On April 12, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 7:31 pm to 7:48 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 044-158 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yeah.
Mr. Colson, Mr. President.
Yeah.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Chuck, I got your report, but apparently from the people, what Cronin told me tonight, Julie did very well last night.
Oh, Julie was superb.
She really, she handles herself with such grace and such charm and very, very... She's a 24-year-old.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
It's extraordinary, really.
She is so cool.
She talks about you in just the right way.
She puts just the right personal element into it and handles herself marvelously.
She's a great credit.
How'd the party go?
She thought it was great.
She said everybody was very enthusiastic.
Yeah, it was very upbeat.
She said nobody bugged her about Watergate.
I talked about ending the war and the tough decisions.
She told me.
And the place broke up with applause.
So at least we have some friends up here, I guess.
Oh, hell yes.
Are you still there?
Yes, sir.
I'm in Boston.
Oh, oh, oh.
I thought you, you know.
I'm coming down on the first flight in the morning, but I had to stay and do a few other things today while I was here.
But it was a good evening.
That's always a great dinner.
Frank DeSimmons damn near announced as a Republican.
Good.
And Pete Brennan was here all day yesterday, so it's good.
Good.
You're good.
No, I didn't.
And I got nothing on Watergate, Mr. President.
Well, basically, we have to face the fact that it's a very pervasive Washington story and a media story, but it hasn't reached the country.
But eventually, of course, if they keep pounding, it will.
Somebody told me tonight that Jack Barr had some kind of a joke.
He said, you know, I can understand if there's rape or murder right here.
This is just eavesdropping or some damn thing.
That's right.
And really, you've got to keep the damn thing in perspective.
But it's terribly difficult for people here.
Everybody is in battle, you know, and thinking this is the only story in town.
You get out of town, you find it isn't the only story.
And yet it is a terrible story for those that are in the goddamn thing.
Isn't that the problem?
Yes, sir.
That's right.
That is the problem.
You know, let's face it.
It's tough for Mitchell.
It's tough for Magruder.
It's tough, you know.
Oh, it's hell.
It's hell.
This madman judge.
That's right.
If it weren't for that, it would be a hell of a lot less of a problem.
But sure, I think it's a terrible diversion from other things.
That's what bothers me.
Oh, that's the point, you know, that here we get.
We've done great things.
We've got greater things to do in here.
They're talking about this goddamn Watergate.
That is disgraceful.
Well, I had a...
It is.
And I had a press conference last night before this dinner, and I talked about all the great accomplishments of this administration.
When you were up here five years ago at this dinner, the country was in flames in the Civil War.
The spirit of the country was... Was I there five years ago?
Yes, sir.
Five years ago, you did the...
Where was it?
Where'd they hold it?
At the Statler.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And that's when you said, I'd rather be stoned at the Middlesex Club than stoned in Caracas.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A great speech.
I was with you, and Charlie Moore and my law partner now was the bastard.
So you told him that?
Well, I went through all this last night, and all the things that have happened in this country, the depression and the national spirit, the way you've lifted that thing.
Ending of the war, the slowing of the arms race, the recognition of China.
A different world we live in today.
That's the way to talk.
I went through all of this in the press conference.
I did it in the speech, but I did it in the press conference.
And then it answered some questions on Watergate.
And of course, what's on television last night?
Watergate.
That's what makes you so mad.
You'd like to be able...
to get out and hammer away at the...
I wonder if you would sit down.
I told Bob Holman, Ehrlichman, yesterday that I thought it would be good for everybody to do it.
He said, write your precie as to what the hell, how you see this thing unfolding and how we should handle it, you know.
I'm sure you've thought about it because you see...
With everybody going off in his own direction, that's not good.
But what you really got to come down to is to say, you know, what in the hell do we do here, you see?
Because I think that the worst thing is for us all to get so obsessed with it that we think it's the only story in town.
That's what the press wants.
That's what Irvin wants and the partisan Democrats.
Good God, it's a terrible mistake.
What do you think at the moment?
No, that's precisely what I think.
My view is that we should decide on what the plan ought to be.
Everybody follow it.
And whatever it is, whatever the decision is that has to be made, I feel a decision has to be made.
I think that where this water gate is hurting us, Mr. President, is not with the man in the street.
He just doesn't give a damn.
It really, frankly, doesn't see much wrong with the... Well, it's the elite.
It's with the elite, but the worst place it is is with the party people.
That's what I mean.
By the elite, I mean the finance contributors and all those assholes.
Precisely.
That's right.
That's right.
I sometimes think it doesn't matter anyway because they're never very strong anyway.
