Sure, absolutely.
Don't do it in the morning.
Never.
A few million people.
That's right.
You'll do it in the evening if they want you.
You'll do it then, but my goodness, don't waste it in that morning audience.
CBS doesn't have much of a morning audience anyway.
NBC's got the audience.
The Today Show is not there, but even that I don't think... No, no, don't do it today.
I do say, sure, you'll do it any time if you want to do it in the evening.
I did get it up to the hill today and I made a few calls and sort of tried to stiffen the backs of a few of our stalwarts.
It'll happen, Mr. President.
They're going to sense the feeling around the country.
My God, my office today, it was really hard to get a telephone call in because I was getting so many calls.
Good.
I think that I just, well, it's a political, it's an intuitive political feeling, but I just think that it's going to swing around in the country.
It may, yeah.
I just think it has to.
Yeah.
When you stop and think about it, assuming the worst of everything, assuming John Mitchell ordered the goddamn Watergate, assuming it was a stupid...
invasion of the Democratic National Committee, Berkeley.
Assuming all of this, and then assuming that nobody came forward.
And then the cover-up, of course, was the tough one.
Well, but even so, as long as you're not involved in it, it doesn't matter what happens to you with it.
Well, Dean will try to claim I was, you know, because of the fact that on the 21st he raised the point of...
you know, that Bittman was blackmailing us.
But on the other hand, Bittman, I think, would stand up on that one, don't you think so?
Oh, yes.
I've talked to him.
He's not going to send his boot off, is he?
No, sir.
And as a matter of fact, he is very strong.
You know, the one meeting I had with Bittman, I said to him, you can explain your mind's case any way you like.
You should.
Right.
He remembers that.
The thing is that
Dean, you know, raised the point that Bittman wanted $120,000.
That's what he told me on the 21st.
And the question is whether or not he got it.
I don't know.
I don't have any way of knowing whether he did or didn't.
I don't think Bittman ever did that.
I think that's... See, Dean was getting a lot of information secondhand.
And I think he was getting pressures from people at the committee.
Dean has lost his credibility.
Ever since you and I talked, they're trying to build him up, though, a little.
We mustn't let him be a martyr here.
Well, because they realize the Times and the Post that he's their, you know, and this fellow Cox and Urban, that he's their star witness.
And so they want to build him up, don't they?
Yes, but I don't think they can do it, Mr. President.
I talked to some of my law partners this afternoon and asked them what they thought of him.
They just said he lost all of his credibility, that anybody who's bargaining for immunity, and I reread the transcript of the Howard Smith interview.
I didn't stick it to him.
That's the one point I stuck into anybody.
I tried not to point it to things.
A man loses his credibility.
There's been a lot written about how John Dean does not want to go to jail because he's
Because he will make some pretty outrageous charges, you know, and there's no one that can counteract them because they were in meetings with me that I cannot answer.
You see, that's the problem.
Well, I think you may have to at some point give a blanket answer.
Oh, yes.
Just a blanket denial.
Sure.
And, of course, the other question which I think any fair-minded person would ask is if Dean said all these things,
But to you, why didn't he say that to other people?
Dean puts himself in a very bad position if he contends that he was our counsel.
He was the one that was supposed to be.
He was in contact with the U.S. Attorney and the rest, and I assume he was telling them everything.
That's right.
Of course, I really am not so certain they'll give him immunity because I— Rudy?
Oh, no.
I'm not so certain.
Of course, the present prosecutors, Silbert and Glantzer, the fellows down at the U.S. Attorney's Office, they just ate his guts because they... Well, I suppose Cox would want to because Cox has got to have him to make his case against the president.
That's all Cox's interest again.
Yeah, that's why he came down here.
That's the only reason you get Archie Cox to come here.
They are Cox's, you know, probably would guess.
is now trying to make a big issue out of the papers.
He wants to paw through all the papers, the president's papers, and I can't let that happen.
No, you cannot.
Yet the people, I suppose, I saw Bryce talking.
Bryce said that's a terribly tough issue because the people say the president's covering up if he doesn't let people paw through his paper.
I don't know.
Well, no, I don't agree with Bryce on that.
Bryce is too close to Washington on that issue.
The public knows the presidential papers are...
There has to be some confidentiality.
My God, you can't take the presidency of the United States and just open it wide.
Otherwise, the president can't talk to anybody.
Of course.
Of course.
I... No, I don't think that's a... We shall see.
You know, Bryce tends to be overly sensitive sometimes to Washington issues.
He really does.
And...
I have, of course, tremendous respect for Bryce.
Yeah, we've got to get that point of view.
But he does, and he overreacts to the congressional sentiment.
