Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 149-010
Date: Sunday, October 15, 1972 at 11:07 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.
Recording device: Camp David Study Table
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/149-010

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello?
[0:01] Morning, Mr. President.
[0:02] You're at Miss Church again, huh?
[0:03] Yes, sir.
[0:05] I'm good for it.
[0:05] Sitting here, had a long talk with Bob this morning on various things.
[0:09] I must say that the plowing through the front pages of the Times and the Post, I'm just glad they don't affect the country that much.
[0:18] My God, that Post story was, I mean, if you talk about hearsay,
[0:22] You know, and somebody told this fellow that he saw a booth.
[0:27] God Almighty.
[0:28] It's incredible, really.
[0:31] It's incredible, but I told Colin, I said, don't let everybody worry about it.
[0:34] You can't do a thing about it.
[0:35] Don't you agree?
[0:36] Oh, I agree.
[0:36] I don't think that kind of a story, frankly.
[0:40] People read, except if you're interested.
[0:43] He says Time is also going to use it, so Time magazine, so what the hell, that's fine.
[0:47] Time doesn't have the influence it used to have.
[0:49] It'll get a ride for two or three days.
[0:51] It's just another one of the continuing battles we've had to fight with these people.
[0:57] The fact is, Mr. President, when you think about it, we've been fighting this thing since June on the Watergate.
[1:03] And we've seen absolutely no evidence of any reason on the public.
[1:07] Harris makes that very
[1:09] I remember you told me that.
[1:11] Very effectively.
[1:12] Later in the campaign, there was the lesson.
[1:14] Yeah.
[1:15] Right.
[1:16] Right.
[1:16] So, you know, let it be charged, countercharged, denied, and dismissed as politics as usual and part of the dirtiest campaign against the president ever waged.
[1:24] That's just not the hell of it.
[1:26] Right.
[1:27] Right.
[1:28] It looks like we're going to be here.
[1:29] We're going to have the Congress here with us all week.
[1:31] Yeah.
[1:33] Maybe that's just as well.
[1:34] Well, I was thinking this morning, in a way.
[1:37] Yeah.
[1:37] And they have to write about them, don't they?
[1:39] Right about the Congress.
[1:41] The government is operating, which doesn't raise any questions as to why you're not out campaigning.
[1:46] That's right.
[1:47] It helps with our people that want me to get out campaigning.
[1:50] And perfect answer.
[1:52] I got the Congress is here.
[1:53] We've got to fight a veto fight.
[1:55] We've got to fight for the defending ceiling.
[1:57] We've got to fight against the detractors.
[1:59] I'm not too unhappy about it, frankly.
[2:02] Well, let's face it.
[2:04] They're concerned about the fact that they now get a chance to override the water veto.
[2:08] I don't know that that's too bad either.
[2:10] I mean, if they override a veto, they override a veto.
[2:13] That's all.
[2:14] Let's make the goddamn case.
[2:16] Make the case, and it's Congress against the president.
[2:18] And I think we can win on that, right?
[2:22] Well, I also think it's a possibility if the Republicans are smart and just don't bother coming back.
[2:29] They don't get a quorum.
[2:31] that this morning.
[2:32] Well, that's the strategy.
[2:33] In other words, if the Republicans come back, they're on the spot and have to vote to override the president.
[2:37] If they're not back, they don't get blamed for not being back if there's no quorum because there's no vote.
[2:42] And you can't ever raise it.
[2:43] In other words, you can't ever get it up to reject the message.
[2:46] All right.
[2:47] What does Bill say?
[2:48] Bill thinks that may be the strategy to do, to follow.
[2:52] Let the Democrats make their own quorum.
[2:55] That's right.
[2:55] Which they can't do.
[2:58] Can't do.
[2:58] The other side of that, of course, would be to get
[3:01] Just enough back so they can get a third.
[3:04] Yeah.
[3:05] And a loyalist.
[3:07] Hold them firm.
