Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 37 › Conversation 037-099

Nixon phone call with Dean on Watergate and Executive Privilege

Wednesday, March 14, 1973 · 8:55 AM–8:59 AM ET · White House Telephone · 4 min

ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President); Dean, John W., IIIConversation037-099 on Tape 37StartWednesday, March 14, 1973 at 8:55 AMEndWednesday, March 14, 1973 at 8:59 AMRecording deviceWhite House TelephoneSourceNixon Library record for 037-099 ↗

AI Summary

President Nixon and John Dean discuss the administration's strategy for responding to an invitation from the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Dean's potential testimony during L. Patrick Gray III’s confirmation hearings. Nixon directs Dean to coordinate with Press Secretary Ron Ziegler to prepare for an upcoming press briefing, specifically emphasizing the need to manage public perception without appearing to block or whitewash the investigation. The President further instructs Dean to avoid involving H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in the planning due to their direct involvement in the Watergate scandal, tasking Dean instead with formulating a response that preserves constitutional executive privilege while maintaining flexibility for future procedural options.

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Transcript (AI-generated)

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Hello.
Mr. President, this is John Dean.
All right, sir?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Hello.
Good morning, Mr. President.
I thought that before you, before Ziegler went out, that maybe you and he would probably ought to come over and let me in and run by your questions and answers today.
Don't you think so?
I think that would probably be a very good idea.
Yeah.
So that he may be the lineup.
If you had a chance, you probably talked to them last night, but you haven't had any chance to.
this morning, huh?
No.
We do have the invitation and response.
I've been kicking around to Eastland.
That's something that probably Ron ought to have in hand this morning also before he goes out.
Sure.
They did not, as you're aware now, ask me any specific questions.
Outstands and is about like we anticipated, isn't it?
That is, it's an invitation.
Sure.
All the Republicans join this as a matter of tactics, or what is the situation on that?
Or do they honestly feel you should be subpoenaed?
I think they're in this position.
They're afraid to say, and this is probably indicative of what we're going to face all along, why shouldn't he come up?
Why shouldn't we invite him?
What do we have to hide?
We don't want to block.
We don't want to whitewash.
You haven't got anybody that would say, look, let's find a procedure where he could come up.
One of them step up to that.
Well, in the response that I've drafted, and I have not...
I wasn't in the meeting where they kicked it around.
I thought it best not be in the meeting just to hear what, you know, somebody's lawyer's not always his own best counsel.
Sure.
Oh, hell, you aren't the one that's involved here.
No, I know, but I did say in the response that after the acknowledgement of the letter as a matter of the President's personal staff and consistent with the President's statement of March 12 on the subject of White House testimonial appearances...
respectfully decline the invitation of the committee to formally appear and testify.
However, as the President has stated, it is the policy of this administration to provide all necessary and relevant information to the Congress, and if members of the President's personal staff can provide such information in a manner that preserves intact the constitutional separation of the branches, such information will be provided accordingly.
Rather than if members of the staff, the way I would state that, and members of the President's staff will provide such information in ways that
i think would be i stated positively right but i went on to say accordingly the senate committee on the judiciary believes that i can give assistance in providing relevant information and wishes to submit questions to me that have a bearing on the nomination of mr gray pleased to respond uh consistent with the president's statement you don't want to indicate that you that you're pleased to respond and and uh
Well, I thought, why not maintain all options at all times here, and just when they come back with a question, if they even do that, then swear to them.
Say so now.
No.
Yeah.
Because, you know, there's a possibility we could set a precedent here of a non-sworn response to interrogatories.
That's all the better for later precedents.
Yeah, yeah, which means that it probably won't work, but nevertheless, and that's all right, too, though, that we could come to the other thing if we have to.
That's right.
Because they might come back and say, well, you're just going to have a response.
What does that mean?
All right, fine, we'll make it a sworn response.
What more do you want, except to badger the witness up there in front of your committee?
That's right.
Okay, after you've had a chance to run it by the others and so forth, I want to talk to the, you know, the,
The difficulty is that I don't want to get Holloman and Ehrlichman in the thing because they're both parties in interest, and you're not.
Well, that's quite true.
You see, because both of them, and I think the best thing is for you, Ziegler, and I to talk about it.
All right.
Let me make a rather cool decision about it as to what we ought to do.
Don't you agree?
I think that would be very good.
You get the views of the others, however.
You get all their views and see what they are.
Come over whenever you're ready.
I'll do, sir.
Bye.
Bye-bye.

NARA Description

On March 14, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and John W. Dean, III talked on the telephone from 8:55 am to 8:59 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 037-099 of the White House Tapes.

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Conversation No. 37-99

Date: March 14, 1973
Time: 8:55 am-8:59 am
Location: White House Telephone

The President talked with John W. Dean, III.

[See Conversation No. 419-15]

       Watergate
             -Preparation for Ronald L. Ziegler's press briefing
                    -Invitation to James O. Eastland
             -Dean's appearance before Senate Judiciary Committee
             -White House stance
             -Senate Republicans
                    -Possible subpoena of Dean for L. Patrick Gray's, III’s nomination
                                             - 75 -

                            NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

                      -Dean's response
              -White House policy on Senate questioning
                      -Historical precedents
              -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
              -John D. Ehrlichman

       Meeting with President

Also recorded on March 14, 1973

  • 037-097 8:36 AM · 19 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at 8:36 am.
  • 037-098 8:36 AM · 16 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 8:36 am and 8:55 am.
  • 419-010 8:36 AM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at 8:36 am.
  • 419-011 8:36 AM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and the White House operator met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:36 am and 8:55 am.
  • 419-015 8:55 AM · 4 min — President Richard M. Nixon and John W. Dean, III met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 8:55 am to 8:59 am.
  • 419-016 8:59 AM · 10 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:59 am and 9:25 am.
  • 419-017 8:59 AM · 9 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:59 am and 9:25 am.
  • 419-018 8:59 AM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 8:59 am and 9:25 am.

All 47 conversations from March 14, 1973 →

Cite this conversation

Conversation 037-099, March 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/037-099 (accessed October 5, 2026).