On September 11, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, Charles W. Colson, and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 12:40 pm to 1:45 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 360-012 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
All right.
My first one was pretty good, huh?
Well, it was a surprise.
That's the way it is.
Thank you.
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What the point is, what kind of a goal is it?
And I don't know.
I've never heard from a commissioner.
I don't know what the goal is.
I don't know what the goal is.
I don't know what the goal is.
If I make any mistake, you can let us know if you like.
At the same time, if you've made a mistake before, you can state the information that you want.
Now, let's assume that nothing is quite wrong with that guy.
If it wasn't, his position is that he's good.
He's fine with it.
He's a good guy.
If you have any mistakes, you can tell us.
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Well, the whole thing is...
I just wasn't watching it.
But I think that is A. I just don't like this .
We don't want your money.
Right, sir.
I don't want your money.
I don't want your money.
I don't want your money.
I don't want your money.
I don't want your money.
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I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so, so proud of you and everybody.
The whole rest of the whole thing.
And they decided not to miss it.
I'm not supposed to tell them.
But anyway, it's great.
It's great to say it and have that shot up.
I went to think it was cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I know that.
I know that.
I've said it.
I've tried to get it across.
I never can get it across domestically.
I know .
Give me one attack story, and I'll make a submission.
Give me about 18 positive stories, and I'll make a .
Well, they all want to come home.
I can't control it.
I know it.
They don't give a shit.
They don't give a shit.
They don't give a shit.
They don't give a shit.
They don't give a shit.
They don't give a shit.
I would hope not.
I think that's true, too.
I think ID&T didn't come back in the end.
Yet on the other hand, we have to remember that the mask was .
That's a little bit of a .
In his case, it was .
People were stealing them and they couldn't get them.
That's the other .
I also remember being terribly, terribly excited about the corruption .
But I was already concerned .
The excuse, there's time for change.
Yeah, it gave me a lot of enthusiasm .
I really wanted to .
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Thank you.
All right, so.
I guess they .
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I don't .
The reason for it is because he would .
He tried to .
He got to start saying something that's quite different.
When the hell is he saying it?
He hasn't said a god damn thing .
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We have the same statement as he tried to do when I was in the federal government.
So I'm very happy to be back in the federal government.
Back when I was in the federal government, he said, you know, we don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We don't have a federal government.
We are really going to go to New York because whoever inherits your man will walk with her.
I know you do.
Well, Conley's going to inherit it.
That's not where I want it.
Conley's going to see the thing and say, no, I want to get him out of the country.
Let me ask you, are you getting anybody to pick up the new majority seat?
Yes, sir.
Don't.
I remember I mentioned to you, I mentioned to you, don't include them unless the maintenance is not going to be long.
Just hit a few things.
Highlight them.
Hit them strongly.
Remember that you can only
get through those chuckleheads a few times.
The new majority of being chuckled, that's the one they get.
The choice of the majority.
That reaches off into the highlands and so forth.
This, of course, goes for the public, but in fact, if you've got a fault, they want to say, fix it now, and I say, scrap it, put that fault within the jar, and you figure that out.
But that has to be, I can't think,
This is the first Monday, and it's really all the best that they put out.
We've got a hell of a lot of our homes in here, and at least it doesn't have to be too busy.
Ramsey Friar, now, with his Vietcong pajamas on.
Somebody was telling me, well, Rogers was saying that Shays was trying to back away from something.
He did that to him.
Huh?
He did that to him.
What'd he say?
Well, what happened, Mr. Winston, I hope we...
But he repeated it.
Oh, and we were...
He repeated it?
We got something.
Now, you've now put the transcript out.
Now, Henry doesn't always ask for his base about this.
He did his take.
Good God, if they can leak the Pentagon Papers on us, Chuck, put out that transcript.
Put it out.
I'm just saying it leads.
We're going to put a lead for whatever's going on.
And you get the government in the hell, I mean me, out with this thing on.
Don't worry about whether it leads.
You see what I mean?
There are people who think it's going to lead all the time here.
What I meant is it's going to lead.
It's going to come from the wild.
But you know what I mean.
Christ, of course, knows somebody that will want to win a coral surprise.
Give it to them.
But what's the only guy who knows, you know, a little garbage bag, a little carton of trash and stole it out of the way?
Stole it out of the State Department table.
The other testicons do their table work.
They do things all the time.
Look what they did to us.
Look what they did to us.
Now, for Christ's sake, when we have anything of these files, I don't want to sleep it out.
Don't do it.
I want to get foreign policy discussed again.
I want to get Vietnam discussed again.
I want to put him right back on that table.
I want to get a hand list discussed again.
I want to get it down.
