On July 22, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 1:42 pm to 2:17 pm. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 197-008 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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?
Did you get back?
Yeah.
How'd you go?
Oh, I stayed.
Well, you could have waited.
We went by helicopter.
You could have come with us.
It looked a little political, I see.
That's right.
Just as well.
Just as well.
Right.
Right.
Well, Todd, how's everything out here today?
I didn't feel pretty asking.
Good, good, good.
So good at fielding things, anyway.
George Christian, isn't it?
It's a good name, too.
It's Watson, but if he doesn't, that's right.
I don't know what the hell that... That ball and hammer is playing such a strange game that we just can't take that up.
It's a comment, right, on any terms like that.
Right.
Right.
Even if we delay the opening a week and he gets Wallace, that's worth it.
Right.
then we can just sort of cut these guys away and that's got to be journey.
It's a 20 point gap, 19 to 20, but they can be closed, Chuck.
It's going to be hard because we're not going to be sitting on our hands.
In other words, you think it's going to be hard for some of them to go back?
I was finding out that I was, uh, I thought I was reading a Washington Post this morning that got an editorial on him.
You read it.
Horrible.
It makes him look like, uh, that he was the guy that brought these slaves over and asked Jesus to arrange them.
It's terrible.
I just can't believe it.
Somebody, I told him, I just want to go, uh, somebody on a closet to read it.
I told him they were getting the hell out of them.
Then you read Pritchett.
You see him
that's believable, you know, about the first ladies and all that stuff, I mean, just ignores anybody that, that this is going to be, and then, but boy, the one that Connelly just practically irked on was that one by Brayden, you know, I can be proud of you, my God almighty, well, you know, we never, I don't want stuff like that, but as you know, these, any columnist, even our greatest friends that write something, they never slobber like that, this is unbelievable.
A series of three.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
Good.
The papers were excellent.
I was so surprised to see the post playing up at all the times.
I don't read that.
I don't, I don't, I don't read it.
But what, what do you have?
There.
Sure.
Sure.
Of course, some might think, well, that's going to bring peace.
No, no, no.
They can't think of the enemies for the other guy.
That goes too far.
30, 35, 36.
Nevertheless, if that is the case, the country had it.
But this is totally true.
He this one time had this.
It's totally true.
He's too bullish.
That's right.
He's saying something.
He's making news.
Look at that.
The president's got to stop the rash Congress.
That's the way things work.
I mentioned international monetary and Northern Ireland and
D-strokes, but they also always put in N, fear of whatever.
I didn't know about that.
What was it, uh, 226?
That's, uh, Nippet.
That'll come off in some...
And basically the other thing that's sort of tied to this issue is that we've got to remember that people often, people will figure that the thing I mentioned last night about the courts, somebody, we don't have some sort of a committee that, a lawyer's committee or something, or a law enforcement committee, maybe police or us, that they're going to say,
That's the point.
So there's the point.
Lawyers, I mean, good lawyers ought to be scared to death.
And I think that gets to the lifestyle, you see, which nobody can really talk about, but which guys like Jesse Calhoun feel in their gut, and I mean, he feels it.
But anyway, his getting off, he can't get off.
That's one thing he can't, but he can throw in something in his acceptance speech about, well, he got to stop narcotics, but how the hell can he do that on the one side and then say he's going to loosen up on marijuana?
Even though he's watered it down a bit, I think the public, I don't know how you can, well, they can change, they can change.
They forget so quickly what a man says, but they're not...
brother to know this, that there are no marijuana smokers who support me and held a lot of support in.
The position check was not to make an extra meter in your brother.
Wasn't it to legalize it?
I do that.
I'm there.
I'm there.
Some reduction.
I oppose.
I oppose.
Period.
Period.
Period.
Period.
Period.
Period.
Period.
It's all the less frightening on the economic issue.
That's a line, but I think it's very good.
I want to let her in with the former, former finance chairman.
And that guy out in the state of Washington, former state chairman Bradley Stevenson, 56.
That's a good name.
If I could sprinkle some of it.
Here's somebody from Florida.
I'd like to have, really, some of those states up there.
Florida, Georgia, I think.
If Clark Clifford can make millions being a partisan, so could George.
No problem.
Next, sales.
Good, that's good.
And of course you've got your three sports figures on here.
Interesting thing today, don't mention this or use it yet.
Because we may not get it.
The live photographer, he came back from Iceland to be covered in the chest matches.
And he said, I think you should be able to do it.
I think you should be able to do it.
Bobby Fischer's one of his best.
He's one of your great supporters.
He's a great character.
I remember Matt, the 29-year-old genius.
Probably the best chest player in the world.
When he comes back, if he comes in, I'm going to be good.
I said, Bobby Fischer.
He just reaches a crowd that most people never reach.
A poor Jewish family in Brooklyn.
See?
Yeah.
That's right.
He tells them to get those television cameras out there.
They like it.
Yeah.
But we don't know what he'll say about that, because I have to confirm it myself.
We'll look at it.
Well, incidentally, among those you can check on, Charleston has to have his letter.
Before he names his letter, he should be called.
But he's a good one.
But he'll go.
There's no question.
Yes, yes.
He said he was an independent.
He's always been a Democrat.
So we can call him a Democrat.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Well, this is a real Democratic committee, as they say.
The Eisenhower one was not.
Well, it was good.
It was good, but it was basically Southern Oregon.
Southern, you know.
This is Jimmy Burns and the Texas crowd in Louisiana.
And John Lanner was so forth.
But ours is basically nationwide.
Bill White went to help this morning.
None of them.
that the democratic defection is complicated.
It's a nationwide thing.
No question about that.
The thing is, if you can get laws out then, according to both Gallup and Harris,
19 to 20 point spread, and that is a hell of a spread.
I agree.
But Collin makes an interesting point today.
He says that we've got to be ready, particularly about three weeks before the end of the year.
And he says, yeah, there can never be minerals.
And he said, what are minerals?
And he says, you mustn't let it get great momentum.
It's then that you can really have a danger because it feeds on itself.
The momentum feeds on itself.
So he said, then that's when you have to strike.
You have to strike.
Try to dip that momentum in there.
All right.
All right.
At that point, I just don't think they're going to get that far until October.
But they might get 10.
If they get to 10, that's quite likely.
But I think 10 is awfully hard to close.
I'm not sure they're going to get anything done.
Well, Larry will get under his hide.
I'm trying to keep the pressure on him.
The gap, I think, would close at 15 to provide, in August, even a congressional thing.
A congressional thing is not a good thing for us.
There's just no way we can beat the government.
You know what I mean?
We're constantly being beat over the head, and that's what they tell us.
It's going to be negative for us.
And then we will hope to come with our convention, make it positive enough that we stop it.
I already wrote it at that point.
We've got to have our other guys on racing now.
Well, anyway.
Yeah.
Something might be done to make it work.
Get out to your room next to that, okay?