On November 12, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, White House operator, and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 12:10 pm to 12:29 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 014-083 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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. Coulson, Mr. President.
Yeah.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Yeah.
What's the late report before this afternoon?
Anything?
Well, no, I don't think anything that's hot today.
Market's drifting off again.
We've got that damned thing on the international situation.
Apparently, it really is building up there.
I've gotten... How far off is it today?
Well, let's see.
There's no volume.
That's...
It's down this morning.
Let's see.
seven points, but that's at noon with six million shares, which is just very, very light.
But I gather there is concern, legitimate or otherwise, with the international situation.
That's primarily what it's about.
It may be or may not be.
I think the other possibility is that it's just...
This business about the reaction of the businessmen, the price thing was really shocking, you know.
Unbelievable.
Squealing about the profits and everything.
What the Christ are they... Unbelievable.
I mean, what do they want?
They want labor to be responsible, and they're not going to be.
Exactly.
Oh, this was a bad one for them, and they really are going to catch it from this.
Well, don't... My feeling is, Mr. President, that they will... that they didn't understand it.
Well, however, whether they understood it or not, what the Christ, they better start getting in line and...
and and trying to support us in some of this what is flanagan doing these days is he talking to any of these people yes sir that's very influential with these people you know sure he is i talked to him this morning and he said that well he takes the international bit he says that's what's bothering the street i've talked to pete about our the need for us to get some of the strong uh yeah business leaders to stand up with some guts and and uh
uh speak out and i think we we will we will start some things going in this area immediately because you just you can't have these fellas acting the way they are and get the kind of recovery that that is i sent you in those figures i don't know if you've seen them but the uh yeah the individual statistics are just why don't you get out the little i mean on a i don't know whether you've done this recently but have your office get something out
or Klein's office or something to the congressmen and senators and cabinet people.
Updated fact sheet.
Positive things about the economy.
Let's now, with all this yakking, let's look at the facts.
Unemployment.
A lot of people haven't read the figures.
Chuck, they haven't the slide.
You haven't got a couple things in there that you should have, that unemployment is down.
I mean, not only the interest rates are down, prices, not only wholesale prices, but the retail price index is down.
You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
A lot of that stuff should go.
I mean, just put it on the basis.
I'd break it down on the inflation front.
This is what is happening on the domestic and leaving out the pay board and so forth.
And then on the job front, this is what is happening.
And then on the consumer front.
then you put in retail sales, consumer confidence, cars, and so forth.
It could be done with more zing than this sheet was sent to me.
Yes, well, we just...
I know, that's fine.
I meant do it with more zing.
I understand this perfectly right for me, but these average guys aren't going to get it from that kind of a sheet.
You know, there's a very good timing for this, because tomorrow's the end of the freeze, and it can be kind of a wrap-up of...
the economic statistics coming out of the freeze.
The significant thing is the freeze was one hell of a success.
I mean, during the freeze, a million new jobs were created.
During the freeze, prices were stabilized.
All the things you said on August 15th that you wanted to accomplish in the freeze have been accomplished.
And we have a good, fair, equitable mechanism in place.
I'm bullish now because labor has made it very clear they're not going to leave it.
They're going to stick in.
They're going to stay.
And that's coming here.
Well, the businessmen better goddamn well start acting like men for a change now.
They have plenty of chances to, you know, there's always fixed prices.
They know that.
I hate to say it, but it is the only Achilles heel at the moment.
Everything else is just so goddamn bullish.
And the consumer feelings are so good.
The economy worries them.
And it's mainly the businessmen.
And it's strictly the businessmen.
That's the thing that is...
The economy isn't that bad.
Oh, hell no.
The economy is good.
And it's just, it's damn good.
And we just, there's about two...
The Zellendinger thing is quite interesting.
That 127 is his highest number for a long time.
Yes, sir.
And the market is so volatile and they're much a nervous knowledge.
And it is true, the international thing.
And
And when Connolly gets back, we'll have to start working on the thing.
You know, he's had to take his hard line when he's dealing with these people abroad.
Of course.
And these people don't realize it.
They want to run right away and go right back to the same old system, and we'll be back in the same slump hole we were before.
Well, I do think that Conley, next week, he's got some public forums.
He's got some highly visible ones.
What he says next week is a very critical crossroad.
He takes the right line next week.
It's just what we need.
The timing of it will be perfect.
And he does it well.
So that he doesn't appear to be the negativist.
Right.
I don't want him to get that reputation.
Or being the guy that's too hard.
That's right.
He should be hard privately, but soft publicly.
Right.
But I think that we'll get the business community straightened out.
And I'm not really that concerned about them, except that they make you so goddamn mad at times that you... Well, the marketing is a passing thing.
I mean, basically, all of our people around here, the New York types, this is a... Well, it always affects...
I noticed that usually Pete Flanagan, Bill Safar, people, they just go up the wall on the market.
I don't go up the wall about the market.
The market goes up and down.
That's right.
And it's better now than it was, and it's going to be better later.
So what the hell?
Al Gordon, I thought, made the most telling point of all last night.
