Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 228 › Conversation 228-006
Nixon phone call with Colson on Personnel appointments
Monday, November 20, 1972 · 2:05 PM–2:21 PM ET · Camp David Hard Wire · 8 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Charles Colson discuss personnel appointments and political strategy following the 1972 election. They cover potential Cabinet and sub-Cabinet placements, including the roles of Peter Brennan, Elliot Richardson, Caspar Weinberger, and Roy Ash. The conversation also touches on legislative relationships and the internal assessment of Republican electoral performance.
- Personnel appointments
- Cabinet reorganization
- 1972 election
- Political strategy
- Labor relations
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
This transcript is incomplete. The transcription skipped stretches of speech — roughly 2 minutes of this recording (about 21% of it) is represented by only a few words. Listen to the audio rather than relying on the text below; a corrected transcript is queued.
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Hello?
I'm getting here in between a fight and I just wondered if you had any, uh, at that latest count yet?
I'll be denied anyway.
Why?
In fact, there's no one ready to count.
You gotta check, let us just check and know, check back and forth.
Some of them not in yet, aren't that true?
We've got until December.
I heard a report on the Brennan thing.
It isn't him.
I'm wondering about Ben's young.
I hope he would pay me on this.
How about Paul Hall?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Well, hell yes.
I put one in transportation, Assistant Secretary.
We're looking for a good transportation man for Teamster and Freeman.
Man, this would be terrific.
You tell him we'd love to have him, and so he lets us know, and you call fix it.
The president is looking for a man at the assistant secretary level for Teamster.
And if they prove themselves out, they go up from there.
That's the way the president does it.
We're just waiting.
We're around 61.
Is that it?
The UPI is more updated.
It must be if it's kind of 61.
The UPI is a 61 one.
That's so far apart, Chuck, that the one must be taken after the other.
Oh, it's a much earlier account.
Sure is it?
I figured it's much higher than that, at 48.
But it was earlier, it was 61.3 or 4 or something like that.
But that was based on just a conglomeration on that time.
Those UBI's have great teeth.
They have, it's all they do.
I'm always asked, is this, do we have teeth?
That's 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.
The last talk Schultz said, you wouldn't think that Meany would be against Brennan, would you?
100% we ought to do.
All right.
Well, my view is, let's talk tonight about it, and tomorrow you can talk to Brennan.
Because, you see, I want you to make the call
So that he knows he's got a damn job.
See, that's the thing.
We're all sort of doing the same thing.
See, that's the way it is.
We're a fighting man being.
Right?
Right.
I'd love to have it.
It's a curse.
I'd love to have it.
What else has developed politically over the weekend, Haynes?
Much you know about?
Now they're talking about Muskie's, Jay Muskie will step down, won't you?
You know, this fellow's still on the left, the guy from Oregon.
What if we get south?
You know, we can't get anybody from the north.
You know, we can't take Massachusetts.
You can't take New York if you have nobody competent.
And I must say, we don't have any candidates at all.
We have to go up.
We can't get on that now.
What do you get in the White House?
Territory someplace, right?
We could do that.
It's not even far and closer than our political empire.
If you want to get employed in the White House, that would be the wrong signal.
That would be the answer.
If George Bush is taken, I don't think he would satisfy a lot of things.
He's Texas.
He's new.
He ought to, you know, relatively speaking.
He'll do what we say.
You know, I really think this crap about...
The president is not helping the Republicans get elected, so we're at this point, and I guess to put something that stirs the country up, I don't know.
John Collins, he says, he says, he says, if I campaigned more for it, if we didn't fight a lot, I wouldn't have won by as much, and they would have lost more.
Remember the thing you were talking about yesterday, that all this bitching around, it will pose problems in dealing with the Congress.
But on the other hand, they hurt me problems anyway, curiously enough.
It doesn't make any difference how much you owe them.
Very few of them are loyalists.
They consult their interests, don't they?
Sure.
Put our money in.
But I went out there.
I went in.
It's an April 1 buyout, as I recall.
Years ago.
Before we got his opponents out.
66 plus.
66 to 68.
68, that's right, but I worked on that thing.
The diet is coming, you better watch out for it.
I was just serving in the club, wasn't he?
But they really can't figure that we didn't do everything we could for Cato.
For Christ's sakes, if I had gone to Delaware, I wouldn't have changed it.
He just had a damn good young candidate run against him.
In this case, I think of people that know Gordon well.
This idea of Dominic, that Alec made some tough votes for the president.
For Christ's sakes, if he was all that much to the president, why didn't you do it?
Run as well as the president.
I spoke to Haldeman earlier and I said to him, Webster's the man, that we've got it true.
That we can confirm him.
The other thing, are you sure you will program him, Chairman?
Will he get in there?
Yes.
All right.
You're responsible for him, I understand.
I don't want him to get in there and act like Walters and make Mitchell become Walters.
You know, we've got Richardson lined up now.
This is Floyd.
It's going to be Richardson going to defense.
Terry, who's a great man in protection, has been strong, which will be a good affair.
Weinberger's going to go to the league.
She's going to get him.
And put Roy Ash in Weinberger's place.
Now, that's going to be, that triple play, I think, is a beauty, I'm sure.
Some people think Richardson's a dove, but I'll give it to you later.
We'll see you tonight.
NARA Description
On November 20, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 2:05 pm to 2:21 pm. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 228-006 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 228-6
Date: November 20, 1972
Time: Between 2:05 pm - 2:21 pm
Location: Camp David Hard Wire
The President talked with Charles W. Colson.
[See Conversation No. 155-17]
-28-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUMAlso recorded on November 20, 1972
- 155-015 1:42 PM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and John D. Ehrlichman talked on the telephone at Camp David from 1:42 pm to 1:46 pm.
- 155-016 1:46 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:05 pm.
- 228-004 1:46 PM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:05 pm.
- 228-005 1:46 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 1:46 pm and 2:05 pm.
- 155-017 2:05 PM · 16 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone at Camp David from 2:05 pm to 2:21 pm.
- 155-018 2:21 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 2:21 pm and 2:26 pm.
- 155-019 2:26 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked on the telephone at Camp David from 2:26 pm to 2:27 pm.
- 228-007 2:26 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Julie Nixon Eisenhower met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 2:26 pm to 2:27 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 228-006, November 20, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/228-006 (accessed October 9, 2026).