On May 17, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at Camp David from 7:49 pm to 8:20 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 131-019 of the White House Tapes.
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Mr. Colson for you now, sir.
Yeah.
Go ahead, please.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Well, did you have a quiet day?
Well, we tried to catch up on a few things today.
Right.
We've had one or two slip, though.
We've been keeping the Vietnam stuff ginned up, although that's still going, I must say.
I'm kind of pleased to remember that we had a delegation down from Connecticut today with a lot of petitions.
Cuban's coming tomorrow.
Good.
Demonstration in Boise, Idaho on Saturday and Wichita on Saturday.
On our side, yeah.
On our side, having great.
And they've been pretty good.
They don't get on the national networks, but they get regional press.
Right.
And that helps us.
But it's still going out there.
The mail and the spotting, but demonstrations in some of the places where I've been.
We may get one or two of them picked up as we got Martin Beach picked up last week.
Sure.
We did get our New York Times ad in today, which you may have seen.
No, I didn't see it.
Did you get it in?
Yes.
And I'm amazed they ran it, frankly, because it's tough on the New York Times.
It's got a big headline, the People versus the New York Times.
And it says what the Times said on the list of foreign polls.
They hit Harris and Ligurian Research and ABC polls.
Right.
The conclusion is, who can you believe?
The New York Times and the American people.
Good.
And they gave us a half page, and we had it signed by Mr. Nash Kestenbaum and Rabbi Seidman and Rabbi Gross.
That's very good.
Jewish names on there.
That's good.
That really sticks it to them.
The other thing we're doing is sticking to the press.
God, it's an appalling exercise to go through it, but we've taken...
before we've taken all of the statements that were made in the 48 hours following your announcement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And my God, you'd think the world was coming to an end if you read some of these.
Yeah, that this is World War III and all that.
Oh, Incredible Nightmare, the Detroit Free Press, the Des Moines Register, President's Gone Mad, Military Confrontation with the...
The Soviet Union is inevitable.
The Soviet Union, according to Joseph Kraft, will have to react negatively and say that this will still mean defeat by North Vietnam.
The stuff is incredible.
We're putting it, we don't want to crow about it yet until this weekend, but we're going to get it into some speeches that some of our people are making this weekend.
Good.
And just say the president's on his way to the Soviet Union on a historic mission for peace.
And here's what only 10 days ago some of the leading political and foreign policy commentators and analysts were saying.
And then just read it.
It just is devastating.
We're also going to... You might have Goldwater make a speech on it on the Senate floor, too.
We have three speeches.
Taft agreed to give one of them.
Good.
Doctor's agreed to give one, and Goldwater may be perfect for the third.
I haven't placed the third yet.
Well, anybody, it's all right.
But I also think what we'll do is write to each one of these editorial writers, and each one of these calendars, and just say, Doctor, maybe now you ought to eat a little.
Who will write the letter?
That's the problem, I suppose.
Well, I was thinking of having Dole write it.
That makes it a little bit part of it.
Maybe one of the senators who gives the speech, I think it's Brock.
If a senator would do it, that would be better, Brock or somebody like that.
Yeah, Brock is very good at this stuff.
Good.
So we might get to see if I can get Brock to do that.
He would be excellent.
Mm-hmm.
Clawson thinks he has the story placed of the Truman and Roosevelt assassination.
Yeah.
He was getting to Bill White and Dick Wilson with it also.
Kilpatrick said that he had been thinking about this but hadn't done the research, so we put this together for him this afternoon.
We'll get it to him.
I think that's it.
Yeah, it's a nice touch.
It is.
It's kind of interesting.
Really, the liberal media jumped on that right away, but by the night I was reading the wires and the news commentary, it's fading off a bit.
I mean, they're not building a drumbeat.
Birch Bayh is going to try to go for gun control legislation again, but that's to be expected.
But I think we can...
Gun control wouldn't have affected this thing one whit.
Well, we've gotten that out to everybody, and in fact, we do get a break in the gun control law that was enacted for registration of weapons.
Mm-hmm.
Al Haig probably told you he announced through USRA the trip last night with the Cardinals.
So that'll be moving around the world a bit and perhaps get in behind them.
I don't know how they work that through IRV, but he said that they would see that that could get good treatment in Europe.
