no fun with pronouns

[Joel S. Berson]

 From the NYTimes, online at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=nixon&st=cse#

See the last paragraph below.  I give the entire
article to that point to prevent everyone from
complaining that it's clear in context.

>By ADAM NAGOURNEY
>Published: December 10, 2010
>
>YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Richard M. Nixon made
>disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks,
>Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a
>series of extended conversations with top aides
>and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval
>Office 16 months before he resigned as president.
>
>The remarks were contained in 265 hours of
>recordings, captured by the secret taping system
>Nixon had installed in the White House and
>released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
>
>While previous recordings have detailed Nixon’s
>animosity toward Jews, including those who
>served in his administration like Henry A.
>Kissinger, his national security adviser, these
>tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to
>Nixon’s feeling. He and his aides seem to make a
>distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.
>
>In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W.
>Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon
>that he had always had “a little prejudice,”
>Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued:
>“I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.”


Who is the ' he [who] had always had “a little
prejudice" '?  Colson, who is the speaker of the
quoted bit?  Or Nixon, who is the nearest
antecedent (and, some might assume, the person
already alleged to be prejudiced by the author of
the article)?  (Probably both, but that's another subject.)

Joel

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