He said, this is ideal.
He said, if it hadn't dropped like this, he said, you'd have a long, stagnant period.
And he said, this way, it's positioning itself for a hell of a good recovery, and you know it's going to come.
And he was not at all.
I mean, in the long term, he said, from a political standpoint, the timing of this is just ideal.
He said, you're going to start moving up.
Yeah, the short term, it's tough.
With regard to the short-term thing, we have to realize, though, that the...
I notice the Evans and Novak people now, basically they're doing it for political reasons, economies and all that bullish.
But I think a lot of this could be the left-wing businessmen too, you know.
I mean, don't you agree?
Yes, sir.
Reacting also to their left-wing staff members, you know, economists and the rest.
On the other hand, in the news summary this morning, there was a little bit of that, but then you saw other reports coming out even more bullish than they've been, well, just as bullish as they've been right along.
Sure.
There's no question, you know, you can be sure that the Evans and Novak thing is just done quite deliberately.
I mean, it's wishful writing.
That's exactly right.
That's precisely the line these fellows would like to...
Wishful writing.
They write what they'd like to see happen.
And they're scared to death.
Of course they're scared.
We're writing so damn high that they're looking for any area they can move into.
Well, okay.
I don't know whether you noticed that piece in the Star last night about the discount rate.
No.
That is the, well, it analyzed the problem.
Lee Combs' piece, he's usually an enemy, but it analyzed the problem completely that the discount rate
was really in reaction to commercial rate dropping rather than stimulating commercial rate dropping.
That's right.
That's right.
Arthur can't take much credit for that, huh?
No.
And the point in here is that the point in this article in the story was a very, I hope Arthur read it, because it said that the Fed is still cautious and isn't pushing interest rates down.
They are reacting to the commercial pressures, which are dropping interest rates.
And that's the same thing that the guys on the street said to me yesterday.
They said, well, we didn't take that as a stimulative thing because it was
Sure.
More of the Fed sort of being dragged along by the commercial banks.
Sure, yeah.
Be sure that Flanagan gets that to Arthur, will you?
Yes, sir.
I will.
Don't you do it.
Get Flanagan to do it.
I know.
That's the way to do it.
He could go over there and run him around this.
We've got to keep Arthur's feet to the fire.
Well, we'll do that, and Pete and I will work on it.
When does Schultz get back?
Schultz is back on Sunday night.
He'll be here Monday.
Yeah, well, that would be helpful, too.
But Pete and I, we'll chase the business fellas down.
Well, yes, and they ought to really be like statesmen.
Look, if they act this way, they're going to give a hell of a...
cause for many to act just as goddamn obstreptiously.
And they've just got to get in line with this thing.
This gives them great leeway if they read the regulations carefully.
So they say, well, our profits are gone.
Well, it doesn't.
It limits maybe profit margins, but it doesn't limit total profits.
Jesus Christ, all they've got to do is to make some more sales, get off their ass.
Well, if they really read those regulations, they would see that it's an open invitation to
to increase profits because it's kind of guaranteeing that you won't have your price knocked down if you can show that you need it for profits.
If I were advising a businessman, I would say, hell, you're...
You're in great shape with that.
You can play that to a fairly well.
How's your cartoon?
Has it got around any yet?
That's in the process of reproduction, the first... On a very confidential basis.
Oh, yes, yes.
We're taking...
It'll take us longer than our normal press.
Sure, sure.
Well, I know, I know.
We're being exceedingly cautious.
I know the British are very stirred up, so I'm not surprised they're doing it.
They sure as hell are.
God, they're mad, aren't they?
I read some British papers the other day, and...
Really, it burned the hell out of them.
You know, there's a fascinating thing, Mr. President.
I don't quite know how to read this myself, but... Be sure, incidentally, it's a good copy.
A picture of it doesn't come across at all.
No, no.
The photo style is bad.
Right.
Okay.
It'll be a duplicate original is the way it's being handled.
let me ask you on the shore thing they've known that of course for a couple of months don't you think that cbs deliberately did that in order to get get a chew no sir how do you think it happened then uh well i've been doing some checking and i'm told that it was a an internal leak from fbi no sir from around here uh well how the christ would anybody around here know about it
Well, I think what happened is CBS talked to a few people inside.
You know, Stanton called me on it months ago, and he said...
This was months ago, I mean, when I was up in New York.
That's right.
And there was gossip about it, and this goddamn place is like the Titanic.
Do you think somebody here put a... Well, I'm trying to find out.
I don't want to say that for sure, although...
Skelly has been doing some snooping for me, and he... Well, he didn't put it out, did he?
Oh, hell no.
Because Christ, he would know better.
He understands what these things are.
John Skelly never, but John... For Christ's sakes, we, as you well know, we couldn't have the slightest interest in, I mean, the best indication that...
There's nothing that has to do with Shore being subversive or anything.
They had no record on him.
What the hell?
That's why they had to do the checking.
Sure.
I don't think... That's the point that ought to be made.
But what does Scali think?
He thinks it's an internal leak.
Yeah, he thinks that someone here was talking and talked to a reporter and...
