Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 917 › Conversation 917-005

Nixon & Higby on Watergate and John W. Dean III

Monday, May 14, 1973 · 11:00 AM–11:10 AM ET · Oval Office · 9 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Higby, Lawrence M.Conversation917-005 on Tape 917StartMonday, May 14, 1973 at 11:00 AMEndMonday, May 14, 1973 at 11:10 AMRecording deviceOval OfficeSourceNixon Library record for 917-005 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon met with Lawrence Higby to discuss the location and existence of specific political memoranda that might have been shared with John Dean or H.R. Haldeman. Concerned about the potential impact of these documents in the context of the Watergate investigation, Nixon instructed Higby to verify their existence by consulting secretaries Beverly Kaye and Rose Mary Woods. The conversation also touched upon the sensitivity of national security documents mentioned by Dean in court and potential unauthorized activities involving E. Howard Hunt.

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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 Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

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Yes, sir.
Hi, Larry.
I'll tell you what I wanted you to give it to me, if you would.
You'll recall that at the time, I was writing sort of what I called, or we didn't do any of the political memorandum this year, the political memorandum, which I didn't want to go into class, and I decided to send it in to Bob.
The memorandum called for
or for somebody else, they'd want a copy and so forth and so on.
He, what I, I did it two different ways, as I recall, and I usually have the girl I'm here with, what's her name?
Do you mind?
You mean Beverly Kent?
No, Beverly, yes.
Did she do the...
Yes, she did a viewpoint.
Right.
And then...
Do you know where those are?
Yes, sir.
Now, in some cases, what I did was to make, was to dictate the memorandum and just send the
You know what I mean?
I would not have a copy made, I'd say.
I think there are a couple of cases of that sort.
But could I ask you to go to the file and take out the stuff from about the... about the...
27th of february on the 15th of april
I don't think much.
I don't think probably more than eight or ten.
I don't know.
You would probably know where they are, I'll tell you.
Yes, sir.
We kept them all under walking key in our office, and they're now over in the class.
That's the tapes and any copies.
So they're all officially noted.
Except for a few that you asked back for yourself.
Oh.
A couple you asked for the tape back and to make a copy for all of them,
Yes, sir.
They were directly to Haldeman, and they were done in a loose, kind of a free-flowing style with a clear understanding that they were only for Bob and not for distribution.
Right, right.
Sir, I am 99% sure that there was never a memorandum like that, at least that I ever saw.
It seems to me to be safe.
What we might want to do is simply to take a look at that file from really June 17th of last year up to the present.
You see, I'm only interested, basically, in that file, Larry, in terms of what I, myself, may have written.
And that's the thing I didn't start for this version this year, as I recall, something like that.
I just started writing political guidance somewhere, and I put Haldeman on me.
Haldeman eyes on me.
You were very, very specific on the guidance you gave at the start of the tape, whether you wanted the tape back or not.
Well, I'm virtually positive, as I sit here, and as I say, I'll be happy to check, that there was never any memorandum of that sort of entity.
I don't recall any, frankly, ever dealing with one entity.
Wouldn't virtually ever give them a grant or anything.
So what, suppose I had given one of that kind to Beverly, for example, and said, bring the date back to me.
Would she reserve it to Dean without it going to my home?
No, sir.
Not sure, but she was under instructions not to.
Yeah, I'm sure she would, though.
Unless you gave her a specific.
You called her in here and sat her down and said, I don't want anybody to see this, including all of them, in regards to what instructions I've given you.
However, even at something like that, I think she would have said the President has a confidential memorandum that he doesn't want anybody to see, but so that we could at least be aware of the existence of it.
Can you trust her enough to ask her if there was ever a memorandum, indeed?
Yes, sir.
Can you?
No question.
No question.
Why don't you do that?
Okay.
Tell her that's the best way to do this, rather than in terms of going home and going through all the memorandum, Larry.
Rather than have to do that for a matter of minutes, whether I ever wrote him a letter.
I never believed or recall writing it, but if I did, I'd God damn well want to know.
Yes, sir.
So would you, if you could, on your own, check Beverly.
Actually, Beverly, we're trying to run down this thing.
Did the president ever write any one of these comments from her head to the dean?
I mean, to see what her recollection is.
I know I wrote one of them all, and I may have written one to her, but I don't ever recall any of it.
Okay.
Do you want to check?
Huh?
Do you want to check to see if there were any to John?
Is that really the question?
They're relevant to whether it's to John's father.
I mean, they're both trustworthy men, you know what I mean?
And they're with, you know what I mean?
Those memorandum are here, but what you've written to me can be in the public province, and I don't even know what the hell they are if there aren't any.
Okay, there would be one other source that might be good to check, and you'd probably be the best one to do that, which is Rose.
Occasionally, I know that she would give things to Rose.
For example, Sarah, up at Camp David sometime on the weekend, if she happened to be up there, the stewards might send something down to her.
That would be the only other way something like that could be in existence.
Sure, I'll check with her.
and bizarre, as I understand it, is now moving with justice.
Justice is the one that has to turn it off, and they're in the process of doing that now, until we at least find out what they'll be saying.
This is national security stuff.
Was the judge seen?
No.
Then how do we know?
How do we know what the content, Larry, that says that... Because Dean stood up in court and said that we don't know what the specific content is.
All we know is what the classification is because Dean stood up in court this morning and indicated that it was marked top secret and common.
That the documents that he had in his file were marked top secret and common?
Yes.
Community intelligence companies.
intelligence be, could that be official, or could that be a hunt operation?
Well, I suppose if Hunt decided to classify, it would probably be official.
I really shouldn't be able to answer that question.
Well, I'm just curious, though.
Well, the hunt thing could be.
It's mine.
John Berwickman told me that, you know, Hunt tried a lot of things, but he never, as far as John, had ever done anything.
bugging you know they were supposed to do a second story job in some place and everybody did this but they never did they don't they just screwed up everything and my idea would be probably did it but if we did we don't have it do we i don't believe so we don't think they have any vital we have no file of any of any hunt uh what i mean groups
If they did any tapping, I'm going to be very long term on it.
Yeah, I understand that.
All right.
For my own, if you don't ask the pharmacist, go ask Beverly right now.
She'll remember every hybrid in the team.
She'll remember one of the private ones, right?
Okay.
Because she must know.
She's trustworthy.
They were just super curious.
Yeah, I'll ask that.
There's only one other group.
That would be the chief.
Yeah.
And you can say, did I ever do it?
I mean, if she could have done it, how about this one?
She didn't do it.
No.
I don't think she was over here, but I'll check, too.
Once again, in all three cases, you know, we've got very, very, very... That's right.
As if they ever remember any memoranda.
Fine.
Check it.
Come right back.
You can take them all right away.
Come on.
Good.

