Nixon phone call with Colson on Vietnam War and Public Relations

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How are you feeling today?

I'm in a state of euphoria because I'm just dying to watch some of those commentators and reporters eat their words to mind.

I just think it's going to be delightful.

We'll see what it is.

I wonder if there's some way that somebody could just walk out trying to put their hands on that place.

You know what I mean?

I don't know if you could put that on top of that.

Oh, he's awesome.

I watched it on television last night, and I watched his hands and his face as he was doing it, and I thought, my God, dude, this is absolutely...

And this is what's wrong.

These people are weak.

They don't understand.

They're overly simplistic.

I knew it.

Oh, God, he's horrible.

And I just didn't know what to say.

I just didn't know what to say.

And sitting there in his suit, in his robe, looking pretty useless.

You know what I'm saying?

Looking very, well, I guess he had a robe.

He was colored.

I mean, he was in, you know, the line of color was, you know,

We didn't get out as far in the wind as I hoped they would.

They didn't know.

Cullingwood came out at the end and he said, well, but all we can say is that the war is at hand.

that Henry Kim just thought he had a deal, that there were ambiguities in it, and that the president wouldn't accept the ambiguity and he wanted a more specific deal.

Some of the negotiations have broken down, but the machinery and people in place on both sides are carefully keeping their eyes on the Jerusalem negotiations.

I was very disappointed when I watched it because I hoped that Hillary would stick it back out.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not like that.

We had a very good day yesterday on the military side.

We lost no planes and they had over 70 over the target.

and all these things, because they're going right back in.

We're giving them damage, and it's just going to take them a couple of years to recover.

The true reason we're at Monterey and that's it.

And that is very important in terms of whether there's peace or not.

That's right.

No, to be honest with you, absolutely.

And there's a lot of reasons for Japan and Japan and Germany to help them.

They're a weapon for that matter.

They're a weapon from the war.

They're doing everything they can to help the people.

It's very likely that as long as a lot of people, a lot of people leave, a lot of people leave.

Yes, I know, absolutely.

And they're going to be a long time before they leave.

It's interesting, it kind of refers to, I worked, after I worked at a, you were up there yesterday, I was at the Star, which there's been a report out of Saigon of a halt in a bombing.

There's somebody who's lived over there that, or, yeah, but it's interesting, the Star ran out of state just the other way, and I just saw it.

As far as Mike told me, sorry if you have to accept it now, but if you ever use it, you have to go with the rest of it.

Well, it was a fun day to do it, I'm sorry about that.

But the first thing this morning, the break-up system, they've got the headline, U.S. Aerial Force State Highway 123, T-52, and that incidental report is going to have, like, a threat to the U.S. Air Force.

Let me ask you something.

I was wondering if this is the last for your bunch of sponsors

First of all, as you know, we have got to do, and I'm getting more on it, we're going to do this in a very low-key and very mannered fashion.

Because we don't want to build up any more yet.

And the advantage of that is it will help us get through.

We don't want to know anything completely new.

the two businesses, they want this.

They really want to come to this.

You know, it's not a line that they're going to make.

I don't know.

I think they're going to make this.

They don't need to respond.

They're never going to bring people to the conference table.

To get off of that, you put yourself in their position.

They're going to say, oh, you know what happened?

There was this country in the United States and the president knocked off the bombing and then they're going to say,

No sir, I think the line they will try is that this was an unnecessary killing and that the initiations didn't have to be broken off and that you had to, were actually, and then came back and realized that you had to go to the hospital.

That's what, that's the line the list will take.

And that won't sell because the Irish people don't, don't, number one, the Irish people don't think you can do this.

They're more confident in you than that.

If you demonstrate it time and again on the line, I would like to see the last of our line who has apparently done it again.

That's a problem.

That's a very important line to get across here, in particular to our new majority in the Hawks.

It is, however, one unit we do not want to, we want to represent the Williams and the Clarks and our guys.

I mean, I know it, but I don't know.

Therefore,

I don't want anyone coming basically from the White House.

I don't know if you have any ideas, but run out on the campus.

I would think it's really good to have maybe an office to spend the rest of your time with.

I think, for example,

I was thinking that, for example, earlier there was a shutoff, and then we're on, so now we need to do it twice to do it at a different time.

And now we've got it here, and it's like, you know, we've got to try to get through that here.

No, no, like I said, help me, but I really do, I think it's just, frankly, I think Collin would, Collin would, you know, you said Collin's line at the end of the morning last night was a direct reflection of this.

They are scared of death to get out and all that.

He, what he was doing in the conference, in the text last night when he sent it, because, you know, the program was lined up against him, and he came on and left all kinds of holes.

There were some of those things.

Now, we did get out, the scholars, for example, we did get out that day through the minister that said that

Yep, I have a copy of it.

It's damn good.

It's good.

You get a two, you get a four out of it.

No one can know what the time is.

The editor is so good.

I know that it gets around because people can see.

When I go to people in the boat, they see this and that.

and I think that's all the more reason this time to come back at him and say, see you around again.

I think that's very important.

I'd like to see that exit on the again line because it's

It will become part of the public state of mind until somebody says it.

