On November 20, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at Camp David from 2:05 pm to 2:21 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 155-017 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Mr. Coulson, sir.
Yes, sir, Mr. President.
Just sitting here between the pipe.
I just wondered if you had any, uh, had that latest count yet.
Oh, uh, that's being put together by my, uh, staff, and I'm not sure that they...
I can check while we're talking, just to see if I... Oh, I'm sorry.
We'll bring it up with you tonight, anyway.
That's what I was planning to do was, uh, to arrive.
They had to have it by, uh, mid-afternoon so that I could bring it up.
Right, right.
There's no hurry.
Well, I might have it.
Is that count?
And then she gets it right again.
Recheck these.
We've got AP, UPI, and then we've called all secretaries of state.
Right, right.
We've got to go and check.
Just check and double check them back and forth.
We should sure as hell want to get a figure on it.
But there's still some of them not in yet, isn't that true?
That's right.
They'll be some that still aren't, well, they're not certified figures.
That's part of the problem is that they keep changing the damn thing.
Right.
I'll see if we have any further report on the Brennan thing.
Well, I'm waiting.
I was waiting until someone gave me a green light to talk to him.
Well, it isn't him.
I'm wondering about Fitz.
We're okay with Fitzsimmons.
I've talked to Fitz.
And you think we're okay with Meany on this?
How about Paul Hall?
Oh, Paul Hall would love it.
They're friends.
They're close friends.
No, that I can handle.
There'd be no problem with Hall.
I've got Fitzsimmons where he's satisfied.
see us put a teamster in somewhere and fill in their other spots oh yeah yes sir yes sir well hell yes you know he's got some good people who come to think of his mind but one in transportation this is the secretary one in there would be terrific you know where they really you can tell them we're looking for a good transportation man and teamster and for him you take that fellow wilden mathis fine mathis would be terrific wouldn't it be great to get it you tell him we'd love to have him and so he lets us know and uh you call fits and tell him the president is looking for a
at the assistant secretary level for a teamster, and that they prove themselves out.
They go up from there.
That's the way the president does.
Uh-huh.
I think these figures are—now, these figures are still— All right, Brian, we'll just wait.
I'll have for you tonight whatever is the best— Still hovering around 61, huh?
Yes, sir.
UPI has a count as of November 20, which is 61-38.
One.
AP is lower, huh?
AP is—their count at the moment is—they haven't changed it.
It's 60.85.
They haven't updated it.
Is that it?
Oh, wait a minute.
It's 60.85.
They have not updated it.
But UPI is more updated.
Must be if it's got a 61.
I would think so.
That's so far off.
UPI is a 61 what?
Well, that's so far apart, Chuck, that one must be taken after the other.
I would say that is—oh, yeah, the numbers are—the gross numbers are very different.
Here's UPI's numbers.
UPI number is 45861 against 28402.
45 million only?
Oh, well then that's a much earlier count.
Much earlier count.
And AB's numbers?
46,260 against 28,626.
So that's not updated.
But we have a figure that's much higher than that 48.
What we've got to do is take the ones that we have had, where they give us... All right, now I see what we've got here.
We've got figures now from checking with the Secretary of State in some places that are updated.
And I'll just have to merge those into the former set of figures and then give you a complete tally based on that.
But that I don't have yet.
I'll have that with me when I come up with something.
You had one that was earlier.
It was 61.3 or 4 or something like that.
But that was based on just a conglomeration of things, huh?
No, that was based on the earlier calls to the Secretary of State's office.
Well, that's as good as UPI is going to get.
That's all they do.
What we've got now is we've called every one.
All but ten of them are unchanged from our previous calls.
What I will do is take those that are changed, like here's Connecticut in 100 percent, Florida, Georgia, Iowa.
When you call, you always ask, does this include absentees, do you?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
See, that's why West Virginia here is still not in, because they don't have their absentee.
What I will take is all of the
new figures that I have today.
He reached them into the previous sheet that I had shown you that had us up at 61.
Let me ask you this.
Right, you do that and bring it up.
Let me ask you, on the Meany proposition, I guess there isn't anything we can do on that, but the last talk Schultz had,
You wouldn't think that Meany would be against Brennan, would he?
No, Meany can't be against Brennan.
I talked to Don Rogers about that this morning.
What did he say?
He said that Meany couldn't afford to be.
What's Don Rogers think we ought to do?
Oh, he thinks Brennan would be spectacular.
Well, my view is let's talk tonight about it and then tomorrow you can talk to Brennan.
I want you to make the call so that he knows who's got him the damn job.
And we'll do the same with the Teamster fellow.
