Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 787 › Conversation 787-016
Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on 1972 Presidential Election and George McGovern
Tuesday, September 26, 1972 · 12:45 PM–1:31 PM ET · Oval Office · 17 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with H.R. Haldeman and Charles Colson to discuss political strategy for the 1972 election, focusing specifically on managing campaign demonstrations and public perception. They analyzed the effectiveness of local Republican efforts to frame protest activities—such as those targeting Nixon’s California trip—as direct operations of the George McGovern campaign. Additionally, the group reviewed the support of business and labor sectors, dismissed critical press coverage regarding aerospace industry ties, and assessed how the President’s international diplomatic visits to the Soviet Union and China continued to bolster his public image.
- 1972 Presidential Election
- George McGovern
- Political Demonstrations
- Aerospace Industry
- Labor Unions
- Public Relations
- Foreign Policy
Audio
Transcript (AI-generated)
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We clearly have.
No, but we were going to run some ads and stuff.
It's a very good idea, and it turned out that, I just think it's a very strong statement.
It's very good what's being done here.
I'm sure folks will be able to avoid the violence that they've been causing me.
They've done that and they've caused one McGovern campaign to be able to post a million dollar bond to indemnify the injured to the innocent guests of the dinner.
Who did that?
No, somebody out of California.
Somebody in our election headquarters.
That's pretty good.
They have a good idea.
McGovern people answered it and said, no, we can't close it.
But we've tried to turn all the people off.
It's one where it's equally, it's not nearly as serious or buildable as a water gate, but it's equally suited to our water gate.
It's just not done.
And they let these people close it and say, yeah, I can work on it.
Well, of course.
I didn't get off of it.
Yes, sir.
No, it's out here.
It's all news here.
It was on the radio this morning.
Because they're keeping a lot going about whether they're going to post the bomb or not.
Police are going to have adequate troops to be able to deal with it.
It's the key thing now.
All I was after, and we've gone a little beyond that, but I think it's good.
Again, so far, we don't look too much beyond it.
All I was after was to lay the groundwork.
So it was absolutely clear if there was a demonstration that we could then, you know, it could be turned to the, I'm afraid now we probably know that there has to be a demonstration, but I think there probably would have been a demonstration.
And they were mobilizing 20,000 people.
That was their plan.
The police estimate is 1,000.
That's another side of it is that it can't win them.
Isn't it?
San Francisco, they've been running riots on $100,000, $150,000.
Let's see, the San Francisco one has, and it's good because there is no evidence of a government bomb in San Francisco, and I frankly would doubt that there was any.
But it rubs off on them.
In California, a lot of them, I don't know, it rubs off all over anyone.
Yeah, it shows that that's one of their basic tactics of .
But he's trying to play the same line on us.
No, ours is .
They may, but they do not .
I had a fascinating thing to interview with our kids at Billings, Montana, where there was quite a lot of nice supporters out there.
Just nice looking people with four more years and things like that.
And the reporter went over and said, what are you going to do?
come over and start hassling me, you know, if they don't like it.
He said, we'll just put down our signs and just step aside.
And the guy said, well, are those your orders?
Are those your instructions?
The kid said, we don't have any instructions.
That's just the kind of people we are.
That ended that.
Plus, they're having trouble finding any factories that they dare walk through now.
Yes, sir.
That's often, that's now considered to be a drop factory towards that, as I call it, in Columbus.
Wait, that's still cracking up, isn't it?
I'm noticing today a whole lot of people still referring to that.
I think we'll see more references.
I think our tools, the way they're playing it, are perfectly good.
I think it's logical.
Now, there are some anti-government signs.
But those are not next to people.
There are other people who are out there.
The main, I would hope they would not try to shout it out.
They don't.
They don't shout at all.
Good.
They don't even shout for four more years.
Once in a while, they'll go, please put me in or something.
They'll give a little four more years.
They don't do any type of shit.
They should never try to break up a meeting.
Never try to shout it out.
They don't.
That's very cool.
They don't.
And they're right.
That interview, you know, we were talking, I suppose, about that Laura Kelly piece, which was a lousy piece of journalism, frankly.
