Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Pentagon Papers and Supreme Court

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

Alex, can you put one of those, I've got a nice button, put it on this phone right here.

Take a single one off.

I hear you should see.

Now use a single phone.

And put a, see I can use the one down here in the drawer over there.

And put it on the wall.

Put it on the wall.

Yeah, again, here she walks in.

I want one of those.

Yeah, I want one.

No.

Yeah.

Uh, Rose?

Yeah, uh, would you like to go to your great home and have some tea?

Well, all I made was to Manchester, you know.

You better tell Lyman about that.

You know what I mean.

When you were in the office, when I called the little girl and the high school girl, that was food to the girl in Manchester, New Hampshire.

And, uh, the bleaching arrow, you can tell them about that.

Bye.

Okay.

Bye.

the girl in the car.

And she's going to go to Smith County.

She's having a great movie.

I've got one quick question.

The last of the lunches is coming up on Saturday.

I don't want to just close the toast if you don't want to have suggested remarks.

a little something about Peru's friendship with the United States.

I don't want anything else.

Come on in, come on in.

Come on.

We were wondering what was the situation?

What comment, if anything, you have made, does anything need to be made of justice when it's made on this case?

I'm trying to keep it clear.

I don't want him to do the canon on the last three court cases.

Well, it hasn't been animated.

Well, that's the opinion.

You have a second opinion.

The person who came down wasn't a lawyer.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, at least at any speed.

If I imagine that they're going to go to the Department of Anaheim, I would like to know the time element involved.

I don't know the time element involved.

I've only heard the case of the Syracuse, but I don't know the use of the time for writing accounts.

I doubt that those 63 books that have been in there are going to be once all over the planet.

So there's probably a hard end to that.

I think that we all, I agree with the comment that we all should come to the court of justice apparently.

But I think we are now in a position where... Well, I'm not going to say on the legal aspects of it.

Well, that doesn't go to the heart of the question.

The heart of the question is how it affects the function of government and scientific documents and so forth.

Perhaps the security care of defense would otherwise be more appropriate to talk to that than lawyers would.

Go ahead.

Well, I think the only thing that we have to face in our department right now is also this security review is completed.

We know exactly if we can, now we can only take those points that we used before the court and take them on by.

so that we can protect your criminal case.

Well, they probably will be a little careful.

the lawyers and the representatives of all the papers.

It would be very helpful if you could have, if such discussions could succeed, and the papers said we are not printing certain documents that we understand would compromise our security.

Well, they're going to back that, but they're going to take out those sections, Mr. President.

They agreed that they would take out certain sections.

Have they agreed to that?

Well, that's what I'm saying.

I'm not certain if it will stand by them.

So I hope that if it would, that would be fine.

If they don't, you've got to, you're going to have to make the very best of it.

What we should do, I think, Mr. President, is just not play the game with New York.

That's the worst of the post-election problems we know we should make.

The copies available with our money should drive away.

I agree, Dan, but...

Well, for the most part, it's like a tribute to our friends.

We want to protect our friends.

Our friends, sure.

We don't want to...

If the damn thing is going to come out, I'm going to let those bastards go to sleep.

That's what bothers me.

According to the fact, according to the fact, according to the fact, just...

that the stolen documents can now be printed by some papers.

I don't have a reason to give them to anybody.

Let me say, I have the Chicago Tribune's World War II documents, you know.

I think of every gun, and they did a lot of painting together.

Every sinking that there is.

And they're going to get their durations worn out.

I've been painting all my life.

Why?

They're going to have the highest person they're going to have on those.

Well, you see, they are panting without even reading the decision.

The other people that stayed away from this.

With very great hand, you see what I mean?

The Harold Chicago Tree, the Harper's Papers, the Coffey Papers, the Great and Daniel of the Men's People, the New York Daily News, stood firm.

And it's just not right to let them sit there and get scooped by the New York Times on this thing.

I just wonder about this, Mr. President.

I have to go fix it.

We have turned this whole episode into a class over a relatively short period of time.

I mean, we have turned on the reasonable people who are making the operation of the government.

If possible, and therefore, I... Well, I think we ought to do a little work under cover, and I'd like to ask the commission to do that.

I mean, they don't need permission, but I'd like to ask the commission to do that.

I'd like to ask the commission to do that.

I think we have a high moral ground, I think the youth men are unsure of themselves right now, and I think we can turn this thing around, and I think we ought to maintain the principles of the integrity of the government and the integrity of private information.

And we already begun on the re-classification, speaking back to the World War II and Korean War.

That stuff is old hat.

That stuff should have been declassified years ago.

We already started declassification procedure.

We simply gotta go forward with it.

I think on that, you can be damn sure it's gonna get out that we don't do something about it.

And then again, it'll go to our enemies and not to our friends.

That's what I'm concerned about.

Well, I don't know what you do.

You just stop and say, well, nothing else.

Nothing here.

I just print it off.

As far as I know, you're not just going to get very much more than $34,000.

What would you do, though, on this petition?

On this petition, I frankly would not print it off.

It's not that hard.

I, uh... Well, we're going to have to have a lot of times to have enough to print it off.

I don't give a damn.

I would like to see the court decision to see what they say.

Will they step distant, or will Charles stay justified?

I'm sure they were justified.

I have a vision that it wasn't that they went to the United States.

