On June 9, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and John N. Mitchell talked on the telephone at Camp David from 10:34 am to 10:47 am. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 133-026 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
President?
That's a fine picture of you in blindies from the front page.
I'd have surprised the bastard.
You're such a good one.
Well, it was... Where was that taken?
It was taken... Dick had a little reception over in the Justice Department.
Went over there, and they had all the cameras and press and so forth.
Yeah, I just tried to call him this morning.
He's in Philadelphia.
I hope he's working.
What's he doing up there, making a speech or something?
I haven't the faintest idea, but I would believe so.
Yeah, he's a good property.
Yeah.
You know the...
The vote was good, John, wasn't it?
Not if it didn't lose the republic, even if Percy turned around.
Oh, Percy was strong for them because of McLaren.
They're old friends, you know.
Oh, I see.
And I think the big vote was Mansfield.
Did he vote for it?
Yes.
Yes, he did.
Why do you think he did?
Well, Mike is a fellow that doesn't always go the political way.
He does sometimes what's right.
and they couldn't make a political issue out of it they tried to in their party caucuses and all the way through but they just couldn't do it i think too that uh i just had a feeling john that uh you know there's always it's sort of a trauma after coming back from the moscow trip and everything these guys don't kind of want to be in the position of fighting the president too hard every damn thing what do you think i would agree with that certainly not that they wouldn't love to do it but you know they they watch the wind
Yes, and of course the steam went out of this outside of the Washington Post and the New York Times, and they always look at their own postures around the country.
People didn't care, huh?
People not only didn't care, but on the cartoons and so forth, they lost their credibility.
They thought they were just too dark, partisan, politically motivated, which they were.
Well, thank God, you know, only 19 votes.
That really is good, and I hope he's rough as hell on people, too.
You know, he shouldn't allow this to make him a little tender.
You understand what I mean?
I don't think it's clandestine nature, but I certainly will impart the message.
You know what I mean?
Yes, I do.
Connolly mentioned that to me.
He said, you know, he just hopes that Dick doesn't, just so many people, when they go through a tough confirmation, then sort of bend to the wind, and he says, don't let him do it.
And I think Connolly's right.
I do, too, and certainly you let him do it.
I'll go over that with him because I think his disposition would be the other way around once he knows he has his base.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, he is a good fellow.
Well, you've done your press thing yet?
I did one yesterday, and I've got a television program on Sunday.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I know.
And it seems to be coming off all right.
All right.
Well, the big problem is the one I mentioned to you yesterday.
What is this?
soft-headed muskie do today.
Yeah.
The betting, I guess, is about even that he's going to knuckle under.
But we still have the other troops fighting, and I think we have a good delaying action in the contest of all these delegates.
Is that right?
You noticed or not?
No, I haven't followed it.
Tell me about it.
Well, there's about 40% of the delegates going to the convention as of...
earlier this week that were under contest of some type or another.
And then yesterday, the Humphrey people contested the whole delegation in California as not complying with the rules of the Democrat Party or the one man, one vote.
That is the winner-take-all aspect of it.
So, oh, I see.
So Humphrey is still hanging in there.
The Wallace backers are hanging in with us, too, so we ought to have... Humphrey's not going to cave, is he?
No.
He talks all over the place.
Yeah, of course, but Dwayne Andrews has got him pretty well under control now.
He's spending the weekend with Dwayne out in Minnesota, and they've got a little program laid out there.
Salon Muskie, he is such a weakling that...
He might knuckle under for something, but I must say McGovern is playing, of course, the usual role of these damn phony liberals that he says, well, I can compromise now and so forth.
But the one thing that's very important for us to bear in mind is, it seems, is not to take him on, which is always the mistake that we make, that, well, this fellow's changed his position.
Just never admit it.
You know what I mean?
What I mean by changing his position is that when they hit the people on the right, when we change, if we change a position, then, of course, our right-wingers really believe, and they just, God damn, they don't give you an inch.
People on the left just want power.
And I just keep that son of a gun.
I just think we ought to keep him right there on the left.
I mean, he's a true believing fanatic.
Because, you know, it's really for him to try to get off his, well, I didn't really mean $1,000, and I'm not sure that was just a figure of speech, you know, and that sort of stuff.
Don't you agree that his followers, even if he changed 180 degrees, would still follow him?
as whereas if it was a right winger that would not be the case in our case so what we want to do is to is to really uh remember that the only way that we can keep get people to defect from him is to convince them that he is a true believing radical and that you can't believe a thing that he says to the contrary uh that is absolutely correct we were
just having a meeting here we had a fellow working for a month in the mcgovern campaign on california oh yeah and he's brought back all of the literature that they used in their canvassing and so forth and it's all all of these his extreme positions are all documented in this good and of course we have all of his television tapes uh television programs taped so i think we've got a basis to keep adam on this uh
ground from now until the end.
And I think the thing to do, too, is to continue to attack him on his old positions, even when he's changed them.
