Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 038-009
Date: Friday, April 13, 1973 at 5:48 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/038-009

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Hello?
[0:02] Yes, sir.
[0:03] Well, I finished the OAS.
[0:04] Good.
[0:06] Hey, uh...
[0:08] It takes care of Latin America, huh?
[0:10] Well, for a while, we were saying, Bill Rogers is going down there.
[0:13] We made a few gestures and so forth.
[0:15] 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.
[0:23] Closing in with Ehrlichman, apparently, he said he had some urgency to talk about what the hell it's about.
[0:28] I don't know.
[0:29] He came over with his friend.
[0:34] That's one thing I'm a little disturbed about.
[0:37] Aren't you?
[0:38] Yep.
[0:39] I am.
[0:40] I just don't know what the hell they're up to half the time.
[0:43] Coulson thinks he's smart, but you know, sometimes you just, Coulson talks pretty freely and you never know.
[0:52] Whatever it is.
[0:53] What are you analyzing this Dean thing and so forth?
[1:00] sure view that Dean probably didn't know the time after the election they met what the truth really was.
[1:07] Is that right?
[1:08] I don't think he knew for sure.
[1:10] That's what he guessed it might be.
[1:12] Well, we all guessed.
[1:13] He didn't think he had any choice.
[1:16] Well, we didn't really, did we?
[1:17] We thought it was some screwballs.
[1:18] 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.
[1:23] But remember, I thought, oh, this is just nuts.
[1:26] I know.
[1:26] And of course, I couldn't
[1:28] dream that Mitchell would do anything about it.
[1:30] No, I'm talking about after the election.
[1:33] Back at the beginning, I think that's right.
[1:35] No, no, no.
[1:36] I mean when we first heard about it.
[1:38] Oh, yeah.
[1:39] That's right.
[1:39] When Dean had his conversation.
[1:40] Oh, after the election, we all knew.
[1:42] Yeah.
[1:43] I mean, we all had a pretty good idea.
[1:44] 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.
[1:54] That's right.
[1:56] Or McClure, for that matter.
[1:58] That's right.
[1:59] I mean, we thought that these guys just went off on a caper.
[2:05] Yep.
[2:05] Well, I'll tell you, I've just listened to this Magruder tape.
[2:09] Yeah, tell me what you think of it.
[2:11] It's all there.
[2:13] It's an extremely valuable thing to have because he flatly says that he did it.
[2:24] He says he's got a hundred years worth, a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five years worth of
[2:29] jail sentence ahead of him on perjury alone.
[2:33] And he says, when I talk, I'm going to tell the truth.
[2:38] So he's going to get off the perjury?
[2:40] Yep.
[2:41] That's what Ehrlichman told me, that he was going to talk, so that's that.
[2:46] He said he hasn't decided yet whether he's going to talk or say nothing.
[2:50] He might go the fifth, I suppose, and say nothing.
[2:54] Yeah.
[2:54] it would appear that he's thought through and prepared for and his lawyers are advising him to talk.
[3:01] And he says, when I talk, it won't in any way implicate Haldeman and in absolutely no way implicate the president.
[3:10] And there was no involvement, no knowledge of either.
[3:16] Well, in this respect, Bobby, he is telling the truth.
[3:19] But he says it will hang Mitchell.
[3:26] What the hell do you think this is?
[3:27] 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?
[3:37] I mean, I don't know.
[3:38] What's your guess, though?
[3:39] I mean, it's a curious thing.
[3:41] I mean, just part of the game.
[3:44] And almost making it up, though, Bob, because he may be victimized on it.
[3:49] I'm not sure.
[3:49] He's maybe by his lawyer.
[3:51] Yeah, or somebody else.
[3:53] Or by the press.
[3:56] Yeah, that was my first impression, was that this was a press maneuver.
[3:59] You know, they'd call you and say, the other guy's stuff, you better let's us talk about it.
[4:06] So McGruder has already talked and he's given a statement.
[4:13] You see, this went so far that when you examined Chuck, he said he backed off the tape and then backed off the transcript.
[4:22] That's right.
[4:23] Well, God damn him.
[4:24] He shouldn't do that with you.
[4:26] I mean, really.
[4:27] I mean, I understand with others, but not with you.
[4:28] No, but he just does.
[4:30] He is compulsively unable to limit himself to the basic.
[4:36] He has to embellish.
[4:43] Well, you know, the real problem is John.
[4:45] God damn, I feel for him.
