>> wish i had gotten it. >> how did these bogus committees work? >> you would form a committee, the former national committee from district of columbia, guy by the name of joe brewed ee used to raise money from some of his clients for various front committees. and we would do some mailings from the committees. did the ad of safeguard america. that was all funded by joe barudi and some of the people that worked with him. if there was money coming out, couple of times halderman told me i had money for events, like entertaining my staff. i was surprised like that. took them out one night, but nobody told me i was a line item with cash. >> there was one.

speaking of mail operations, george herbert walker bush in his memoirs mentioned in '73 when head of rnc, you wanted him to do some mail order or some mailings he refused to do. do you remember a clash with later president bush? >> '73? >> '73, just before he left. no, he wasn't there very long, was he? >> you didn't overlap long. he replaced dole as head of rnc. >> when i went to the white house, he was not head of the rnc, and i don't think i had any role after i left the white house. i would be surprised. >> let me ask -- >> could have been. >> i think you overlapped just a month or two. >> could be. >> let me ask you about where

you were june 17th, 1972. where were you? >> i was at home, mclane, virginia, sitting at my swimming pool. this was saturday afternoon. and i had noticed in the paper an article about the break-in at the democratic national committee i think that morning. i am not sure now. what i remember vividly is a telephone call on the white house phone saying, and i was sitting outside at the time, with friends, and ehrlichman said where is your pal howard hunt these days, i said i don't know, i haven't seen him in a long time. i think since the itt thing actually. he said well, does he work for

us? i said no. i said he left months ago. i said, in fact, he is off the payroll. why are you asking? he said well, some of these guys involved in that break-in, so must have known about it, must have seen it in the paper, had in the pocket his name and a white house phone number. and we're just trying to track it down. i thought oh, no. hit me. i had the phone, turned to my buddy and wife, i said if we're involved in this, this could be the end of this president's time in office. i was sick, if they had anything to do with it, and if we had anything to do with it, i realized it was going to be a huge problem. that was the first i heard. the people that were with me that day now are retired,

lieutenant general of the marines, remember my conversation coming away, shaking my head, thinking this isn't possible. nobody could be that stupid. my reaction was not on moral grounds. if somebody told me we had a way of getting information about what's going on in the mcgovern campaign, i would have said great, don't get it for me, don't tell me how you got it, but get it. but the democratic national committee made no sense. larry o'brien had no power, they were broke. i can't imagine why they broke in. to this day, i don't know why they did. it is a mystery why anybody went to the democratic national committee. >> you didn't see any of the political take, intelligence that came from that operation? it was running for awhile before. >> never saw it. never heard anybody talk about it. >> did you interact with gordon strong? >> i don't think so.

not much. are you talking about -- what job did he occupy? >> he was halderman's liaison. >> he was never in any of the meetings that i had. bruise was the staff secretary. i could always trust bruce, he was good at that. i had my own strategy meetings going on. strong was never in those, no. >> before we push on with watergate, how uncertain about re-election were you in early 72? >> i thought musky would beat us. he was ahead in the polls. knew him well because he was a new england senator when i was i think he caped 1960s.

i stayed on with -- i got to know musky and his people quite well, and i liked him. had a lot of respect for him, believed he would be a very formidable opponent. i was concerned he could beat us. i looked at the demographics, breakdown, nixon's polls, standings, issues we were dealing with, and he -- his being the candidate was my worst nightmare. mcgovern was my fondest hope. but never thought it possible. >> would this explain the tricks that many later disvowed? >> i think so. it was not until after the democratic convention that any

of us felt we could relax. that infamous letter i sent after the republican convention, i was dead serious. and the one that kwiped about the press kwiping said i would run over my own grandmother, everybody would be at their desks. it was a colorful memo, but i was dead serious. i thought we had to fight every inch of the way to get nixon reelected. and even as we were riding high in the polls at 72, i still figured that there's going to be a surge, there will be democrats going back home. there's a closing of the gap. it never closed. it stayed constant all the way from mcgovern's nomination through the election. >> what was the line, though, that you didn't want to cross in fighting for re-election? >> what was the line? >> were you drawing any lines? not everything was acceptable.

>> only line i would have drawn, don't do anything counterproductive or stupid. don't do anything if you're going to get caught at it. i had been in massachusetts politics, i had known about kennedy and johnson bugging the planes. i mean, i knew the history of this. i played rough, hard ball politics. so i wouldn't have been morally offended by many of the things that went on tricks that i would normally be laughing my head off i didn't know about. when i read it later, it was like it is childish, but not -- i didn't feel i was crossing the line. i was not -- my -- in terms of questions like this, i would be a pragmatist. if this was something we could do and get away with it, we would do it. >> from the tapes, you worked on the nixon administration's reaction to vietnam veterans