[3:08] Yeah.
[3:09] We'll play that later.
[3:10] I'm going to get...
[3:11] Sustaining of HR, I think, is...
[3:13] Does he have any chance?
[3:15] He doesn't.
[3:16] And I do.
[3:16] I just...
[3:18] I have never found the lobbying support for environmental bills that other people seem to have.
[3:24] Right.
[3:25] And I know that's not my own philosophical disposition.
[3:28] I just haven't found it.
[3:29] I really haven't.
[3:30] You get the Sierra Club writing a hell of a lot of letters.
[3:33] Right.
[3:33] But you don't get that.
[3:35] Anyway, so I think we could get the Senator Harris and some of the others who are concerned with the taxes.
[3:39] Right.
[3:40] Maybe build a little backfire like we did once before.
[3:43] Right.
[3:43] Well, in a sense, Chuck, it's a good reason for me to be around.
[3:47] Oh, yeah.
[3:48] And then we'll go up to Philadelphia on Friday, and that takes care of Rizzo.
[3:53] Yep.
[3:53] That's going to be...
[3:55] you'll be happy.
[3:56] Have you found a format to do that?
[3:58] Well, yeah, I haven't told you because we're going to announce it tomorrow and just worked it out today.
[4:06] The learning, of course, let me say, I staged this a bit, learning about revenue sharing, deep passing, recognizing that this is a historic thing, has invited me to come to Philadelphia and sign the bill there and the independent, you know, the
[4:25] Independence Hall in the first Congress.
[4:28] So you see there are 50 governors, 500 invited guests.
[4:32] He says, no, it'll be non-political, but I'll have 20,000 people that are for Nixon out in front of that hall.
[4:40] I wish you will.
[4:42] I had the idea a few days ago and raised it with
[4:45] And then I vetoed it myself because of SHAP.
[4:51] And then I thought, I don't need to worry about SHAP because we're inviting all 50 governors.
[4:54] That's right.
[4:56] So I'll ride in with Rizzo.
[4:58] In fact, no, I'm going to helicopter in, as a matter of fact, and we'll only have to ride a couple blocks, or four or five blocks.
[5:04] So we don't have the problem of building a motorcade.
[5:06] We don't want a motorcade.
[5:07] We don't want it to be political.
[5:08] So we'll just come right up to Innspender's Hall, sign that thing, and it'll be one hell of a show.
[5:13] It reminds the country, too, that there's an historical achievement.
[5:16] Yeah, that's a spectacular idea.
[5:18] Spectacular idea.
[5:18] So that'll take care of Pennsylvania.
[5:20] And a few of the check-ins and the networks will say what we're doing.
[5:23] They're damn right.
[5:28] The Philadelphians will love it.
[5:31] That's a great idea.
[5:33] Keystone State, so that takes care of that.
[5:35] And then New York is that following Monday?
[5:36] New York, then we go over to New York to see this.
[5:40] And it's on Veterans Day, which is great.
[5:42] It'll be a damn good thing and a rally to get that done with.
[5:45] And then we go off to Ohio the following Saturday.
[5:50] I think that's good timing, Mr. President.
[5:51] That's good.
[5:52] That's a good way to pace it.
[5:55] And I'm really pleased this week is, in that sense, I'm pleased that they're doing it.
[5:59] The Philadelphia, you see, you shouldn't just go the whole week with nothing.
[6:03] I just thought that was wrong.
[6:05] And now that the Congress is in it, it wouldn't have concerned me quite as much.
[6:08] But Philadelphia is perfect.
[6:10] You go Friday with that, and what the hell, nobody can claim that we haven't gone north.
[6:17] That's right.
[6:18] I think that's a perfect capitalism.
[6:19] It is.
[6:34] Well, I get a few in from today's papers.
[6:36] Admittedly, I haven't read them all through yet, but I get a few in from today's papers that they've kind of forgotten about.
[6:42] They've almost written the campaign off.
