Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 237 › Conversation 237-051
Nixon, Colson & Scali on Vietnam War and Henry Kissinger
Saturday, December 30, 1972 · 11:06 AM–11:42 AM ET · Camp David Hard Wire · 21 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Charles Colson and John Scali to coordinate administration messaging and congressional relations regarding the ongoing Vietnam War negotiations and recent bombings. The President expressed frustration with Henry Kissinger's sensitivity to press criticism and over-reliance on external perceptions of the administration's negotiation strategy. Nixon instructed his aides to maintain a firm, determined tone in public communications while avoiding premature projections of a settlement, and he specifically tasked them with managing political outreach to key congressional figures to bolster support.
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Transcript (AI-generated)
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All right.
Hello.
Hello.
I haven't talked to anybody.
Well, it shows you how important it is.
The thing that Henry will never do with the poor zinger, I do it with him now, and the zinger just has to almost bother himself with Henry.
Henry just said, but Warren, I sat there with Warren,
had come up with Kennedy.
And we spent about an hour just going over, quietly, question after question.
And I'd raise them.
And I'd say, now, what other questions do you have, Jerry?
Trillium out.
Trillium out.
And by the time he got through, I think we had already had 30 questioning in action.
Were they, the press of this were the most infuriated they've been in months, weren't they?
Did it really, did Scali think so, too?
You may think they were stunned.
I hope they were.
Good.
Good.
Good.
We had him well briefed on that.
I said, did he call?
Did he call you or did he call him?
I don't know what he called about.
I wonder why he called you.
Because he doesn't know anything.
He doesn't even know you at all about him.
Yeah, what would it be called?
What's the answer?
Why is that upside down?
Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
Well, I had somebody really dress him down a little bit, and he just can't continue to knock.
I mean, after Henry said boo-boo, you know, and pieces in hand, he should knock the war on Henry Tigger.
You know, he just, it's not even possible about this.
It's just wrong.
Well, doesn't he know that, well, anyway, I hope you told him the war did a good job.
Well, Christ, he told me that this morning.
I said, who's got a crow?
I was kind of sticking right back to him.
I said, there's nobody around here who's got a crow.
I said, Warden's got a crow.
I said, Rogers is out of town.
And Laird is out of town.
And I said, who the hell's got a crow?
Oh, shit.
Yeah, I told him that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
tell the congressman what to say.
Well, he's just, of course, he's overly sensitive about this.
He doesn't make any difference.
He says that if we grow, then that will harden their position in negotiations.
And you know, as well as I know, Chuck, it isn't going to have any such goddamn sort of effect.
They are going to come back.
If their position was going to be hardened, it would have been hard for the bombing.
For Christ's sakes, they're going to come back and negotiate as they're going to require.
Henry's always, you know, he puts an enormously over-weaning emphasis on such things.
Well, do we crow, or do we say this, or let's do this.
It's all bullshit.
He's affected by that, unfortunately.
But the enemy never is.
The idea that there would be a mechanism to get the message to the sky.
And I'm curious, what is that?
It's a target.
A c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c-
And he goes and talks to, uh, to Oswald.
Oh, shit.
That's right.
He told, uh, oh, well.
That was a problem.
Geniuses you have to tolerate.
All right.
Looting the audio to the bombing, that's right.
All right, I'll...
There you go, though.
I know you have it under control, but you see, Henry doesn't, you just can't, you can't work his staff to death.
Try.
Try.
Try.
I don't want to have an idea, provided they don't say I'm confident we're going to have a settlement.
In other words, if that's the only idea I would give you, you can use the word determine precisely and firmly.
But don't say confident if they ever say, you know, about the outcome or if you chose.
They don't want to get that sort of thing out.
Okay.
Fine.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Good.
Good.
Right.
Good.
Good.
Oh, that's right.
Fine.
Fine.
Of course, I am confident, but I don't want to get caught in the gift of your love.
Right.
Good.
Yeah.
All right, who else would you talk to?
Fine, well, I'll get your ring back about this and see who else you'd like to order.
I'll take whatever I can get over to Scott.
He'd probably like to come.
Yeah, yeah.
He feels good, doesn't he?
He feels it came out the right way.
Now, about the business of the congressional types, is that underway?
I know about that.
I told him about that.
I know I gave you the names.
I mean, Ford, Albert, Goldwater.
That's all right, too.
And talk to us many times.
Until now, when you have made this young congressman, why doesn't he call on the section to apologize to the president?
What did Tom say?
Oh, great.
All right.
He's out.
Jeff.
You think he will?
Jeff.
I'm not sure.
I suppose I can see a kind of building, of course, we seem to make the Washington Papers and the Eastern Papers and the Times and the Post more than the Post.
The Post goes all out.
The Times has frankly been considerably more responsible on this.
But they go out and they say, we're a loud cry and it's sweet in Australia.
And I say, for example, the British and the French and the Italians and some of the others.
