Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 237-051
Date: Saturday, December 30, 1972 at 11:06 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.; Scali, John A.
Recording device: Camp David Hard Wire
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/237-051

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:04] All right.
[0:14] Hello.
[0:14] Hello.
[0:14] I haven't talked to anybody.
[0:17] Well, it shows you how important it is.
[0:20] 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.
[0:30] Henry just said, but Warren, I sat there with Warren,
[0:32] had come up with Kennedy.
[0:36] And we spent about an hour just going over, quietly, question after question.
[0:40] And I'd raise them.
[0:42] And I'd say, now, what other questions do you have, Jerry?
[0:45] Trillium out.
[0:46] Trillium out.
[0:46] And by the time he got through, I think we had already had 30 questioning in action.
[0:50] Were they, the press of this were the most infuriated they've been in months, weren't they?
[0:57] Did it really, did Scali think so, too?
[1:06] You may think they were stunned.
[1:26] I hope they were.
[1:27] Good.
[1:31] Good.
[1:31] Good.
[1:36] We had him well briefed on that.
[1:44] I said, did he call?
[1:50] Did he call you or did he call him?
[1:55] I don't know what he called about.
[1:58] I wonder why he called you.
[2:00] Because he doesn't know anything.
[2:00] He doesn't even know you at all about him.
[2:06] Yeah, what would it be called?
[2:32] What's the answer?
[2:32] Why is that upside down?
[2:32] Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
[2:41] Well, I had somebody really dress him down a little bit, and he just can't continue to knock.
[2:51] I mean, after Henry said boo-boo, you know, and pieces in hand, he should knock the war on Henry Tigger.
[2:55] You know, he just, it's not even possible about this.
[2:59] It's just wrong.
[2:59] Well, doesn't he know that, well, anyway, I hope you told him the war did a good job.
[3:15] Well, Christ, he told me that this morning.
[3:20] I said, who's got a crow?
[3:22] I was kind of sticking right back to him.
[3:24] I said, there's nobody around here who's got a crow.
[3:25] I said, Warden's got a crow.
[3:27] I said, Rogers is out of town.
[3:28] And Laird is out of town.
[3:29] And I said, who the hell's got a crow?
[3:36] Oh, shit.
[3:40] Yeah, I told him that.
[3:45] Yeah.
[3:45] Yeah.
[3:46] tell the congressman what to say.
[3:53] Well, he's just, of course, he's overly sensitive about this.
[4:02] He doesn't make any difference.
[4:03] He says that if we grow, then that will harden their position in negotiations.
[4:06] And you know, as well as I know, Chuck, it isn't going to have any such goddamn sort of effect.
[4:09] They are going to come back.
[4:10] If their position was going to be hardened, it would have been hard for the bombing.
[4:12] For Christ's sakes, they're going to come back and negotiate as they're going to require.
[4:15] Henry's always, you know, he puts an enormously over-weaning emphasis on such things.
[4:26] Well, do we crow, or do we say this, or let's do this.
[4:29] It's all bullshit.
[4:30] He's affected by that, unfortunately.
[4:31] But the enemy never is.
[4:54] The idea that there would be a mechanism to get the message to the sky.
[5:20] And I'm curious, what is that?
[5:21] It's a target.
[5:21] A c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c- c-
[5:46] And he goes and talks to, uh, to Oswald.
[6:15] Oh, shit.
[6:15] That's right.
[6:15] He told, uh, oh, well.
[6:16] That was a problem.
[6:27] Geniuses you have to tolerate.
[6:28] All right.
[6:31] Looting the audio to the bombing, that's right.
[6:33] All right, I'll...
[6:38] There you go, though.
[6:42] 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.
[7:10] Try.
[7:34] Try.
[7:34] Try.
[7:39] I don't want to have an idea, provided they don't say I'm confident we're going to have a settlement.
[8:07] In other words, if that's the only idea I would give you, you can use the word determine precisely and firmly.
[8:10] But don't say confident if they ever say, you know, about the outcome or if you chose.
[8:21] They don't want to get that sort of thing out.
[8:25] Okay.
[8:25] Fine.
[8:25] That's right.
[8:27] That's right.
[8:29] That's right.
[8:29] Good.
[8:29] Good.
[8:30] Right.
[8:30] Good.
[8:30] Good.
[8:30] Oh, that's right.
[8:31] Fine.
[8:31] Fine.
[8:31] Of course, I am confident, but I don't want to get caught in the gift of your love.
[8:37] Right.
[8:37] Good.
[8:55] Yeah.
[9:30] All right, who else would you talk to?
[9:43] Fine, well, I'll get your ring back about this and see who else you'd like to order.
[9:47] I'll take whatever I can get over to Scott.
[9:52] He'd probably like to come.
[9:52] Yeah, yeah.
[9:55] He feels good, doesn't he?
[9:56] He feels it came out the right way.
[10:04] Now, about the business of the congressional types, is that underway?
[10:25] I know about that.
[10:25] I told him about that.
[10:25] I know I gave you the names.
[10:28] I mean, Ford, Albert, Goldwater.
[10:33] That's all right, too.
