Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 343 › Conversation 343-018

Nixon & Colson on William Rogers and Media Strategy

Wednesday, June 14, 1972 · 2:18 PM–2:40 PM ET · Old Executive Office Building · 16 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.Conversation343-018 on Tape 343 (tape position 00:27:17–00:43:23)StartWednesday, June 14, 1972 at 2:18 PMEndWednesday, June 14, 1972 at 2:40 PMRecording deviceOld Executive Office BuildingSourceNixon Library record for 343-018 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and Charles Colson discussed strategic media appearances and speaking engagements for Secretary of State William Rogers. The President directed Colson to coordinate a schedule of prestigious public forums and evening talk shows for Rogers that would avoid sensitive political debates and conflict with the Democratic National Convention. Nixon emphasized the importance of controlling Rogers's public image and messaging, particularly regarding foreign policy and national defense, while ensuring he appeared in key electoral states.

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Position in tape: 00:27:17 – 00:43:23

part A, 27:15

343a.mp3
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NARA Description

On June 14, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:18 pm to 2:40 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 343-018 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 343-18

Date: June 14, 1972
Time: 2:18-2:40 pm
Location: Old Executive Office Building

The President talked with Charles W. Colson.

[See Conversation No. 25-66]

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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hello john john i wanted to tell you that i talked to bill rogers today and we would prefer i would prefer to not do issues and answers because it's not a testimony and i don't want the you know the questioners on sunday to raise questions that should be the only answer
and get, if you can, get somebody else to go on.
But not on this subject.
We've got a program in Salt Lake where they're calculating.
We've got a program.
Now, the other thing, I would not urge him to do a press conference next week at night.
It's better to let this thing arrive the rest of this week and the press conference next week.
He's going to go abroad on the 27th.
And that's tough, but I told him, he asked about whether he didn't know whether to do that or not, and I said, well, that I didn't, that we wanted to be sure that we didn't have the Captain Officer's track on the shuttle speed, and that we ought to be able to find him today or something like that.
But anyway, what I told him is that I would like for him, if he came back from his trip, to do such things as the Tomahawk Club, San Francisco, and the Chicago Train Club, and the Legion, then he ought to do the VFW, I think.
I said, you ought to try it.
He can do it.
He's got a bit of property remaining in his lobby in the street, so that will mean he will have been the full remaining of his lobby.
He's got to get some damn good evidence for him to talk to, period.
And another one is up there, and I said, hey, you want to go to the labor group?
And I said, just try it.
And I said, David, the Secretary of State wants me to go to the labor group.
And he called them out all the time.
So I told him that I would pass all the time.
You'll give him a call after we talk and say that you raised this, that I, that these are the, that looking at the key states, I think that you ought to try Chicago and come.
I think also, I was thinking good New York for him at some point.
Not a Jewish one, because I just would, you know, get to, but when he could do a,
Or are you going to ask him what he thinks of the water in the water in the city?
He should do prestige work.
And I think, too, that in his case, he's just as well to do it at night.
Because they'll carry some of it at night, don't you think?
Or do you?
Then he'll do just as well.
He'll do better than trying to do it at noon and making the news at night.
Or he could do it sometimes at noon and then do something, do a talk show at night or something.
It's all that.
But then, the point is that if he does that, I think when he does these quips, he ought to try to save some time to do one of the interview shows, but not on the daytime.
It's got to be a time.
An interview show should be a time.
If you're asking this and then saying, you know, we'd like to do a good time to do this with me from right now, what would you like to do?
And what we don't want to watch for these forums.
We don't want to run others in on them.
I think a good Cleveland forum would be the idea.
Or Columbus.
Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh.
They have a very viable forum or relationship on some kind of club.
One of the big ones.
escape council board i'm related to pittsburgh would be excellent that'd be better but anyway that'll be fine he just probably was a little confused on why we were turning off something and of course because henry was going on and so forth but yeah but he he wondered whether i saw him too and i told him he definitely discussed it but i said sometimes
Yeah, well, that would have been fine, as we've been out.
Yeah, well, it was because we had so much else on.