That's correct.

That is the purpose.

Tom, why should there be a paper that Harold Alexander and Los Angeles have to pay a syndicate fee to print the New York Times stuff?

That's what they'll do.

They will take the position because they stole and flasked my documents.

If we now need to flask the documents, then anybody who leaves the documents with papers

Well, I know Henry's concerned, Mr. President, because there's a lot of papers involved that came out today, and he and you told the President...

that if we take the high ground here, I believe we've turned this thing against the people who are running every diplomatic movement, I think.

Henry, if you take him into the kind of position that I assume is him, he's not going to put out all the material.

What, in effect, he is doing is he's classifying it.

He is classifying the principle.

Yes, he's not going to question putting out classifying material.

I don't have to do it, but I was told that going forward with this declassification review that we'll just set up a little earlier.

We're ready to go whenever all these 47 round cases, what we have to go for.

What does all this do to what they're trying to do to Ellsberg, now that Alaska has grown out?

Well, as long as we take out all of the items that we have mined from the Joint Chiefs, from the State Department, and from the National Security Administration of the court, we're going to be okay.

Well, Scott Hart, who was allowed to read these documents, is going to say it over and over again.

Well, it started last night.

You can call the Supreme Court immediately and let them know.

I stood there and read documents.

He was there.

Okay, but he says he's going to go on today.

He was there.

That's the point.

We're not talking about the classified documents.

You've got to remember, and we've already crossed the bridge.

They asked them what classified documents.

The only thing we may have found, from what I know, is that no director of the National Sanctuary has done it.

I don't know whether the government should put itself in a position of going after a professional match.

Well, we know the court has a lot of lawyer duplication in the ground.

What about Henry?

The court has said that the State Department, or the Defense Department, is not saying this.

They're saying that there are documents that are still sensitive, still affecting national security.

They're not classifying those.

But we have a, we have a total of, we've picked out all the volumes, we've looked at all the stations, the last five, two, they might have them.

And then they have them, and I don't think they're published.

Then we would take out both sections of the, probably, the areas of protection.

It's close to about 300 to 400 pages.

And then the last body is a negotiation.

My instinct is, Mr. President, I know the argument.

I understand it.

It has been shown by people.

I've read it too.

It's an exciting battle for the integrity of government.

Uh, well, President, uh, and as you just told me, I haven't seen this.

Well, the President voted for the House of Representatives to do this review, and some day we've got to release it.

And some day we've got to release it.

Now, it's a question, Henry, what do we give it?

people who can't see it or whether we have another problem that is continuing to be repressive with respect to this material.

We don't get our friends in the newspaper.

I think the newspaper people that I've talked to with many of their own staff is at this moment terribly insecure.

They're all trying to prove to me that it is really very serious and fluid classifies us and all that.

That if we declassify them, it's not getting self-righteous again.

Did you ask about the parts, chief, the parts that we maintained in the corporate cities were blue?

Well, I'm very frustrated about what I declassified.

I will not grant a fact that's deplistable.

The time after it was garbage anyway.

So what's my answer to that?

What did she say?

She said, you know, we have picked up.

We have three copies of what they have.

We know what they have.

But what business would you declassify?

I would declassify all of the declassification of all items

That we used in the court and all items that are going to be used in the court.

Out of the police that have been fined, it's not much, would you?

Out of the police, the last six fines.

And then in the other fines, I would take out all the material that was listed by the State Department by .

You see, Henry, you're suggesting here, you've got to say, here's a president who has said,

We will enforce the law.

We will go right to the top, seeing to it that the law is, that our views are depressed.

But no president is above the law now.

The Supreme Court has spoken.

The Supreme Court says, and we have to look into the pit, but the Supreme Court says that these documents,

uh having having been stolen it probably does if i understand it does speak to the point that uh it still it still regains our people uh basis for uh conviction but on the other hand it says having been stolen and therefore uh been compromised that then

A publication cannot be enjoined for printing.

If it says that, then we have no obligation.

Now, whether to, to, to, to, uh, to, uh, to protect me, we have an obligation to follow the court.

That's my point.

I would like to classify those parts of the documents that you're going to release.

Subject to the decision, it was suggested that perhaps tomorrow we could say something like this.

As previously announced by the White House,

special priority review of the study of the U.S.-Vietnam relations 1945-1968 has been underway for some months.

This review is nearing completion.

In view of the Court's dissolution of the injunctions today, and in view of the disclosures of the material contained in the study, the major portion of the study will shortly be released for publication.

This action will be taken to ensure equitable availability to the information needed.

In the short period available for the review of this document, consideration is given to requirements for classification taking into consideration prior disclosures, but did not include any consideration of the factors of accuracy, completeness, or authenticity

material contained in the study and just leave it like that.

I was trying to stay away from that just a little bit because I would say declassify.

This doesn't bother me as much as declassifying.

Declassify?

I think Henry's got a point there.

Declassify?

I won't declassify.

I'd like to keep them in the position that they resist classifying.

I put it this way.

In view of the way this is happening, and I think now this is the line, in view of the way this is happening, if I can suggest it, why don't we say, why don't we say in effect that, uh,

that we are releasing this because the Supreme Court of the United States has allowed so

which were unauthorized, that's basically unauthorized, which had been removed, filed, and unauthorized, that, the, whatever you want to use the strong word, is because they have allowed that to be released, that they have allowed to be published, that in fairness to our media, you're allowing, you are allowing them to have those documents.