He views it the way Congressmen would view it, and Congressmen will say, well, that's a cover-up.
Well, let them say it.
I don't think the public thinks that.
I don't think they want...
Frankly, I don't think there was a Harvard Law School professor coming down rummaging through the papers of the President of the United States.
You know, I'm not unhappy that Elliot picked a Harvard Law School professor because...
in our constituency.
The thing that Elliott did there in making up this fellow's mandate, in effect, this fellow's making a great deal out of it, he said that he could look into allegations against the president.
Well, of course, that should never have been in there.
Nobody can look into allegations against the president except the senator.
That's right.
Nobody.
That's right.
And that's a constitutional problem.
Yes.
The thing that people are not, and Bryce is not taking this into account, I don't think, the thing that people are not taking into account is that the public doesn't want to put the President on trial.
They want to hear that the President was involved in this.
At this point in time, Mr. President, people have just totally lost track of the charge,
Sally Harmony did this with a shredding machine.
It really has just gone, in my view at least, and I'm sure you can tell a lot of people I talk to, into such absurd detail that I just don't think the public can follow it, and I don't think they want to follow it.
Now, I'm not deluding myself into saying that it isn't a big issue.
I'm sure it's a big issue, because you can't have it on the front pages every day, and you can't have it on the network.
uncertainty in the country.
But the fundamental question that the country must come to grips with—and Irvin is going to have to do this and Cox is going to have to do it—is, was the president of the United States involved in the Watergate?
Was he involved in the cover-up?
And that answer, when that is resoundingly given, is going to end this thing.
Well, it'll, of course, be John Dean's word against a lot of other people's, I guess.
Yeah, but John Dean, like, God, I just think he, number one, he's lost his credibility.
Number two, he's not really a very persuasive fellow.
The articles have been written, you know, how he's obsessed with the thought of going to jail because he's such a good-looking fellow that all the people in jail will go after him.
Now, that really does a devastating thing to him.
Of course, his people are trying to build up in the Times and Post-Tribune up the guy.
He's a real hero because he wants to tell the truth.
uncover this whole thing, the cancer in the heart of the presidency and so forth.
What's your answer to that?
My answer to that is that he has ten months in which he could have at any point come forward and told you things that would have caused you to act immediately.
There is a participant in the cover-up.
There's one man who at least
New in advance.
Apparently new in advance.
And certainly new afterwards.
And certainly new afterwards.
And masterminded it.
And told people to purge themselves.
The information that I've given to the U.S. Attorney kind of sticks it to him in a couple of places where he told me to destroy memos, which I did not destroy.
No, Dean can be had.
When it's a frontal confrontation, we can do quite a job on John Dean.
Not yet, but a little later.
No, not until the immunity question is settled.
But at the right point, if...
The immunity question apparently is going to be settled, they say, even in the middle of next week, because the Senate may call him then.
That's right.
And they would force the hand if they try to call him by the 12th.
Although at the rate they're going, I just don't see how they'll get to him.
But the immunity question may be settled.
The prosecutors are going to be very, very reluctant to grant... What do you think they are?
Yes, sir.
Cox may not, and so is the prosecutors to resign, as a matter of fact, because they're right on the edge of that right now.
They think Cox is... Oh, are they?
Oh, yes.
They're interesting fellows.
I don't know either one.
Landry or Shapiro?
Not Shapiro, but Silbert.
I have not been before the grand jury, but I have been down a number of times as a...
providing information that was helpful to them and providing information, frankly, that I think clears you of—leaves no doubt that you were not involved.
And they've been damn decent about it.
They've been thinking— Do you think—they think Ira was involved?
No, sir.
They may be just pulling your leg, though.
No, I don't think so.
As a matter of fact, I've had some long conversations with them.
I think they're convinced you were not.
And that story that the Washington Post ran that said that they wanted to call you, that was just fabricated, totally fabricated.
Yeah.
Out of Cox's office, I'm sure.
I think out of Cox's office or someone in the Justice Department who's feeding out the information.
But not out of those guys.
They had a pretty decent attitude to it.
Yeah.
I think they would quit if Cox granted immunity.
They just think that Dean... Well, of course, Dean took them to the cleaners because he was held... Look, Dean withheld it from them, Chuck, for months.
Sure.
And if, frankly, they give him immunity, he's going to rat on them, too.
That's right.
And he'll rat on Henry Peterson, too.
That's right.
Well, the thing about Dean is that he played a very good game, and I...
I guess he thought he was doing the right thing, I think, as Howard Smith asked me.
In European countries, people try to protect their superiors by not giving them information.
Maybe he was well-intentioned.
We don't know.
He may have been.
I can't fool a man at this point.
