On December 30, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the Aspen Lodge study at Camp David from 9:53 am to 10:02 am. The Camp David Hard Wire taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 237-044 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hi.
You got everything all set for today?
How about the cameras?
Yeah.
Well, Henry is, of course.
I mentioned him as Tory money, so he doesn't know how to handle it and so forth.
But Henry is just better.
I'll raise all of Henry's dollars.
He's got a call.
So, you know what I mean?
He's got to let Timmons call him.
He's got to give him the back, but...
How did Dennis handle you?
Yeah.
He's pretty.
Sure.
Oh, they might.
The whole, what about, what about the scalpel that he said to do?
Is he going to go over there and be there when the briefing takes place?
What about you?
Have you gone over?
Yeah, you ought to go over it.
I'd like to get your reaction in here.
All right.
Rather than talk to you right after the briefing, that means nothing, I would say.
I'll give you a ring at about 1130 or so to see how you value the name of the promoter sitting around.
Good.
Right, right, and also the main thing,
I mean, if they're accurate, you can be right on the mark.
Good.
Good.
Good.
How about the, I think this is an interesting thing about this congressional stuff.
It's just been sort of stirred up by the media, hasn't it?
Yeah, they've gone out.
I mean, but this all sucks, so.
Pretty rough.
I mean, it caused a national outrage and all that sort of thing.
Yeah.
Don't you really think somebody ought to go and look after the security of the state that much?
But I really think he ought to just kick right in the ass.
But very, very hard.
You won't do any good with him.
But it won't do any good in the sense that it's a very common type.
But it's what we'll do good with him.
But it was in the White House column.
We're just going forward with that.
So what do you want to crack?
You can chuck like a Wilkins or a Devine or something like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Devine.
Devine.
Devine.
But I don't know.
Of course, with all this rumbling around and so forth, I still don't think, I know I may be wrong, but it may be that as the concrete pops off too, but he kind of like pops off and he makes his decision.
But I can't see the great sort of, what do they call it, outrage in the country myself.
I don't know.
What are you getting from Settlinger?
Let me hold you to measure hearing them.
But the vibe was that he doesn't see this great interest, and the interest is less than that of every one.
Why then are these guys getting into this column?
Well, they lost the election, and well, when I say they had, the Democrats.
And even though they weren't musky, they figured, well, we've got to chop the president down.
But a saxophone, why does he get into it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then we sent him on a trip, and he came back and said his son changed his mind or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I tell Scott,
I think Scott's the one that ought to call the section.
This ought to make Scott happier than a clam.
Who the hell is going to call him?
Is Henry here or what?
I just hope that if somebody has told Henry, I told him to call people, that he sits up there and says, well, I shouldn't call anybody.
Everybody will understand this.
Nobody understands a goddamn thing.
They'd like to be informed.
Well, I think that's good.
And Mansfield, of course.
Right, so you've got the top leader, then you've got all the leaders.
The part that's an elegance is Skelly should make the offense.
It's not a decision at all.
You see, let me explain.
The decision I made was to bomb Obama.
Then, when we had serious negotiations early in October, I temporarily suspended below and above the North for money in parallel.
But with a clear understanding that as long as negotiations were serious,
spent a little bit money.
It was only when they then became unserious and after an impasse that we just resumed what we were going for.
You get the pipe.
That's the pipe that I trust Skelly and I don't know.
As a matter of fact, all of that is going to be washed out by the United States.
Provided they don't display it as being we were forced into it.
That's the one damn thing I don't want to see coming.
Are you worried about that?
You don't think so?
The fact that it was forced into it by the left wing?
I thought it was good for it.
All right, good luck.
Bye.