Period.

How's that sound?

Yeah.

In other words, along the ground, the court is being asked here.

Well, that's why I was trying to stay away from this language.

Declassify.

From the declassifying.

The court's doing it.

That's one thing.

But if you declassify this stuff, that's something very different.

I agree.

I see your point.

That's my question.

I would like to keep the media in position.

Where they did it.

When they printed Black Lives Matter.

That task will increase the pen and we may decide it.

The reason the parents really come down to this is that the court, you see, we fought against this.

Here's the whole, here's the point.

Now, we fought against printing out the documents.

That was our real position.

And we did.

We lost.

Now, I haven't lost.

We therefore fought, but therefore...

that because the court has made this rule, and has allowed classified documents to be, and which were in the possession of a newspaper by reason of unauthorized disclosure, or death, or whatever you want to call it, that we are now in an unauthorized

that the same documents that the court, unauthorized documents that the court has allowed by its decree certain

newspapers for print are being made available to other newspapers for print.

Do you see what I mean?

It's not that obvious to me.

I don't think so.

With Holder?

With Holder, but with Holder everything.

Holder actually only picked up this printing that McCloskey's having.

It was already up at Westinghouse.

We had their security people hold it up.

We had all of McCloskey's papers.

And he does have some, most of the original documents.

The original documents.

That's the original documents in there.

Some of the volumes have not been part of that treaty, so I don't know where they may have gone.

Let me ask this.

We know, we know.

Who, but the guy who died last minute for this man.

Who is this Paul Cook that you, that worked for Richardson?

He was a guy that was let out over in ISA as an Air Force captain on the 20th of March, 1969.

He went over to the State Department.

We let him go over there.

The State Department became, worked over there.

Right.

And he had access to all of the national security memorandums.

Right.

Things like that.

Right.

And now he's over with Richardson.

When he left, he was with Richardson at HEW.

We are fairly certain that he had, quote-unquote, was sucking things too.

You know, maybe I'm speaking out, but I really think there is an experience going on on this whole thing.

If you were to call Richardson,

and say that you have learned that, hey, that this is going to break in a column.

I want you to get a cook in.

I want to find out, and I want the son of a bitch fired tomorrow in the event that he's guilty of this.

Do you understand?

What's involved here, this is the guy that made, that made another way to smoke it out.

Maybe he's not killing.

I think he probably is.

Because he's one of the harvesters.

Well, we think he's a high-tech drinker.

He's a Harvard class of 63.

But anyway, nevertheless, whatever the situation is, we are going to find this guy.

I mean, the way to smoke him out is simply say that this story is not anything we just want to know, and we want him to find out.

What about Mr. Cook?

Did he take classified documents?

Did he hold a stack of classified documents?

Did he deserve a classified document?

Who did he give it to?

What we think he gave these to our friend, you know, to Reyes,

That was for Ellsberg.

Ellsberg got Ellsberg.

But why did Ellsberg give these to the Times?

Well, he did.

He gave them to the Thais.

He gave them back to the Thais in the library.

But the Times had some 69 or 70 documents in them.

Is that the point?

I think it was.

I don't think it was the damn credit he had.

But he wanted to give them to the Thais, and he gave them up to the Ellsbergs.

Ellsberg didn't give them to the Thais at all.

The reason this is terribly important, of course, is that we have been saying consistently that these documents do not involve this administration.

Now, this appears now that we were wrong, is that correct?

It does not involve this administration.

It's a technical point.

that's what we were trying to defend.

They've got all that trash in the back of our documents, which is tonnage, a lot of which is worthless.

And with all the trouble with the haul out and all that, how can't you be virtually certain that one of the equal amounts of trouble with the haul out and stuff that is worthwhile about this administration?

But Ellsberg wasn't here after 1968.

But Ellsberg is.

How much of it does the rank guard version have?

Not as this.

They're going to be, they're going to be, God damn it, they're going to go forward on that.

They're going to be cut off.

They're getting cuts of that information.

Now, we ran right away.

I'm not going to let those bad people overheard it during everything at Randall.

I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, we'll just talk.

All right.

Just saying this about your Brookings.

I don't want anybody at Brookings, all their new appearances are going to be cut off immediately.

Is that clear?

At Brookings Institute.

Now, you know what Brookings, you know what our friend tells us?

Brookings has got a lot of stuff now that you want to send a colonel over to.

Yes.

No, no, no.

The thing to do, I want it done.

You've got to do it.

You, you, you've got to go ahead.

You have a large file in the Defense Department.

There's a large file in the Defense Department.

Tell me what I want.

But Brookings has no contract, but still has a lot of material.

They have a lot of material.

I want, the way I want that handled, Bob, is to do it another way.

I want, I want Brookings, I want them just to break it, break it, and take it out.

You understand?

Yeah, but you've got to have somebody to do it.

Well, you, that's what I'm discussing here.

You talk to them.

I want to break.

What the hell?

They do that.

You're to break in the middle of the way.

Why is it breaking?

Right on the files.

You don't have any problem with breaking.

This is in the Defense Department approved.

Security, just go ahead and take it.

Go ahead.

Go ahead and run it.

I'm going to fly an inspection to the site.

That's right.

