On June 24, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at Camp David from 7:12 pm to 7:34 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 134-015 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
I was just talking to Bob earlier this afternoon, and I was very interested that Humphrey was so rough on McGovern today.
Did you see that by any chance?
Yes, I did, sir.
He was really tough on him.
I think Hubert is going down for the count.
He knows it's desperate, and he's just hitting very, very hard.
That's the hardest he's hit.
Because, you know, he really laid it on the line on welfare, on defense.
Oh, the whole thing?
Yeah.
He hit him about as hard.
McGovern's in a nice box, because I don't know what the Bob mentioned to you, but Kennedy also... Yeah, Kennedy said, don't turn around.
Don't turn around.
Stay where you are.
So he's got himself in quite a good squeeze.
Now, he hit him about as hard yesterday or this morning as I think Jackson hit him before.
Didn't quite call him a Democrat, and he didn't...
But he sure hit them on the issues.
And that's great if they...
He even said that we'd get labor if we worked on it.
That's right.
Well, I think he knows that...
He's heard from those people.
Oh, he's heard from the same ones we have.
He's heard about the same ones we have.
We had a good visit today, Op.
I was glad to do it.
I didn't do it with any publicity, but I...
It was a very good thing to do, Mr. President.
Well, you know, they wanted me to announce it and have...
If I'd have done that, I'd have had 150 press people and television cameras and wouldn't have talked to anybody.
But I don't know how it played, but it was a nice thing, really, a very nice, warm story.
Well, it was a worthwhile thing to do.
You mentioned this morning that Johnson overdid that, which he did, but you have not... Yeah, well, he overdid it by just flying over it and not stopping.
You know, I just went and talked to the folks a little.
But I think that's very important.
Because it's a horrible thing, I'll say.
Well, it's been a tough thing through this whole area.
Right.
The idea of showing concern, yeah, I think that... Yeah, over and over people said, we didn't know anybody cared.
That's right.
And there was a marvelous little picture of a little Negro child about...
10 years old, that held my hand all for 20 minutes as we walked around.
He was scared to death, by the way.
What else is new?
I really think, though, that this Democratic thing,
The platform and the rest is getting very, very interesting.
What do you think?
Well, it is.
Or do you think the McGovern thing got it completely under control, you think?
Well, they have it.
They own it.
Can they keep everybody from raising hell?
No.
Oh, hell no.
They can't stop this credentials thing.
How about the platform thing?
Well, you see, McGovern's in a hell of a spot on the platform.
I think he made a terrible mistake because he put his own people in control of the platform.
The people he put in control...
There's a law school professor from Harvard by the name of Shays.
Yeah, he's bad.
Oh, Christ.
It's not.
It's Young Gale, who's a real radical from Massachusetts.
Another one.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Who else did he put?
Probably Galbraith.
No, Galbraith isn't in it.
But there are six McGovern people who are far out.
I have the list, and I don't have it in front of me.
But six of those 15 on the platform drafting committee are very far out.
I don't think he could turn those off.
I mean, I don't think they could come away from some of their positions.
Whichever way he goes, if he tells his people on that platform committee to come in with a moderate platform, then he's going to be charged with a sellout.
If, on the other hand...
The Tom Wicker line.
Exactly.
And Kennedy.
Kennedy said the same thing.
Why the hell do you think Kennedy said that?
I'm just curious.
Kennedy can't believe that.
Why did he say it?
Kennedy doesn't want him to win.
You don't think so?
Oh, hell no.
First of all, Kennedy knows you're going to win.
And he doesn't want a government to win.
But he wants a government to win.
He wants to change the Democratic Party so that Kennedy, over the next four years, is going to own it.
And then he thinks he's going to have a shot at it in 1976.
And I'm positive that's what he's doing.
Last week was a pure exercise, Kennedy mischief, Irish mischief.
He just threw that out very deliberately.
He got himself off with his own people back home.
He was in deep trouble.
And now he's saying, okay, George, you're out there.
You go do it.
He's shoving them off to the left.
Incidentally, I thought McGovern made a classical error in coming out for normalization of relations with Cuba and Chile.
How do you think?
Did you see that?
Oh, I certainly did.
I hope that gets down.
That gets down to the Miami people.
They should really get excited now.
Oh, yes.
Will it get down there?
Because it was a small story that pressed deliberately to help you get it down, but it's a hell of a statement.