I talked to the banks about it today.
Well, I guess those people, Tom Jones was one of them.
I'll see Tom tonight.
I'll see Rockwell, I'm sure.
Oh, he's a...
I don't believe those business people are giving the Republicans a lot of money.
They're too dumb to do that.
And I'm going to show that to the guy and say, he's exactly right.
The unions know which side their bread's buttered on.
They know what to do.
But you bastards sit here and don't do anything.
And then when you do say something, you damn us with vain praise.
And so that the guy can say, Jones, I'm scared.
Tom Jones is not more against government for an exit.
Tom Jones is super strong for an exit.
But the article said that.
The article said it because when the guy said, well, you know, why are you supporting Exeter or something, he said, well, I think the government is nuts or something like that.
So that gave him a way to turn it.
The point is they aren't smart.
Just exactly what that unique guy said.
That aerospace industry has had about half a dozen people that have had any sophistication.
Well, and they're so stupid.
God damn.
You know, they scream and just grab on to the federal health, you know, and they're
They just can't think of doing it for themselves.
Well, it makes quite a bit of sense.
What the hell was it?
What's the matter with these assholes?
I understand.
I don't want them to support us.
I don't want them to.
But they should not.
They could do something else.
I had the president of Grumman, which is a family company, in 1968, wrote a letter to all his supervisors supporting you.
I mean, some of these... Jones does do that.
Yeah, he does.
They ought to get to the work.
I got a hold of Laird's people and said, look, if the top 20 didn't come up by then, lay the law.
The letter that I was most interested in, what I was interested in, is how they handled it.
the kind of impressive careers that they have received.
Yeah, sure.
It's that that concerns me.
Well, especially that son of a .
Yeah.
Not Ben Rocco.
Yeah.
He just may have been found.
No, I think he's .
Who's that?
Which one?
The vice president.
He was a Democrat.
I think he just, what was his line?
His line was that nobody's any good or something.
Yeah, it's a... Yeah, thank God we don't have to rely on the president.
Yeah.
He's going to be shaved up at that moment.
I agree with you.
There's one guy that certainly is.
Yeah, that's just it.
Rockwell's got some guts.
Rockwell has some guts.
So he thought that that kind of a guy who does that sort of a thing should have his ass kicked out.
Because that's not true.
What the hell?
He broke an arm once for a Rockwell.
Well, that's the D-1.
I thought so.
Which we fought through the cactus if they want to drop the D-1.
Yeah, fine.
Well, that was a poor piece of journalism that I was going to say, Mr. Martin.
Our own people.
I'm not black.
I'm covered with guys.
He's probably a Harvard School of Business.
One of those guys.
Or something.
That's why they're out of the business.
Well, actually...
I haven't given them everything, Peter.
I haven't given them everything they wanted.
Nothing.
Not in terms of labor legislation, but concerning policies.
You have things not related to labor in that sense.
But even on that, we've been pretty damn careful, thanks to Schultz.
No, but I mean, you have in terms of your strong defense.
And even on labor legislation, we've drilled a lot of cookie ideas in Congress.
There's TAR and these other assholes.
Davis, they think.
They know.
Oh, yeah.
They're worse.
There's all sorts of crap out there.
They know.
Listen, that's the other thing they're afraid of.
They know that we're going to be in.
They know damn well if we're in and they're on the outside, we can kill them with an anti-labor legislation.
They don't want an anti-labor legislation.
And we'll stop it.
Well, that was the real final sales point that Choke used with these guys this morning.
Well, they're very smart because it would be their serious disinterest to have you totally be holding on to anti-labor forces.
Right.
Just like the blacks are damn stupid.
They have you totally be holding on to the anti-blocks.
Well, we can go to the... What'll make the news of this trip will be the... the attempt to the riders, in my opinion.
We can trust that they are handled well.
They are looked upon as McGovern people.
Especially now.
That's super great, that stupid telephone call, because that just solves it.
How was it discovered?
They discovered it and announced it.
No, they had a reporter who was from the L.A. Times who hit them with a question, and then when they found out, when they were questioned, the guy in Palestine or something.
Right.
They said, we're stopping it.
