Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 797-029
Date: Friday, October 13, 1972 at 4:39 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Colson, Charles W.; Butterfield, Alexander P.; Bull, Stephen B.; Ehrlichman, John D.; Timmons, William E.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/797-029

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:19] the black demonstrations that they have.
[0:22] And Christian told me that they're, they're getting them.
[0:26] They arrested them all.
[0:29] Last night they arrested them.
[0:30] And they said, we can't get the demonstration started because the goddamn D.C. police won't let them out.
[0:41] We're trying to get them back up.
[0:44] We're talking.
[0:45] We've issued statements twice today that
[0:52] or else, but all they really deserved it.
[0:58] As soon as we get him out, we'll get him back.
[1:04] I just can't get the price of it cut out of hand.
[1:09] I haven't cut it.
[1:14] What amount of time is it going to be with the boss?
[1:23] I'll do the cutting.
[1:24] I'll just turn it over.
[1:25] I don't want to make it that long anyway.
[1:28] I just said it's better.
[1:29] Let me try to see if I can find out.
[1:36] So we might as well know what we've done.
[1:38] No.
[1:38] I just figured.
[1:42] That was 14 minutes.
[1:43] I struck out solid with your friendly mayor.
[1:50] If you have the confidence.
[1:52] No way.
[2:18] on the payroll, practically on the payroll.
[2:21] He says, okay fellas.
[2:22] He says, I want to clear out how we operate.
[2:24] He says, Nixon wins the awards.
[2:29] He says, I don't give a shit what happens to the rest of the thing.
[2:33] You can put it all in the Democratic if you want to.
[2:36] He says, I know where you're responsible.
[2:39] I've been looking, fellas.
[2:40] Nixon's going to win every one of those
[3:05] trying to work on that white paper issue.
[3:09] That's being worked on since 1701, and it became, you know, dead right now.
[3:15] Because that's what, but I didn't, because I just wanted to record it.
[3:20] It's all the whole thing.
[3:23] And it does take time, and all the research and so forth, and all these things.
[3:28] Well, John, I don't want to get John D. different, like, because he entertains parties on into the night with all the stories of the Democratic
[3:35] and other Democrats screwed up.
[3:39] They got Niedecker and Nick Rui and they've been picking their brains, putting the paper together.
[3:43] They got Oyer, Bassman,
[4:07] But they're playing the game up.
[4:08] We just have to put a lot of— Well, we'll burn down our headquarters in Phoenix.
[4:11] Phoenix.
[4:13] Well, we have another— What they've thought about doing, Mr. President, what we just discussed this afternoon, is our government's apparently bought time Sunday night to talk about corruption, to have Dolan McGregor have a joint press conference on Monday and blast back at him and counterattack, use all of these instances we had.
[4:35] That might be the most effective way of us crossing the system.
[4:38] I have some questions for the Post.
[4:42] Because he's under the Sullivan decision, like the rest of us.
[4:45] It doesn't make any difference.
[4:46] The students don't mean anything.
[4:48] I know the Sullivan decision.
[4:49] He loved it, too.
[4:50] He loved it, man.
[4:51] He stood for a million dollars.
[4:53] Everybody knows it's just that.
[4:55] But he's a farmer.
[4:55] He didn't even follow a farmer reporter to the Post.
[4:58] He's been liable.
[5:00] And malicious.
[5:01] That's all he's got to prove is malice.
[5:03] You know goddamn well what they had.
[5:07] Sue the sons of bitches.
[5:09] They do get her on the burger.
[5:13] Sue the folks.
[5:13] They're responsible for what she does.
[5:15] Just sue the publisher.
[5:17] Sue the publisher.
[5:17] Get her on the television.
[5:20] He has no qualms about it.
[5:23] No, but I mean his lawsuit.
[5:24] It's bad.
[5:27] You're liable.
[5:28] You understand the Bible suits have an enormous effect on the public.
