On July 23, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 10:52 am to 11:37 am. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 196-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Well, how are you feeling this morning?
Finished with Connelly?
Yeah.
What time is this program?
And who are the others?
What time do they come on?
sure good and of course i must say that i looked at the star this morning my god i you know i wouldn't be surprised if you see that
A picture of a little boy at eight years of age.
Jesus, do you ever see one of me?
Any time?
Any time?
On the front page?
It is unbelievable.
But it shows you what we're up against.
That's it.
That's it.
People drag.
I know.
Someday some very rich conservative will put in a paper that just won't be done.
It's the only place where a paper can influence people.
You can't.
Nobody can buy the Times.
They'll never sell it.
The Star is a pretty bad property anyway now, you know.
It's an old family that's set to a strike.
Somebody just thought I'd buy the goddamn star and just go to work.
So I even ran a, just ran a, not a conservative, just sort of a, sort of a straight, straight up like Chicago Daily News kind of a paper, which, you know, read to both sides, but just didn't run at all against
I'm not talking about the editorials, I'm talking about the news coverage, the news coverage of Trills.
Particularly on the people that do the reporting, the coverage, the children.
The people that really are weak are our own people.
I mean, I must say that I, every time I meet with our legislative leaders, they really are like children.
They're so, they have an unbelievable mind.
They just have many skills.
And, of course, a hell of a lot of your house staff people were that way.
A lot of them are getting over it, but a lot of them, you know, they just panic every time they see something in the goddamn post or the time.
They should pay no attention.
Well, they
talk with Packwood on that Feenstrom thing, you know, whether he did get a hold of him Friday afternoon.
He said to himself, well, that's what he should have done in the first instance.
Yeah.
They, uh, Schultz, when I had talked to him about it on Monday, he had told me that he was at the Feenstrom and he had made the, he and Hodgson decided they couldn't get this thing through.
They had to have a different approach.
So I didn't get that in connection.
It happened in both meetings.
But apparently, the letter that he had dropped between the stools was having Silverman, I thought he was saying, go up.
And you don't do anything at that level there.
He was a proud senator.
I don't know what the hell happened.
But Schultz, I told him, he had to go talk to him.
He went with a few girls, so he probably missed it.
But did Hodgson go talk?
What was Hodgson going to tell him?
And how do you make it worse?
Unfortunately, you didn't get much play.
It's not only, the point is that I don't know whether, maybe you, which of course I just assumed everybody knew, but again, I'm just a goddamn dumb man, probably aren't.
The vote in the Senate is irrelevant, because you can never, at first and then at second, Mansfield would never bring it up for a vote.
The third point, he's the,
The third point is that in the House, there is no way that it would ever get out of the Labor Committee, because the Labor Committee is, the fellow from Kentucky has it, and he is not going to let Bill out, so the thing is dead.
We've had it there for two years, it's like that, so we have to make a different approach.
Right now, because he's a backward, at least, you know, he's a little erratic, but he's not a bad thought.
And God damn it, it's just not right to do this to him.
And then telling him we want him to work with us on a new bill.
That's what it is.
We told the teacher that we've got to find an answer to this thing.
We've got to find a better answer.
And Meany knows that.
Meany doesn't think the Railroad Act is worth a damn.
Meany's terrible.
But you see, that's the point that we're working on a new piece of legislation here, something that will correct this thing so that we can work it out.
Well, I doubt if it will be coming to the East Equator.
But the point is, I'm not going to see the faculty.
I don't want to get involved in that.
I'm not going to see any senator or anything like that.
But what has to happen is that people
from the cabinet and so forth have gotten to take responsibility for going and working on such things.
Right away, right away.
Knock it right now and not send up an assistant secretary.
I mean, you saw an opportunity.
Well, that's all right.
But now we've got to get him to calm down.
I don't care what he said up to this point.
It isn't going to be harmful over the last period of time.
And also, let's face it, it hurts us with the people that have given us god damn little support for our own business friends.
Let's face it, when are we hurt from these people?
When are we hurt from the railroad people?
When are we hurt from the truckers?
When are we hurt from these people?
Never, never, never.
They never supported us on Vietnam.
They never supported us on defense.
They never supported us on health.
You know what I mean?
They were against it too.
That's right.
They don't want compulsory arbitration either.
Yeah.
That's right.
I know.
I'm not going to worry about it now because there is no strike.
Yeah.
The relations with unions are making it possible to sell the drink.
That's the important thing.
I all worked out with the...
There's no...
Nothing following between the stools and the grocery range and so on.