You see, that's the way we're going to play these damn games.
That's the way we build up our credits with him.
It makes a hell of a difference.
Well, Brennan, I think Schultz can sell Brennan to Meany because Meany cannot be in the position where he would object to it.
Because he's one of his protégés, he's out of the box, he's been a loyal guy.
Oh boy, I'd love to have him.
I'd love to have him.
Oh, he is so good.
As a person, I'd love to have him.
Yes.
Yeah.
And as a guy whose judgment, he'd be a great asset to the team, Mr. Brisson.
Also, he's, of course, a terribly attractive fellow.
Oh, yeah.
Just, you know, he's the epitome of the new majority.
He's just another guy that
worked his way up the hard way.
He believes in hard work.
How are the things coming on your counterattacking and Buchanan's reporting and getting the monographs and all that sort of thing?
Well, I'm hoping to bring up Pat's stuff this afternoon.
I've talked to Bob about that and I hope I'll have his update.
He's got something on that.
Yes, sir.
How about the things he'd like to forget thing?
Is that finished?
That's pretty well done, yes, sir.
And we now have a
There ought to be a hell of a compendium, Jesus Christ.
Yeah, we do have that.
I saw the draft that Shurz had just before the week of the election.
Shurz worked on it, right.
But he had to go back to his paper.
He stayed longer than— What else has developed politically over the weekend?
Anything I should know about?
Really kind of quiet politically, Mr. President.
just the orally interest, which is just what we wanted.
On the Democratic side, now they're talking about Muskie.
Jean Westwood will step down, won't she?
I think now she will.
She knows.
But isn't this fellow still on the left, the guy from Oregon?
Oh, yeah.
You mean from Maine?
He is very left.
I know him.
He's very confident.
And he's a
truthful and a lot of enthusiasm.
He's at the right age and all.
Well, I'm going to try to get one if we can from the South.
If we can't get anybody from the North, we can't take Massachusetts and you can't take New York because you're nobody competent.
And I must say, we don't have any candidates at the moment.
Except we've got to get Dole out.
Oh, Jesus.
Well, that's one of our problems.
Well, we're working on that now.
He used over the weekend exactly what I asked him to use.
He used a penny of it.
how much you had done to help the candidates.
But the trouble is nobody listens to that anymore.
All right.
All right.
And it really— All right, well, sorry.
He can't help us that much.
We're coming along.
We're coming along.
We're getting it done.
You know, one name I forgot to mention to you tonight, and I will bring it up tonight, is Wallace's man, Charlie Snyder.
There's a guy that we— Yes, yes, but not for national chairman.
Oh, no, no.
There's a guy that we really should—oh, no.
Well, I want him.
Boy, we ought to get him in.
He's— Would he be in the White House?
I don't know.
That's what I thought.
Maybe we'd try to see where he'd fit.
He's a very— Assistant secretary someplace?
Well, you might have to go higher with him.
Yeah.
Cabinet?
No, I don't think— I don't think you'd do that.
I think an undersecretary you could go in the right place.
Well, maybe we want him more close in on our political apparatus.
I would.
I would think so.
I don't think you want him quite in the White House.
I think that would be the wrong signal.
I think that's right.
I haven't figured it out, but I've got to note that it's one that we really should go after to be sure that we— By all means.
By all means.
That's all right.
Now, on the national tournament, I don't know.
That's a— I wish we could get George Bush to take it, but I don't think he would.
Because if he would, that would satisfy a lot of things.
He's Texas, he's South, he's new, he's young, you know, relatively speaking.
Articulate.
He'd be very— Articulate, and he'll do what we say.
That's right.
And he keeps his mouth shut.
Anyway.
George might do it if he were asked.
George is enough of a loyalist, I think.
If you asked him, he would do it.
Well, all in all, you know, I really think this crap about the president not helping the Republicans get elected and so forth is more an in-house thing than it is something that stirs the country up a hell of a lot.
Much more.
What do you think?
I don't know if the country—John Connolly thinks that.
He says,
He says, if I had campaigned more for them, I wouldn't have won by as much, and we would have lost more.
That's right.
You remember the thing we were talking about yesterday?
Well, Kelly's thesis is absolutely correct.
all this bitching around, it'll pose problems in dealing with the Congress.
Yep.
But on the other hand, they're going to be problems anyway, curiously enough.
It doesn't make any difference how much you help them.
Very few of them are loyalists.
Well, you remember— They consult their interests, don't they?
Of course.
That's exactly what they do.
Remember, we put all that money into Weicker in 1970, and Christy voted against us half the time.
Sure, sure.
