Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 154-005
Date: Saturday, September 23, 1972 at 5:32 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.
Recording device: Camp David Study Table
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/154-005

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Hello.
[0:03] Mr. President?
[0:04] Yeah.
[0:05] Yes, sir.
[0:05] I have Mr. Colson for you, sir.
[0:07] Go ahead, please.
[0:08] Hello.
[0:09] Yes, sir, Mr. President.
[0:20] Well, Stu and I deliberately got in some of the foreign policy and the amnesty stuff and so forth because they need to hear that.
[0:28] I mean, they believe that, and we just may as well lay that out there.
[0:32] We'll get McGovern talking about it.
[0:34] Oh, I think we will.
[0:35] I think we're going to see him talk about amnesty.
[0:36] I think that's what he wants one of these half hours for, that he's trying to buy.
[0:41] And defense and amnesty, I think he's worried about it.
[0:46] What can he say about it?
[0:48] I don't know what he can do with amnesty other than to try to do a musky-type speech where he tries to prove how completely fair and, you know, he'll try to fudge it up.
[0:59] I'm sure he'll try to fudge it up and say, well, we'll have him work in a peace corps.
[1:04] Ah, ah, ah, sir, hell no.
[1:07] These poor bastards have got chopped and worked in a peace corps.
[1:11] That's right.
[1:11] You know, he can't get off the issue.
[1:12] The only thing he can do is, if he tries to take the sting out of it, he may make it worse by talking about it.
[1:18] I guess the best thing he could do really is duck the whole land issue entirely.
[1:22] Yeah.
[1:23] Either that or change its position.
[1:25] Well, no, I don't think he can't do that.
[1:29] Well, he'd change it on the schools.
[1:33] Yeah, I think that on that one he'd have a hell of a problem with the kids.
[1:38] Yeah, that's one they believe in, don't they?
[1:39] Yeah, that's one they really do.
[1:41] Now, he's got to go.
[1:54] You know, Julie was saying that she'd heard McGovern say that he's not for legalizing marijuana.
[2:00] And I said, what did he say?
[2:01] He says, well, he wants to treat it like alcohol.
[2:02] I said, that's legalizing it.
[2:04] That's right.
[2:04] Alcohol is legal.
[2:06] I don't think he can get off of that, do you?
[2:08] No, what he said is that in that Playboy interview a year ago, which we've hung around his neck about eight times, and he keeps referring to it.
[2:18] Good.
[2:18] He talked there about wanting to...
[2:23] legalize it.
[2:24] And then he switched his position to say that he wanted to reduce it from a felony to a misdemeanor as a possession of it.
[2:29] And that's what he's talking about, that he's not in favor of legalizing it.
[2:33] He still would leave it a misdemeanor.
[2:35] But that's a pretty fine, I mean, that's a pretty fine point for people.
[2:40] The man on the street doesn't understand the difference between the felony misdemeanor.
[2:43] Sophisticates and lawyers and others do.
[2:48] And maybe reducing the penalties he
[2:50] He can get away with it.
[2:51] He's still stuck.
[2:52] Well, actually, I'm for modification of penalties in many areas, but I don't talk about it anymore.
[2:58] Exactly.
[2:58] Well, sure, it's a responsible position to reduce some of the penalties, but... Yeah.
[3:05] Well, the trouble he has, Mr. President, with an issue like that is that you can't ever get rid of the impression, and it may not be...
[3:14] It's fair in his case because these are all his positions, but he can't get away from them because he's got the...
[3:19] the impression that he's soft.
[3:20] And boy, nobody who watched you on television last night talking about drug pushes or watched you Monday night.
[3:26] We've had a good week on drugs.
[3:28] By God, if we don't have that issue.
[3:30] We've got that.
[3:31] We at least have said it twice on TV time, haven't we?
[3:38] All three nights and two nights this week have had at least two minutes, some up to three, of this issue.
[3:44] We've also gotten pretty good coverage out of our people hitting him,
[3:48] Mm-hmm.
[3:53] Mm-hmm.
[4:00] Mm-hmm.
[4:03] Mm-hmm.
[4:10] The thing we've got to be on Amnesty, we've all got to be exactly the same.
[4:14] And the thing we've got to say is what I said there, that people who desert must pay a penalty.
[4:21] Right.
[4:21] use the word penalty so that it doesn't look like they're just going to come back, you know, because, and they should.
[4:27] That's right.
[4:27] God darn it, it's wrong for anybody to come back.
[4:30] They're going to come back, as Lincoln said, by God, they can serve a number of days they're out of the country in prison.
[4:35] Well, we've got some press people going up to Canada this week to do interviews with the kids up there who will all be casting their absentee ballots from the government.
[4:43] Right.
[4:44] I think we might get some stories up there.
[4:46] I think we ought to take away their citizenship.
[4:48] Well, Barry Goldwater is proposing that in a speech tomorrow, a statement that went out this afternoon for tomorrow.
[4:54] Why shouldn't we?
[4:55] That's right.
[4:55] He's going to say they've deserted the country and they should try the rights of citizens to vote.
[5:01] We'll see a little bit on that.
[5:02] Keep it alive.
[5:03] Right.
[5:03] At this point, it doesn't matter really how we do it, just as long as there are people talking about it.
[5:07] We've got Kleinjeet speaking.
[5:10] Good.
[5:10] We've got our lower wikers really taking off on this issue.
[5:14] He said he went around Connecticut.
[5:16] Maybe I told you this, but
[5:17] But through the state, he didn't do anything except talk about amnesty in the government.
[5:21] And he said, my God, he was getting responses from the crowd.
[5:24] So now he wants to do something legislatively.
[5:26] He wants to put in a bill that will make kind of... Wiker of all people.
[5:31] Wiker, yeah.
[5:31] Well, you see, that's what's happening.
[5:34] And these people are catching on to it.