[4:47] Yep.
[4:47] And, uh, geez, if I were advising him, I'd advise him to come forward and say, gee, I
[4:53] I've told the truth all along, but I take the responsibility for this thing.
[4:59] That's his way out.
[5:01] He really ought to do that rather than go and hardline this damn thing.
[5:05] He says, I didn't know about it, I didn't approve it, but I take the responsibility for it.
[5:10] Right?
[5:10] Yep.
[5:11] And they'd let him off.
[5:12] They'd say, well, you know, this great man was screwed up and ill-served by his people, and that's too bad.
[5:20] That's right.
[5:21] Obviously he had other pressures on him.
[5:24] But who the hell can talk to John?
[5:28] I don't know.
[5:29] Moore is the only one, and I don't know whether he's got much influence anymore.
[5:34] Well, I think I'll get Moore in tomorrow and talk to him a little about that.
[5:37] I think that would be helpful.
[5:38] I don't know.
[5:39] Or is that bad?
[5:41] Yeah, I guess it's bad.
[5:46] I really ought to stay away from it, you know, because basically it's just a consumption of time and the rest.
[5:54] I really don't know what the hell did happen.
[5:57] I don't really know.
[5:58] And I feel for all these people.
[6:02] I'd like to do something to save them all, but there isn't a goddamn thing you can do, is there?
[6:08] Do you think of anything?
[6:09] Nope, I don't.
[6:10] I mean, you say, don't let Dean go.
[6:12] Like John says, well, for Christ's sake, somebody else is going to go.
[6:15] Isn't that it?
[6:20] I think you just cannot obscure the truth, the elementary truth.
[6:26] You've just got to, whatever it is, we've got to be prepared to live with it.
[6:33] We will live with it.
[6:35] Don't be too damn worried about it.
[6:38] Don't be too damn concerned about it.
[6:40] Can they say Mitchell, the Attorney General and the President's campaign manager?
[6:44] Let me tell you, yes, that's tough.
[6:47] Any tougher than Adams?
[6:49] No.
[6:50] My God, Adams was Eisenhower's alter ego.
[6:53] He was with him with the heart attack.
[6:54] He was president, actually.
[6:55] That's right.
[6:56] You know, let's face it.
[6:58] And it was personal venality and not just a caper.
[7:02] This is just a caper, you know, like your poll showed.
[7:05] Yeah.
[7:07] When is that poll going to run?
[7:12] The approval thing is apparently going to—is for Monday release.
[7:17] He says, you know, they juke them around.
[7:19] You never know for sure.
[7:22] 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.
[7:29] What do you think?
[7:31] Excuse me?
[7:32] I agree.
[7:37] And considering what they make people think on the economy, which is the thing we know knocks things down, and which they say does.
[7:44] It's really somewhat the Eisenhower syndrome, basically.
[7:49] 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.
[7:58] I mean, basically it was unemployment then, not inflation, but just unemployment.
[8:02] But he went down to forty-nine percent, and that was his lowest, and then came up again.
[8:07] But what held him up always was the fact that he thought he was the best guy to run the world.
[8:12] And that's the thing we've got to keep in our minds all the time.
[8:16] 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.
[8:25] That, I think, is good.
[8:28] But Bob, it's marginal.
[8:30] I really think that's marginal.
[8:32] Or do you agree?
[8:33] I don't know.
[8:33] I mean, this is something that, you know, if you talk to
[8:37] 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.
[8:46] Well, God damn it, the press isn't going to print it, are they?
[8:49] Nope.
[8:50] And the television isn't going to cover it, are they?
[8:51] Nope.
[8:52] Not done.
[8:53] So what do you do?
[8:55] Occasional.
[8:55] Just have a few events, don't you think so?
[8:58] Just a few events.
[8:58] You just keep doing them, you know, as in the normal course.
[9:02] You don't go overboard and you
[9:04] You don't avoid opportunities when you got them.
[9:06] Right.
[9:07] Make a few more.
[9:08] Go out in the country a little more.
[9:09] That I want to do.
[9:10] Make as many as we can.
[9:11] I think going out to the country is good.
[9:13] I mean, even though it doesn't affect the pool, it just affects the country's sea.
[9:17] Don't you agree?
[9:18] Yep.
[9:20] Right.
[9:22] Well, anyway, I hope you're interested to see what Colson's latest gambit is.
[9:25] Yeah.
[9:26] Bye.
[9:26] Bye.