{"conversationCode":"253-004","tapeNumber":253,"conversationNumber":4,"identifier":"37-wht-conversation-253-004","startDateTime":"1971-05-07T18:08:00.000Z","endDateTime":"1971-05-07T18:54:00.000Z","startDate":"7-May-1971","startTime":"2:08 PM","endDate":"7-May-1971","endTime":"2:54 PM","dateCertainty":"certain","timeCertainty":"estimated","participants":"Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.;","description":"On May 7, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 2:08 pm and 2:54 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 253-004 of the White House Tapes.","locationCode":"EOB","recordingDevice":"Old Executive Office Building","latitudeEstimated":38.897567,"longitudeEstimated":-77.039147,"chronCode":1,"chronRelease":"First Chronological Release","chronReleaseDate":"5-Oct-1999","aogpRelease":null,"aogpSegment":null,"lastModified":"2015-07-27T17:04:10.235Z","findingAid":"Conversation No. 253-4\n\nDate: May 7, 1971\nTime: 2:08 pm - unknown before 2:54 pm\nLocation: Executive Office Building\n\nThe President talked with Charles W. Colson\n\n[See Conversation No. 2-121]","filename":["253-004.mp3"],"tapeStart":"00:02:22","tapeEnd":"00:10:06","participantsList":["Nixon, Richard M. (President)","Colson, Charles W."],"prevCode":"253-003","nextCode":"253-005","transcript":[{"start":2.6,"end":2.88,"text":"Hello."},{"start":4.34,"end":14.93,"text":"Yeah, what is your, uh, feeling about that Victor Roussel report on the media potential of that?"},{"start":14.95,"end":15.25,"text":"Sure."},{"start":15.35,"end":30.6,"text":"In our case, the only thing that he, uh, has anything to write about is the, uh, is the W trade thing, which we, uh, you know, that's the only decision he's made that we've been getting into."},{"start":31.7,"end":32.7,"text":"I don't like that."},{"start":36.77,"end":40.59,"text":"Thoughts, which is part of that."},{"start":40.79,"end":45.27,"text":"You can tell Romney about it."},{"start":45.39,"end":49.09,"text":"Burns is always taking his views on the business."},{"start":49.19,"end":55.33,"text":"But you, the meeting is worthwhile, so you don't have to talk about the other things."},{"start":55.41,"end":57.93,"text":"Because I'm going to ask for support from SSP."},{"start":62.69,"end":64.39,"text":"How about our old friend, the lobster?"},{"start":64.49,"end":66.25,"text":"He still has his part in there."},{"start":66.29,"end":69.63,"text":"He's all right on Irish."},{"start":69.65,"end":70.07,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":70.45,"end":73.56,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":73.62,"end":73.76,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":73.8,"end":74.94,"text":"Kirkland will probably be a successor."},{"start":74.96,"end":78.22,"text":"I don't know what to say."},{"start":78.24,"end":79.12,"text":"He really is here."},{"start":79.16,"end":81.36,"text":"It's the weather and the political strength."},{"start":81.5,"end":83.42,"text":"Remember, Walker's done a little."},{"start":83.5,"end":85.32,"text":"Maybe we ought to just take him off."},{"start":85.34,"end":86.14,"text":"You know what I mean?"},{"start":87.11,"end":93.64,"text":"There's some people that approach us as a hell of a lot of a membership."},{"start":93.8,"end":101.84,"text":"Even with me, regardless of what it means, there's a lot of the membership that will stick with us."},{"start":101.89,"end":102.78,"text":"Fran will stick with us."},{"start":102.84,"end":113.29,"text":"With a lot of these union guys who have jobs, and most of the union guys who've got clients, they will let the board policy override the interview."},{"start":116.46,"end":140.75,"text":"It's basically like Eamon's mistake, which is only a mistake in recent times."},{"start":143.03,"end":150.42,"text":"for his contribution to the term media, rather than in terms of simply not CBS, or something like that."},{"start":150.46,"end":151.5,"text":"That's the way you ought to do it."},{"start":151.52,"end":157.16,"text":"You ought to say, now CBS did this or that, or the other crime guy did this, or Howard Smith did that."},{"start":157.2,"end":158.76,"text":"He'd get away with that."},{"start":158.8,"end":161.3,"text":"He wouldn't get away with it, but at least it could help him."},{"start":161.52,"end":166.14,"text":"The moment you say media, the media does this, you're in real trouble with everybody."},{"start":166.22,"end":166.48,"text":"That's it."},{"start":172.8,"end":175.36,"text":"Yeah, there's a lot to do with it."},{"start":175.54,"end":177.32,"text":"First, the building trades need, need some modification."},{"start":177.34,"end":182.87,"text":"They are, they've grown and so forth, but they all might fight that battle."},{"start":182.99,"end":183.85,"text":"That's somebody else's fault."},{"start":183.87,"end":186.79,"text":"And there are no, there are no goals in it for us."},{"start":186.85,"end":187.89,"text":"There's not any examples, of course."},{"start":187.91,"end":192.33,"text":"They all have done their own thing."},{"start":193.68,"end":195.2,"text":"That's what we came from, and I mean it."},{"start":197.09,"end":200.27,"text":"They couldn't pick up any deeper rules than just an ordinary brushy talk."