Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and Jeb Stuart Magruder

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Hello?

Yes, sir.

Well, I finished the OAS.

Good.

Hey, uh...

It takes care of Latin America, huh?

Well, for a while, we were saying, Bill Rogers is going down there.

We made a few gestures and so forth.

There's nothing you can do there, just except, you know, we've done a hell of a lot, but it's just one of those things.

Closing in with Ehrlichman, apparently, he said he had some urgency to talk about what the hell it's about.

I don't know.

He came over with his friend.

That's one thing I'm a little disturbed about.

Aren't you?

Yep.

I am.

I just don't know what the hell they're up to half the time.

Coulson thinks he's smart, but you know, sometimes you just, Coulson talks pretty freely and you never know.

Whatever it is.

What are you analyzing this Dean thing and so forth?

sure view that Dean probably didn't know the time after the election they met what the truth really was.

Is that right?

I don't think he knew for sure.

That's what he guessed it might be.

Well, we all guessed.

He didn't think he had any choice.

Well, we didn't really, did we?

We thought it was some screwballs.

I mean, that was—in fact, if I'd thought it up on it all, I'm afraid I didn't think enough about it.

But remember, I thought, oh, this is just nuts.

I know.

And of course, I couldn't

dream that Mitchell would do anything about it.

No, I'm talking about after the election.

Back at the beginning, I think that's right.

No, no, no.

I mean when we first heard about it.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

When Dean had his conversation.

Oh, after the election, we all knew.

Yeah.

I mean, we all had a pretty good idea.

But I mean, right after in June, for example, when we first heard about it and Dean had his meeting, I don't think any of us really thought that Mitchell could possibly be involved.

That's right.

Or McClure, for that matter.

That's right.

I mean, we thought that these guys just went off on a caper.

Yep.

Well, I'll tell you, I've just listened to this Magruder tape.

Yeah, tell me what you think of it.

It's all there.

It's an extremely valuable thing to have because he flatly says that he did it.

He says he's got a hundred years worth, a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five years worth of

jail sentence ahead of him on perjury alone.

And he says, when I talk, I'm going to tell the truth.

So he's going to get off the perjury?

Yep.

That's what Ehrlichman told me, that he was going to talk, so that's that.

He said he hasn't decided yet whether he's going to talk or say nothing.

He might go the fifth, I suppose, and say nothing.

Yeah.

it would appear that he's thought through and prepared for and his lawyers are advising him to talk.

And he says, when I talk, it won't in any way implicate Haldeman and in absolutely no way implicate the president.

And there was no involvement, no knowledge of either.

Well, in this respect, Bobby, he is telling the truth.

But he says it will hang Mitchell.

What the hell do you think this is?

Of course, we'll see what Colson's latest vignette is, but I was just going to say, what in the name of God is this thing that he's brought in here at this point?

I mean, I don't know.

What's your guess, though?

I mean, it's a curious thing.

I mean, just part of the game.

And almost making it up, though, Bob, because he may be victimized on it.

I'm not sure.

He's maybe by his lawyer.

Yeah, or somebody else.

Or by the press.

Yeah, that was my first impression, was that this was a press maneuver.

You know, they'd call you and say, the other guy's stuff, you better let's us talk about it.

So McGruder has already talked and he's given a statement.

You see, this went so far that when you examined Chuck, he said he backed off the tape and then backed off the transcript.

That's right.

Well, God damn him.

He shouldn't do that with you.

I mean, really.

I mean, I understand with others, but not with you.

No, but he just does.

He is compulsively unable to limit himself to the basic.

He has to embellish.

Well, you know, the real problem is John.

God damn, I feel for him.

Yep.

And, uh, geez, if I were advising him, I'd advise him to come forward and say, gee, I

I've told the truth all along, but I take the responsibility for this thing.

That's his way out.

He really ought to do that rather than go and hardline this damn thing.

He says, I didn't know about it, I didn't approve it, but I take the responsibility for it.

Right?

Yep.

And they'd let him off.

They'd say, well, you know, this great man was screwed up and ill-served by his people, and that's too bad.

That's right.

Obviously he had other pressures on him.

But who the hell can talk to John?

I don't know.

Moore is the only one, and I don't know whether he's got much influence anymore.

Well, I think I'll get Moore in tomorrow and talk to him a little about that.

I think that would be helpful.

I don't know.

Or is that bad?

Yeah, I guess it's bad.

I really ought to stay away from it, you know, because basically it's just a consumption of time and the rest.

I really don't know what the hell did happen.

I don't really know.

And I feel for all these people.

I'd like to do something to save them all, but there isn't a goddamn thing you can do, is there?

Do you think of anything?

Nope, I don't.

I mean, you say, don't let Dean go.

Like John says, well, for Christ's sake, somebody else is going to go.

Isn't that it?

I think you just cannot obscure the truth, the elementary truth.

You've just got to, whatever it is, we've got to be prepared to live with it.

We will live with it.

Don't be too damn worried about it.

Don't be too damn concerned about it.

Can they say Mitchell, the Attorney General and the President's campaign manager?

Let me tell you, yes, that's tough.

Any tougher than Adams?

No.

My God, Adams was Eisenhower's alter ego.

He was with him with the heart attack.

He was president, actually.

That's right.

You know, let's face it.

And it was personal venality and not just a caper.

This is just a caper, you know, like your poll showed.

Yeah.

When is that poll going to run?

The approval thing is apparently going to—is for Monday release.

He says, you know, they juke them around.

You never know for sure.

Well, I don't know what you think, but I think that's a goddamn positive thing, considering the beating and battering we've taken in the news magazines and the rest.

What do you think?

Excuse me?

I agree.

And considering what they make people think on the economy, which is the thing we know knocks things down, and which they say does.

It's really somewhat the Eisenhower syndrome, basically.

When Eisenhower, you know, when he went down to about forty-eight or forty-nine in fifty-eight, when the economy went very bad, it was much worse.

I mean, basically it was unemployment then, not inflation, but just unemployment.

But he went down to forty-nine percent, and that was his lowest, and then came up again.

But what held him up always was the fact that he thought he was the best guy to run the world.

And that's the thing we've got to keep in our minds all the time.

That's the thing where all this godly gook about my going out and being nice little old ladies and all the rest, it has to be put in perspective.

That, I think, is good.

But Bob, it's marginal.

I really think that's marginal.

Or do you agree?

I don't know.

I mean, this is something that, you know, if you talk to

to John or Ray Price or I'm sure Sapphire or the rest, they'd say that's the most important thing in the world, you know, to be a warm, nice human being like we all know you.

Well, God damn it, the press isn't going to print it, are they?

Nope.

And the television isn't going to cover it, are they?

Nope.

Not done.

So what do you do?

Occasional.

Just have a few events, don't you think so?

Just a few events.

You just keep doing them, you know, as in the normal course.

You don't go overboard and you

You don't avoid opportunities when you got them.

Right.

Make a few more.

Go out in the country a little more.

That I want to do.

Make as many as we can.

I think going out to the country is good.

I mean, even though it doesn't affect the pool, it just affects the country's sea.

Don't you agree?

Yep.

Right.

Well, anyway, I hope you're interested to see what Colson's latest gambit is.

Yeah.

Bye.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and Jeb Stuart Magruder

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 13, 1973

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