[5:31] Oh, I agree.
[5:32] People believe you're super liable, but the other side has lied.
[5:35] I agree.
[5:41] The other thing is that I have a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge,
[6:14] They don't, unfortunately, work on it.
[6:17] Then wouldn't you be any closer to the streets than they were going down the street for that?
[6:22] We could spoil it.
[6:23] Well, I mean, it's just a running battle.
[6:29] It's government law.
[6:30] Maybe we don't announce the libel suit, of course, on the day that Ted came to the building.
[6:35] Maybe go right into the house.
[6:38] I'm not getting in the libel suit.
[6:41] I could take the case.
[6:42] It's his first case.
[6:44] He will not say he's bothered.
[6:47] Well, I've given him a statement.
[6:48] He won't give it.
[6:49] He can't enter prison if he's only got four minutes.
[6:53] Incidentally, they're going to have to cut that by Washington Central.
[6:59] It's got to be down to 13 minutes, which means it can't be more than that.
[7:18] That's really the point.
[7:48] I was a little bit old, but we've already released one white paper of violent activities, and we did it in the form of a memorandum to all of our campaign officers around the country, warning of what has been going on in San Francisco.
[8:04] Incidentally, in the event of the lawsuit, what I would do is make this sort of a defamation post, and I would cover every editor in the country on that.
[8:15] You see what I'm getting at?
[8:22] letters in the country.
[8:24] You drive the post right off the wall.
[8:26] In other words, not write it to the New York Times.
[8:27] Screw that.
[8:28] Write it and send it to every, an open letter to every editor of the country regarding it.
[8:34] I was a reporter for the Washington Post.
[8:38] I was a Niemann fellow.
[8:40] I was a member of the White House staff, and I've been hired.
[8:43] It's just a double standard here.
[8:45] It's shocking.
[8:54] Maybe he'll send it.
[8:56] We'll get someone else to send it.
[8:57] He could, yeah, he'll do it.
[8:59] Oh, hell yes.
[9:00] You can see.
[9:00] That's a pretty good idea.
[9:02] You see what I mean?
[9:03] That gets also to this point that they were talking about this morning where the other papers are beginning to think maybe they should be doing more on this because opposed to starting a generalistic coup, they're not.
[9:14] They're not there.
[9:16] So what I was thinking
[9:18] But he ought to send it now without that, without that it's fine.
[9:21] But he ought to write, just to take the same thing and write an open letter to editors
[9:47] And then have someone else say, this is what happened.
[9:51] Because they can go close enough where he can't go himself up and he can go up.
[9:56] But we could work that.
[9:57] Somebody, well, you could say I was working for the Washington Post or my post, I don't remember.
[10:02] Not specifically my post, but I worked for the Washington Post.
[10:05] I served here and there.
[10:08] This is really shocking.
[10:10] I have changed my profession.
[10:13] That's what he said, because I'm ashamed of it.
[10:24] Can I get his fellow reporters on that?
[10:27] Maybe he'll want to... Well, I'm not...
[10:51] You shouldn't let it worry you.
[10:52] You could almost let it think that's what it's trying to do to anybody else.
[10:55] But it is hurting the campaign, I think.
[10:58] Conceivably, if it gets to a point where it did, that I didn't have it as much.
[11:02] I think probably next week's going to knock it out.
[11:06] Who else?
[11:06] We think if anybody hears you, it's true.
[11:09] Somebody will hear it.
[11:10] I just started coming up from Paris before I came over.
[11:19] He'll be—we just finished the question here and he starts polling next Tuesday.
[11:23] But his poll next week is— Your question's still there, Eric?
[11:29] Well, you saw the one that he published for next week on the 48th and the— What did Gallup find and come up with?
[11:36] He had to send a—well, I can't answer all of them.
[11:39] It's got to be in the Sunday paper.
[11:42] That's what's there, right?
[11:43] He'll telegram it tomorrow.