You're going to inspect, check the air.

All right.

I should have cleaned it up.

Oh, yeah.

I'm going to check the security procedure.

We should try to do it.

We should give them the clearance.

We did that, don't we?

All right.

I think Henry's point is well taken, though, with regard to the way it should be handled.

The statement must be handled in a way that

We do not declassify the documents, which would make it appear that they were all worthless in the beginning, in any instance.

But simply that, by reason of the stupidity of the court, you know, and in effect turning us back on an unauthorized removal of documents, classified documents, that we have no choice.

and then give them only documents that we do not really consider the other.

It doesn't call you to that position, of course, that if you, I quote that in itself, I say, why don't you give us the rest?

How do you separate them out?

Well, I think that... You're going to say the center of our... No, I'm talking about the publication and the...

The Times will not print some of these that he's asking for.

I hope they do now.

I mean, I want them to get real.

They're tech brilliant, I reckon.

No, I think all of the comment is, again, material references to it, they will leave out.

So far they haven't violated that in their first publication.

No.

And I think negotiating tracks, I think, will keep those up.

From what our people tell me, John, that we're in the court and we're having a close hearing, say, voluntary, is there room for that?

Yes, and I called that through at the end of the day when I were in the debate about getting all of those papers that were filed in court in close session.

Well, I'd rather check those papers in order to know what's here.

Well, I was sensitive to the thing we're talking about.

Is that evidence for a Senate report?

Let's see, yeah.

Now, does that sound to you like the best?

I believe, I believe, I'm not old enough to know.

I believe that they used to be appearances in good offense.

This issue, this illness, this presence of bleeding, size down, and some other things, you know.

They did.

Also, I believe that if you take the moral position on this, as a man who fights for integrity and so forth, that this is a strong posture that they will gradually respect and find it on a more practical and less obstructive point.

I regret that this is just the beginning of what we're going to face.

and that if we get into a position where somebody releases a truck full of our documents to a newspaper, and we then use the fact that we can't enjoy the newspaper as an obligation for us to pull it out of everybody, I would much rather keep these newspapers as a position where they print it flat and write documents, the court applies the first amendment in a very generous way,

Uh, but all they found was it did no electrical damage.

We'll have to see about that.

Uh, we may have to group in a little while that it might not have any electrical damage.

Uh, so for all these reasons I, I'm not basically too sympathetic to pulling them out just because they thought of me.

But maybe you make the point, Jose, that some of you know.

Could you survive that heat over there?

I could survive the heat.

And if you go there's gonna come out a... We were told to move over with the declassification thing, so we're gonna be in a position where... Well, you have to do that for the court proceedings.

That's right.

Because the court forced us into the point after the point of pointing out the second certificate.

The announcement was made a little differently.

John, the announcement was made that this is further than the 15th of January.

It started as a declassification account.

I helped put in, I started this instruction on behalf of the president.

It was

The serious declassification study.

It didn't make any sense.

Not all of it, but it did make sense.

We have to declassify 90% of those papers.

We've got to declassify, though.

We cannot go Henry, hold out the idea that we had a declassification study and then declassify nothing.

No, no.

I do some.

That's why we're going to do it.

I do some.

If you've got to go, I'd do it on the basis of the principal offense, but I think you'll probably want to do it on the basis of the principal offense, but I think you'll probably want to do it on the basis of the principal offense,

A hell of a decision put on the House because I think we haven't seen the beginning of the decision.

You believe that we don't owe any parents to the neighbors to find the stolen material.

And they have access.

You're not, you can't do anything further than that.

It's just, it's all over the place anyway.

But, uh, I don't see what we can do.

I think that, like, I had published, and I think there are certain advantages in her putting up the documents.

with all the material off that really would be harmful to us, because then I take every paper and feel that at least we would have gone forward with what we said we were going to do.

Now if we say we're not going to give you any paper, and then... Oh, I've declassified 30% of that as part of the declassification prescription.

20%.

I've been very drastic.

I am glad you're writing up with 80% declassification.

80% that proves our opponents' case.

Uh, it's, uh, I don't say that generally because the position the government has taken in regards to other Western factors, but there aren't any certain parts of this material that are sensitive when it comes to national security.

And the rest of it, of course, would have been the D-class, but not any of it.

Well, that's still going on right here at Cal 50.

We declassified it.

Many things have been declassified faster than that for the present chance.

Well, I'd like to go see what we get out of it by outputting out these documents now on a declassified basis.

I...

You get off the hook of trying to be repressive with respect to information.

Well, I think we're also getting off the hook of, I'm not an expert on public opinion, but we're also getting off the hook of the President defending the integrity of government against these who steal 7,000 documents.

Where do you take care of that by the fact that they've already been circulated all over the place while you're doing this thing to a fairness standard with the press?

But... Do we owe...

I see that's what you're saying.

Let me say this.

I want the declassification done.

Why don't you continue with your study?

No.

in terms of what you really think she would be concerned about.

You see what I mean?

Not in terms of the fact that the court is all leaked anyway.

I don't think any of these things should be leaked because

As a result of an unauthorized disclosure, it is printed.

I mean, I don't think anything should be declassified because of an unauthorized disclosure, it has been made public.

I don't believe so.

I believe that on their declassification of the series, you can pretty much go right through the lines.