And, no, these fellows are—well, you know from being there— Well, not only did we put our money in, but I went up there.
Sure.
I went in incidentally for Mathias, as I recall, years ago.
Oh, yes, I knew you did.
As a matter of fact, it helped to get him to run.
Talked to people to get his opponents out.
Sixty-six it was.
I know.
Sixty-six.
No, no, sixty-six, sixty-eight.
Sixty-eight he was running for the Senate.
Sixty-eight, that's right.
But I worked on the damn thing.
I'll tell you, the guy that's going to—he'd better watch out for his Agnew, though.
Agnew is really going to go after him one day.
Mathias is one of those that deserves it, frankly.
But the answer to the question, Mr. President, is twofold.
One, this isn't any issue in the country at all.
This is a party question.
You put the right party chairman in, and his first job, of course, is to let everybody in the party know that the hope of the Republican Party is Nixon, and stop the goddamn grumbling.
I mean, the right chairman can give them the right kind of cupping up immediately.
that's what they need right now.
That's all they need.
As far as dealing with the Congress goes, sure, they're going to be a hell of a lot of problems.
They're always there.
But these guys, if we'd lost some people that were well-respected inside the club, I think we might have had some problems.
But we didn't lose clubs.
Yeah, that's to a degree, that's right.
Jack Miller was certainly no loss.
Cale Boggs was— Cale Boggs was sort of in the club, wasn't he?
He was a little bit in the club, yeah.
But they really can't figure that we didn't do everything we could for Cale.
For Christ's sakes, if I had gone to Delaware, I don't think it would have changed it one iota.
He just had a damn good young candidate running against him.
That's exactly right.
And in Allen's case, I think of people that know Gordon well.
I mean, this idea of Dominick that
that uh allot made some tough votes for the president for christ's sakes if he was all that much for the president why didn't he do it run as well as the president well he would have run at 63 as we did that's right that's right well that isn't uh no that argument won't but but the basic point is that it is not a public issue and it isn't one that it hasn't taken any of the luster off the landslide you you still uh well you still hear great enthusiasm towards the
tremendous election victory.
And there's a damn good feeling in the country.
You know, everything seems to be coming together.
The market's going up.
The economy looks good.
They revised the gross national product figures again, which is what I expected they would do.
All right.
Upward in the election.
Those bastards wouldn't do it ahead.
And, you know, there's a good feeling, a good mood.
I think the little bit of grumbling that we're going to get is still grumble over something.
Incidentally, I spoke to Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and I said, Webster's the man.
We can get him through.
Boy, he'd be superb.
Now, do you think we can confirm him?
Oh, yes.
Absolutely.
All right.
Absolutely.
Good.
His only—well, he's a cum laude at Harvard Law School.
He wouldn't get much help from Dean Griswold.
He thinks Griswold was a left-winger.
He's been fighting them on Harvard's list.
He lectures on tax law.
He writes on it.
Now, the other thing, are you sure he will program, Chuck, or will he get in there?
Webster?
Yes.
Absolutely.
I'd bet my life on that one.
All right.
I'd stake my life on that one.
You're responsible for him now.
Yes, sir.
I don't want him to get in there and act like Walters did.
Oh.
And then Mitchell put Walters in.
Webster's the fellow that for four years has been coming in here telling me, what in Christ are you guys doing?
You should be using that place the way it ought to be used to clean out the goddamn enemy.
Right.
Oh, no, no.
It's every instinct.
He's just— Right.
He's absolutely perfect.
Right.
Good, good.
We're right down the line with this.
No, no, I would go on him.
We'll discuss that tonight, but we'll fold.
that one in.
We're going to get a few of these things chalked up.
Well, I tell you, if we get them in the right places like that— Incidentally, I think you should know we've got Richardson lined up.
Now this ploy is going to be—forget you've heard it, but Richardson's going to defense and Clements will be the undersecretary, who is the great man from Texas, you know.
Yeah, that's strong.
Which will be a hell of a team there.
That's a good balance.
And then Weinberger's going to go to HEW.
where he'll cut the shit out of it.
Oh, jeez.
And then put Roy Ash in Weinbier's place.
Now that triple play, I think, is a beauty, don't you?
Yes, I do, Mr. President.
I do.
I think it's— I just—some people think Richardson's a dove, but— Oh, but not when you balance him with Clements.
Yeah.
That's right.
I don't believe Elliot is a dove.
I think Elliot— Oh, no, no, no.
He'll do what he's told, anyway.
Yeah, Elliot is a guy who will do what he's told.
He just has to be told.
And he's—we went over it well.
We'll see you tonight.
I'll be about to.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you.