COLLECTIONS
ABOUT
EXHIBITS
COLLECTIONS
ABOUT
EXHIBITS
Date: July 2, 1971
Time: 4:14 pm - 4:22 pm
Location: White House Telephone
Participants: President Nixon, Charles Colson
Download Audio Files: MP3
Listen:
President Nixon: Yeah.
White House Operator: [White House Political Operative] Mr. [Charles W. “Chuck”] Colson, Mr. President.
Charles Colson: Yes, sir, Mr. President.
President Nixon: Hi, Chuck. I wanted to be sure that you got to [White House Consultant John A.] Scali the importance of—and maybe have him get it to [White House Communications Dir. Herbert G.] Klein and others—of really riding that fact that the month’s casualties—the lowest four weeks since da-da-da, you see?1
Colson: It’s the lowest four weeks, I think, since ’65.
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: We got the figures this morning—since ’64.
President Nixon: Sixty-Four. It has to be, because, you know.
Colson: That’s right.
President Nixon: It’s only 80, and it’s lower than it was in a week a year ago.
Colson: That’s exactly right.
President Nixon: So this is Laos. It also just proves the Laos thing a bit, you see?
Colson: The networks last night unhappily just picked up the weekly figure, although they all reported it.
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: And they didn’t pick up the monthly figure. We got it to them, but they didn’t use it. We did have Dan Henkin this morning over at Defense have a press conference as he was leaving for Japan with [Secretary of Defense Melvin R.] Laird, and he hit the monthly figure very hard.
President Nixon: Good.
Colson: All the networks were there. Also, Scali has—
President Nixon: Good. He’s on top of it.
Colson: He’s talked to the news magazines. I think we’ll get a continuing play out of it. We’ve got the headline of the [Washington] Star tonight, looking—
President Nixon: Yeah, well, they’d have to, wouldn’t they?
Colson: They did. They threw in their line that maybe it’s a statistical fluke, which some damn fool at the Labor Department said, but . . . if I can find out who it is, he’ll be the first one of the casualties of the Lord High Executioner. [Chuckles.] 2
President Nixon: Well, did—somebody at the Labor Department said it was a statistical fluke?
Colson: Yes, sir. We’ll—
NARA Excision
Category: Privacy
Duration: 4s
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: It’s typical of what these bastards in the bureaucracy—
President Nixon: I want—I want—I want—really now, we told everybody that’s supposed to be here. Now, I’d find out, and then he’s got to be fired.
Colson: That’s right. You—
President Nixon: If he said it. I gave the orders. It was clear. Didn’t I?
Colson: Oh, absolutely.
President Nixon: And I gave the orders in that economic thing. Now it’s clear. And we’re—and [Labor Secretary James D.] Hodgson is helping you on it, is he?
Colson: Oh, he briefed, and he did a beautiful job.
President Nixon: I know. But is Hodgson helping you on the investigation?
Colson: He will. Yes, sir.
President Nixon: Get [Under Secretary of Labor Laurence H.] Silberman and tell him that I want the guy’s name by tonight.
Colson: Be no question about it. I—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: We’ll get this one. If—yeah, it’s not attributed to anyone. It just says, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics attributed the sharp decline in the jobless rate to a statistical quirk.” But that won’t carry. The big story, I mean, it makes you mad when you see that, but it doesn’t hurt us. The big story is running. I talked to [ABC News Anchorman] Howard K. Smith, and I think he’s going to give us a good story on it. Scali has talked to the other two networks.
President Nixon: Good.
Colson: And—it’s [unclear]—
President Nixon: Well, it is. Suppose it is some statistical, then it must have been a statistical fluke when it went up, then.
Colson: Yeah.
President Nixon: See my point?
Colson: Just the point I made to Smith, and he said, “Hell—”
President Nixon: It had to be wrong. See, the up figure was wrong, too, then, Chuck. He saw that, didn’t he?
Colson: Oh, yes. And he said the point is that it’s moving fast in the right direction, and that’s what really counts.
President Nixon: Right. Good.
Colson: So we’ll come out of that positively.
President Nixon: That’s great. Great.
Colson: [Peter J.] Brennan went out of your office—
President Nixon: How was Brennan feeling?
Colson: He went out sailing, Mr. President. He—God, you did—just what was needed. And as we’re walking out, he said, “I just”--he said, “You tell the President”--he said, “It’s two-hundred and fifty thousand of my boys up there and by God, we’re with him.” He’s—of course, he was—he was just elated over it because of what you said. Now—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —we’ll see that it’s carried out.
President Nixon: Now, you’ll be—of course, as you know, we’ve got to plan on [Assistant Secretary of Labor for Wage and Labor Standards Arthur A.] Fletcher. We can’t knock on him, but Fletcher shouldn’t say those things. We’ve got to get him out of that line of fire and put him in the National Committee or something.
Colson: He agreed this morning. While we were—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —meeting, he was—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —meeting with [Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John D.] Ehrlichman and—
President Nixon: And it’s a great idea and it gives him more opportunity. They can pay him a little more money and send him—put him on the road.