Oh, it'll play big down there, and it'll play in the Cuban press.
I clipped it out to The Wire story, and I'm going to send it to...
I didn't get a chance to this morning in the office, but I'm going to send it to B.B.
And B.B.
sent me all that Cuban press this week.
What did it say?
Oh, that Kennedy, public enemy number one, that's vicious stuff.
They're...
The Cubans in Miami, we will be...
They've got to accept the truth of what McGovern now for a view of this.
Oh, yeah.
Right now, we ought to be able to hang that statement right on McGovern.
He wants to normalize relations with Chile and with Cuba.
The two communist countries in the West and the West.
And all those poor Cubans who are illegally in the United States will be sent back to the slaughterhouse.
I just keep sitting, Mr. President, wondering and pinching myself, wondering if it's all real.
I just keep figuring this guy...
He can't be this, I mean, he must realize what he's doing.
The VFW yesterday, I don't know if I've mentioned it.
No, no, no, I didn't get in there.
Well, they passed a couple of resolutions opposing the government on defense cuts and amnesty, and they've never taken a political position.
Well, the VFW, are they in convention now?
Well, they're having a state convention.
What Cooper Holt has been doing is circulating this with the California State Convention.
Oh, boy, good, good.
That's a good place to have it.
He's been doing it at every state convention.
and getting a hell of a standing ovation when he talks about backing you on the war and being against those who would leave our prisoners.
And yesterday in California they passed the same resolution they passed in Illinois.
We've been putting this into all the key state conventions.
All 50 states have their CFW conventions in June.
But the interesting thing is they've never done anything like this.
I mean, this is being very political for a conference organization.
But McGovern must be reading this.
Of course, they read everything.
I just can't figure out why he continues to take quite the far... Well, I'll tell you what's doing it, I think.
He won the primaries, and everybody said he couldn't.
Now he may think this is the country.
You know, people could be convinced of that.
Well, there's an interesting thesis.
I have a long memorandum.
I want to boil it down before I send it to you that Doug Heller prepared for me based on all of his conversations with his friends from Yale who are now in the Macomban camp.
Right.
And what I said to Doug is, go off for a few days and write me the McGovern strategy.
Right.
And he's written a brilliant piece.
It's too long for you to read, but I'm going to have it distilled down.
Right.
And that's exactly the strategy, that the country is ready to come to them.
And he doesn't think McGovern will move to the center then?
No, well, he thinks he will on some things.
He'll try to be quiet on some things.
Right.
But the symbolism of what he will say, he thinks the country will respond to.
And the whole theory...
And this goes along with the Manzarekans, by the way.
The whole theory is that he really represents what the country needs to express their frustration.
Yeah.
And that he can capture this and he can gain in the general election the way he gained in the primary.
I think he's going to do exactly the reverse.
I talked to Father Coop last night, who's the head of the National Catholic Education Association.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, what did he say?
Well, he said that Gallup poll that you saw 10 days ago on the Catholic vote, he said it's misleading.
Because he said it doesn't reflect what we're going to do between now and the election.
I mean, they're just the Catholic organization in this country.
They've got to know.
And I think, incidentally, I'm just hoping that he puts Mills on the ticket, don't you?
That's what it's going to be, I think, don't you?
No, I don't think so, Mr. President.
I think he'll go for an out-and-out liberal.
I think he'll go for a Stevenson or a Gilligan.
Really?
Yes, I really do.
Is Gilligan Catholic?
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Would Gilligan help him with Catholics?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think the number two spot will affect the Catholics.
And I think what affects the Catholics most personally, at least half of them, let's say the traditional Catholics, of which there are 25 million in this country, maybe 30 million traditional Catholics, what affects them are abortion, aid to schools, traditionalism, and there's an awful lot of...
especially among the older Catholics.
And this is what Coop was saying, that once McGovern's positions are known, which they will be through the Catholic Church, he said that Gallup poll is very misleading because he said you'll take 75% of the traditional Catholics and you'll take your ordinary share of the non-traditional.
And of course there are 55 million Catholics, so you take half of that.
And he really, he just thinks we're...
McGovern has gone out the deep end.
He doesn't think he's all there.
Continuing to take the positions he's taking on things that really cut into a huge... Well, McGovern will come out for this act for the Catholic schools, old Chuck.
Well, he's been against it right along.
If he does, it'll be political.
Has he been against it?