As soon as we found out, we're stopping it.
Well, they had a full-blown operation going in their office.
Right.
And then they picked it up and just moved it somewhere else, so...
He can still charge as where he did yesterday, just a McGovern operation.
That gives you the proof, though, where before you had a challengeable statement when you said those are McGovern administrators out there.
Now you don't, there's no way to challenge it.
Just probably say it, there it is.
And at the dinner, I'm sure Reagan had said it in some way.
Bob Hope probably made some crack about it.
They won't be CLA.
Works it awfully well.
They'll keep more out there.
They'll put them on that island across from the hotel where they let them go.
And they'll sign them.
They'll allow them to have so many people, or as many as they want.
I guess they let them flow out down below.
But they control them.
They give them a place to sit down and shoot the hell out of them.
Remember what the Harris School found about the demonstrators at the Republican convention?
62 to 15 collectively.
Police should have been record with them.
It's not a video to us at all.
And they can't get in.
They aren't going to disrupt the event.
Well, our kids will be out.
As a matter of fact, he probably had more support than Johnson.
He had done a whole lot more than Johnson ever did.
Johnson had the mantle of the dead Kennedy, but otherwise Johnson was not, he had very little warm support at the time.
He was not very good before Johnson.
That's right.
It was the Republicans.
The Republicans were all just saying that those who defected, so we just can't.
take over, and we're scared of them.
And they thought, you know, Johnson was still riding on the core of having been a good majority leader under Eisenhower.
Yeah, but that was essentially negative.
In almost all of these interview stories, you will see someone saying, well, he's trying to do, he's trying to pack, even that, that Hamcraft, Michigan interview where he said, well, some worker's wife, 24-year-old worker's wife, well, he's trying to patch things up with Russia and China.
Yeah.
That's positive.
Uh, that's what I was going to ask.
Yeah.
Probably about any time in this business.
We've talked so much about the Russians and the Chinese that we've got to do...
Well, the other thing that helps is Tanaka's visit to Japan.
I mean, to Beijing.
Really does, because there's the same scene again.
Tanaka's sitting in that same goddamn chair with the same cup of tea, and Joe's waving his arms, and everybody's back.
I remember when the president restarted.
Yeah, well, on TV last night they said that he followed the precise format that you would follow.
You'd lead the way, up to the same protocol when you arrived.
That is a tremendous development, of course.
It's not necessarily to our interest, but it has to be to both of them.
And the Japanese.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good damn Japanese.
The development itself, I don't think, has any impression on the American people much.
But what it does is that it reminds us of someone else going to China, which replays the next visit to China.
You see those scenes again.
It's another shot of some publicity out of China.
I don't think you understand her.
NARA Description
On September 26, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Charles W. Colson, and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:45 pm to 1:31 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 787-016 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 787-16
Date: September 26, 1972
Time: 12:45 pm - 1:31 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with H.R. (“Bob”) Haldeman.
1972 election
-Demonstrations
-Response to George S. McGovern supporters
-The President's forthcoming trip to California
-News summary
-Advertisements
-Robert J. Dole
-Ronald W. Reagan
-Charles W. Colson
-Clark MacGregor
-McGovern campaign
-$1,000,000 bond
-Security at dinner and hotel
-Dole
-California election headquarters staffer [Gordon
Luce]
-McGovern campaign response
-Compared to Watergate
-Telephone from McGovern headquarters
-Press coverage
-Bond
-Troops
-Haldeman’s strategy
-Mobilized numbers
-San Francisco
-Evidence of McGovern involvement
Charles W. Colson entered at 12:47 pm.
-Image conveyed
-The President’s supporters
-Tactics
-Billings, Montana
-Signs
-Reaction from McGovern supporters
-Reporter inquiry
-McGovern campaign
-Factory tours
-Columbus, Ohio
-News summary
-Nichols-Seymour [?][sp?]
-Tactics
-Signs
-Shouting, heckling
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 2m 48s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 1
*****************************************************************
1972 election
-Aerospace industry
-Orr Kelly article
-Colson’s conversation with the Defense Department
-Thomas V. Jones
-Forthcoming conversation with Haldeman
-Willard F. Rockwell, Jr.