Well, that's right, except that... That's why the Armstrongs and the Goldwaters pop off.
Well, they're not strong for us, but it's a hell of a depressant when they're not with us.
I mean, it's a...
I agree with you that they're not worth a hell of a lot.
I know.
Perfectly honest.
I know, I know, but you've got to have them, I know.
They're bad to have them again.
That's the very thing that destroyed Adams, you know.
It wasn't the...
I mean, poor Adams didn't do a damn thing, but Bridges, plus the party elite, knocked his ass off.
Well, I go back...
I have to go back, I'm afraid, Mr. President, to the point that I've made to you back in January, and that is that if there was someone involved, and I don't...
I've never known...
He ought to come forward.
At this point, he needs to, because what's going to happen is that eventually he's going to be found out.
But in the process, it's going to tar things for you, and it's going to...
Frankly, there'll be other things falling out that are perfectly innocent and harmless, but viewed in the context now, my God, they'll put him up before a firing squad.
That's right.
The thing you want to do is...
It seems to me... Yeah, all of the perfectly legitimate but hard-line campaign activities appear to be espionage or sabotage.
Well, God damn it, they're not.
But you see, that'll be the case.
That's the point.
But the point is, somebody's got to step up, but who the hell's going to do that?
Well, that was the point that Dave Shapiro made a couple of months ago.
Yeah.
Brilliant trial lawyer.
He said, look, there's a time in every case when you simply have got to cut your losses.
He said...
Otherwise, you're going to get, in the end, the real problem will be the fallout from a lot of other things that you're not even anticipating right now.
And I'm afraid that's where I would have to come out.
But the finger at the present time, unfortunately, goes to the campaign committee, doesn't it?
Yes, sir.
Very much so.
You think that's accurate?
There's just a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence that's building awfully fast.
And they're all...
jumping ship over there you know the lower levels are all talking to different reporters and it's probably yes and it's what are they saying oh they're pointing fingers everybody's accepted you know whoever is talking to the particular reporter isn't pointing at himself but otherwise he's playing at everybody else i've developed since i left the white house some kind of new and useful but i didn't know existed in washington that's very interesting i
know everybody who walks in and out of jack anderson's office right good that's good this is from co-opting a few people like uh shapiro and uh one or two of his friends they're now on our team we find out a lot that we didn't know before right well but uh my only my only i'm gonna john called me a night and told me he wanted a priest again i've got you three of them uh
that I'm going to come over and see John with tomorrow.
So we want to get his and yours apart from me, because I've really got to tend to the business of the country, you know, and I just can't get...
I'm trying to keep people from keeping me out of the goddamn thing, you know, because I know nothing about it.
No, that's right.
Part of the problem.
No, that's exactly right.
So they all come trotting in and say, look, what do we do?
And I say, well, goddamn it, find out.
That's right.
Don't you agree?
Yes, sir, I think you should...
You know, I'm the one fellow that can attest to that.
I remember talking to you the week after.
You were horrified.
I mean, this is something that...
It should not concern you anyway.
Well, it isn't a question whether I was horrified or I didn't know about it.
No, I mean surprised.
I mean, it was unbelievable that such stupidity could have been committed, but all of us felt that way.
It was all, it was, of course.
I think you should keep out of this.
The biggest negative to the Watergate, in my mind, eventually it's going to come out.
There's just too damn many people involved.
Oh, sure.
The whole goddamn story's going to come out.
The whole story's going to come out.
And therefore, I come to the conclusion that... Get it out fast.
Get it out and get it over with and cut off these hearings and stop this farce that's going on.
And let's start reminding the American people of the extraordinary accomplishments that you performed in this country.
You know, I had so many people come up to me last night after the dinner and say, you know, thank God.
It's great to put it all back in perspective because they...
And that's all that our...
They tend to get all tied up with this crap.
Exactly.
And our fellows should be out and our people should be out being damned upbeat.
I think it's... Because after all...
Sure, we've got some inflation, but the goddamn boom is unbelievable.
This country's moving right now.
Oh, I had a meeting with all the bankers in Boston today.
This was one of the reasons I stayed up, and I never heard anything like it.
Of course, they're concerned with inflation.
Of course, but they prefer a boom with inflation than inflation and depression.
They don't see any recession ahead at all.
Next year or the year after, they just think we're in one of the great uplifting cycles.
They think you've been...
Increased productivity like has never happened before.
International monetary actions were very healthy internally.
This is a period of sustained expansion.
I think the country is in great shape, and that's what kills me about sitting around.