Oh, yes, sir.
He's opposed to it, which delights me.
And he's in favor of abortion being left up to the individual, which is the same thing as saying on demand.
And all of the, you see, the thing that I don't think you can get over, Mr. President, and McKinnon, I talked to George McKinnon, as you asked me to.
Oh, I wonder what George said.
Well, he said the same thing.
He said he's watched this happen once before.
He said in 1934, the Democratic Party, the Carmel Labor Party in Minnesota adapted a communist plank, and he said that...
That was their undoing.
That led the way to Stassen.
They didn't make it that year.
The Republicans didn't come back that year because they didn't have any candidates.
But he said in the next election, they came back pretty strong, and they were in power for 15 years.
And he said they're doing it again.
He said what they did out there at their convention just ended them for a good period of time in Minnesota.
But they're doing this all over the country.
It's not just Minnesota.
In each state that the McGovern delegates take control, they are just going on the far way out.
Speaking of, incidentally, the use of the television thing, I was delighted to hear from Haldeman that that 55-second spot I did on the...
uh i was carrying all three networks all three networks in full plus uh all the network feeds plus all the independent i checked on that after you asked me when i got in the office i checked on it and it played in full on all networks on all independents and uh on all network feeds so you that's the kind of thing that i just saturated saturated the country with it was very wise to keep it to
keep it down in time because they don't carry it otherwise or they cut out the part that's helpful well we used the whole thing plus the punch line which was just superb and uh the punch line with regard to that constitutional constitutional amendment sure but i mean because for one reason whether you whether we ever have to go to it and that doesn't matter the people know who are the people who are strongly anti-business now know in unequivocal terms that you
we'll take the constitutional route if necessary.
That's been the one thing that, well, a simple type of... We haven't gotten across yet.
I haven't understood it.
And moratorium, I'm not sure what that means.
That's true.
But constitutional amendments are buzzing.
In other words, Congress either is going to give me what I want or I'm going to have a constitutional amendment.
Now, people don't understand how the processes work.
They don't understand it's easier to get legislation in the Congress.
Right, right, I agree.
But you gave them a code word.
You gave them a symbol on that to...
spot last night, and that resolves it.
I don't think we'll have any confusion.
I think that we can go out and talk to people and say... Well, it certainly does for us, but we've got to continue to hit the damn thing so that, you know, you've got to keep repeating.
Well, I think the Congress did us a favor.
I think they, by sending that down, they gave us a forum.
Not only that, Mr. President, but the networks, all three of them gave it between two and three minutes in which they talked about it, in addition to the question
And they talked about it because they thought it would hurt us.
I think that's probably right.
Yeah, they're all for the purse, I know.
Well, but they talked about how angry you were that the Congress had not given you the legislation.
And the coverage was superb in the newspapers we took.
I haven't seen the papers that we see here.
I haven't seen Detroit.
I've asked for it.
And Chicago and Pittsburgh, which is where...
These things really cut very, very hard.
But we can just keep this momentum that we have.
There's a profile of voter who is emerging right now, whether we get them through the Catholic Church and whether we get them through busing, or whether we get them through labor unions, frankly.
We're going to reach these people.
We're through the VFW.
Well, what we're going to reach, basically, is what we call Middle America.
Middle America.
McGovern's not with.
He's not for it.
And I am.
No, he isn't.
He's for it.
He's for the Eastern intellectual elite.
It's the new elitists that really...
So-called movement.
That's right.
But I do think we'll get through them.
I...
I don't know whether you had a chance to see that memo I sent up to you today on the food prices, but I think if we do over the next two to three weeks what we've outlined in that memorandum, the public is going to know that we're on top of the issue.
That's really what counts.
If they know that you're doing everything you possibly can, that's the important thing.
And that's the only one that I see that can cause us problems.
Vietnam doesn't.
Doesn't concern me in the slightest.
That's a positive.
Henry put up very well last night when he was here.
He said the only thing that is delaying peace in Vietnam is McGovern.
He said if it weren't for McGovern, we'd have a negotiation right away.
See, because McGovern has said if today is inaugurated, that he brings everybody home.
Well, what the hell?
If you were a North Vietnamese, what would you do?
You'd wait.
Of course, absolutely.
This ought to be... Henry and others shouldn't say it at this point, but I hope that some of the other people, the columnists, will start saying this.
Well, as I pointed out, Braden said it this week, which I was just amazed.