He's dropping it.
You can't find Vietnam.
There's a point on the corner of the world.
You cannot find Vietnam in history.
You've got to get him on.
Sure.
The reason is that the public is with you on every aspect of Vietnam.
The thing we have to do is to think that he wants to abandon our people.
That means he wants to do this.
Have him charged with it and make him deny it.
He wants to turn south Vietnam over to the Congress.
That line is done.
But he's further out of that than the Viet Cong.
The Viet Cong came this weekend to discuss about it.
provision of the coalition government equaled down when he struck about a communist down in the coalition government.
Hell, he stood it off in the media town.
Mr. President, the New York Daily News went across the phone and ended up leaving this piece.
Well, it was said, Graslow took it and didn't use it.
Elson has it, and he's going to use it, but he had a backlog of columns already in the print.
I think I made that up.
But the other thing, too.
But the other thing, too.
Henry, that's, Henry says that's a good idea.
And a colleague of the Jewish media.
The other aspect, but what we did is we wrote Jerry Green's comments and said, here's a little part.
He did the streets of Fort Rock in New York on Saturday afternoon.
And it's terrifying.
It's something, it's shaking us.
He disallowed the column.
He disallowed Newsweekend.
And we were already going to tell you that the voice grab was going to kind of fight back.
And now he's, now he's, in effect, he said the voice grab was not going to prove it.
Now we've got a credibility issue as well as the European truth issue.
And Ken Rush, calling in some reporters to his office at 4 or 5 and said, great.
And Ken is going to say, I was messaged to Germany yesterday.
I've just been reading these reports and dispatches.
It's perfectly obvious that George McEwen's campaigned for foreign policy.
He wants to take all of our groups out of here.
But now that he's realized the consequences, he seems to be hiding it.
I'm pretty sure the attorney still makes his bail.
Just keep saying it until Montgomery starts to start answering.
That's right.
He loses either way.
He's not going to take the money.
He loses his drugs.
That's right.
He's very enthusiastic.
That's right.
I think between denying all of that, he's saying that he wouldn't do it without negotiation.
And of course, if you really read what he said, literally, he didn't say that he wouldn't negotiate with them.
Oh, but they can't defend that.
The implication of what he said to the divorcee would have allowed it.
But he's now got a piece of questioning the divorcee's veracity as a reporter.
We haven't heard the evidence.
This will do a nice slow burn.
It definitely will.
I know you're a problem, too.
And I know that many people, you know, I don't know about you, but, you know, the Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
The Rockers are going to get it.
I want to use this illustration more of the most effective attack that was made when I ordered the death of this year, frankly, was made over a muskie.
A muskie.
Yeah.
And, boy, he wasn't defensive then when they threw that.
I wrote that transcript again.
When they threw those questions back then, he just re-standed and charged against muskies.
And we killed that muskie then.
That was the beginning of muskies' damage.
That's when we began the big ones.
They couldn't take the pressure.
And look at our folks who do this.
They are...
I know they want to, but it's a question really about the will of the brain.
Well, the judgment of the brain.
Let me tell you what I did with Buss, and this is a good example.
Buss, we got completely exploited.
We got very good stuff attacking the governor of D.D., and then they switched and answered the questions.
It was 50-50.
The press boy had very old headlines.
I've read the headlines.
Half the headlines say he defends the grain deal.
The other half say he charges McGillin with the stuntman.
So I got a hold of him last night when I got back from President.
And he went out this morning and read a one-page statement before the game.
He took no questions.
The statement is very funny and simple.
McGillin is attempting to deliberately sabotage the grain deal.
He really wants to hurt the farmers because
and walked away.
Now they may use it, and they may say, well, the hell with it.
But you wouldn't stand to take any questions.
Now that may be the way we have to do this.
In Russ's case, there was no problem.
I just pointed out what had happened.
The only way to go now is just ignore it, huh?
We've got time.
The hell with it.
We just stick it in on government.
And he did it.
I don't know how many plays I can't think of.
I had a fellow over there with him.
He said he was beautiful.
Well, everybody would believe me.
Everybody would say something.
He'd sit around and talk.
Like, I could see him around there.
You know, I just saw a little bit of his weekend press conference.
He'd sit there with his shirt stained with reporters and all.
They're sitting around on the table and he's talking.
God damn, he'd have to cut himself.
John Irwin was worried about it.
Her clients were worried about it.
I didn't think about it.
Do you?
No, no.
We're candid and all.
It's the reporters that are the liars.
That's what we have to realize.
If the reporters were friendly, whatever, bad, not friendly, we wouldn't have to read them.
But they're always saying there's a credibility gap.
But they have a credibility gap.