How you would have done it if you started on the basis that you were in January 15th, and how you would have carried the thing out.

We've got that both ways.

We can do it both ways.

The trouble is you're going to have a hell of a time when one of those documents appears in the New York Times and isn't in our document.

Then it's going to be up to us what kind of anti-classifications to see if you have, because...

I don't mind arguing that case.

I think on that ground, I'm going to hear pretty strong.

I think this, I think Henry has this point that the defense, I mean that we, here's where we get down to.

The goddamn Supreme Court should have determined what it should be classified.

They don't know.

The New York Times should have determined it, and Ellsberg should have determined it.

They haven't elected to do that.

We are.

The Congress set it up, and we're going to decide that.

And the idea, that's where the court was so wrong.

The court, to get into this thing and determine that this would actually be declassified, this is one of the worst decisions the court's ever had to do.

There's one thing I'm going to do.

I mean, I just don't know why I'll blame some of those bastards, because they've got to go.

Next time, I'll get Stewart off of Bob.

That's his problem.

Jesus Christ, I understand he was out in Georgetown singing from yesterday.

Oh, yesterday.

Last night.

Did people talk about it?

Did people be glad to glide 25% in those cities that were dead in the 50s?

And we have shown that we are doing the detailed identification according to whatever principles we have.

The New York Times then print 70 percent.

They continue to print 40 percent.

They have these documents.

And Mel does not put out something in his history.

So forth.

There's no justification for the detention of the classification.

You look like a damn fool.

I'd rather not put out anything that could do that.

I think it's just better to keep our study going.

I think you're right.

I think it's best to keep your study going.

I mean, Mel, I think you're right.

I think it's better to say, all right, we'll have a study going, and in due time, we will release those things that we think should probably be released.

Period.

That's what I would do.

If you could do that, I'd try to do that.

No.

Let me say that.

No, no, no.

Let me tell you this.

Tell our friends.

I personally, for example, am going to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I asked for that, and I'm going to get it if I have to break every goddamn bone in every body around this place.

And I have to get that out.

Because that shouldn't be classified anymore.

There's a few things.

But on this one, I think you're right.

I think you just do.

I mean, the time has gotten better.

But Mr. Preston, politically, I don't want to get into the pleasant parts of it here, but politically...

But it's got to be our fault.

I know that it's got to be our fault.

But I used to still let our friends put it out to have an equal chance to put it out.

Yeah, they're the ones that are a bit right.

They're the ones that are a bit right.

The Chicago Tribune and other friendly papers, they will be friendly on it.

The Chicago Tribune has one of the few editorial supporters.

And they're sitting right in my office now, sitting right outside of us.

They've been there all afternoon since the court decision.

You're not saying anything.

You're wrong, right?

You're saying you don't have any part in it.

And I just throw it over to Justice all the time.

I don't want to comment, but why else would I say it?

Because that's the way you finish your briefing.

Yes, sir.

We had all the interagency group over there that met today on the declassification.

They're pretty well in agreement.

You know, we can drag this out for another two weeks if that's what you want, Mr. President.

Another three weeks.

Tell them.

You can't justify the classified amount of those documents back in 64, 63, and 66.

He's correct.

But the point is that you can't justify it or have it classified at all.

That's the point.

It's the system that's wrong.

On the other hand, I can.

Yeah, but I really think...

If every assistant state attorney has to worry about his documents, it'll look like six years later when it's released.

We're going to have... That's right.

We're going to have one hell of a government.

I really think this is a very serious period for us, and if we play and build it like it did, we're losing the possibility of turning it into a longer term.

I can't judge what the advantage of the Chicago Tribune is against what we might be able to do six weeks to three months from now.

What would you advise then?

What course of action?

I frankly would advise that Richard Nixon was always refused to be callous to the principles that you will just say, we go ahead with our deep class litigation study in two times, deep class advice on things.

and let it come out in whichever way.

It's coming out all over the place anyway.

And he's made the newspapers feel that they're doing something that is violating the security and make them feel guilty from the beginning until later on.

When this excitement has started to be put out in government documents or printed form or

It's unplanned, it's like government documents, they're all exercised for the human spirit.

Can I just make one point here?

I know it doesn't make a damn difference.

I can go in either way if you want to help.

We will spend the next few months, once you go that route, to just say put out 20% of it, just publish some papers together, open about 5%.

We'll spend the next few months defending our whole system of classification.

You said that anyway.

Well...

If you put this all together to explain how it is, then... Yeah, but you're right about that.

The panacea, what I would think, would not base it all on declassification.

Base it on compromise.

In this particular case, to some extent, an unauthorized...

I won't use the word stolen.

An unauthorized documents.

And I think you've got to be...

I suppose if they see what comes out of our documents printed in the New York Times, then I'll, in fairness, put them under the government's documents.

Would you do it?

Well, I haven't been allowed to go to jail.

I have certain plans to go to jail.

You probably will.

Because there is a New York Times and a other domain here.

You want to make sure that your friends write about it in the better light of the New York Times and the Postal Report.

I'd get it, my instinct is to get into a position of fighting it rather than fighting the gun.

And whilst you're getting into the plot, you're being repressive to the news and all the rest of it.

You can't argue with the classification system in which we know the tank was never set in mega-damage.

And I don't even agree with this.

If you let yourself get sucked into a position where every individual classification has to be defended, the government is going to be in bad shape over a period of time.