And I think people are going to say that.

The offer might be the opposite.

We can certainly get that from someone like the University.

But the name is not that we want to use.

I mean, it's like we

I was thinking to do it earlier.

I'd like to ask Kelly to be here tomorrow, although I don't want to raise his position, but to get them to be sure.

You sure you're going to put that on?

No, Henry would never talk to me about what he said to Kelly, but I know all of his words.

He's paranoid.

Now, I have to acknowledge to you that there's been a little bit of effort to do that, and I don't think it's been, I don't think it's been in your interest to do that.

But at this point now, we're going back, we don't have to worry about that, because behind us at a table, you know, over there, you know, you don't have to do this, this, this, this policy where I, I don't have to take up the same day, you know, all by myself, I, you know, all by myself.

I, you know, I don't have to do that.

Yeah, I know.

My reaction to what you've done today, I made it a little harder, but I walked around the airport and met a lot of people with long faces.

My thoughts would be, if you had a guy like, if I could use a guy like this, what would you do?

Number one, you have to use him for it.

And number two, you have to see him and have proper contact with him, because it's a victory for you.

Yeah, I had never known John to, I wouldn't know, I wouldn't call him.

I would just say that he has to be available tomorrow morning about what I'm at.

I know, but we cannot be.

The main thing I want to remember is to not be a media public where I can say, there could be nothing to say to the world.

There could be a story in a way to figure out what's going on.

Because they don't know what's going on.

They don't know what's going on.

Yeah, that one I don't think they'll, if they try that one, they won't have any credibility with the public.

They won't know that.

I don't think that, only because they've said the other one.

That's the way the average guy reading this is following what he's going to react.

Right.

Yes, sir.

I will not do it too late, sir.

I don't want to.

I wouldn't.

I'm not even sure that's what I'm getting at.

You're going to get some fun out of it.

I don't know if it's the timing of the bird or anything.

I just think if you do it fairly soon, it's going to be better.

See, I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

Well, to answer your first question, I trust Kelly, but I had never known anything about the leak.

Kelly sat for three weeks and was waiting for it to come under water.

He ran a basket, but that never was a leak.

That's why he might have leaked it out himself.

And I've never known the police, but I know what's going on here.

And I know that one of the cops that he did when he was playing tennis with somebody, he and the person did that.

But I kept count on it very hard.

So I said, no.

Hey, John is very, very eager to retain your account because he wanted it as a fact that you went to any good value.

Well, he's never bothered with me, and I've had occasion when I've taken John to my council sometimes.

Uh, I'll give you another example.

John went to the sources at Daniel Shura, I believe, and he knew really what had happened to him.

I've never tried to contact him.

He called in and made a hell of a cute brownie point to the plant.

That was all he concerned about.

So he never did.

Thanks, Johnny.

Thanks for having me.

And, uh, I think his judgment would be awfully good tomorrow on how this could be tested and what he could say on background to people who trust him.

In other words, that would not say, you know, uh, there are people who, to him, would have told him back then that, uh, you know, what I really feel is well enough to be able to say, look, let me see on what is going on here.

And, uh, he's got to see this, you know, and, uh, how the whole world is defending himself against it.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Those kind of people are just terrible.

And it's just a good help.

It's just, I mean, that's just a part of it.

All of us can do whatever we want to do in this town.

You know, it's just going on for a week.

We're not just having a bombing.

We're going back to the impact.

I don't think there is.

In other words, it's not her labor leaders or anything.

Well, I was thinking about that last evening, Mr. President, and I thought, well, there's a lot of people out there doing all sorts of things, but I don't think there's a lot of people that are doing all sorts of things.

So why not do something like that?

Okay.

tomorrow morning, or to be in a position to call.

Okay.

The way they cannot be called on your own.

What do you think?

That's what you really got.

I've got that already.

Call for

Uh, so what?

Scott, I don't know.

Yeah.

Um, well, I mean, that's the best, that's enough.

Yeah, yeah.

That's all I know.

I will tell you, he, uh, he was, well, I didn't get that.

Yeah, I think he, well, I'm sure he got to it.

The point is that, uh,

You don't know which end you'll go off.

If he's programmed to... Oh, I wouldn't know if he's going to hit a plane.

No, no, he'd babble right off immediately.

Uh, that's all right.

That's all we need.

Yeah, well, that's what you need.

If you get just that night, let's babble such a time in the tactic.

I could very easily get like a little bit too late to say something, and they'd never say anything to me.

They'd never say anything.

That's one thing you can always do.

The difficult thing I'm going to have is finding him tomorrow.

I just let it go then.

They really were reveling in the fact that the negotiations broke down.

Sure.

They did that while we had it with them.

They were reveling in that decision.

I know very well that tomorrow we'll have a massive case of heartbreak.

No, we, remember we did that with Brother, and he never did, he wasn't, he wasn't, really, really shook him for a long time, you know.

We did it with Regan, you know, on that accident.

Yeah, we, that's it, we were pretty good back then.

You know, I think that'll do it.

All right.

Nixon phone call with Colson on Vietnam War and Public Relations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 29, 1972

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