That's what we've got to get to right now.
That's right.
The simple point, Mr. President, is that as long as 59% of the American people do not believe in the original government, do not have the confidence in the original government to be perfect,
And I believe he has the capability to do that.
He can't be elected.
And our job is to keep hammering on anyone that makes people lose confidence in the government.
Because if we're going to lose confidence in you, we're not going to make any money.
I must say that I haven't been, but I didn't see much of it.
The Olympics, the left people think it hurts.
But I think the Olympics first brought a little bit of pride in the country.
People don't like to be run over.
And second, it's certainly quite a little bit of backlash.
People didn't like to see those black gaffers turn their back on the black.
They liked them a lot.
We didn't sure to race seals.
For example, this Hatter was hard to achieve.
It's a crime scene.
But I hear the thing about the economy too.
That's the energy.
Absolutely.
I think that, oh, I think, I remember a few years ago, it's the same thing now, only it's more that people just don't like them, especially if they're black.
They resent them for being black because they think it's a crime scene.
And the human specialty is that they know something a little more about
No, I think it helps us, because we have a partner.
And you'll see, I'll probably jump in.
I hope he does, once in a while.
I think exactly the opposite.
I think our people, they should be discharged.
They're trying to save the nation.
Goddamn, those people, they didn't show respect for the black artists because they should say, for all of them, they were representing the black.
That's why they're there.
They're not there as individuals.
They're there as an artist.
Well, the interview was great.
I saw the interview with one of the black artists.
He turned you off the media for watching.
He turned off our decisions.
What's the best one of them?
Well, you know, I feel for the blacks.
The good blacks.
I don't know for all of them.
It must be horrified by such an attack.
Yeah.
Because it hurts them.
It hurts them because people just put them all in the same boat.
I've got a really excited time for it.
Yeah.
I know too.
I think that's a fraud, an absolute fraud.
I'm not talking about cutting back or anything like that.
I'm just talking.
He's not getting it from where he's sitting.
It's bad money.
They've got the new figures that are being worked over.
Yes, sir.
It turns out the government has 300 committees, so we have a sum that should go through it.
I had hoped we would have Bill with the press conference out tomorrow, but we can't, because I don't think they have to do this normally.
We have 62 committees, and we thought we were pretty good, but they've done 300.
But we know that there are discrepancies, because they have to have discrepancies.
There's no way to correct them.
And as soon as we have that analysis done, and here, Bill has been good, and he's made new, as soon as that analysis is done,
of a press conference and charged a whole series of new violations.
And I think that really what comes out of that is just sort of a gray mush.
It's all a lot.
But then on both sides, he's getting money from the sources that are not good.
I just feel this, and I don't know what else to tell you.
It's kind of foreign government.
Foreign government says it's got to do something larger.
He said, I know all the old techniques.
He's convinced me.
They got a break now, so we're working on it.
How are you?
We need a break like that again.
Go ahead.
Not yet.
Not yet.
A little more time.
I know they're investigating.
Wait a minute.
You also need to shut that.
Don't do something like this.
I think that's a terrible mistake to say I deserve an A-plus because then you just give everybody, including the press, and they're not all in his hands.
give it a hell of a sentence, and we just find one little wise guy to do that page, not a lot of people else.
How about the grading committee, where it's a thousand percent, is the better, it's the same, but it's symmetric, and the better that it is.
Oh, well, because people picked it up and started talking about it, and that became sort of a joke.
But the music, you've got to, you've got to have your shafts in for it.
I'll tell you about the presentation.
Oh, terrible.
I was never bothered.
He would have embarrassed me.
Oh, running around, debating.
Yeah.
I think the trip was spectacular.
He's a bad man.
I was up there where I was hearing it.
I'm glad he didn't turn it up.
He's a bad man.
I'm glad they both did.
It's slimy, though.
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Pennsylvania then was a great deal.
I can't tell you what else.
Very, very, very smart.
Well, we'll try to think of something to do with that.
You can't, we've got to get the damn issue handled.
All of our people have got to get along.
I wonder if you should mention, I just think that you can't, I just think that you can't be in a position of being unfaithful.
You're never going to be scared.
I think they said on a, a while ago, they said a good example of how to handle an issue.
You know, the president can't do it.
He said, clap.
There's no way I was going to do it.
He cut back and said, clap.
He said, clap, Gregor.
Clap.
That's your best position.
Anyway.
He was walking totally with his gun in his hand.
He was walking, totally different than anybody who's gone through this.
Now, a part of it is why we started to do this thing in this system.
Of course, the line that should be up in the picture is saying, as you say, a lot of innocent people have been spared.