We're working up some things.
next week, Mr. President, while you're away, to try to capitalize on the domestic impact of some of the things that you'll be doing.
I've talked to Ehrlichman about this and Haig, and it's a thought at least that we might be able to emphasize some of the strong points of the
some good play back here for cabinet fellows after things are announced over there, if they work here off the domestic impact in the trade area, certainly.
Yeah.
I think Butts should be able to do some good.
He'll do well.
Peterson.
Right.
And I think this is going to, if all goes well, this is going to overwhelm him, because there will be some significant
It's extremely helpful to us if we play it right.
We're planning on it.
We'll see how things go next week.
But if it can be done, I think our fellows can make some points on that score.
What's your reaction today with regard to the Wallace thing?
Well, I think one of the most interesting things, Mr. President, was the way in which the
Senate and House conferees acted last night, stayed in session until midnight, to attach a form, I'm not sure we'll ever get happy with it, but a form of the moratorium, busing moratorium, under the Housing Act, I guess the Housing and Higher Education Act, whichever one they've been working on.
But they worked on it into the night last night until midnight to get a form of the moratorium under this.
Damn well better, hadn't they?
I think they suddenly read what was happening and realized the bite of that issue.
I really believe the impact of it will be to focus on, certainly in the state of Michigan and other places, will focus on the busing issue.
Dr. Griffin today, he's really high.
says he told me two months ago, he said, don't write off Michigan.
He says he's convinced now we can win it.
Well, I am.
I think I really am, and especially if the opponent is McGovern.
I'm pleased the slippery son of a bitch will be all over that issue when the campaign comes.
But McGovern, I think with him, it's an act of faith.
He's absolutely, they're both stuck with it, but he's even more stuck.
I talked to Fitzsimmons this afternoon, and he was just delighted.
He said, Kat, he said, I was delighted to see Humphrey take a comeuppance.
He said, you realize he had, with the exception of the UAW, he had all of the labor unions.
He said, including my man, who I let do it for the primary, although he's going to be with us in the general election.
And he said, hell, he just didn't show, he showed absolutely nothing.
Right.
That's his reading, and his political people are all in town tomorrow, all of their conference directors from all over the country.
He's asked me to come over and visit with him briefly, which I will do.
But he said their feeling is that Humphrey is not showing any grassroots strength at all, that he is not turning them on.
And of course, they're strong for us, so they're looking at it.
also reporting from the rank and file.
But Humphrey just isn't doing it.
One of the interesting things you asked me today was how the press were playing whether this big vote for Wallace was sympathy or whether it was in fact Wallace.
And they ran a poll both in Michigan and in Maryland.
In the Maryland poll, they found that
it didn't help at all.
In other words, the people that had voted for him had planned to vote for him.
There wasn't any vote-shifting.
And that, therefore, he did as well in Maryland.
He would have done as well in Maryland with or without the shooting.
In Michigan, they found very much the same thing, although they found that a fairly...
I'm just looking for the story.
They found a fairly sizable number of Republicans who had
had crossed over.
And I think the figure was something like 20% went on over into the Democratic primary to vote for Wallace, who obviously will not do so, according to the interviews, will not do so in November.
But the significance of it was that in neither state did it appear from these interviews that the shooting accounted for any of his
Yeah.
He would have done it anyway.
I'm convinced he would have.
I am, too.
I don't think it wouldn't be.
The only thing it might do is just give them a little extra push to get them out to the polls.
Right.
I heard the Washington Post survey said that more than 90 percent of those interviewed who voted for Wallace said they had decided more than a month ago to support him.
Yeah.
The conclusion is that, based on a survey of 542 voters, that 15 Maryland counties
I think they will not be able to... Well, the columnists will, but it's all right.
Nobody gives a damn about them.
And the networks, of course, they'll warble around about it.
But I must say, though, that the whole bunch are out on a limb because of the way they went off the deep end after the announcement on Monday.
A week ago.
Really, they did go off on them.
I told you, you know, that you'd find some pretty lousy stuff.
Oh, God.
It's, uh, yeah, Severide, Cal, the newspapers that you would normally expect, uh, accountants like Milton B. Orst.
Oh, yes.
The lefties, Kraft.