As it turned out, it seemed to go, I know that the tree hunters all picked up that one spot.
It's all here.
At least he kicked it off.
Yeah.
You know, it's just as well to have a little debate about this.
uh you see some controversy we know of course don't want to leave an impression but in the final analysis just like any other debate after the debate and raise all these questions
Well, Scoot was in the scene today, and he was fighting with his gunner.
He may not be all that much of a gunner, he'll ask some tough questions, but he's really on our side on this, you know.
He's gonna carry it back.
That would be perfect, right?
Yeah, he'll try to carry it back.
One thing about it is that he said to be sure to have your people told Henry that he ought to get everything he had said about the government, just that truth.
And he stooped toward the pieces.
Now, I don't know whether you've got all that.
I hope we have every statement you've made.
Well, well, the imprint is pretty good, too.
And also is on the defense, cutting down six carriers.
Scoop knows his business, too.
So he is really, you know, ideologically fighting against the government because of
I also think we'll get a Jewish show or something.
I don't know.
I don't believe that.
I don't think so.
He is.
He is.
If they're interested in Israel, they cannot be prepared.
Incidentally, why don't you also get that stuff put out in California, saying that I was a tool of the Jewish international conspiracy?
Have you?
I haven't mentioned Detroit.
Most of the places, I would not send it over the South.
You don't need it there.
But Ohio, you want all that naturally.
And, you know, you might put him in upper New York.
He was in Rochester.
He had a great lot of friends in Rochester.
Paul Miller is a very good friend of his.
I asked him about Rochester for a while.
And he was born in Rochester.
If you could, you might give a call to me.
We'll be talking about it, and we want to know what is, you know, we'd like to schedule some in the summer, but a lot of this, we should schedule after his trip, he'll be on property.
We should do it, and he shouldn't do it before the Democratic Convention.
He won't be back until the end of their convention anyway.
And after the Democratic Convention, he'll be a very good person to be out there.
Mm-hmm.
after which is July, after he's had a little bit of everything.
Then, right after the public intervention, I think he should be heavily, heavily scheduled.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, we'll have, you just said that I said that he should have a proper mass work.
I don't know why.
Remember, I told you that any rigger of history remembers what happened to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
It doesn't hurt you a little to provide credit.
It's best if you don't provide credit.
It didn't seem to me that I looked at the numbers there, but I don't think it's wrong.
I think it's quite funny.
Well, until the summer set, I don't know.
Maybe wrong.
It's like the last summer set.
It's the 28th.
But whatever it is, it's a... Wall space and all.
All right.
I heard the wiring just now.
That's right.
But I don't know.
I just have that hunch that, you know, he's going to come here at this time.
You know, he's going to go there.
All right.
They were just distracting me too much.
It's a picture of him.
He's still in London.
He's going home.
Yeah, on the street.
It's really a great state.
It's really, incidentally, much more fun to campaign in Maine than almost any city, much more than in Hampshire, actually, because you don't have the load situation.
It's a more responsible state.
You know, another thing that's interesting, I was so glad to see him come on board the machine.
That was good because to have him left to repent was a very bad signal to the country.
It would have been if...
The people at age are putting up with each daughter's invention.
Ida, I so nicely know.
Young will come, who tend to be the best.
Tell Bill that he would like to work on a schedule for here and for him not.

Also recorded on June 14, 1972

  • 025-065 1:05 PM · 6 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 1:05 pm and 2:18 pm.
  • 343-017 1:05 PM · 59 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:05 pm and 2:18 pm.
  • 025-066 2:18 PM · 23 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Charles W. Colson talked on the telephone from 2:18 pm to 2:40 pm.
  • 025-067 2:40 PM · 1 min — Unknown person(s) talked on the telephone on an unknown date, sometime between 2:40 pm on June 14, 1972 and 5:31 pm on June 15, 1972.
  • 733-009 2:53 PM — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:53 pm and 2:54 pm.
  • 733-010 2:54 PM — President Richard M. Nixon, Warren E. Burger, Manolo Sanchez, Stephen B. Bull, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 2:54 pm to 3:59 pm.
  • 733-011 3:59 PM — President Richard M. Nixon, Manolo Sanchez, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:59 pm and 4:02 pm.
  • 733-012 4:02 PM — President Richard M. Nixon, Clark MacGregor, Henry A. Kissinger, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:02 pm to 6:03 pm.

All 23 conversations from June 14, 1972 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 343-018, June 14, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/343-018 (accessed November 14, 2026).