[11:55] It's a plain Gallup release.
[11:56] It went wandering out into the mail.
[11:57] And for some reason, everybody, I can't understand.
[12:00] That's based on what?
[12:01] I know why.
[12:02] It's because of the title in this verse that governs Vietnam speech.
[12:05] Because they put it out right after the Vietnam speech.
[12:07] When was that taken?
[12:08] Before.
[12:09] Is this based on the full Gallup sign?
[12:12] It's based on the one before.
[12:13] The one before.
[12:15] But it's an issue identification.
[12:17] And the logo comes out on Sunday, usually.
[12:46] on the downside of Paris so that if it goes down he's covered, if it goes up he can move it back up easily.
[12:52] Yankelovitch has the chance to be the coup pulser and if he doesn't he'll have it made.
[12:59] If he doesn't, nobody will ever remember that he did it.
[13:03] One thing about Sunlanger, the guy calls him, you see, but he's got to, he's got to
[13:15] The first time he's fallen below 20.
[13:18] Yeah, 59.19.
[13:19] Well, it's actually, when you round it up, it's 59.29.
[13:24] 39.9.
[13:24] 19 is an R of 38.9.
[13:26] Right, exactly.
[13:29] But what he said is that, and he predicted it earlier in the week, he said that this hard dynamic by the government will cause vote to go down a little bit, but the government will go down, and it may very well stay down because people resent that.
[13:48] That's not dirty politics.
[13:51] I mean, I think what Gottlieb's done is probably fine.
[13:55] But that's not dirty politics.
[14:34] We have signs.
[14:36] We have signs.
[14:37] We can't control some of the teachers.
[14:41] They've had our kids.
[14:43] But that's not a bad name for an old number.
[14:47] I'm sure there's a section that's been known.
[14:52] Julie, Patricia.
[14:54] No, I was going to put that in.
[14:57] It's an illness that I can't fix.
[15:04] And it also may not have anything to do with the government, maybe because she just felt she couldn't say, I'm not going to campaign anymore, but that she, in her own heart, was going to campaign.
[15:18] Do you have her?
[15:22] Oh, yes, we have her.
[15:26] That's a good one.
[15:27] Nobody has it.
[15:28] Sorry, Mr.
[15:32] Chair.
[15:36] No, they're out of grace.
[15:38] Nobody notices it.
[15:39] It's true.
[15:42] She's got it in her heart.
[15:44] She's got it everywhere.
[15:48] I mean, I guess what I'm sure, you know, that that gave us, because it's so vicious, where we all have to go to be together and...
[16:06] I remember I had to put in the Lady Bird thing back in the 1970s.
[16:12] That was stupid of me.
[16:14] I'm a hard worker.
[16:18] Who's a hard worker?
[16:22] What's that mean?
[16:23] Can't have that much stuff.
[16:50] He really had a perception and he said that, was it the most immoral act in history?
[16:55] He said Henry Kissinger.
[16:56] The most immoral act in history.
[16:58] We've had it for four years and we're sure that now we're doing it right now.
[17:02] They always say this is the twentieth trip that Orson Welles made.
[17:07] I don't think that'll work.
[17:08] I don't think so, sir.
[17:10] I think people read that and just get repulsive.
[17:20] The North Vietnamese are sitting on the other side of the table.
[17:23] And Andrew Kissinger isn't running around pulling on people's sleeves and saying, hey, come talk to me.
[17:28] He's going into a secret meeting with the enemy.
[17:30] The cartoon tonight, sir, is a classic.
[17:32] Did you see that?
[17:34] No, I haven't seen it, sir.
[17:35] It's got Lee Dye Toe sitting down at the table with Kissinger, and Lee Dye Toe is saying to Kissinger, I wish you would stop interfering in our internal affairs.
[17:44] And Lee Dye Toe is a big McGovern-Schreiber button-up.
[17:53] people are beginning to put this, Schreiber, McGovern, Tudor.