Uh, oh, they got, they got themselves way off on them.
I, I just think that...
I'd rub it into them.
Oh, right.
Absolutely.
Uh,
I think it's the kind of thing, Mr. President, that over the real time to rub it in is when you come back, or while you're in the Soviet Union.
While we're there, yeah, all right.
I think that's the time I'd really like to hit him with it.
And Buchanan, they've given us an invitation to go on the Today Show.
He can do this beautifully because he's writing the press.
Right, he'll kill them.
I've talked to Pat about this, and he said he'd just like to sit there and read some of these and then say, well,
over there, and yesterday was announced, and the following.
And if World War III hasn't begun and the world hasn't come to an end, the next time the president takes bold and decisive action, I hope these same fellows will take a good hard second look before they do.
And also to say that as honest men, they ought to admit they were wrong.
Yes.
That's good.
Pat can do that.
Just ought to tell them, yeah.
Sure.
As a journalist himself, he can.
That's right.
Columbia journalist.
So we'll hit him on that.
I haven't gone through with you, although when you get back, I'll have a memo for you, a number of the things we're doing in the media area.
I think that we're going to keep him off balance this year.
We have a monitoring operation now, which is in place around the country.
It is working.
Is it?
Yes, sir.
We've tested it on two specific instances, and we know the playback.
We know on reasoner that he
I apologize for lousy commentary that he did.
But I really think we're in position and set up properly so that we can... You also are taking having somebody hit the top people, you know, the Stantons and the owners of the network, Sarnoffs, all those bastards.
Well, we do that with Mayo, generally, Mr. President.
I suppose that's the only way to do it, Joe.
Well, I did talk to Stanton last night.
Yeah, I know.
I knew about that.
I do have to say that we've, at least from the war zone, at least from Saigon, they've given us pretty good TV coverage.
This has been different in the last ten days than either Laos or Cambodia.
They've had some damn good interviews.
Monday night they had some excellent coverage on that.
And they've been a little restrained.
I think they're a little worried that they may not be playing to the public mood if they play it too negatively.
These fellows read the polls.
Sure.
Well, they don't want to be way out there, out of step with the country.
That's right.
And they were, until your speech.
We were getting some bad, very bad breaks.
Not bad breaks, but very bad coverage.
That's right.
just a little bit better since your speech.
We're also, I think now, has pretty effectively moved out the line of this fellow being, this Bremer being possibly a radical.
Really?
And a Democrat now, but Post hasn't given it any play.
Washington papers haven't, but I got in the Chicago papers today and the Detroit papers, and they
were playing it up as a front page story that he was, well they went through the whole business about his background, but they got in there that he'd been, sources said he'd been close to radical causes, Black Panther literature, a member of the Young Democrats.
The Tribune gave us some very good press on that.
That just may build, depending on how... That's right.
Just keep at it.
That's right.
We want to keep that question alive.
That's right.
Just so people wonder about it, right?
That's right.
And let the... You know, an interesting thing is that I think the Democratic critics are, as you pointed out yesterday, they're a little leery of this, aren't they?
They're not nearly as loud as they were for about three days ago.
Amazingly quiet, Mr. President.
I watch for it hourly.
I have a person who just watches the wiring machine so that we can answer their criticisms as they come in.
And it's been damn scarce.
A little thing here or there, but minor.
Usually from Gravel or Leckie or some jackass.
Oh, he's crazy.
Oh, crazy, yeah.
Not much from Teddy Kennedy.
You've probably noticed he's been very, very silent.
Has he?
Yeah.
Muskie hasn't said a word.
Well, you know, there's nobody deader than he is, isn't that true?
When Yorty gets more votes in Maryland than Muskie, that's pretty dead, Mr. President.
Yeah.
He got, what, 2% of the vote?
I thought your turnout in both, your vote in both primaries was excellent.
Was it pretty good, was it?
It was well over 300,000, and Michigan was 90, let's see if I have the figures here, 90-odd, 95.
getting just a handful.
And it was just below 90 in Maryland, with Ashbrook getting a little bit there, which is to be expected, but nothing.
I mean, overwhelming and good turnouts in Maryland.
I don't have figures here, but in Maryland it was the first state that has a very low
Well, anyway, it's really confused these people, isn't it, what's happening?