[6:44] It's all over.
[6:45] Except for that jackass Washington Post.
[6:48] You know, he that's made them selfish, savages.
[6:52] Incredible, these people.
[6:55] Post is incredible.
[6:55] Thank you.
[6:56] Sorry, I don't remember.
[6:58] Oh, yes.
[6:59] Maritime agreement, I think, cut a pretty good play.
[7:01] That was fine.
[7:02] There's no problem.
[7:03] Not much for a story, but it's enough.
[7:04] What's the story in terms of jobs?
[7:07] People wouldn't know anything about maritime.
[7:09] A little bit of progress in various fields and so forth and so on.
[7:12] Yeah, the picture was good.
[7:13] The television photographs last night were excellent.
[7:17] We got a very good bounce out of that.
[7:22] Chinese doctors was a good second story, too.
[7:24] People liked that.
[7:26] I thought in fact the stories were
[7:48] Certainly, he's not visible right now, and he's not that ethics thing.
[7:52] You can do that again tonight.
[7:56] But it's dull as hell, Mr. President.
[7:59] I still think people look at their pocketbook, their security at home, on the streets, their security, the fact that they don't want to go to war, and the nine-point program of ethics where there's going to be an independent and
[8:18] That is not a nut-cutting, really not a nut-cutting issue.
[8:28] And then you have to get to the Mitchell thesis, which I'm beginning more and more to believe in.
[8:33] Really, it's an analysis of the confidence of the man.
[8:37] The more they put in, the more he gets on television, the better off we are.
[8:40] I suppose they're trying to attack the confidence of the man by the corruption charge.
[8:45] That's right.
[8:45] That's what they're trying to get at, I think.
[8:51] You know, as you look at this in the long pull, that Watergate story broke in June.
[8:58] It took four months, which could be just pummeling the daylights out of us, and it hasn't moved anybody.
[9:05] The $10 million secret fund hasn't moved anybody.
[9:08] Most people don't believe it, first of all.
[9:11] As many people believe that people have a right to privacy to not have their names disclosed if they want to get to it.
[9:17] That's not a big, not the big, touchy issue.
[9:21] Apparently.
[9:22] But if we believe the polls, it's not the big issue that the Democrats would like to have.
[9:29] And I don't know where else they can come up with any stuff, because it's incredible.
[9:31] I mean, I just, to do this post-story today, I get bored reading it because it's so convoluted.
[9:42] Somebody said something to somebody else.
[9:45] to a point where you... Well, God damn it.
[9:48] If they want to talk about McCarthyism, what the hell is this?
[9:51] Yeah, horrible.
[9:52] It's his hearsay.
[9:53] I mean, he told this or that in his foreign statement that somebody told him that.
[9:57] He did this.
[9:58] Now, what the hell is all that?
[10:00] That's right.
[10:01] Well, it's... Yeah, it's clearly...
[10:03] It's... Well, the whole exercise that McCarthyism... Christ, there was a fellow arrested with a... A McGovern supporter arrested with a...
[10:14] Firebomb down in Atlanta.
[10:17] Barely made the words.
[10:18] When we were there?
[10:19] When you were there, yes.
[10:21] Barely made the words.
[10:22] Is that right?
[10:24] And Christ is on page of all the Canadian stories.
[10:28] No, that's a different thing.
[10:30] The firebombing and the rest of it, that's just young people exerting their rights to protest against the war.
[10:38] Revolutionaries trying to blow people up.
[10:41] That's the other one with it.
[10:42] Okay.
[10:43] I think we've got everything except we're going to announce this tomorrow, the Philadelphia thing, so that'll be good.
[10:48] I think that's a great idea, Mr. President.
[10:51] And we'll have a little fight with the Congress this week, but that's not bad either.
[10:55] Yep.
[10:56] I know.
[10:56] It puts you right in there as President battling to keep the taxes down.
[11:00] That's correct.
[11:01] Okay.
[11:02] Thank you, sir.