But he certainly withheld stuff.
The questions he asked me, I never knew why he was asking them.
Now I do, of course.
But he played a very cute game.
trying to hold a dagger to your heart, I just think it's a, really, it's a very despicable... Oh, unbelievably despicable, but...
But obviously so do the American people, Mr. President.
If we can, we'd like to handle that when it comes, but they...
If they don't give him immunity, he'll never talk, in my opinion.
Oh, he can't.
Good God, if they don't give him immunity.
He's got the Fifth Amendment and silence, and that's his only hope.
And then bargain on a plea.
which he's not been willing to do so far, but he might if he gets turned down on immunity.
But the significant thing, in my view, Mr. President, the press constantly underestimates the intelligence of the American people.
I talked to Lou Harris today.
He said the people, they really see through a lot of this.
He said an awful lot of it.
And Chris Semlinger's always held that theory, that a lot more sense, basic instincts of the American people are better than the press ever gives them credit for.
I don't think a guy like Dean can sell it.
I just don't.
And especially if he opens up, the defense has to be with Bob.
And John and I can say.
And at that point, if he tries, well, I think that's where we have to...
It seems to me at this point that I understand that Maurice James has said he won't testify.
Right.
And he shouldn't.
And I don't think Mitchell will.
Do you agree?
No, Mitchell can't testify.
I mean, he can't.
He's already indicted.
What the heck?
Why should he?
Can't testify.
Yeah.
I would hope they would get to me very quickly.
I would be delighted to...
to get up there.
And of course, I've asked it.
I asked it last week.
I thought maybe I could get up and clear the air in a hurry, but they're not eager to have me up there.
No, they want to doodle this thing along and build the case and all that sort of thing.
But I don't know.
Well, that's the game.
But I just wonder how long they can
It's the dime novel business.
You're going to fascinate some people with it, but a very small percentage of people.
Interesting it's so difficult to get our congressmen and senators to stand up.
I guess they're just not sure, and that's their problem.
Yes, they're not sure.
That's right.
It may be in the next couple of days that we can get some of them going.
As I say, Max Friedersdorf was up working hard on his side this afternoon.
He said, this gave him something to work with.
I said, we've got to do that.
Our people may come around.
I made a few calls this afternoon and hopefully got a few backs different.
I think if it begins to build, you know, Hugh Scott did a marvelous job yesterday.
Yes, I know.
That was damn good.
If it begins to build, it could catch hold.
If the timing is right, if the people have had enough of it.
And the public really is.
They are concerned about other issues.
I know.
I talked to Bradshaw.
Dave Bradshaw.
All around the country.
And watched the thing last night.
And he just said, this is what people want.
And if they just hear a little bit of this, you'll build a momentum.
The other way, you'll build a momentum of people saying, Scott, stop picking on the president.
Stop trying to get the president.
It should be that very simple line.
They're trying to get the president.
That's right.
These people that were all from a government.
That's right.
Cox was from a government, of course.
Sure.
And Dash was.
Oh, and of course the Post and the Times.
Oh, of course.
And the networks.
It's a vicious business.
It really is.
And they're defying what 62% of the American people expressed a very clear mandate for.
It's an unprecedented situation.
I think it's tragic that they ever got the momentum that they got.
I guess there wasn't any way to stop it.
No, there wasn't really.
Because basically, let's face it, there was a cover-up, Chuck.
We know that now.
That's right.
That's the sad part about it.
Yeah, but even that, Mr. President, like, do you remember when Lyndon Johnson sent Abe Fortas off to all of his papers to suppress the wall of Jenkins?
Sure, I know.
That's not unprecedented.
I think what is unprecedented is the ganging up of the press and the Democrats and, frankly, some of our own people who saw this as an opportunity to
prevent you from doing in the next four years what they knew that you had an enormous mandate to do.
And it's a very, obviously very selfish, very determined effort.
It's the lips, let's face it.
Yeah, it is.
It's the extreme.
Forgotten who it was, somebody called me today and said that Percy had seen my thing last night.
found it the most persuasive thing he'd seen yet and was very impressed with it.
I don't believe him.
But no, it's an attempt to frustrate you from doing what the people want you to do.
And that's the great tragedy of it, that we mustn't let them succeed.
That's why you've... Well, that's why we have to fight it through, right?
We'll fight it through and we'll beat him.
I feel...
I just have a feeling in my
to say, my political stomach at the moment, that if we pound back a little bit hard, I think we may, I think they may have reached too far.
I really do.
The people I normally go to to get reactions, I'm sure they didn't feel that way.
Well, you did a good job, and I appreciate it.
Well, I appreciate the call.
Okay.
Very, very thoughtful.