Not only confused, but I think there's just a little bit of fright.
A fright that maybe they may lose and that the country may win.
That's right.
That worries them.
Well, we've been taking that line.
Bill did it very well today at the press club, that McGovern preaches end the war but then votes against the ceasefire.
And that obviously the reason he's voting against the ceasefire is because he wants the war to continue because it's a better issue for him if it continues than if it ends.
Yep.
of all of these Democrats who vote against the ceasefire amendment.
Yeah.
I'd hit that.
That's a very good line.
That is that anybody that's against the ceasefire is for continuing the war.
That's right.
Well, that's the unbelievable thing about Taft.
He was quoted very generously in the press today saying that the government wants the war to end
like Hanoi, in shame for the United States and in vindication of the government's long-held position that South Vietnam should be quietly dispatched to the butchery of Hanoi.
That's good.
The government and a motley band of supporters like Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman, said past, want to settle for nothing less than national disgrace.
That's great.
But no, the line that we got up there today and we gave it to several people, I don't
hadn't seen anything when I left the office, which was 7.30, but maybe we won't get it, but it was that these fellows want to continue the war, and that vote yesterday is the best evidence of it.
But we'll keep hammering that, and I head course in playing that off the columnist today to see if we couldn't get the hypocrisy of that, really.
Well, it's really, really, really disgusting.
Well, when you look at the Harris poll, Mr. President, people are asked, would you
you favor a ceasefire.
That was two to one that they do.
So they're not in a good position now.
Of course, a lot of the devs today announced that they now won't support this amendment at all.
That's good.
That kills it.
I think it probably will.
Of course, Mansfield is in a very down mood.
He's trying to redraft an amendment that he then can get people to support.
It'll be...
three months or four.
How the hell with him?
We've just got to fight him now.
Well, there now appears no question that we can hold it all off until after that trip.
And I think if we do that, that an awful lot of steam will be out of their sails by then, because if the situation holds stable in South Vietnam during that period and you have a successful trip, as I'm sure you will, there's going to be
they're going to be hard-pressed to try to cast that kind of a vote.
So I think we'll just next week keep them there.
As Bob Dole said today, we'll have extended discussions if necessary, but there'll be no vote.
Yeah.
And they'll try to get up Glandy's too, I know.
Well, we're trying to.
Griffin told me they were going to fight to do that.
Yeah, it's
Between each other?
Yes, sir.
Well, that's too bad.
Well, arguing that over when it would be brought up, Byrd said that he wasn't about to turn over the leadership of the Senate to the Republican Party.
He was demanding that the point needs to be brought up.
We've got to do this every day.
I'd keep doing it.
That's right.
And then if they want to vote it down in a partisan way, fine.
That's right.
At least we have the acquittal.
And if they now hold it up, I don't think it hurts us.
I think it hurts them.
No.
Absolutely.
I told Griffin that today.
I said, don't ever let them have Schultz up first.
Don't ever let that happen.
That's right.
Well, he can work that out, but he doesn't mind.
He knows what we have to do.
But next week we'll keep the pressure on them very hard to try to drive these up on the floor.
And I really think that Tex McCurry, as Bob Polman was telling me tonight, has the theory of start banging away at the Senate.
I think the time is getting there.
I know there are some differences on this.
I think McCurry's right.
Yeah, I think the time is because the public,
You know, they see this kind of a performance, and they're not dumb.
They know damn well that they're just totally obstructionists.
I think they ought to start hitting the damn Senate and kicking them just hard as hell.
And then just because Mike is a nice guy, goddammit, he's not for what we're trying to do.
So hit him.
And he isn't even being a very nice guy right now.
Hell no.
He's being very difficult.
So yeah, I think we will do that.
One of the things we'll try to have laid out while you're gone is a pretty good effort to start cracking at them because they don't have that much time once you get back five weeks before they have to break for the convention.
Then they have to go to the convention, that's right.
And they won't come back between the conventions, or so they say.
They're not coming back?
The plan, at least, Mr. President, is that they will not come back between the conventions, that they'll recess.
They want to recess.
Now, they may not be able to.
Disgusting.
Well, I'd start hitting them right now about the shameful performance.
Yeah, it's a hell of a good case, and we can start making it, and I think it does help us.
