Conversation 023-008

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Hello.

Mr. President, Mr. Haldeman.

All right.

Hello.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

We've just covered the whole ground here.

We can't talk about it at all, but we've got the deal with Irvin, apparently.

Yeah.

And the way he wants it done is by a Flanagan letter to the chairman, and we'll do that, deliver it to the chairman tomorrow morning when he returns.

And...

Now we spent some time on the next phase, which is to figure out how to avoid Gleason in another way, and there may be some opportunity to do that now.

How is that?

Well, on the basis of the stock-up of witnesses, and the general feeling is that Flanagan should be the last witness, if possible, that we want to put him on on Thursday and then close the thing down after him.

that they've got enough others backed up and enough maneuvering to do that they may be able to avoid Gleason at all.

Yeah.

And failing that, they're thinking about working on a written interrogatory, which would be infinitely preferable to Gleason appearing, because we could handle the questions and the answers then.

Well, to what extent is the opposition pressing for Gleason work?

trying to explore that not not too much uh although there was a strong maneuver today that to uh apparently to issue a subpoena for him but it apparently didn't materialize and uh what they wanted apparently was to get gleason in today when teddy was in the chair but uh they don't seem to have the same degree of zeal for getting them up tomorrow and gleason has has

told him he couldn't come today, but has said he'd be happy to come tomorrow.

Now, with all this going, what they'll do is move, hopefully, with the chairman to an executive session tomorrow morning to review, because the Flanagan letter will lay out the basis on which he would agree to testify and say, please advise me if the committee wishes me to appear on this basis.

Right.

And so they'll go into executive session to consider that.

Yeah.

And hopefully take some time, because hopefully Kennedy and Tunney will object.

which we would like, because we want an argument.

The more stalling we can do now, the better off we are.

Yeah, well, then we should talk for a long time, too.

So our guys will stall in the executive session also, debate all this.

That's very good.

Then they get a decision that they do want to hear Flanagan, and we get that news out tomorrow, and that's a good shot for us on the basis that Flanagan's agreed to come.

And he wipes aside executive privilege in the process, which is what Irvin wants him to do.

I say it isn't a question of executive privilege in this case because it relates to my dealings at the request of the Justice Department Antitrust Division and not my service to the President or my advice to the President.

And Irvin had a press conference this afternoon after Ramsden is up there testifying now, the expert that Flanagan brought in.

And Irvin has had a press conference which...

follows this because he's saying, based on the Ramson testimony, this intensifies the need to have Flanagan.

It's imperative now that we have Peter Flanagan.

In other words, he's putting up a thing of, I will not be satisfied with anything except getting Peter Flanagan up here.

Right.

So he's putting the focus on Flanagan in order to diminish the focus on the, you know, Timmons and Ehrlichman and all that.

Well, let me, has he agreed, though?

Here is Erwin's agreement.

First of all, number one, there will be no other White House witnesses.

Number two, he will support the closing of the committee hearings on the 20th as the Byrd motion requires on Thursday.

He will take no part in a filibuster and he will support Kleindienst on the floor when it goes to the floor and in the report that goes to the floor on the 27th.

Yeah.

And he says to Clark, he is very anxious, most anxious, to avoid a confrontation with the president on this sensitive constitutional question.

But as the record stands in the committee now, we have to have Flanagan.

This is a change of position on Irvin's part.

nobody's exactly sure why.

Yeah, that's what I wonder.

Yeah.

Well, that's it may be a snake in the woodpile.

He may think maybe he's concerned about his own could be could be the problem of his own thing where he's on a sticky wicket, which is one part of it.

Or it could be the pressure from Fannin.

who has gone to work on the basis that he's committing an unconscionable act and holding Kleindienst hostage to the executive privilege question.

And so now on the Gleason thing, they're, as I said, taking a series of moves to try to avoid getting Gleason in at all.

And Mitchell's going to work with the chairman on that, and they're going to work with Hruska to try and move it the other way.

And they've got Hruska scared because apparently Gleason's got something that involves Hruska.

Sure, he probably contributed to Hruska.

Exactly.

So they've reminded him of that, so Romans all of a sudden remember that it'd be good not to have him there.

And then John Dean's meeting with Gleason's lawyer...

in just a little while to uh getting some things straightened out with him and we're then they're going to meet with our senators on the on the chance that if gleason does testify how our senators want to handle the uh inquiry the problem is you see you got which i hadn't really thought about but you got birch by and uh and tunny on the committee and burdick yeah

Burdick and Tunney, I guess, were the two that were badly stung by police coverage.

That's right.

They know it.

They do know that?

Yep.

But that isn't going to, under the germanness rule, Gleason's lawyer is apparently solid, at least our guys feel he is.