},{"start":200.55,"end":202.39,"text":"You know, not one damn vote."},{"start":205.13,"end":219.61,"text":"In fact, George Schultz struggled at, I don't know, I don't know if somebody else was there, maybe in the last couple of weeks, and he was very disrespectfully of Humphrey as well as Teddy."},{"start":219.85,"end":224.79,"text":"He said Jackson's the best man in the world."},{"start":228.85,"end":234.61,"text":"Well, I'll give him a little laugh."},{"start":235.59,"end":237.29,"text":"How's everything else going?"},{"start":237.38,"end":239.14,"text":"I guess everybody's gone home today."},{"start":243.02,"end":243.86,"text":"I think they helped."},{"start":244.02,"end":248.56,"text":"I mean, they, uh, they, uh, they just are, are there."},{"start":249.78,"end":252.31,"text":"I think that's the best broke they've needed to read so far."},{"start":252.59,"end":254.11,"text":"Yeah."},{"start":256.61,"end":257.99,"text":"The House came through."},{"start":258.01,"end":262.59,"text":"Today, a lot of Democrats as well as Republicans, huh?"},{"start":263.13,"end":264.15,"text":"How about the Senate?"},{"start":264.17,"end":275.87,"text":"Is that a very good one, or anybody else?"},{"start":275.91,"end":278.89,"text":"I'm already stuck with that."},{"start":278.97,"end":279.43,"text":"Why, of course."},{"start":279.49,"end":286.22,"text":"But the point is, we already have a constitutional change, so why not?"},{"start":286.71,"end":291.74,"text":"let people know that they didn't."},{"start":291.92,"end":297.56,"text":"The main point is that it's the right thing to do, and it's going to be done in the end."},{"start":297.58,"end":305.4,"text":"In case these people come back, we're going to get the same thing."},{"start":305.42,"end":306.28,"text":"So I have a lot of hope."},{"start":306.3,"end":313.54,"text":"Well, like we said behind the Hoover Cruise, we're going to lose the chief right now."},{"start":317.49,"end":322.75,"text":"There's a right to demonstrate and there's a right not to demonstrate."},{"start":322.81,"end":325.89,"text":"Neither can either her or the other."},{"start":326.29,"end":336.23,"text":"You know it's an interesting thing how the media didn't give it much play."},{"start":336.25,"end":337.49,"text":"I think they focused on her and she."},{"start":337.51,"end":343.75,"text":"The media focused on asking to protect her too."},{"start":346.71,"end":351.01,"text":"Anyhow, you've got to live with it now."},{"start":351.07,"end":351.39,"text":"That's why."},{"start":351.42,"end":362.14,"text":"I get that problem certainly with the $40,000, $40,000, you know, paid by the group that supports the city."},{"start":362.18,"end":368.06,"text":"They say, this city has what it's all based on."},{"start":368.08,"end":370.87,"text":"The demonstrations across the country are far less than I know them."},{"start":373.35,"end":374.11,"text":"It blew."},{"start":374.17,"end":376.39,"text":"It blew up this weekend."},{"start":376.41,"end":378.71,"text":"It was less than a year ago."},{"start":378.77,"end":385.17,"text":"Back then, everyone was all approaching."},{"start":385.89,"end":387.73,"text":"Things were going down."},{"start":387.75,"end":389.88,"text":"It was nothing less."},{"start":390.06,"end":397.54,"text":"Even though people are, of course, they're at war."},{"start":397.62,"end":398.9,"text":"They're at war."},{"start":399.24,"end":399.98,"text":"They're at war."},{"start":400.02,"end":402.5,"text":"They're at war."},{"start":405.45,"end":407.03,"text":"somebody's got to burn that place."},{"start":407.07,"end":414.34,"text":"But that should be a project, of course, that has to burn to be a complex."},{"start":414.38,"end":417.82,"text":"We'll see where it goes."},{"start":417.84,"end":417.96,"text":"Okay."}],"aiSummary":{"text":"President Nixon and Charles Colson discuss media relations strategy, specifically how to criticize individual news outlets rather than the media industry as a whole to avoid broader political backlash. They also assess potential support from labor unions, evaluate political figures like Henry Jackson, and review the status of recent anti-war demonstrations. The conversation reflects the administration's ongoing efforts to manage public perception and build political coalitions among working-class voters.","topics":["Media relations","Labor unions","Anti-war demonstrations","Political strategy","Public opinion"],"generatedAt":"2026-04-06T11:53:13.997Z"},"topicSlugs":["media-relations","labor-unions","anti-war-demonstrations","political-strategy","public-opinion"],"audioDurationSec":418,"audioFiles":[{"file":"253-004.mp3","bytes":16731614,"durationSec":418.16,"bitrate":320096,"missing":false}],"audioIsShared":false,"audioProbedAt":"2026-09-18T02:19:36.695Z","audio":["https://nixon.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/audio/253-004.mp3"],"url":"https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/253-004","nixonLibraryUrl":"https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/253/conversation-253-004","license":"Public domain (U.S. Government work). AI-generated fields (transcript, aiSummary) are provided as-is without warranty."}