It's very mystery, and we follow them, and then we apologize to them, and of course,
I raised that at home.
I said, well, they don't have all the congressional things.
They don't want to get too far out of the way.
That's the practice.
I said, somebody else is involved.
I don't know who the other is.
And so I've done that.
And I just, I've been called ice.
I ain't straight, Sam.
I'm married.
I'm just straight, Sam.
I've done through it all.
Well, as Mark said, it's only 48%, right?
But his investigation and the Chamber's, his confrontation, in other words, the sole attack that took place before the election, in other words, it had been a confrontation.
And Truman just said, it's a red herring.
And won the election.
Dewey, however, did not use the issue.
But everybody said he wanted the election.
But how did Truman handle it?
Didn't answer at all.
He says, oh, then.
Now, later on, when we convicted him, he then began to hurt.
And it hurt.
You see, the point is, we should call Smitter.
Oh, wait.
We're going to get a conviction.
See, the cover-up is what hurts you.
You're not the issue.
It's the cover-up that hurts you.
That's why I told our people about that.
We can't cover up the whole issue.
We have some things.
If Hart does this, I don't know if I'm going to do it or not.
We're working kind of hard on it.
But if it gets through, what was he going to do?
He was going to do something exactly the same.
Thinking of going out and saying, George McEwen said on Saturday that he believes in fools, but he gets an A-plus for credibility.
Total candid.
We have been thinking that God will be in all these weeks.
I don't know what I'm getting at.
And lo and behold, he announces this weekend he has been getting secret information from an informer in the case.
Now, by God, if he's got secret information, he should be trying to go to the FBI and not rely on material that he's getting from a spy who's in our camp.
That's a hell of a thing to say.
But the press is going to feel it.
That's one way that Clark is going to go.
It's the issue of what brought the time.
It's only what time.
Oh, it's what time.
Right.
You know, we're not escalating that issue.
We're just changing the emphasis a little bit.
How can he be piously proclaiming his own belief with full disclosure and turning around and saying, I've been getting secret information.
That's how I've known about this all along.
Or how can he be charging the word
Barry Goldberg, of course, took this issue to heart, right?
Barry didn't get away with it.
We can't on the Kevin Show.
But he said, he was asked about the water game.
He said, now, the guy said, look, he said, I've never done a political campaign which one side can spy on the other.
He said, you go back to 1964.
We were spying on Nelson Rockefeller.
He was spying on us.
He said, every time I turned around, somebody had a hidden camera to kind of take my pictures.
He said, we went through the galleries in the town of Dallas and took out his electronic equipment.
He took out ours.
He said, the only crime here is that these boys went too far and they got caught.
But that's politics.
That's the name of the game.
He said, I don't know what the name is of that.
Oh, and then he asked him after that.
After he got through with that answer, he said, I don't have a question for you.
Now, Barry would get away with it because he doesn't give an answer like that.
We can't be capitalists.
He was capitalists.
But the audience, that was one of his last years.
He had the audience one time.
They thought that he was crazy, non-politician, scholar.
We know politicians do this.
We know that this guy's the one who at least did that.
I don't know.
But we do this.
And everybody is, I think that we have done less.
Well, I'm impressed that you've gotten that across.
I'm not just joking.
I guess once your people know.
Ziegler, Lawson et al.
Remember, the media will be constrained.
Every, and I'm so absolutely aware of it.
We are hitting them on direct lines.
We hit them on the bus lines today.
We've made them come over and cover us with buses, I can say.
We've been hitting them frontally whenever we've had an opportunity.
And I'm not certain.
I'm frankly interested to take that as I am in getting to the public, given the issue.
I want the public to not be distressed.
The problem there is if you don't take blood with us in fact, then you don't know what's going on.
We're weak now.
The rest is fast.
The rest is fast.
The rest is fast.
The rest is fast.
The rest is fast.
in fact do so with a little bit of annoyance indeed I think that the county is going to be able to encourage people to have more appointments from the president was not in parole the administration was not in parole now what is your question what do you want to have how does this affect the price of bread
Well, that's a... You could put yourself on the line.
They're not currently going around the media.
I guess so.
I guess, you know, the media, that's their whole point at the moment.
Yeah.
I mean, there's always some politicians that are being criticized for it because it's the only kind of campaign they can do.
ripped up on the first of the season.
I don't know.
If anybody reads the bulletin, write it down.
Every bulletin was taken in Washington, D.C.
They didn't really ask around for us.
They didn't care.
They were just playing at me and telling me.
And there was a lot of effort.
So basically, to me, they're like, oh, well, it has to be that they're going to want to move.
Or they're going to have a hell of a lot of money on their hands.
Thank you.