-Forthcoming conversation with Haldeman
-Plant manager
-Union man quote
-Lockheed
-Business support for Republicans
-Unions
-Tom Jones
-Reason for support
-McGovern
-Political sophistication
-Federal aid
-Building trades presidents
-Thomas W. ("Teddy") Gleason
-Letters of support
-Grumman president’s 1968 letter to supervisors
-Jones
-Melvin R. Laird
-Press inquiries
-Handling
-North American Rockwell official [Dana Williams?]
-Political affiliation
-Quote
-Congress
-North American Rockwell
-B-1
-Congressional fight
-Kelly article
-[Williams?]
-Harvard University School of Business
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 3m 25s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 2
*****************************************************************
1972 election
-Labor
-Legislation
-Policies
-Pro-labor
-George P. Shultz
-National defense
-John G. Tower
-James J. Davis-Robert L. Bacon Act
-Right to work supporters
-Shultz’s recent meeting
-President’s role
-Analogy to blacks
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 5m 26s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 3
*****************************************************************
1972 election
-Demonstrations
-The President's forthcoming trip to California
-News coverage
-Handling of demonstrators
-San Francisco police
-McGovern supporters
-Telephone calls from McGovern headquarters
-Los Angeles Times reporter inquiry
-Unknown person
-Democratic operation
-Shutdown and move
-Ronald W. Reagan
-Gordon Luce
-McGovern supporters
-Evidence
-Dinner
-Reagan
-Leslie T (“Bob”) Hope
-Handling demonstrators
-Los Angeles police
-Republican National Convention
-Louis P. Harris poll
-Disruptions
-The President’s supporters
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 2m ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 4
*****************************************************************
1972 election
-Support for the President
-Compared to Lyndon B. Johnson
-Accomplishments
-Successor to John F. Kennedy
-Barry M. Goldwater
-Majority Leader in Senate
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
-Interviews
-Hamtramck, Michigan
-International relations
-The Soviet Union the People's Republic of China [PRC]
-Joseph P. Tonelli
-View of communism
-Kakuei Tanaka's trip to Peking
-Chou En-Lai
-Relation to the President's PRC visit
-Protocol similarity
-The President’s view
-US public interest
-Images
-Relation to the President’s PRC visit
-Publicity
-Timing
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 6
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 9m 45s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 6
*****************************************************************
Alexander P. Butterfield entered at 1:24 pm.
Correspondence
Butterfield left at 1:25 p.m.
*****************************************************************
BEGIN WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7
[Personal returnable]
[Duration: 6m 53s ]
END WITHDRAWN ITEM NO. 7
*****************************************************************
The President, Haldeman and Colson left at 1:31 pm.Also recorded on September 26, 1972
- 787-009 11:30 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander P. Butterfield met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:30 am to 11:49 am.
- 787-010 11:49 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:49 am and 12:04 pm.
- 787-011 11:49 AM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:49 am and 12:04 pm.
- 787-012 12:04 PM · 28 min — President Richard M. Nixon and presidents of building trades unions, including John H. ("Jack") Lyons, Martin J. Ward, Peter Fosco, Thomas F. Murphy, Andrew T. Haas, Wylie Lawhead, Kenneth M. Edwards, Hunter P. Wharton, Joseph T. Power, Charles H. Pillard, Edward J. Carough, James D. Hodgson, Laurence H. Silberman, Willie J. Usery, Jr., and S. Frank Raftery, as well as Stephen B. Bull and the White House photographer, met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:04 pm to 12:30 pm.
- 787-013 12:30 PM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Thelma C. ("Pat") (Ryan) Nixon, George R. S. Baring, Mrs. George R. S. Baring, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and White House photographer met in the Oval Office of the White House from 12:30 pm to 12:39 pm.
- 787-014 12:39 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:39 pm and 12:45 pm.
- 787-015 12:39 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 12:39 pm and 12:45 pm.
- 787-017 1:31 PM · 23 sec — Manolo Sanchez and United States Secret Service agents met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 1:31 pm and 11:59 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 787-016, September 26, 1972. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/787-016 (accessed October 12, 2026).