[17:57] Oh, thank you.
[17:57] Thank you.
[17:59] The study of the, all of that, I believe, is true, but the very fact that we first saw it was one in which Jefferson won, but when she was damned and lost, Jefferson
[18:26] who had milkers or anything else, and Jefferson and Spada was going to be green.
[18:33] But my advice would have been green.
[18:36] And they got an awful lot of love, except for the Indigenous Vision Acts.
[18:42] See, the Federals might be a little bit more in the other direction, but my advice is they were on the wrong side of that issue.
[18:47] Okay.
[18:48] I'll get this one right here.
[18:54] Yeah, good man.
[18:55] We have a funny...
[18:56] But the reason is because, given the weekend to write a report on H.R.
[19:04] 1, all the figures and facts and everything else,
[19:33] Well, hell, who else would be here?
[19:34] That's part of the game.
[19:35] Maybe I could go to Camp David and finish that speech then, if they're not going to be here tomorrow.
[19:41] That's what I was referring to.
[19:43] You were just waiting here.
[19:47] Yeah.
[19:47] If I'm not going to be here today at the term, you know, take the calls and all that.
[19:57] The assholes are going to have to figure out if they're not going to be here tomorrow.
[20:01] I have a suggestion that we might
[20:08] HR1.
[20:10] Maybe I could go to Wallace Bennett and John Burns and say, in the morning, we go back into the conference at 9 o'clock, just take everything.
[20:18] Don't make any difference.
[20:19] Just take everything.
[20:20] They're trying to clean it up.
[20:21] Just take it.
[20:22] And report the thing out at noon, and before they pass the adjournment resolution, effective Tuesday, say, we've got a report.
[20:30] Let's just get it cleaned up and get out of the way.
[20:39] water rail, then of course they wouldn't take that.
[20:44] So they want to throw us in the water rail, throw us in the water rail.
[20:48] Well, it gets to be kind of a sort of chicken game here Tuesday night, because you've got until midnight Tuesday to veto it, in any event.
[20:58] And if they don't have a time certain in their adjournment, then they're going to decide their resolution.
[21:03] The only reason that I have John want to veto the water rail after they're gone, I don't believe
[21:10] basically because the good of the country requires it well.
[21:14] So therefore, I think I've gotten away with having them override it on issues that I'm not concerned with.
[21:23] They're sitting up there at 9 o'clock Tuesday night.
[21:26] Well, there'll be a corporal's guard.
[21:29] And so you send them the detail at 9 o'clock Tuesday night.
[21:31] What are they going to do?
[21:32] They can't override it.
[21:33] They've got to quarrel.
[21:35] By their resolution, they automatically expire as a common law.
[21:41] I know that.
[21:42] I know that.
[21:43] I know what all the political prices are.
[21:48] But I cannot sign a bill which doubles payroll taxes and adds $800 million to the budget no matter how popular it is.
[21:57] I'm just not going to do it.
[22:01] I'm not going to do it.
[22:03] After having drawn the sword on
[22:11] and then sign this.
[22:14] I've signed for you already that I shouldn't have brought it.
[22:19] You know that one George Shultz was quite wrong.
[22:21] Oh, Christ, that one.
[22:23] The one the other day where Shultz countered Susan.
[22:29] Well, bad idea.
[22:33] I saw you were with Shultz.
[22:34] K.P.
[22:34] K.P.
[22:34] I was
[22:50] Well, if this happens, I think you win.
[22:53] Oh, sure, of course.
[22:55] You win in a sense that you'll have an effect upon the future if they in fact pass this resolution the way Bill says.
[23:05] The thing I'm afraid of is that they'll simply adjourn until Tuesday without passing a sanitized resolution.
[23:17] They'd be in a position then of
[23:19] going in three-day jumps.
[23:22] They never get a quarrel.
[23:26] Never get a quarrel.
[23:27] They'll come back to overwrite on the one.