Some of our people are damn careless that way.
It's incredible to me.
Well, I don't know if they'd be careless.
That sounds almost deliberate.
Well, I told Holdeman this morning that I'm... You've told him about it?
Yes, sir, and that I'm setting about to, if I can find it, find it.
We've got to find it now.
I don't care whoever it is.
The close person's got to go, that sort of thing.
The reporter who broke the story, Clausen, happens to be a guy who likes...
He's a very close friend of Dick Kleindienst's.
Yeah.
And he's helped.
He's called me on four or five occasions and said, I can't believe Cline needs to do this.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Quite to the contrary.
I mean, what he called me was to say that he warned me it was coming.
And he said, he's called me before and he said, so-and-so is planning these stories about you guys.
And he's been a damn good tip guy, he'll call and warn us of problems.
He called me and he said, the story is floating around and I'm going to... What does he think is planning this one?
Did he tell you?
He thinks it came out of
out of inside the government.
Yeah.
Office clients?
We haven't been able to track that down, so I don't know.
Is that one's possibility, I suppose?
Clients or one of those or Finches or...
I mean, not what I meant is they're the only people.
There are not many, Chuck, that we're allowing to talk politically.
I just can't believe... You see what I mean?
Well, that's right.
And we'll find it, I think.
We do know that Time magazine had it last Sunday.
And in Times Files, we did a...
did a little sleuth work that we won't get caught at, I hope.
But we do know that in Times files, statements about it are attributed to someone here in the White House.
Now, we're just trying to find out who that is.
One of our people.
Yes, sir.
The thing that worries me, you know... Jesus Christ, the point is the thing that worries me, you know, it's like the story on the phosphates.
Christ, I didn't know anything about the phosphate thing, and I don't think you did either, but that looked like a deliberate hatchet job of somebody inside.
Well, it was...
The interesting thing on the phosphates, I had been asked by Whitaker to come to one meeting, which I did, and didn't say a word because Jesse Steinfeld, the Surgeon General, was arguing the case that you couldn't ban phosphates.
But we get a little bit of backbiting that goes on inside.
That's true.
I know, but I don't give a goddamn about the backbiting.
There's not to be any backbiting in the press.
That I will not tolerate by anybody.
I wouldn't tolerate it by you against somebody else, by one of them against somebody else, this kind of crap.
That's petty stuff.
Well, it is.
The thing that I was going to say, backbiting goes on all the time, but the one thing that nobody around here should ever do is give out something that could ultimately hurt...
That's correct.
To the president.
I mean, my God, anybody here who did that?
Well, I'll handle the Shor thing.
It isn't going to amount to all that.
What the hell?
It'll pass by, and I think the answer was, I think Ziegler handled the briefing on it yesterday skillfully.
Yeah, well, he just said, sure, we look in Malik's office, looks at the numbers of people, and we have to point them at bipartisan boards and media people and the rest.
That's true.
And actually, Shor is a big, big goddamn environmentalist, so his name would obviously come up.
Well, and there was at the time a need for some people in the public information area in the environmental agency, so it all falls into place.
Well, anyway, I'm not interested in this story, but I'm damn interested in how it would get out.
We just got to stop these leaks.
Everybody, I think, just better shut up and quit talking politics with people outside.
No, that's the only...
Unfortunately, it's the only solution.
If you get more than two people involved in anything in this...
I try.
Don't tell them.
Everybody wants to be a hero is the problem.
Well, they want to be a knowledgeable person with the press and all that crap.
Which is...
The best thing is to...
I mean, like, I'm not a bit concerned that Saidi says this is the...
least communicable in 14 years.
Well, of course, it's not true.
Our people talk to him like a sieve.
But on the other hand, we'd goddamn well better be.
I mean, because why should we talk to him?
These bastards are not for us.
They're going to kill us.
And the fact we don't leak, whether they want to leak the China trip and then not have it, leak the Russian trip and then not have it, that's what they want, you see.
Well, they do, and they're a mean bunch of bastards.
There aren't any of them I trust.
I don't trust any of them.
I occasionally will.
Never trust one.
Never trust one when the story has to be written.
No, that's right.
I've got to remember their first loyalty has to be to a story.
With that in mind, then treat them all as personal people.
way it goes well i've only found really two or three that i would ever well you can talk to a howard smith he's an honorable man but even with him you've got to be very careful you tell him what you want to have a bill white and dick wilson i talk to him very freely but i but i just but i say now you know damn well what you can use and what you can't use well that's right you have to remember that they they are out for a story they have to be it's a competitive
cutthroat business.
Well, anyway, I want to find out who did this.
Well, we'll keep working on it, Mr. President.
The market thing, I just wouldn't worry about it.
The Efron book is picking up.
I don't know whether you noticed in the news.
I did see a little note on it, yeah.
It's sold out in New York now, and it's sold out in Washington, so the stores are beginning to order from the publisher, and Bud Brown told me yesterday they're definitely going to have hearings on the House side starting soon, and so I think that one may
In terms of the press, that may start to make them have a double take.
There are ways to fight back.
Yes, sir.