Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 005-134
Date: Wednesday, June 23, 1971 at 9:31 AM
Participants: Ehrlichman, John D.; Albert, Carl B.; Nixon, Richard M. (President)
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/005-134

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello.
[0:01] Mr. Ehrlich?
[0:02] Yes.
[0:03] The Speaker.
[0:03] Yes, thank you.
[0:06] Thank you.
[0:06] Mr. Speaker, John Ehrlichman.
[0:08] Yes, sir.
[0:08] The President asked me to call you to give you a fill-in on his breakfast with Senator Mansfield this morning.
[0:14] Yes, sir.
[0:14] The President offered to make available to the Senate and the House the 47 volumes of the report on Vietnam and the 1965 study of the Tonkin Gulf incident.
[0:27] These documents are, as you know, still classified, and they would come to the bodies under those classifications.
[0:35] At the same time, there is a declassification review underway, which Secretary Laird mentioned yesterday.
[0:43] So, Senator Mansfield will be calling you.
[0:46] Uh, he... Well, I had a call from McGregor saying that they were signing him up here to be on the alert.
[0:53] Right, well... Over the military committee.
[0:55] Uh, Senator Mansfield, I think, wants to talk with you about the disposition of the documents.
[1:01] He has in mind that the joint leadership of both bodies, uh, should get together and discuss how they, how they will be, uh, distributed.
[1:11] And he, I think, has in mind some sort of a joint committee.
[1:15] But the President said that this was entirely up to the leadership of the bodies.
[1:22] So, Senator Mansfield indicated to the President this morning that he would be calling a meeting of you and Senator Scott and Jerry Ford and anyone else that you felt would be appropriate to discuss how to go from here.
[1:39] I see.
[1:41] That McGregor's call came to one of my secretaries earlier.
[1:47] Today?
[1:47] Yeah, later today.
[1:49] I see.
[1:49] 925.
[1:51] Right.
[1:53] So this amounts to a bail vote.
[1:56] They had it by immediately referring them through the parliamentarians.
[2:00] or dope security storage by the armed services committee oh well that's a logistics i think that was because secretary laird was concerned about how they would be stored but that's a that's really a logistical problem that we can work out oh i see all right okay thank you yes sir