Everybody is sort of in a bomb shelter at the present time.
You know what I mean?
They kind of say, oh, good God, what are we going to do?
We mustn't do that.
It's like ITT.
Look, we did three months worrying about it.
It didn't mean a goddamn thing.
Watergate is worse because it involves some of our closest people.
That's right.
But what the hell do we do about them?
I don't know.
Well, I think... Of course, ITT involved Mitchell, Flanagan.
Yep.
Who else?
Well, it was... Equine East.
Equine East, the other properties, a lot of other people...
And that was a hell of a sensation front page every day.
It just doesn't affect how the average guy is living his life.
And that's what's important.
I think there's a tendency for everybody to get obsessed with Watergate as being a, this is a thing that's going to destroy the presidency.
You know, this is sort of the view of the Ray Price and
that kind of group, you know what I mean?
Gammon and all, they say this is going to destroy the presidency.
So they may be right.
No, it isn't going to destroy the presidency.
But if they are right, the country's in a hell of a shape.
That's right.
But they're not right.
When you stop to think of the fact that the Adams thing, which involved personal banality, nobody even remembers Adams today.
No.
But this...
which involves political crapping around.
I don't know.
You know, the damnable part about this is it has a catchy name like Teapot Dome.
So we're saying it's Watergate and Teapot Dome.
Now, I asked a whole group of people earlier this week, who can tell me the facts of the Teapot Dome case?
Nobody can.
But they remember that name.
They remember the goddamn Watergate name.
Adams, you know, he's one fellow, so that's sort of...
But I think the...
The terribly important point is Watergate is not going to destroy the presidency because eventually the facts will come out.
Once they come out, as long as someone takes action, then it's going to be... You can't keep Ben talking about the goddamn thing.
Someone takes action?
You mean against who?
Well, whoever... Whoever did it?
Yep.
That's pretty true.
That's...
When that happens, well, then that's the end of the story.
Then you have a complete defense to... Chris, they're not just going to stop there.
They're going to go on to Segretti, which is just crap, as you know.
But we ought to just take the attack on that and say, for Christ's sake, what about burning down our headquarters and all that sort of thing?
Oh, absolutely.
And I've told also them to get in touch with you, because Buchanan was working on this, and he said, we don't have anything.
Oh, hell, we had a lot of things.
And I said, well, God damn it, Colson's office was working on this for months, so they've got something.
Well, I've sent them all back into the files.
I saw them all Wednesday and day before yesterday.
You see, it's terribly important.
that at the highest priority, put not only everybody in the files, but get a chapter and verse and put out a goddamn white paper that'll scour them a little, because they did a hell of a lot of bad things, starting with the convention.
Not only that, Mr. President, but McGovern today is using lists that were prepared, mailing lists that were prepared with political funds, leasing them out.
People can buy them or rent them from them.
Well, it's the same thing that Tom Dodd did.
It's taking political money and converting it to your personal profit.
Well, who'd you give that to?
Some stupid ass or somebody who can do something about it?
I gave it to Adams today to research.
He's a bright young fellow.
We'll get it out if we can hang it on him.
Get it out or put it out?
The kind of stuff that, what the hell, that's...
I mean, that's personal profit from political connotations.
That's what the hell they hung out of.
Selling his funds.
Sure.
That's right.
Yeah, they're not his list.
They belong to the party who contributed.
Well, in any event, do your study and tell the people to get the hell off the fence.
But I personally, you know, I'm not...
I'm not a bit depressed about the thing.
I think that there's a tendency, though, for most of our people to get sort of in their bombshellers and sort of hunker down and say, oh, Christ, everything's coming apart.
Well, we've got a few things that we should be proud of, you know?
Oh, Mr. President, you know, I was thinking of that last night.
Cambodia, I remember after Cambodia, we were all cowering.
Well, we should have been out proud as hell.
That's right.
it's this thing that the most important thing if i had any advice at all for you the most important thing is not to let the damn thing divert you from from the magnificent things that are and the difference in this country today and when you became president is every one of us
have had any part of this, have so much to be proud of and talk about it.
That's the point.
Just not, God damn it.
Yeah, and the whole damn White House staff and everybody else has got to be proud rather than whining around, bitching about this thing.
Well, that's right.
And this thing is going to, one way or another, it has to ring out this.
And then so it's... Do you believe that the... How do you get it to...
brought to a conclusion.
Nobody knows.
I'll give you some ideas on that.
I know how that can be done.
All right.
Give me a paper on that, will you?
I'll have one for you.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr. President.
All right.
Good to talk to you, sir.