And then they go out and say, congressional office, right?
And it shows the 63 Democrats, that is, the Democratic study group.
And, of course, Ms. Mills, who should have been popped off.
And we must remember that.
I don't know what to do with him.
We have to work with him.
He'll back off fast.
Copperhead is good.
It's actually natural.
And hungry.
And that's what we're doing.
We're over here.
You just can't bear not saying something every time.
Congressional.
And we hope to do.
I don't.
Let me put it this way.
I don't call it
except for its depth and all that for a while.
But I don't think it's had any enormous effect, as you were saying.
So it isn't going to have much of an effect, the fact that we're going back.
It's always, the valley is only, the mountain top is only as tall as the valley is deep.
And that's what we have here.
But on the other hand, I would think the public would be somewhat reassured.
You make the idea that it's worth looking across.
Of course, they know Dan Weller wasn't.
The editorials will say that.
The columns will say that.
I like to know how they got along.
And you might give, I don't want to get bothered to get boring.
If I strut around with him too much, he might call me.
He might just say, look, you're having to, you're the only one here, and you're coordinating things.
And which ones does he call so you can check them off?
We could do that.
Say, like, for example, it happened to me that Doc Marvin ought to be called on this.
See?
I suppose somebody was going to call me.
Well, Doc Marvin, I are the...
the bacon of course actually yeah yeah you know what i mean but but go to the
Why don't you put Scali on?
Let me talk to him now.
The two of you will be on the same wire.
Chuck, it's good to let Scali feel he's, you know, sort of on the end, too.
Because, you know, what I mean is, when he goes to you and I, I'm going to have to be talking to him directly, I guess.
It depends on your life, I guess.
Is it that way?
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Get him off.
Let him in.
Yes, sir.
Asking him to give me his report as if he had to do that.
All right.
Hey, sit down.
I had a feeling, according to him, that it was very clocked.
I was starting to feel that he had to be briefed on this until after tea.
And maybe, of course, I said, well, I hope to God he could do it.
Maybe naturally, he just had to be able to keep cool by dragging us up there.
How did these congressmen drag our people up to be briefed on this thing before the negotiations are out of their minds?
Well, Mr.
Ambassador, how do you feel about that?
I thought that Colson talked about all this flak during the talk this week.
and my hand were both as letters that you were holding, delivering me, not accepting their appointments.
You were so disturbed.
Is that true?
Is that true, Chaka?
You've got both letters, haven't you?
But don't burn them.
Well, how did he handle it?
Because I tell you, I... You know, Jerry, you know, is a great guy, and I had... And Henry's always running it down, and I...
So I got him up here with Kennedy, who's also a fine fellow.
And we worked him over for an hour, and I think we covered virtually everything.
But how'd he do?
Good.
Good.
Yeah.
Yeah, Chuck told me that Henry was...
explaining about the fact that Jerry had referred to their, what the hell does he think is the press going to do?
They're going to refer to it anyway.
And after all, what do you say?
Well, of course, there was an exchange of messages.
Everybody wanted the name.
We didn't tell them who went first, but everybody was going to guess who the hell went first.
And that's right.
That's right.
And also, you've got to remember that through Christmas, we offered the same thing to turn it down.
Go ahead, give me the reactions of the pros over there.
I mean, the decent guys.
All right, good.
Very good.
Why did you say that?
Wow.
One of the
However, too, it's a minority deal because most of our liberal friends are just the other way around.
That's right.
NARA Description
On December 30, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and John A. Scali met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 11:06 am to 11:42 am. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 237-051 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 237-51 Date: December 30, 1972 Time: 11:06 am - 11:42 am Location: Camp David Hard Wire The President talked with Charles W. Colson. [See Conversation No. 158-40] The President talked with John A. Scali at an unknown time between 11:06 am and 112:42 am. [See Conversation No. 158-40] [This recording was cut off at an unknown time before 11:42 am. An unknown portion of the conversation was not recorded while the tape was changed. This conversation continues on 238- 1.]
Also recorded on December 30, 1972
- 158-039 10:54 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull talked on the telephone at Camp David from 10:54 am to 10:56 am.
- 237-050 10:54 AM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 10:54 am to 10:56 am.
- 158-040 11:06 AM · 37 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and John A. Scali talked on the telephone at Camp David from 11:06 am to 11:42 am.
- 238-001 11:06 AM · 12 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:06 am and 11:42 am.
- 158-041 11:42 AM · 15 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:42 am and 11:51 am.
- 238-002 11:42 AM · 27 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Thelma C. ("Pat") (Ryan) Nixon met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:42 am and 11:51 am.
- 238-003 11:42 AM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Camp David operator met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David at an unknown time between 11:42 am and 11:51 am.
- 158-042 11:51 AM · 59 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Cmdr. Alexander R. Larzelere talked on the telephone at Camp David from 11:51 am to 11:52 am.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 237-051, December 30, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/237-051 (accessed October 25, 2026).