against the war. >> it was a current issue in twoufrmt i am not sure i recruited them. somebody in the white house told me about them. i can't tell you how i heard about it, but invited him to my office, was hugely impressed. navel academy grad watd, very military, handle himself well, spoke articulatly. and was a democrat that voted against nixon, but believed nixon was right, that this war issue was being politicized, and as a patriot, he wanted to contradict what the veterans against the war stood for. he started at that point an

organization. i think his organization had a name at that point. we helped them get television appearances already. i think he organized vietnam veterans in support of the war. my staff watched for these things, bud evans, that probably was the one that told me about it. and about o'neal. i remember being very impressed with him, wanting nixon to meet him. i took him in to the oval office, had another man with him, and only thing struck me was the suit, he looked preppy, black shoes, with white socks. he looked like a country bum kin. but he was so articulate in defense of nixon policies and such encouragement to nixon, and

nixon brought in kissinger to meet him, made a big thing of him. he went out from there, did his thing with help from staff, getting interviews to promote him as set to john kerry. who i had never met. knew him only from public appearances. i thought i had a balanced picture of the guy. nothing that happened since changed that picture. he is an interesting character. interesting isn't the right word. i did my best to undermine him. >> what did do you other than find john o'neal? >> probably called veterans organizations there was no attempt to smear other than some

of the information picked up about him which wasn't very complimentary. i passed on to reporters. but there wasn't -- he is paranoid. he has an idea i ran this big campaign. said this in the 2004 election. he said wush people are pulling out the stops. they now have colson watching. didn't have anything to do with the 2004 campaign. met bush, had long conversations with him, but wasn't involved in the campaign. don't believe should be involved in the campaign. tell you what kind of guy kerry is. >> may not be relevant here. >> i went to national prayer breakfast in the early '90s, maybe mid '90s perhaps, speakers

never announced until the last moment. speaker announced was john kerry. i have gone to national prayer breakfast every year since i began. i went one year with nixon who was not a believe. kerry came in the mid 90s and sitting at two tables in the podium in front of this huge hall at the hilton hotel ballroom. and kerry gave the most evangelist it can message i've ever heard. it would outdo billy graham. it was magnificent. so back to my office, i was convicted because here was a guy i had done everything i could to fight against, thought very badly of who has now become a christian. so i wrote him a letter and said dear senator kerry, you and i once were at odds with one another, and i want you to know i heard your speech today and

was deeply moved, thrilled you've become a christian, i would love to come by visit, have prayer. i would like to apologize personally for anything i might have done to hurt you in the past. i really was rejoicing. i never got an answer back. i explained the circumstances. it came up again in the 2004 election. kerry has never to this day acknowledged that letter or acknowledged me. anything except to tell people i apologized to him, well, i did, but in the context of wanting to meet with him for prayer. doesn't leave me with a good

taste in my mouth about john kerry. >> no. when you read halderman's recollection of this era and your recollections, there's a tension. halderman recalls you as bringing out the darker side of the president, and you recall him bringing out the darker side of the president. help us understand what this means, the darker side of the president and what rolls each of you play. >> well, we had a lot of competition between us. and a lot of -- there were moments i really liked bob, when he would relax and be himself. there were times he could be utterly obnoxious. he would give these -- he would bark these commands or he would

be cutting in his response. i remember one night, only been in the white house six or eight months, president put on a tie that was all very heavily figured and was going on television that night. so at the executive dinner, i said bob, don't let him wear that tie, it will look terrible on television. oh, you an expert on this? there were times he just wasn't a nice guy, was a hard guy to work with. he would put you down, cut people down. most people dealing with him had their run-ins, had their moments when they were treated object seek we us. i looked at the president and i

would have disagreed and maybe did later. there were times i thought he was being mechanical in reacting to the present. other times, brought up the dark side of nixon. didn't have to work hard to bring it out, it was close to the surface. he was a gut fighter. nixon was a street fighter. his first reaction was to fight back. did it the wrong way. did it okay, let's get those guys. and in reflection now if i regret anything about the nixon years, thing i probably regret the most, i didn't take those occasions to try to help nixon moderate some of those views.

halderman and ehrlichman say they were given orders like i was given but didn't carry them out, but that's not been my experience. they did exactly what i did. we were on the sequoia one night, and halderman, ehrlichman, nixon and i, having drinks on the deck, go to dinner, and we're talking about something that i guess he was not supporting the president on one of his initiatives, money supply. >> money supply. >> and dinner that night, nixon turned to me and said he's lobbying for a raise, isn't he? i said i don't know.