Then somebody will say, but the senator's changed them.
Well, no, but that's what he said.
You know what I mean?
I just think it's the old game.
The media, of course,
would never let us get away from changing our position.
They will try to let him get away, but the way to beat him at that game is just to act as if you never heard his denial.
Absolutely.
Act as if we never heard his denial.
We don't know about that.
We just heard what he said in California.
Well, that approach that you just mentioned does one other thing.
It brings in the fact of credibility because of change.
Sure.
Then let him deny it.
That's right.
It brings in this question of credibility, which is...
uh point that he would be the weakest on if we can establish it that's right that's right that's right well it's quite a game quite a game but just john is it a frightening thing to think that a son of a bitch like that could even be considered for president i mean you can imagine a muskie or a humphrey but this fellow is is really uh he's really way over there isn't he
Or do you agree?
Oh, quite, but I want to say that the people around him are not a bunch of wild-eyed liberals.
They're a bunch of power-hungry characters.
Oh, they're absolute pragmatists.
Yes, there's no question about it.
Don't you think that what they're doing, they're the ones that are getting into changes positions now.
They see the chance for power.
Well, they also see the defections, which are tremendous.
Did you see some story?
The only thing I see appears at times, and I saw that story by...
Rosenthal on the defections out there.
Are they worried about it?
Oh, yes, very, very much so, but the defections are coming out of the top of the Democrat Party.
Oh, you didn't mean, I see.
As well as, of course, from the voters, which will leave them, and we're getting approach from all sides, including the Jewish establishment on the coast out there.
I've got a meeting, I'm going to be out there next week, and I've got a meeting with that
Can we nail any of them down, John, any of these defectors?
Oh, yes, very much so.
We know we can get Connolly, for example, but can we get any more like that?
Oh, yes, yes.
They're not going to be taken in by this shift of his position, are they?
No, and, of course, these power-happy characters have done one other thing, according to my reports, and that is they've had Mike Feldman.
You probably recognize that name.
as a Kennedy activist who has been on the fringe of the McGovern operation.
Oh, I see.
He is going in and sat down with Larry O'Brien and says, Larry, it's time for you to leave.
We're going to take over.
So you've got quite a bit of the organizational base.
You've got to remember, too, that is right.
As soon as he's nominated, he'll select a new national chairman.
Yep.
And, well, they're already telling O'Brien to move over.
They want to program the convention.
And, of course, we have their finance, the Democrat finance chairman, who is a great friend of John Connolly's, who's just up in arms and working with us behind the scenes to try and put the straw out of him.
Or whatever your name is.
So as soon as the break comes, when they know this guy's had it, I think they'll be coming over in droves.
You mean when they know McGovern's got it?
Well, they may know it today.
It's quite conceivable, but they're a little ambivalent behind the scenes, but some of them are still working in the right cause.
Well, I mean, speaking what they may know it today in this sense, that it must be moves.
It must be moves, and his Illinois delegation and some of the other larger blocks he has moves with him.
I think they'll all realize the ballgame is up, and it'll be a rearguard action on the delegate contest in Miami.
But the thing to do is to have them, the Democrats, keep pouring it on this guy as long as we can keep them doing it.
You just wonder how much they will because they all want power, don't they, John?
Yes, but this group is starting to get pretty ruthless with some of these people.
You mean the McGovern group?
The McGovern group, yeah.
And you think that backfires some?
I would believe it would backfire.
They have not been as conciliatory as...
you would believe, illustrated by the conversations at the Governor's Conference.
They, in essence, the McGovern people down there, said, look, our man's got it.
He's going on, and you better fall in line, and we're not going to make any concessions on the issues or anything else.
It's just a pure power grab.
I hope they continue that way, if they will just do that.
See, that's the way the Goldwater people did, and that busted the party apart.
If they would continue that way, they might have trouble.
Well, I believe they will, not so much from the ideology standpoint, but from the fact that we've made it on our own, and we don't need you jerks anymore.
You mean they just feel that way?
Yeah, that's the way apparently they've been acting.
Of course they may, yeah.
They may feel that the only thing that might move them the other way...
I read McGovern's interview with the New York Times where he said he had a lot of young idealists, but they were now idealistic, though they were, were saying, look, we don't want to do all this for nothing.
We want to win the White House.
So maybe McGovern keeps talking about being a pragmatist.
How does that all add up to this?
Well, I think that that's McGovern who's trying to make that move, but these people around him I don't think that are out there.
doing the canvassing and solicitation are not really approaching it that way you think they then are not going to be as conciliatory as mcgovern himself that's it exactly and of course back in these delegations he has got all these wild-eyed characters that were taken on the established democrat party yeah and that's where the friction is going to come right
It's like one of Daley's chief lieutenants was quoted today as saying, if they don't seek me at the Democrat convention, I'm going to turn Republican.
You'll seek it?
Oh, yes, indeed.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Right, sir.