Nixon Colson Talk Dirty Tricks, Watergate January 2 1973

Introduction and transcript from Stanley Kutler's Abuse of Power.

JANUARY 2, 1973: THE PRESIDENT AND COLSON, 4:51-6:09 P.M., OVAL OFFICE

Colson brags about the quality and discreetness of his covert political operations, contrasting them to Watergate. He is anxious to undermine those directly responsible for Watergate.

Audio is taken from the following file:
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape830/830-006a.mp3

Start point and end points of the three segments:

Segment 1: 40:39-42:42
Segment 2: 43:46-49:03
Segment 3: 50:00-51:10

Audio with transcript is on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpXaqj7P_lw

SEGMENT 1

COLSON: The wires are carrying a story that the "group headed by President Nixon's chief Florida fund-raiser announced Tuesday it will file a rival application for the operating license of television station WJXT, which is now held by a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company."

PRESIDENT NIXON: Isn't that too bad.

COLSON: Isn't that something, a group of concerned citizens. That's Jacksonville. They're going to have quite a contest. Miami, I guess so, I must say, for tomorrow...But that will cost the Post about a million dollars.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Our people can afford it?

COLSON: Yes sir.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Is it worth, is it really worth our paying all that kind of money? No.

COLSON: No. Well, I've told them this and I've told them what their chances are. Their chances are good initially. They lose in the Court of Appeals, this terrible Court of Appeals that we have. That is one—they have a very slim chance, except if the whole community gets behind the idea of reinvesting the profits. That might have some appeal. But these people want to go ahead even knowing the odds against them.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Why do they want to?

COLSON: I think they want to raise hell with the Post...it's George Champion Jr. of Jacksonville.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Good!

COLSON: And they're going to do some minimum effort kind of stuff, but it puts the burden on the Post to defend themselves. The Post will spend a fortune on this. Meanwhile, while that's going on, you take them on a couple of other fronts.

PRESIDENT NIXON: I hope you can get that stockholder thing going.

COLSON: Oh, I can get that. That's one of the great virtues of having [lawyers David] Shapiro and [Sidney] Dickstein.

SEGMENT 2

PRESIDENT NIXON: Let's face it. The only thing in my view, the main thing that was unfortunate from the standpoint of the presidency on the Watergate was the Segretti business, and Haldeman slipped a bit in here...he shouldn't have had, say Chapin, working on the damn thing. My point is that's too Goddamn close. You know what I mean? That kind of operation should be on the outside.

COLSON: Three steps removed. And we know that.

PRESIDENT NIXON: You can do that. You see, the point is by having Chapin in we had a White House man, a White House man, directly involved in a political operation, Chuck. You get the point? Don't you agree?

COLSON: Oh, absolutely. I totally agree...

PRESIDENT NIXON: But basically, on these other things, on these attacks, I think for example you can—a bunch of this op-ed stuff and all that other stuff, I think that's got to be done from outside...I don't know how you're going to do that from the outside. You can't do it at your law firm. How will you do it?

COLSON: Well, we have a small group...that will be the PR apparatus.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Really?

COLSON: Oh, yes, Bob knows about this.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Great! Well, that's why I was wondering. How do we get stuff to that group. [William J.] Baroody will call you?

COLSON: Baroody will call me or he will start working directly with them...

PRESIDENT NIXON: Well, wait a minute. That gives us the same problem. I don't want Baroody caught. I don't want the White House caught and I don't want stories charging the White House that he's a White House man, that Baroody is now working with a group to do this or that or the other. You see my point?

COLSON: The only thing is this—I did a hell of lot of things on the outside...and you never read about it. The things you read about were the things I didn't do [laughter], Watergate and Segretti. I had nothing to do with it...

PRESIDENT NIXON: I know.

COLSON: And that was the irony of it. I had a pretty good apparatus.

PRESIDENT NIXON: I see your point, by yourself. I just want it done. You know, let's do it.

COLSON: Oh, it'll be done.

PRESIDENT NIXON: [George] Bush will never do it. He'll do positive things, but that's all.

COLSON: But the key to it, if I may say so, is to be damn sure that the things you do are done in such a way that they don't bounce back. In other words, the Watergate was—whoever finally approved that, and I don't know who it was and I don't want to know, was just plain stupid, Mr. President. I would never—if I'd have known of that then, I would have fallen down in the doorway to block somebody from doing it, because it was inevitable you get caught. You can't put five men into that Goddamn building without getting caught. And no matter how much you protest, in a campaign you're going to get hurt. You could have ten people between us and the Watergate and not have us get blamed.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Sure.

COLSON: The mistake of the Watergate was whoever said do it. That was the mistake. No way we could do that without getting exposure. Segretti, in a way the same thing. The only way you can handle Segretti is somebody far removed from us sets it up, and that you can do. That person just came in too close. But my God.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Particularly with Segretti and the committee. It was a mistake to have it financed out of ... [Herbert] Kalmbach. It was very close to me.

COLSON: Which was unnecessary...You see, I did things out of Boston, we did some blackmail and you say, my God. I'll go to my grave before I ever disclose it, but we did a hell of a lot of things and never got caught. The things that blew up and became newsworthy were the things that we just did because they were stupid to do.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Our Democratic friends did a hell of a lot of things, too, and never got caught.

COLSON: Oh, sure.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Because they're used to it. But our people were too Goddamn naive, in my opinion, amateurish.

COLSON: Well, you had one of the men who was in line at your Christmas tree lighting reception who ran 15 or 20 black projects in Boston, and that'll never be traced. No way. And I could under oath say I didn't know how it happened. And that's the way to do it. And not- You see, Baroody is used to that. Baroody, Mel Laird taught him. He spent eight years on the Hill with Laird and four years over here with Laird.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Hmmm.

COLSON: And he's a tough kid. He worked his way up, he scrambled.

PRESIDENT NIXON: Yeah.

COLSON: Went to Holy Cross. He's not a smooth-

PRESIDENT NIXON: Good. Good.

COLSON: Eastern Establishment type. He's a hater.

SEGMENT 3

COLSON: You know, there was another case in point. We had a massive letter-writing campaign of Catholic parents, who were given mimeographed letters that went out to the hierarchy a week before the election, two weeks before the election. And they would copy those letters and send them to their congressman, and the letter said, you know, next session I want your pledge that you will support President Nixon's tax credit. And those were sent to the schools and every parent would sit down and write the damn thing. You talk about being blazoned in their mind. And we checked the Hill. In New Jersey they were absolutely inundated and I really believe, 62 percent in New Jersey, we had to do damn well with the Catholics, had to with the Catholics. But that kind of stuff we never even talked about. So it can be done. Just, as I told Ehrlichman, the key is just don't let people, don't let people inside authorize stupid things. Take time to do them right, and uh, as you point out, the Democrats have been doing this spectacularly well for years, and have never been caught.