[23:30] These guys have all got engagements.
[23:33] Well, I appreciate that, but the mayors and the governors have got the wind up on this water bill, and everybody is under pressure.
[23:40] Everybody's getting called.
[23:42] Everybody's getting mailed.
[23:44] We're doing a lot of it.
[23:46] We're getting messages from industries.
[23:49] Heavy industry support for this bill.
[23:51] Oh, you mean they want to sell the stuff?
[23:54] Well, no.
[23:55] Outfits, pulp companies and outfits like that who have gotten what they wanted.
[23:59] They're a house person.
[24:03] You bet.
[24:03] 12, 24, they did all they wanted.
[24:08] But I just wonder if they couldn't get a quorum back.
[24:11] Well, they'll sit around for three days doing nothing.
[24:13] I just don't think so.
[24:13] They'll just scatter around.
[24:16] In fact, they can't.
[24:25] Well I don't see, I don't see we have anything to lose by just sitting and sweating it out so tushy.
[24:30] Well if we can get them out tomorrow we're better.
[24:33] There's a reason.
[24:34] I don't see anything wrong with going up and telling these fellows that the H.R.
[24:37] one is... Take it and get the hell out of here.
[24:57] That's all right with you John.
[24:58] Yes sir, sure.
[24:59] Now, at Waterville, we have been told, we're going to be told that there's still another one.
[25:04] Now, we're telling them that there's a legal question.
[25:08] We're still trying to determine the effect of Muskie's letter.
[25:11] It's an open question.
[25:12] Still up in the air.
[25:13] Jerry Ford's battering us.
[25:15] Les Ahrens wants a sign.
[25:17] Howard Baker.
[25:18] They're all calling us and I haven't heard from him.
[25:20] Peter Donovan.
[25:31] You put in that kind of a bill, $24 billion, particularly, John, when you tell me industries
[26:11] That's the purpose of the job.
[26:14] You've got to lose some of this.
[26:15] We're going to lose some of that.
[26:17] Sorry.
[26:17] We're just going to buy and pour the water.
[26:20] But that's the message.
[26:22] I've poured what I've not poured from the $4 billion tax increase.
[26:25] And that's what's involved here.
[26:28] No way to get that money out of the way.
[26:31] Over three years.
[26:31] $4 billion.
[26:34] Over three years.
[26:36] A lot of it, you don't buy anything.
[26:41] Why?
[26:42] It goes to pay for all of the water projects between 1960 and 1967.
[26:47] I don't mind any of these last minute details, even the ones of the old folks, because I think there's a thing in the country about wanting politicians not to be political.
[27:11] to do something which is not the happiest political moment.
[27:14] The governor's throwing around promising everything to everybody.
[27:17] So the president has the courage to stand for him.
[27:20] But I got vetoed by the governor.
[27:23] Well, I talked about services and so on.
[27:25] Oh, that's a little...
[27:26] I don't want to interrupt.
[27:30] Actually, I...
[27:32] If there was any...
[27:33] If there was any...
[27:36] Shut up to our new labor support, I would have done it.
[27:46] That's an article of faith with that.
[27:53] In effect, it's like saying you can have non-human work.
[27:56] Right.
[27:57] That's exactly what it is.
[27:58] I'll put the human part on it.
[28:00] That's exactly what it is.
[28:02] Which we ought to have.
[28:38] If they know you're going to be to it, yeah.
[28:40] Maybe you have a little problem in the mudding, you know that we're going to be to it by this signal.
[28:49] I don't know.
[28:50] I didn't make it out.
[28:50] Well, I see Campbell.
[28:52] But with Burns and Bennett, they're pretty good.
[28:55] Yeah.
[28:57] I found the most important thing is the tournament.
[28:59] I just put it that way.
[29:00] We want a tournament.
[29:10] Well, actually what they did
[29:41] But he had a case that had been brought up, a class action that had been brought up on behalf of the prisoners, claiming that the condition of the jail was denied them their civil rights and the case was pending.
