Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 786-025
Date: Monday, September 25, 1972 at 3:35 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.; Bull, Stephen B.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/786-025

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:37] So if you get terrorism today...
[0:39] He set up a committee today, I think.
[0:41] He's going to follow up a statement by you tomorrow.
[0:44] That is terrorism.
[0:45] That's the...
[2:15] You cannot use the terms.
[2:18] Let me explain.
[2:20] You can't say Irishman, Blacks, Canadians.
[2:23] You understand they're different things.
[2:26] There are Blacks and Whites.
[2:28] There are Texans, Germans, Poles.
[2:30] And you can't use Jews.
[2:31] You're confusing.
[2:32] You're not going to get religions, races, and nationalities all mixed together.
[2:36] They're all screwed up.
[2:37] So just say, you don't care about nationalities?
[2:40] No.
[3:16] All hearts.
[3:18] All hearts.
[4:13] You know, one thing we have to, we must do is, as I said earlier, we've got to do some things to show that we won the election.
[4:28] And to just back into it, because regardless of what you ask, that's the reason I want to do some things.
[4:36] Of course, I think the historians are concerned.
[4:41] They're going to say you won this, but
[4:43] Over a long period of time, not over a—you wanted— I mean, the toughest political decision was made.
[4:50] Tougher than anything you say during a campaign.
[4:53] That's why they're starting to write this thing.
[4:55] The year 1972, instead of just the campaign, it's been quite a year.
[5:00] They go into the whole thing.
[5:02] You know what it's—
[5:11] Your support in the trial dates since March each month with Harris, you know, 59, 54, and then there was that dip of 48 in May.
[5:20] That was before the May 8th positive reaction setting.
[5:27] And then June 54, 55, 57, 63, 59.
[5:29] It's been well up in the 50s all year long.
[5:32] You know, you've been building strength for over a six- or eight-month period.
[5:38] This isn't just a...
[5:40] a reaction to this guy in Eagleton and a few other things.
[5:43] There's been a developing pattern.
[5:57] Anyway, we do not agree, Bob, that we've got to keep in touch with sort of the gut reactions of ordinary people.
[6:04] That's why I'm going to have some around this White House.
[6:06] And I'm going to have some as ambassadors.
[6:08] And I'm going to have some in positions.
[6:10] Now, this Rogers, I'm going to keep him.
[6:12] I'm going to keep him.
[6:14] I'm not going to sit around and just have people that are like this.
[6:18] He's a great trouble with almost every administration.
[6:20] And I know how we all are.
[6:22] I like to be around people that are my own intellectual equals.
[6:28] But you must not.
[6:30] You must not.
[6:31] They may be your main occasions.
[6:35] And this is the hard thing.
[6:36] He could take our whole domestic council staff, and he could take the whole research staff, and he could eat them up in about three bites.
[6:43] No question.
[6:45] The man is brilliant.
[6:47] He's brilliant, sir.
[6:48] He's got a damn.
[6:49] I mean, he is tough, quick.
[6:52] He isn't always right.
[6:53] Sometimes he has bad character.
[6:55] But the man, if you read him on one of these talks, the only guy that I all know, our whole group, I put up against him in a straight-up debate with the company.
[7:05] He and Connie will have a good go, because they both go for the juggler, and they're both quick and smart and all the rest of it.
[7:12] But you see, Bob, you've got here, there are different factors and brains.
[7:17] I mean, not brains, citizen brains.
[7:19] He's got a hell of a brain.
[7:20] The point is, it isn't the degree.
[7:23] It isn't the question of where you went to college.
[7:26] It isn't the question of what school you went to.
[7:28] It isn't the question of whether you were raised in the right way.
[7:30] It isn't the question of what you associate with the best people.
[7:33] This is the question, whether or not you can stop about the opera, or the history of that, and all that fancy stuff.
[7:41] The question is, whether or not you're playing the people.
[7:44] I don't know what you get down to.
[7:46] It's like that little fellow, the first voice lesson of the... Oh, what?
[7:48] The little white sweetie with the Irish voice.
[7:50] Yeah, but he's saying, you know, I've never voted for Republicans.
[7:53] I never vote for them either.
[7:54] But I'm with you all the way, and we're going to organize, and we're going out with our people and our local...
[7:59] He says, I don't trust the communists, he says, and so forth.
[8:03] I never had.
[8:03] There was an issue through Garrett.
[8:04] We met every time.
[8:05] Garrett and I sort of went out on a night on Torrey, which I remember very well.
[8:08] I said, and I point out, it was a fellow that got the son of a bitch convicted.
[8:12] And he was cheated rich.
[8:13] Most people forgot that.
[8:15] But anyway, the main point was, that little Irish guy was staying in a family.
[8:20] He said, we believe that you know what the hell is wrong.
[8:23] We trust him.
[8:24] Right, we trust him.
[8:25] He didn't say, I didn't think it was the right thing, but now I think it's the right thing.
[8:28] You know?
[8:29] What do you think he's talking about?
[8:33] It is not.
[8:34] The point is that he understands what Kissinger and I, we're the only two who have a chance to do what we're really up to.
[8:42] You know?
[8:44] But again, it has nothing to do with whether you like communists or not or Russians or Chinese or anything else.
[8:50] It has to do with the United States, which nobody's ever thought about much recently.
[8:59] But boy, I tell you, Bob, it is really an eye-opener.
[9:02] You ever try to talk to these guys, labor guys?
[9:05] Not this group, no.
[9:05] I have to some, yeah.
[9:07] I don't know.
[9:09] I don't know what you mean.
[9:11] Aren't they a different bunch?
[9:12] Oh, yes.
[9:13] Fitzsimmons?
[9:15] They're great.
[9:16] They're canny.
[9:17] They're very canny.
[9:19] They know what they're doing.
[9:21] What they're doing and why they're doing it.
[9:24] I don't mean to downplay our business.
[9:27] We've got guys like Malik.
[9:30] Malik is as smart as anybody.
[9:32] He's as tough as anybody.
[9:33] We've got a few that are like that.
[9:39] Bob, the kind of guys we have got to get around here are more in that category.
[9:45] I mean, of the icy, tough, shrewd, no-nonsense.
[9:50] I don't mind if they go to the parties and the rest, but I don't want to be taken in by them.
[9:53] You know what I mean?
[9:55] I don't mind if they read the Washington Post, but I don't want them to read it fully.
[9:59] I want them to read it only to know what the other side is saying.
[10:02] That's all.
[10:03] That's all.
[10:03] Get mad at everybody.
[10:04] You eat.
[10:05] I'd really like to read the Daily Worker, just to stop and see what's going on.
[10:08] Too often, too often, our people come in terribly depressed because they read and they think, gee whiz, I didn't get a good notice in the Washington Post or the New York Times.
[10:19] I never had any good notice of them, and I don't give a shit.
[10:23] I haven't, frankly, since 1960, because I know they're against me.
[10:31] And so our press people have to hurt them.
[10:35] Exactly.
[10:36] That's the way it is.