It's because you have to look at it in terms of the conflict.

Well, we're going to be in bad shape after this, but we're going to tell you that.

Sure, but we should be fighting it rather than cooperating with it.

Well, we're fighting our friends then.

No, we are preventing taking a position just in New York Times that our enemies printed classified documents that the court hasn't taken away all the court has said.

That it hasn't done irreparable damage.

Well, is it alright to do irreparable damage?

Uh, they don't even know.

We may be able to prove that they might have done the electrical damage or some things that the court didn't notice.

And we may be able to prove that the court is not qualified to do this sort of judgment at some point.

And it's for public opinion, not for the court.

So you have to connect to no part of television, just by public television.

Well, after a lot of our folks went out there in television to start working on this, because you can't do it by yourself, you've got to get out there and start back again.

Everybody's been quiet.

I don't mind, for example, many, most of the newsmen I speak to now say there isn't anything very damning in these documents anyway.

I think that's good.

That's why it's hard to justify some of the classification I'm getting.

Yeah, but I think they're getting a little bit fewer in the public sector.

Well...

Well, let me suggest this now.

Let's not decide it tonight.

Can you hold it overnight?

Oh, sure, yeah.

We wouldn't say anything until the morning.

I don't want to get that report delivered to me.

We've got a version of the papers that could go public now.

Yeah.

And I'm going to be gone for, I'll take it for ten days.

I didn't think it was ever going to be important.

When are you going to be ready?

They're supposed to give me that report and I just didn't want them to give it to me.

Let me, let me.

Well, we ordered, we ordered the deflexification and for the court here, Mitchell had to have a report.

His solicitor general had to have a report.

We're going to have to have a line that we can defend under the directive.

Yeah.

Because we got it under the directive.

We have to prove it.

And these papers know every item.

No.

I don't think so.

We had to pay attention to pictures there.

In the court we proved, we tried to prove what we'd done, the irreparable national damage.

But I don't think we take the position that things that seem to do simple damage that we can't enjoy, it's all fair game, my friend.

You can't be sure.

I think the court has just said that.

Yeah, but it had to be spelled.

The court has said.

The test is, though, as far as the court is concerned, anything can be printed that does not do your record with that.

You may be wrong, but it can't let the government...

They said it can't be overrides.

They said it can't be printed early, that you can't stop them ahead of time for printing.

You still have that criminal recourse, don't you?

That's the reason why I didn't think about that.

There's four basic questions that we don't say a thing about.

The questions that I got, well, they were continued in the sequence that were heard.

Will the government- Do you refer to that, or did you say yes?

I just didn't say thank any of us.

I said one thing, no comment.

That's good, that's good.

Declassification.

Will the government declassify the voice of waters on the hill now that the court has ruled?

Will the president reaffirm his commitment to the first amendment and- No.

Well, of course, there's a letter of speech on the 7th.

Really?

Well, the government had a comment on that.

That's why.

Oh, you haven't got a decision yet?

Dependents.

Have you seen the dependents?

Well, they're not here, the dependents.

Are they not here?

Where are they?

You've got to hear.

No, the government, the lawyers have them around here.

Well, they have them around here.

I see.

Is everybody around here?

Everyone will be here.

I don't know if that's already happened before.

It's early, depending on the market, because that's what we want to do.

So he just rolled in the first minute.

Just stay right where you are.

We're not going to answer any of these questions tonight.

Mr. President, you said that you haven't studied the opinion of Chester and I haven't studied the opinion of Chester.

Why didn't you say that?

Why didn't somebody say yes on Ellsberg?

Well, that's what they've asked me.

Well, I have a point of view.

Well, they answered yes on that.

And when I said that, I already allowed them to ask.

You could never answer a question about prosecuting Ellsberg from here.

I'm the person who asked the Department of Justice to refer to that.

And the person who answered has got to be yes.

Yes, I'd be that son of a bitch forever.

Now, do you want the FBI to pick up this copy of the question?

No, not yet.

No, I want, this is the way to find out.

What's this?

Elliot Richards said it's to bring him in.

He used to say, now, tell me.

This is going to be a, this is, my other wife is planning on, he's a clever little bastard like this other guy.

I want to bring him in.

and tell him that this story is going to be printed in a couple of days, that a columnist passed it.

We've got to know.

In other words, and then we'll find out.

We may find out a lot more.

I see these guys in the car, so we may start to check.

See, our records show that he left the tent on the 21st of March, 69.

That was the story after me.

And our records show security, the reason that he was being questioned about security, as far as our department is concerned.

So the State Department took him out of those.

Is that a questioning on a security problem?

Yeah.

The time he left.

And he goes to State.

He went to his car over there.

Now, our records, if we check this out, show that he is with HGW now.

And I assume they're over there.

I'm not sure of the dates, but I just assume they probably transferred him to the helicopter.

Now, I could have called that way, but I am not talking to Chris.

Because if I had a little responsibility, I know I could do this to tell Kevin people not to give him this information.

Just as with me and my brother, the Marching Lair, I had to give that to John.

I just feel that I have to do that.

That's fine.

I don't know, but I want Elliot to get him in.

And I'd like to catch him quickly before he gets his defenses built.

See my point?

I don't want to get him in on just a normal kind of thing.

I know this kind of guy.