He talked about the ghost of McGovern sitting at the negotiating table in Paris.
No, I think we'll get that across.
And interestingly enough, we've asked all of our fellows to use the line that you don't have to go to Hanoi to surrender.
McGovern said he was going to go to Hanoi.
You can do it.
You can just tell them you're surrendering.
And Buckley's been using that, and Jim said that, in fact, it was reported in the New York Daily News, everywhere he's used that, he's got his best spots.
He's gotten people out of their seats with it.
Bill has used it, and we've sent it out to all the administration people saying you can...
The idea that McGovern is sabotaging peace, is it not a bad thing?
You might hit that a bit now.
Well, it is, sir, but there's... Of course it is.
Let me tell you, the North Vietnamese have failed on the battlefield.
They've failed in attacking Vietnamization.
They're crumpling up north as a result of the mining.
Now, what the hell's going to keep them alive?
Just the hope to get a president in who'll bug out.
Yes, sir.
Exactly.
uh uh first time in history the leading presidential contender is openly supported by an enemy with which this country is at war and he goes on and he really lays a case where
saying that this is distributed to veterans and what have you.
I mean, everybody around Washington knows Lasky's archive, but out in the country they don't.
Oh, that's right.
And it's just that point.
Quoting what Hanoi Daily John Donne has said and what the radio has said and how he said he would leave the prisoners there and hope that the world opinion would bring them back.
I think he's in a hell of a week.
I think he's in an awful week spot on that issue.
I just don't think Middle America... Middle America just doesn't take to that.
I don't think he can tell that.
Did Bob tell you about the Sperling analysis with the Christian Science Monitor?
No, I didn't hear about that.
Well, Sperling is a pretty perceptive guy, and he's... A lot of people follow his lead in Washington.
I think he's one of the...
He's respected, yeah.
He says that you're going to win a runaway election, but...
uh what all of the primaries proved was that the tiny minority can be very very potent and a small fraction of the electorate i gave the government the nomination that he is not speaking in in tune with what the american people want muskie would have been a stronger candidate which i agree with and i think would have been sure uh definitely he said that
that we shouldn't overestimate them, but based on his analysis now of all the primary states and that Christian Science Monitor reading that they take around the country, that barring some unforeseen event, President Nixon will win by a wide margin.
But I think the press senses this.
Some of them are pulling pretty hard.
McGovern's got his protected society, which, of course, has been getting out.
But he's also got a heck of a lot of the press.
We're beginning to see that they've got themselves a candidate who can't make it around very, very big.
But apparently he's got it, and they gather from the UN reports this weekend.
Particularly with the Black Caucus, he's got it.
Yeah, the Black Caucus and these other states that are winding up their conventions.
He has well over 1,400.
They'll keep it a little uncertain for their own purposes, but he's got it.
Well, it was an interesting analysis.
I guess it was the Times today that brought him up over 1,400.
He would have it.
And, of course, Humphrey, based on what McGuire told me this week, he realizes that he's kind of throwing in the sponge that court suit going against him.
And the California delegation makes it awfully hard, even on the credentials fight now.
They'll still have a good credentials fight, won't they?
No, they'll have a hell of a credentials fight.
They're bound to because they're, what is it, 40% of the delegates are in challenge.
They wouldn't seat the Florida ones, should they be?
Oh, no, they'll have quite a show for us.
I'm positive of that.
Now, their convention begins when?
The 10th.
The 10th, which is what, two weeks?
Let's see, it's two weeks from this coming Monday, yes, sir.
Yeah.
And their platform then begins, must begin next week.
Well, under their rules, they have to mail the platform out by the 1st of July to all delegates, and three days, delegates have to receive it.
They're drafting now.
Here, they have a 15-man drafting committee.
McGovern has dominated it, which, as I say, I think is a terrible mistake because he can't use it to hide behind.
In other words, if it becomes moderate, he can't say, well, that's what they did.
Yeah, he can't say, well, I didn't.
I'm just doing what the platform told me.
Yeah, because he controls it.
And if it goes left-wing, then you can talk about the government's platform.
Then he can't shift in the campaign.
It seems to me that he has greatly limited his flexibility by doing that.
And maybe bears out Heller's thesis that he really feels he can bring the country to him.
Well, let's let him try, okay?
Okay.
I'm delighted to have him try.
Okay.
Well, we'll see you.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Yes, sir.