NARA Description

On May 14, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Lawrence M. Higby met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:00 am to 11:10 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 917-005 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 917-005

Date: May 14, 1973
Time: 11:00 am - 11:10 am
Location: Oval Office

       Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542

The President met with Lawrence M. Higby.

       Watergate
             -Higby’s search of the files
                    -President’s memoranda [memos]
                            -Political topics
                            -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
                            -Beverly J. Kaye
                            -File location
                            -President’s procedures
                            -Recipient
                                    -Haldeman
                                    -John W. Dean, III
                            -Kaye’s procedures for handling
                            -Recipients
                                    -Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Dean
                            -Rose Mary Woods’s files
             -Dean documents
                    -J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr., Justice Department
                    -National security
                            -Buzhardt
                    -Dean’s statement in court
                            -Security classification
                            -E. Howard Hunt, Jr.
             -Hunt
                    -President’s conversation with Ehrlichman
                            -Activities
                    -White House files
             -Higby’s search
                    -President’s memos
                            -Kaye, Patricia B. McKee, and Nellie L. Yates

Higby left at 11:10 am.

       Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542

Also recorded on May 14, 1973

  • 917-003 10:50 AM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:50 am and 11:00 am.
  • 917-004 10:50 AM · 23 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 10:50 am and 11:00 am.
  • 917-006 11:10 AM · 8 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:10 am and 11:25 am.
  • 917-007 11:10 AM · 3 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and White House operator met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:10 am and 11:25 am.
  • 046-024 11:15 AM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 11:15 am and 11:25 am.
  • 046-025 11:25 AM · 3 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Lawrence M. Higby talked on the telephone from 11:25 am to 11:28 am.
  • 917-008 11:25 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Lawrence M. Higby met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:25 am to 11:28 am.
  • 917-009 11:28 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 11:28 am and 11:40 am.

All 102 conversations from May 14, 1973 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 917-005, May 14, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/917-005 (accessed October 16, 2026).