You've got to catch him unawares.

And Elliot brings him right in.

And I want to find out how Elliot shouldn't have taken him.

Well, he must be kind of a kooky guy.

He's got a big experience in understanding these, uh... Yeah.

I don't know.

Just, just...

I don't know what the matter is with him.

I don't know whether or not they're on the line if you want us to take on this case.

I've already spoken to him about that.

First of all, we will proceed now.

The court has spoken with regard to the classification of documents.

And we have now proceeded in that for that remedy.

But as far as the criminal charges are concerned,

But of course, they are, the court is, and it's something you have to read the opinions on, that the court's opinion clearly indicated, clearly does not impair the criminal prosecution of the young, and that we are going to continue to protect the classification system, continue to prosecute individuals who

and have an authorized disclosure.

So that's the line you've got to take there.

You've got to be next to that, haven't you?

What else would you say?

Oh, no, no, no.

That's a good point.

Well, some should, some of them, you know, has the security problem like now, not raising up with this decision as to what it does to her classification system.

Well, you can't.

Well, I can't do it.

Well, I'll charge you a classification of this type of material, but I'm not going to sound like I'm going to give you some thoughts on that.

It's a very important decision.

You might say that.

Well, I don't know if I'd say that.

But I think it applies to the foreign policy field just as much as it does to the nation's.

As a matter of fact, more important policy than it does to the nation's.

Well, because, I'll tell you why.

Because of the foreign policy.

Because we're not only foreign governments, we're nations.

Sure.

But God, the State Department has got so much stuff in there.

And also, the Federalist family doesn't do this as much.

But anyway.

Let us, let me think now about the, I think Henry has a point about whether we want to proceed as much.

Slow your declassification down.

Just say, well, we gotta take a look at that.

You see what I mean?

Well, I got to go through this.

They want to report to me, and I don't want to report until I have a chance to talk over you.

Yeah, well, I know, I know.

But in the meantime, it may be that you'll have to, that we'll have to take, isn't he really the one to take that position?

Well, Rockford should.

Did we talk to him?

Rockford, this is for the Senate.

He told you, I understand, that he could say something out.

It's our decision.

He was ready to speak out.

Yeah.

Did he tell you that?

He told us at the time we were trying to get him to say something before.

He is, it seems to me, for all kinds of reasons, would be a much better spokesman, secretary, or veteran.

Because it doesn't involve his papers.

It doesn't involve the newspaper, but also he's the former Attorney General as well as Secretary of State and former Attorney for the newspapers.

Well, you get it on the phone, Scott.

You get it on the phone.

He's in the dark speaking, and after he finishes tonight, just be left early.

I don't know what his speech is, but it's the same thing.

It's the same thing.

Could you do that?

In the meantime, let's see where this leads everybody.

You've got what you need to say.

So you're going to proceed with this in your single study opinion.

With regard to that, as far as you're concerned, how long do you say that we get back to how we want to have it?

Well, you know, they say that the study is going forward.

We promised that it would be ready in 45 days in court.

Yeah, fine.

That it would be ready.

Yeah, get your time.

Five, six.

Yeah, yeah, we got it.

They came out on this January 15th date.

Now, we've got to discount that January 15th because I don't use that date anymore.

Well, that's right.

That's right.

That didn't have anything to do with it.

It had to do with declassification generally.

This is part of the declassification.

We might have gotten to that in about two years.

That's another thing.

We can't tell the story on that unless it was also this study.

That's a different problem.

I don't want to get the impression you've been studying these damn papers since the 15th of January.

I don't know.

I haven't seen them.

All right.

I don't want to get in trouble.

It's fine.

So the other point is that you would say that the declassification that it took, that is, it could take 45 days to take 45 days.

Now, the question of making the papers available to other papers,

I think that's an awful tunnel.

Let me just take a night on it and see what they do there.

You lean to doing that, do you?

I lean to doing it for as long as we have.

As long as we go up in 45 days, Mr. President, we are going to do this.

Then I mean towards taking care of our people.

But we may not want to do it in 40 countries.

We may go on the attack the other way.

Well, we've already said we're going to do it in court.

We've said publicly, the Attorney General has said it would be...

I haven't said it would be 80% declassified.

It would be 15%, 25%.

Well, in court...

There's a big difference between saying 20% of the electrical damage and not everything that doesn't do electrical damage should be in the newspaper.

You see, his point is that the fact that the print papers have been printed, and the fact that the Court has held that as far as the injunction is concerned, that 80%, for example, can be safely printed,

might not, that should not prejudice your decision with regard to whether they should or should not be classified.

In other words, that would be a very different matter, because the classification does bear on matters that may not be at the level of irreparable damage, but are at the level that are criminal, basically.

I understand, Mr. President, this is just for people.

just to the reading that there were only three people that sent it to your page.

There were three that came along and sent it to the first amendment.

There were three that took the idea that how these papers only did anything in any way that you can't do.

These are the first decisions.

Yeah.

What were the other three, what did they say?

Well, three because they're equal to our credit.

Said there was a record of that.

Three others said, the first is the commandment.

Four were overruled.

Jesus Christ, isn't that something?

We'll have a free president after you lose his head.

That's the hell of a thing.

And anybody ever says, well, the president committed himself to freedom of the press, you just say, well, what's the next question?