He's solidly with us and will, even though we can't count on Gleason, we apparently can count on his lawyer.

And he'll object to the question?

He will object to the questions and raise the germanness point.

Well, our committee people should do that.

They will also.

I see.

Go both ways.

They'll support him and they'll raise it.

So the waterfront has been pretty well covered.

Yeah.

I think.

Okay.

And they're now drafting the letter for Flanagan to the chairman.

Flanagan gets back

late tonight he'll sign it and then they'll deliver it to the chairman in the morning chairman doesn't get back to late tonight either and uh so that's where it is i think i don't know what the hell yeah it doesn't matter whether we're better off or not there's not a thing we can do about it so what the hell if urban's agreed to the thing and then

The main thing is to have a hell of a filibuster tomorrow on the part of our people.

Fannin sat in with McGregor in his meeting with Irvin, which I think is good, because Irvin then can't disavow anything he said to McGregor.

What is the situation?

You mean Tunney and...

They think that Tunney will object to Tunney and Kennedy to limiting it to... To limiting the Flanagan testimony.

They'll want to go on a fishing expedition on Flanagan.

And so they'll object to the conditions.

But that won't matter because we have the votes to, with Irvin, to vote with them.

Irvin will vote with them and so will Byrd.

Yeah.

Well, has Byrd agreed to go along with this?

Well, Irvin will deliver Byrd, apparently.

And because it fits the Byrd motion of germaneness anyway.

Right.

So Byrd is in a good position to go along with it.

And if we get Irvin and Byrd, we're okay.

Right.

with solid Republican votes.

And then if we may or may not have Mathias, nobody counts him.

I mean, Clark just never counts Mathias, which is very wise.

Right.

You never can count him.

Actually, we've gotten him as it goes along, but it's better not to count him.

He does all his planning on the basis of not having him.

Okay.

It's a good battle.

So that's where that all stands.

But I really think that the best thing is to have one hell of a filibuster on the part of our people tomorrow.

Don't have a vote too early.

That's right.

Let them take the whole day on it.

What other witnesses have they got for Wednesday?

They've got...

Reineke and Gillenwaters and they've got this guy Stewart from San Diego.

Is that before Gleason?

Well Stewart supposedly is before Gleason and then next theoretically is Gleason but their thought is maybe they can keep Stewart if they run through the executive session in the morning and keep Stewart on all afternoon and that puts Gleason off to Wednesday and then they've got Gillenwaters and Reineke and they can't get them ahead of Gleason though.

I think they can't and that's up to the chairman.

Well, can Mitchell talk to the chairman?

Yes, that's what he's going to do.

And on what ground is Mitchell, does he let the chairman in on the deal?

Pretty much so.

He has to tell him.

Well, to a degree.

Yeah.

They've got other things to gain from the other witnesses.

Also, they're talking about, and I don't know whether it's a good idea they're going to decide, Gleason may just leave town tomorrow night.

See, Gleason has a letter filed saying he'd be happy to testify tomorrow.

Yeah.

Now, if they don't call him tomorrow, he's in a pretty good position to be gone.

And then if they call him on Wednesday, his lawyer can say, geez, he sat here all day yesterday waiting.

He didn't call him, so he's gone off to...

Particularly if he doesn't have a subpoena.

That's right.

He just goes off.

That's right, because it's only a request up to now.

And then we've only got...

Wednesday and Thursday to ride through.

They'll want to take all day Thursday on Flanagan, won't they?

I would think so.

And then they've got to go into their closing thing.

See, they'll have to go into executive session on a motion not to close.

Yeah.

Because Kennedy will obviously move to try and keep the hearings open.

Good.

That motion will fail if Irvin sticks with his deal.

Right.

Okay, fine.

I think they've done a fine job.

Let's see what happens.

Do the best they can.

Now, if you're pretty much wrapped up with that, I had a couple of ideas with regard to the Vietnam thing that I'd like to discuss.

But let's leave the others.

Colson's working on this, is he now?

No, he doesn't really have anything to do on it now.

If you want Colson on Vietnam.

What about McGregor?

McGregor is working on it because he's working on the Flanagan Ladder.

I'd leave McGregor on this for the time being.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't want to, frankly, I don't want to interfere with either one, Bob.

It isn't that important because I don't really need... Colson, there's no problem.

He's not on this now.

He's back on Vietnam.

Yeah.

Well, you come on over and I'll talk to you a little and then I'll see whether we need Colson to ride through because it's better that, frankly, that he keep right in her...

He's working on Vietnam anyway, isn't he, today?

Right.

Yes, sir.

Well, good.

He may have covered all the bases.

Thank you.

Okay.