Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 006-062
Date: Wednesday, June 30, 1971 at 7:22 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/006-062

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Yeah.
[0:03] The hardest.
[0:04] Bob?
[0:04] Yeah.
[0:04] First, the way that the layer thing is going to be handled, I guess, is that he's got to handle it.
[0:29] He's not a good story.
[0:29] He's not a good story.
[0:30] He's not a good story.
[0:30] Second point is that
[0:31] But on the other hand, I want you to tell him that, because I know that you're going to have Scali and Garmin.
[0:50] I've decided on the hard line on it.
[0:51] Maybe you've got to get the hard line with regard to this thing, rather than the line that just came out.
[1:00] and I want John to develop his thoughts along that line.
[1:22] I'm not sure I should make a statement.
[1:23] I'm not sure I should at this point.
[1:23] But, you know what I mean?
[1:24] This may be, you want to let it ride, right?
[1:25] Most important is we've got to know in this layer, oh, they've got a huge espionage network.
[1:27] We've got to look at them.
[1:27] We've got to look at their institutions.
[1:28] We've got to look at their files.
[1:29] We've got to look at their screens.
[1:36] Also, we've got to get all of this information regarding the cops.
[1:54] I don't know.
[1:54] I guess we don't have anybody on our staff that's working on this other thing.
[1:55] Except Houston.
[1:56] We've got a team can in this group.
[1:56] Well, but do they understand how we want to play the game?
[1:59] Can you tell them?
[2:01] They know how tough it has to be playing?
[2:03] Yes.
[2:04] Dean, you say?
[2:12] Yeah, I think what we may want to do is...
[2:20] Better have two pockets.
[2:24] It's a tough game.
[2:24] Now, the Richardson thing is terribly important.
[2:28] What did he say?
[2:29] He said, fine, he would get him in right away.
[2:29] He then started telling me what a fine fellow he is.
[2:31] All right.
[2:31] I don't know about that.
[2:32] The point is, we have got to find out if he did that.
[2:33] Yep.
[2:33] Oh, I told him.
[2:47] You told him it's ready to break.
[2:48] I told him the story may break tomorrow, but they've got a hot story on it, and then we've got to get the guy in it, because it could really blow up into a big one.
[2:54] We've got to get him in and find out what the story is.
[2:56] And then, see, it's just the type of guy that would be bad, father and admiral, gone to Harvard, you know, one of that sort of thing, you know what I mean?
[2:59] He gets brainwashed.
[3:00] That's just the kind of Bob we're going to find.
[3:01] Ellsworth probably comes from a good family.
[3:07] I don't think he's too surprised.
[3:15] Well, he married into a good family.
[3:17] He sure did.
[3:19] See?
[3:19] Yeah.
[3:19] The other thing, I've already talked to Colson on, of course, we unfortunately destroyed the Monday, but I do hope that we are able to continue to hit our prime thing now that we've started this.
[3:29] Right.
[3:29] I'm sure that we'll get to do something.
[3:37] Did you see any of the television?
[3:51] Okay, well, I'm glad you got Richardson.
[3:53] Let's follow through on it.
[3:53] In the morning, I think we'd better get together in turns after I run the meeting.
[3:56] We'll get together in turns.
[3:56] And do I understand, in terms of getting this whole, we've got to get it steamed at all.
[4:03] But I decided on the hard line.
[4:03] I'm going to go on that.
[4:04] And rather than just turning it all over because it's... You see, John Mitchell is obviously...
[4:07] I don't care about the repression issue.
[4:15] I'm not concerned one damn bit about a time before that.
[4:18] I don't think that hurts us politically at all.
[4:20] If we can make a security issue about it, that's what we have to do.
[4:30] If we throw in the towel, we'll lose both.
[4:31] Okay, well, I'll go over that with John, and we'll see what he does.
[4:33] Good.
[4:33] Tell John Ehrlichman when he gets back.
[4:37] going to go with a complete cave-in on the whole security system as a result of this.
[4:51] I mean, very strict, very tough, bite-off, invincible thing.
[4:54] Not concerned.
[4:55] Don't get the freedom of the press.
[4:57] Don't listen to Scali and the people like that, you know, who are, etc., who will be, and they should be, they will be terribly concerned because they're under enormous pressures.
[5:01] But that is not my view.
[5:03] Okay.