You're goddamn right, so I will not.

Not this kind of freedom.

I never had that.

I love to get in that fight with them.

We're not going to go, I'm not so concerned about this, not anymore.

Scali and those people are all concerned about their president.

I'm not going to block these factors all my life.

I can pretend to.

I'm not concerned about the test problem, but I'm concerned about our problem.

That's right.

We're going to have to find out what's going to control the case.

I don't think we're going to be able to help.

But that's why I think a little harder here may help our problem.

But I'll tell you one thing, I want, look, I want to, if he is guilty and he's going to be out tomorrow, I want to move on it.

But before that... Well, I think it's... And now, do you want to go over...

There's a whole conspiracy, though, to see how many others are involved.

Well, who the hell's investigating the conspiracy?

What number is it?

Isn't it Rupert McHale?

Oh, nine, nine-and-a-half, so totally nine.

We have some of our people, and I don't even like to talk about it, Mr. President.

some of your people what they found me yeah you know that we've had to have a few undercover people right i love it go after them but i think you know that i think that it is but it's a question about it and now i'll go after it i'll take a look at it and get them from each thing down yeah and i think that what criminal charges made has quite a few people that are going to follow up here now and uh they won't do it yet

Well, Rob, I'd just sort of go out there and put you under the ladder, Jack.

I mean, you're a steel jacket.

Why don't you do that?

They don't expect a night of an opinion, so I don't know.

There's nothing for us to do.

Is the president going to make a speech?

Why should I?

Why don't you make a speech?

We might get some of our few people that we can do on a very quiet basis in the background that you're on some of these.

Oh, absolutely.

That's where we play our game.

Now, will you do that?

Get it out every which way you can now.

I'll be in with you, but you'll need to pray.

Well, I'm going to have to get my little deploy.

I want to sign up with you in God, and I know how to play that game.

I know how to play that game.

It'll have a lot of fun.

I know a few people are prepared to use it, too.

Why?

No, not again.

I think that the function for us to declassify because the court says there's irreparable damage is a mistake.

That's why I'm careful about that.

You've got to be careful about that.

I noticed that your line was guarded and I couldn't do more of that.

I think that Henry's point there is well taken.

We should not declassify.

Because the student got in that court, says the servant.

I think that the president, we played wrong this time.

Son of a bitch.

A year from now, we're going to take them on, don't worry.

But it's got to be Henry on the right case at the right time.

We've got to go after this Ellsberg thing.

It's got to be skillfully handled.

Mr. President, just looking at it just a little bit politically.

Sure.

I'll tell you, these papers in the hands of some of our friends will do us a lot of good.

I'll tell you, Mr. President, you're right.

And they'll be dead.

The Times and the Post are not the first ones.

I think I don't doubt that we can make political haste, but I think even at the end of the night with the polls, they're driving the Democrats crazy.

They're not building us so much, but they're driving themselves crazy.

I'll be making a little starter point on it in our own papers.

None of the Democrats that I see around us

I'm feeling good about these papers.

On the other hand, for a three-leaf stock, I think maybe losing a much more long-term position, plus the fact that this thing is gonna come back to haunt us when they start leaking out documents and then say, all right, we did it, but it's gone some places.

Now, yeah, it makes you another point that I'm concerned about.

You let him out for a three-leaf century.

After the whole thing is gone, it seems we're not really sure, Doctor.

What do you mean?

Yeah, but no one is sure.

They haven't heard us yet as documents.

What they've heard of is all this screaming about freedom of the press.

Uh, but we haven't been heard by the documents.

Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have an anti-entity article in the New York Times, no matter how screwed up, tells us some good, and the Chicago Tribune is loose to some effectiveness.

I haven't seen the details.

The New York Times can get spread by the New York Times readers and the Chicago Tribune can get spread by the Tribune readers.

And the Tribune readers don't read the Times, and the Times readers don't read the Tribune, and hardly anybody reads either one.

when it's all done.

But he said, why are two paragraphs from our services?

It's all the matters.

It says on TV that they didn't have our services.

But after we get through the work, I'm going to ask you to go on TV and defend our position.

We carry out a responsibility under the law to protect the national interest of the country and enforce the law of the land.

That's what we're going to do.

And we've done that.

And we will continue to follow our legal remedies and the directions that the court may not rule on.

And the legal remedies to protect the classification, to protect the security of the country.

That's about it.

You know the interview that they have.

Because we wouldn't go on if I didn't think we should go on.

So they interview a lawsuit.

No, they're putting it out in the New York Times.

I strangled him laying on the bed rest.

I'm sure it would be the two guys.

I don't want to be there for an hour.

Tell Ken I'm sorry I missed him, Mr. President.

What is that?

Tell Ken I'm sorry I missed him.

Oh, yeah.

You want him?

Yeah, he's over there now.

Yeah.

Thanks.

I got your back.

That's just my opinion.

Yeah.

Well, that's the reason.

Yeah, you better read it.

Let us know what your opinion is.

Well, I thought, Mr. President, it was...

Quiet.

Look, we understand all of this.

Let's walk around.

But, uh, if you don't, then we've got this.

Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Pentagon Papers and Supreme Court

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on June 30, 1971

Cite this conversation

Nixon, Haldeman & Laird on Pentagon Papers and Supreme Court

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on June 30, 1971

Related conversations

Cite this conversation