and nixon said yeah, he wants to get the cabinet and same as the cabinet. he wanted to be bumped up. wanted the federal reserve chairman to get a raise. nixon said put that out to the press. and so i didn't. i said yes. yes, sir. >> but you knew that burns, that he wanted it to be effective after he left? >> yeah. the next morning, which it strikes me was a saturday, i went to halderman and said that's not a good idea. we should not do that. he said you have your orders, go do it. so there was a case where i was being wise for once, wasn't all that common, and bob was saying no, no, go for it. >> happened more often. frequently. turned out to be a bad thing. it was bad for nixon, bad for

the country. >> what happened? >> story was put out, and of course it was false, discredited, and came out that i was the one that planted that story. >> you had some allies in the media novak, robert novak. you were one of those allowed to plant stories, right? >> not very often. very seldom. i had people that did that. i openly probably had novak in my office twice the whole time in the white house, and he would be the most friendly of the reporters. jerry turhost later became ford's press secretary. he was the one later gave information about ellsburg from the fbi files, the result of my

going to prison. there were reporters that desperately wanted to see me, and once an while i saw one, if i was told there was a really good reason for doing it, but i tried not to do that because i thought it couldn't help me. i didn't deal with the press. i had john skal ee working for me who did foreign policy questions. and barker. oh, my. can't think of his -- i can't think of his name, sorry, getting late in the day, who would deal with the press. oh, and clawson. he did a lot of that. most much the stuff i planted i planted through clawson. >> did you ever meet bob woodford? >> not until -- >> years later. >> in the middle of watergate. >> in the middle of watergate? >> yeah. he was constantly after me, wanted to see me. i refused to see him, because i

thought it was -- i was a nixon loyalist, realized what he wanted to do. i didn't want to contribute to his efforts. finally my law partner david shapiro also representing me said this could be an important thing, do this. so i had him in my office one night, in my law firm, and this would have been summer of 74. and he began the conversation by saying mr. colson, i found in the last several months of covering stories that the people that won't talk to me have something to hide. the people that will talk to me must be on the level. i said i made a mistake inviting you in. i don't want to talk to you. asked me to leave. that was our one meeting. and he left my office.

i knew it. that was the only time i saw him. did talk to him on the phone a few times. always a mistake. >> always a mistake? >> always. my better judgment was not to talk to him, and once in a while i went out and it was wrong. >> after the break-in, he seems to be venting to you. he said when the president veptd, it was a sign of trust, and he only chose a number of people to vent his anger.

>> both my boys were approaching draft age, getting the war over and the draft ended, even though i was against the volunteer army, but i felt personally very committed to richard nixon. i do respect him greatly. so i think he knew that, and i think he could let his hair down with me. he did plenty of times. >> i remember him calling me on sunday and saying -- he said he

didn't say that. it is in my memory. >> but he had you, he wanted you to go and get "the washington post" licenses overturned. >> uh-huh. >> he talked about using the irs against his enemies. >> did he? >> yes. >> when was that? >> late summer of '72. >> well, i never had anything to do with the irs. so i didn't do it, but i remember the licenses and i had talked to dean birch about that before chairman of the fcc, and there had been a big fight over those license in the past. so that was not -- they wouldn't -- i don't know whether they had to keep getting them renewed in those days, i think they did, but that wouldn't have gone uncontested. he did go up and see annenberg, that was in the tapes, about mounting some competition to the

post. and even taking over the washington star, which later became the times. so there were a few things that i did when i left the white house, but most of the time -- and still, let's see, that was after i left the white house. >> after you left the white house. >> that was afterwards. wasn't anything we did during the campaign. you would be too vulnerable. >> when did you get the sense that you were going to be the fall guy for the watergate? >> well, i worried about that right after the election. there had been four or five episodes that made me really suspicious. i was coming to halderman's

office, there was a meeting going on. and i opened the door because nobody told me not to. i was going into see bob. and john mitchell was right on the other side of the door, and he held the door, and he said what do you want. i said i want to see bob. he said well, we're in a meeting. we'd just as soon you not come in right now. i said is my friend howard hunt involved in this? and he said up to his ears. this was right after the watergate. this was like a week, in the first week. and i shook my head, but i wasn't welcome in that meeting. we came back from california on air force one, and the president, this was in august, i think we were coming back from california. and i left air force one to go

to my car and realized i left something on the plane. i went back, and in the conference room where i had to walk in, halderman and ehrlichman were talking, it was like boom, shut off the moment i walked in the door. it was very awkward. i got out of there as quickly as i could, it was obvious, it could have been anything, but i kind of felt it was about me. i had that sixth sense. became very clear to me when after the election morning after the election, nixon wisely called his staff, told everybody to turn in their resignation or let them know what they wanted to do in the next term. i wrote a memorandum and told them i was going back to practice law, that there would be things i would stay to do. chairman of the republican national committee that i would

love to do, loved the politics or the labor department. i think those were the things most probably in the file somewhere. i was the first one of the senior staff to be invited to camp david for dinner with the president. so i come in, and it's a very cheerful evening, wine is flowing, steaks are great, nixon is talking about the great future. he said if you want to stay, there will be the right position for you, but i think you would be wonderful in the kitchen cabinet. maybe general counsel for republican national committee. and you could be my outside adviser, help me from the outside. i was beginning to get a sense of things that wasn't characteristic. and they were sitting there nodding. so when