[29:56] So he accelerated the hearing of them, and that made them feel better.
[30:02] Then the guy who had the heart attack, the head of the corrections department, agreed to no punishment of the prisoners.
[30:12] And so they all went back to jail.
[30:15] But Shirley Chisholm apparently talked them out of their non-negotiable demand for freedom.
[30:21] Okay, is that the guy?
[30:24] I really thought it was.
[30:39] Sure, those are the fellows that were on the show, that's right.
[30:42] I remember I went around and showed them all their anomalous stuff.
[30:45] Yeah.
[30:47] These are some of the things that you like to do.
[30:50] Have you read about it already?
[30:51] Well, I just read the paper.
[30:52] It's about people turning into an apartment and getting a letter out of it.
[30:56] Both suspects, which was your latest character, Lawrence, I don't remember how you read it.
[31:00] It was a little shocking, but you know.
[31:18] This kid is engaged in a very long time.
[31:24] So it is dangerous.
[31:36] Well, this prison thing here is a bad thing.
[31:46] Well, is the prison bad enough?
[31:47] Yeah.
[31:48] Is it bad enough?
[31:48] It's a bad deal.
[31:49] And I'll tell you, after the election, I don't want to call any attention to the White House.
[31:54] I just kept a grasp on it.
[31:55] After the election, I figured I'd be able to marry him here and get rid of this guy who was permissive.
[32:06] Is that the problem?
[32:08] Well, it's part of the problem.
[32:09] Part of the problem is an old building.
[32:14] The guards are not...
[32:16] like we thought the white on high quality people here yeah it's a situation that's permitted you know let me say one thing speaking of all the money we don't expect i know that i know it's terribly costly but i think we've got to get it in person before we're in it well i know we are
[32:45] I know a lot of people may not care about it, but there's some things, a lot of things that next time around we survive with.
[32:55] We've got to do some good things.
[32:59] We've got to do some good things.
[33:03] I like to get those damn prison guys in here.
[33:05] You know what it's a shame to do to the people that are in prison.
[33:17] I want to talk to him.
[33:19] Crowe has got a damn good program, right?
[33:22] And he wants it.
[33:23] Remember when he went to Williamsburg?
[33:24] Yeah.
[33:24] I came after that.
[33:27] And you've been complimenting him.
[33:30] I've been going into a prison.
[33:32] You know, there are hundreds of thousands of bastards here that have got kids and have them in a black house, but they've got kids.
[33:40] There's just kids in those prisons.
[33:42] I'm not so sure you've ever been through Santa Clara.
[33:53] there's some good prison farm type prisons in california sometimes yeah it's uh they've got a very good system out there and the federal system is damaged almost every single federal prison is
[34:20] That's prisons.
[34:22] I have good prisons, but not permissive.
[34:25] Well, you reward by permissive.
[34:28] If a guy is used, push him off.
[34:31] There's something we might do here, and that is put the D.C. prisons into the federal system to mediate on the rate.
[34:49] Let me find out what the...
[35:18] I've been with Starr, and I'm exclusive.
[35:21] And you call them in and say this is exclusive to Starr, and say that the president, and then go back to what is that?
[35:30] When you're on the way to Williamsburg, we've got to do something about this.
[35:34] We have this thing going.
[35:35] So look at this situation, and think about it a lot.
[35:39] We thought that this thing brings us to a head, and he has directed that we bring the domestic counsel, or whoever it is,
[35:48] recommendation to bring the D.C. prison to the federal system.
[35:51] How about it?
[35:53] We'll get to it.
[35:54] Yeah, let me talk about it.
[35:55] There may be something wrong with it.
[35:58] But you see that?
[35:58] It's good acting things.
[36:03] But give it a start.
[36:05] Well, we won't do anything on PR.
[36:07] Oh, but you decided.
[36:08] Okay.