In a conversation with special assistant Charles W. Colson, President Nixon considered whether or not to attend the funeral of former president Harry S. Truman. Nixon ultimately decided against it, basing his decision partly on the fact that former president Lyndon B. Johnson would not be in attendance either due to recent “heart pains,” which Nixon dismissed as hypochondria. Johnson died of a heart attack less than three weeks later, on 22 January 1973.