Right.
To put the pressure on them.
Yeah, that's right.
Run against them.
Run against them.
Exactly.
Well, anyway, it's a lot different from it was in the days of IT&T.
At least this is our issue and not theirs for change.
That's exactly right.
And we had a review with my staff this afternoon of what domestic issues we could start hammering that will show tough presidential, strong presidential leadership.
After I got thinking about them, I realized that what you're doing right now, I agree with Lou Harris.
I think that foreign policy can be a... Keep it on our issue and not get on that stuff that they're crap.
Exactly.
No, sir, absolutely.
Right now is our issue.
That's right.
Puts you across to the people in a very, very strong way.
That's right.
And they don't care about water pollution, all that crap.
That doesn't matter, not one bit.
They don't give a damn.
Revenue sharing, welfare reform, blah.
They care about welfare, loafer.
Yeah, I know, but nothing's going to happen on that.
That's right.
And that's a good one to run against the Congress also.
Mm-hmm.
you're trying to do something to get the loafers off the welfare rolls.
Congress didn't do it.
But you're absolutely right.
Conley's thesis is correct.
The people want to see a strong president in action, and they really don't give a goddamn about the solution.
Yeah, we so often, you know, I mean, the domestic people,
naturally working with their issues, and they think that, gee whiz, why don't we talk more about them, and why don't we make this and that and the other thing.
But even if you take drugs, what the hell can we do that we haven't done?
That's right.
I think issues separate out of the real cutting issues, very, very cutting issues that have a decisive effect on how a person votes.
Like busing.
That's not national, but it's not too small either when you go into large areas where there are black concentrations.
That is a cutting issue.
That makes people go out and vote for a man for that issue alone.
Right.
But there aren't many like that.
People don't just go out and vote on their... That's right.
Most of the domestic issues that we spend 90% of our time on, they don't.
They vote on their... That's right.
I guess it was CBS last night.
Yeah, CBS.
The most cutting issue this year.
Mm-hmm.
Which is basically race, as you know.
That's right.
It's race.
The fear of Latin housing.
Which is all related.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
And it's the kind of people that are entitled to perish are the kind of people that fear most about the issue.
Yeah, that's right.
And they're the people that we
Well, basically, you know, the theory of some of our people have said, you know, we've got to build a new coalition and all that sort of thing, and they say of the young and this and that.
The hell with it.
Our coalition has got to be basically what I've referred to as the
The silent majority, that's what it is.
Middle Americans.
It's the middle Americans, it's the decent people that work, the farmers, the workers, and the hell with the elite businessmen and the elite ivy league presidents and the rest.
Go for folks.
That's right.
Go for the folks.
That's right.
And quit playing to the establishment.
And as the Cardinal was saying last night, that's exactly what you do.
You risk your strength for the presidency on being able to go right through to the folks and do it.
You start figuring that the farmers and the new middle class, which is basically a white ethnic working man, the Teamsters, the Catholics, which I am absolutely convinced are swinging over because of conservatism and because of busing and housing and the concern about the black.
This is where that, this is that, this is that constituency.
That's right.
The traditional Republican vote that we're going to get.
That's right.
had up where they are.
And as a matter of fact, as Griffin pointed out today, he said that Wallace got more of the 18 to 24s than did McGovern in Michigan.
Is that so?
Yes, sir.
Martin Hayden had a poll taken.
And Wallace got more of the 18 to 24s than did McGovern.
So that's true.
No, sir, there's something going on here, you know.
The kids may have, you know,
Basically, the American people are very humanitarian, very generous, and the rest.
But the blacks have overplayed it, and the professional liberals have overplayed it.
And they see them getting these special favors and the rest, and they get pushed around.
They say, well, to hell with them.
That's right.
That's what it is.
That's exactly right.
That's a very, very interesting thing.
Yeah, you've got a hold of that poll.
Call Griffin's office.
He'll set it down for you.
I'll get that from them, because that's a very interesting thing.
That should be a hell of a lesson, too, to some of our people who argue with what you should do to get to the end, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That's the end of it, right?
Well, okay.
Fine.
We'll keep her going.
I know you will.
You're getting some rest up there, sir.
Oh, yeah.
You've had some long, long days.