[10:47] And talk to us many times.
[10:51] Until now, when you have made this young congressman, why doesn't he call on the section to apologize to the president?
[11:00] What did Tom say?
[11:07] Oh, great.
[11:15] All right.
[11:21] He's out.
[11:29] Jeff.
[11:29] You think he will?
[11:36] Jeff.
[11:37] I'm not sure.
[11:41] 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.
[12:00] The Post goes all out.
[12:00] The Times has frankly been considerably more responsible on this.
[12:02] But they go out and they say, we're a loud cry and it's sweet in Australia.
[12:03] And I say, for example, the British and the French and the Italians and some of the others.
[12:06] And then they go out and say, congressional office, right?
[12:18] And it shows the 63 Democrats, that is, the Democratic study group.
[12:20] And, of course, Ms. Mills, who should have been popped off.
[12:23] And we must remember that.
[12:24] I don't know what to do with him.
[12:24] We have to work with him.
[12:34] He'll back off fast.
[12:35] Copperhead is good.
[12:43] It's actually natural.
[13:08] And hungry.
[13:09] And that's what we're doing.
[13:09] We're over here.
[13:10] You just can't bear not saying something every time.
[13:11] Congressional.
[13:11] And we hope to do.
[13:12] I don't.
[13:12] Let me put it this way.
[13:13] I don't call it
[13:14] except for its depth and all that for a while.
[13:26] But I don't think it's had any enormous effect, as you were saying.
[13:30] So it isn't going to have much of an effect, the fact that we're going back.
[13:34] It's always, the valley is only, the mountain top is only as tall as the valley is deep.
[13:36] And that's what we have here.
[13:36] But on the other hand, I would think the public would be somewhat reassured.
[13:50] You make the idea that it's worth looking across.
[14:16] Of course, they know Dan Weller wasn't.
[14:17] The editorials will say that.
[14:18] The columns will say that.
[14:18] I like to know how they got along.
[14:42] And you might give, I don't want to get bothered to get boring.
[14:48] If I strut around with him too much, he might call me.
[14:58] He might just say, look, you're having to, you're the only one here, and you're coordinating things.
[15:04] And which ones does he call so you can check them off?
[15:07] We could do that.
[15:08] Say, like, for example, it happened to me that Doc Marvin ought to be called on this.
[15:10] See?
[15:12] I suppose somebody was going to call me.
[15:14] Well, Doc Marvin, I are the...
[15:16] the bacon of course actually yeah yeah you know what i mean but but go to the
[16:04] Why don't you put Scali on?
[16:23] Let me talk to him now.
[16:24] The two of you will be on the same wire.
[16:25] Chuck, it's good to let Scali feel he's, you know, sort of on the end, too.
[16:26] 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.
[16:28] It depends on your life, I guess.
[16:29] Is it that way?
[16:29] Go ahead.
[16:30] Go ahead.
[16:33] Get him off.
[16:33] Let him in.
[16:33] Yes, sir.
[16:34] Asking him to give me his report as if he had to do that.
[16:46] All right.
[16:47] Hey, sit down.
[16:47] I had a feeling, according to him, that it was very clocked.
[16:50] I was starting to feel that he had to be briefed on this until after tea.
[16:57] And maybe, of course, I said, well, I hope to God he could do it.
[16:58] Maybe naturally, he just had to be able to keep cool by dragging us up there.
[17:03] How did these congressmen drag our people up to be briefed on this thing before the negotiations are out of their minds?
[17:30] Well, Mr.
[17:30] Ambassador, how do you feel about that?
[17:31] I thought that Colson talked about all this flak during the talk this week.
[17:33] and my hand were both as letters that you were holding, delivering me, not accepting their appointments.
[17:46] You were so disturbed.
[17:48] Is that true?
[17:48] Is that true, Chaka?
[17:49] You've got both letters, haven't you?
[17:54] But don't burn them.
[17:55] Well, how did he handle it?
[17:57] 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...
[18:03] So I got him up here with Kennedy, who's also a fine fellow.
[18:11] And we worked him over for an hour, and I think we covered virtually everything.
[18:28] But how'd he do?
[18:29] Good.
[18:29] Good.
[18:29] Yeah.
[18:29] Yeah, Chuck told me that Henry was...
[18:31] explaining about the fact that Jerry had referred to their, what the hell does he think is the press going to do?
[18:42] They're going to refer to it anyway.
[18:45] And after all, what do you say?
[18:46] Well, of course, there was an exchange of messages.
[18:48] Everybody wanted the name.
[18:53] We didn't tell them who went first, but everybody was going to guess who the hell went first.
[18:56] And that's right.
[18:56] That's right.
[18:56] And also, you've got to remember that through Christmas, we offered the same thing to turn it down.
[19:01] Go ahead, give me the reactions of the pros over there.
[19:07] I mean, the decent guys.
[19:52] All right, good.
[20:02] Very good.
[20:16] Why did you say that?
[20:17] Wow.
[20:17] One of the
[20:18] However, too, it's a minority deal because most of our liberal friends are just the other way around.
[20:56] That's right.