Colson: Well, it’s good—
President Nixon: But not just talk about this thing.
Colson: No.
President Nixon: This is—he loses friends with this. He’s a—he is a good political property but—but you see, he hurts it—that—that thing about the hard hats was—I couldn’t believe it—
Colson: That—
President Nixon: —when he said that last year.
Colson: —that I’m sorry to say was awful. I—
President Nixon: Yeah. Well, he—but, you see, he’s got this thing that he thinks the Philadelphia Plan helps us. The Philadelphia Plan is right, but it hurts us.
Colson: That’s right.
President Nixon: And I kept telling [Office of Management and Budget Director George P.] Shultz that all the time. I said, “Jesus”--you know, Shultz and [Leonard] Garment and all the other guys all think, “Isn’t it great that we have the Philadelphia Plan.” I said, “Fellows, it’s fine that we’re getting these blacks into the jobs, but boy, it’s killing us with our constituency.”
Colson: They’re now beginning to realize that it hasn’t worked either. You can’t force these things. They just—
President Nixon: No.
Colson: —they’ve got to be—
President Nixon: No.
Colson: —you’ve—you’ve done it so beautifully—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —with the schools—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —we should—
President Nixon: That’s right.
Colson: —be using the same technique—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —in this area.
President Nixon: And Brennan—Brennan feels—knows you’re going to follow through on that. Get that New York plan approved. Get something approved before his meeting if you can.
Colson: I will, Mr. President.
President Nixon: Just tell him that I’ve got to have that approved.
Colson: And I’m going to—
President Nixon: Don’t you think so?
Colson: —I’m going to send—oh, I’ll—I talked to Ehrlichman right after the meeting and—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —he and I will push it this week. And we’ll get it through. I’m going to [Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs Henry C.] Cashen [II] up to those meetings because he gets along—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —well with those—with those hard hats.
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: And we’ll—we’ll have some good news from—the Fletcher news is—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —probably the biggest thing we could do for them when that happens.
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: They’ll understand it.
President Nixon: Now, although, we don’t want them to—we don’t a big story out that we can Fletcher or anything.
Colson: Oh, no. No. No.
President Nixon: Fletcher wants to do this. Yeah.
Colson: And they don’t want that either because that will just—
President Nixon: Yeah. Yeah.
Colson: That will—that will make it worse.
President Nixon: [Unclear] produce something for Brennan. Now, on of course the wage-price board, there’s where we’ve got to be tougher on them because we’ve got to keep—keep them—keep their noses to the grindstone on that one.
Colson: I—I gave him—after the meeting, I gave him all the figures of all the settlements that have been reached—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: —and he hadn’t seen these. He thought they would be very helpful. He’s going to send them to all his friends in the state organizations.
President Nixon: Most of it doesn’t affect New York, as I recall—
Colson: No.
President Nixon: —anyway, does it?
Colson: No, and—
President Nixon: They’re doing pretty good.
Colson: Yeah, and we’ve only—we’ve only reversed a couple of settlements, you know. Most of them have been what have come through in the—in the normal course. We—we’ve discouraged them from doing outrageous settlements but we really haven’t overruled many.
President Nixon: Did you tell him about the unemployment figure, any chance?
Colson: I gave him that on the way in. Yes, sir.
President Nixon: He must have felt pretty good about that.
Colson: He was very pleased about it. The point he made to you as he was going out the door is a very important one. He said, “You can”--in the building trades trades, it’s not the national leaders, it’s the state-by-state.
President Nixon: Yeah.
Colson: And he keeps his very close ties with DeLucca in Pennsylvania and with—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —the key people around the country and that’s—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —that’s where those—those fellows have an awful lot of power at that level. . . . And—
President Nixon: Good. Well, good.
Colson: I think we’ll do well with him.
President Nixon: Yeah. Yeah.
Colson: You have to kind of keep nursing them along but . . .
President Nixon: Well, we particularly want to let them know we appreciate their support on the war. By God, I mean, on the national—their loyalty thing, Jesus, that’s great.
Colson: He kept repeating your statement afterwards. He kept saying—you know, he said, “The President is such a gentleman.” He said, “All he asked me to do was support him on national security. And he said . . . isn’t—of course, I’ve been hitting Brennan that he’s got to support us politically—
President Nixon: Right.
Colson: —but he said, “The President’s such a gentleman. All he—all he wants is the country’s interest.” He was very impressed with that statement you made.
President Nixon: That’s the way to get his other interests.
Colson: And that’s the way—exactly.
President Nixon: All right. Good.
Colson: Fine, sir.
President Nixon: Good. Thank you.
Colson: Thank you, Mr. President.
1 In other words, Nixon wants Colson to publicize that American troops in Vietnam had suffered the lowest number of casualties for any four-week period in several years. (↑)
2 In a 29 June 1971 Cabinet meeting Nixon had threatened to fire government officials responsible for leaks and designated White House Chief of Staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman as his “Lord High Executioner.” (↑)
D R A F T