On April 13, 1973, John D. Ehrlichman and President Richard M. Nixon talked on the telephone from 6:16 pm to 6:31 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 038-012 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Hello?
Mr. President?
Yeah.
I have Mr. Ehrlichman calling you, sir.
All right.
Thank you.
Hello, though.
Yes, sir.
Well, they have quite a tale of horrors to tell.
The bit of information that they had was that Hunt has decided to tell all of the grand jury Monday at 2.
That he... And the way they put it, it's not conclusive, but my suspicion is that Bittman, his lawyer...
made a deal with the government so that Bittman does not get caught in this obstruction of justice business.
But he will— Bittman, Hunt's lawyer?
Right.
He will implicate the committee lawyers, Parkinson and O'Brien, as the bag men and the transmitters of money through Hunt to the Cubans and through Hunt to Mrs. Hunt for other people and so on and so forth.
Why will Hunt do this, do they say?
They think simply because he has no incentive to stand mute now, he sees the whole thing going up in smoke, and he just doesn't want to be the only guy holding the bag.
Do you think he's going to get something out of it, though?
I think Littman is the guy who's getting something out of it.
And, of course, Hunt purges himself of contempt when he does this, so he gets a little something out of it, certainly.
This is at the committee, however.
No, no, this is at the grand jury.
understand, but the grand jury is pissing on the committee.
Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
Now, this whole hour I just spent with these fellows was a St. Mitchell operation.
Well, I hope you...
I did, and I have, for what it's worth, I have Colesman's commitment that he will do nothing, say nothing, make no move without prior approval at this point.
Well, it isn't an argument.
They recount a whole lot of details and circumstances here.
There are apparently two other grand juries at work.
The one that we know about in New York, which is very close to indicting Mitchell on something called Section 201.
which involves his giving an appointment when he was Attorney General, seeing Vesco in consideration of a campaign contribution.
And they represent one of the witnesses, Danny Hofgren, who has testified in that case, so they're pretty well up on the progress of that, they say.
The second is here in Washington, where the grand jury was convened to indict a fellow named Klein for income tax evasion.
And apparently it comes out that he gave money to Mitchell, and they were not clear on whether it was supposed to be campaign contributions or what, in return for Kline getting government contracts.
Jesus Christ.
Well, I can't either.
But anyway, the grand jury thinks there's enough there that they're going along on it, and that's in progress.
Right, right, right.
Liddy and Hunt had a conversation, according to Hunt.
This fellow Shapiro has interviewed Hunt, and Hunt told him this.
Liddy and Hunt.
Hunt says, this is a screwball operation, this Watergate thing.
I don't think I want to go forward with it.
Liddy says, well, Howard, we have to.
We can't call it off now.
Mr. Mitchell has specifically instructed that we do, and we must go ahead.
So this is who Hunt tells this.
This is Hunt's testimony, and it's just a, and so on, and so it comes in.
Also, Hunt tells Shapiro, the reason Liddy is sitting there is, without saying anything, is he has a blood oath from Mitchell that he's going to get a presidential pardon.
Shit.
So...
Mitchell's never talked to me, of course, about it.
Right.
But never anybody.
That will also go in, you see.
Now, Mitchell, you think that he might have done it, though.
Well, I don't know.
But in any event, that's what Hunt will say that he told him, you see.
That's the problem.
Another thing Hunt will presumably testify is that he was advised to leave the country by John Dean right after this.
I think he was.
I don't know whether John advised him, but I think somebody must have because he went to ground and he was missing for a long time.
They have several suggestions.
They say, first of all, what's going to happen is that by Wednesday of next week, if Hunt goes in like this, this is sure to leak, and there'll be a big front-page story about some of these allegations.
Lots of congressional excitement, lots of flushing around among Republicans.
They say the only thing you can do is beat this thing to the punch, and they have several suggestions.
Well, no, that's a minor aspect of this, so they don't hardly get to that.
Incidentally, I've got Coulson's long basic document, which was written before he knew that Hunt was going, and that has Fire Dean and these other things in it.
First thing Shapiro says is to restate very clearly
that criminal conduct is not embraced within executive privilege.
Never was intended to cover it.
Well, that isn't for me, but that's for somebody else to do that.
Yeah, but he means from here, the Justice Department, who are, yeah, right.
Clandings could do that, but no criminal act is within the scope and so on.
Right.
I agree with that.
Secondly, someone, Colson says me, Shapiro says Fred Fielding or somebody, but if somebody comes into you
and lays out the damaging evidence.
The U.S. attorney is given the damaging evidence by somebody in the president's behalf.
Next, the president's man goes to see Gordon Liddy and says, Gordon, I don't know what you may have been promised, but obviously no one had authority to promise you a pardon.
The only way you could be entitled to any consideration in a case of this kind would be by coming clean.
by telling the truth.
And the president very much wants you to tell the truth, always has wanted you to tell the truth, regardless of who you are.
Then you have stolen a march on Hunt.
You have broken the case by persuading Liddy to come clean.
He's the key to the Watergate thing.
The focus is all on Watergate with Liddy.
And you have demonstrated your desire that all come out.
That's their plan.
How does this all affect Coulson?
Well, I don't know how it all affects Coulson.
Hunt has got to talk a lot about Coulson, I would guess.
That's the other point, if you want to keep Hunt silent.
One marginal piece of news that they brought in that has Coulson a little shook is that McCord has told a U.S. attorney that he participated in an operation with Hunt to go out to Las Vegas
leave their airplane with the engines going, standing by, go into town, bust Hank Greenspun's safe, steal some stuff from it, jump back in the airplane and come on back.
And that Coulson masterminded it.
In the name of God, would that be?
I can't imagine.
But Coulson stoutly and devoutly maintains that he never heard a thing about it.
I'd never heard of it before.
I'd never heard of Hank Greenspan before, and so forth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you see, you've got to analyze all of this, John, as you of course know in terms of what Colson and Shapiro are thinking of.
Sure.
Why don't you think it over a bit?
I will.
And see where we go from here.
As I say, it's another Mitchell tubing.
Their whole point is that sometime between now and 2 o'clock Monday afternoon you have to sink Mitchell, and that every minute counts.
I have to sink Mitchell.
In order to detach yourself from it, because otherwise Hunt will have conclusively sunk you, and nothing you can do thereafter could get out ahead of it.
What do they say?
In essence, Hunt is going to testify that at right when?
2 o'clock Monday.
And on that occasion, he's going to say, watch, let's run that over again with me, if you will.
Well, he will tell about his conversation with Liddy, where Liddy said, we have to do this because Mitchell wants us on it.
He will say Liddy told him that he shouldn't testify, that he, Liddy, wasn't going to testify because Mitchell was going to get him a presidential pardon.
He participated.
How do we handle that presidential pardon thing?
We just deny it.
Flat out deny it.
Frankly,
Frankly, it's not only a photo denial, it's totally true.
That's right.
Mitchell's never discussed the goddamn piece with me.
Right?
Sure.
The way he says, Mitchell says he's going to get a part.
Well, that's Mitchell.
Not that that's any comfort.
Sparrow has an interesting line.
I said, what would you do if you were John Mitchell's attorney?
He said, very simple.
He said, I'd do two things.
First thing I'd do is try and stop the Irvin hearings.
The second thing I would do is come in and try and prove insanity.
He said, Mitchell shows all kinds of signs of mental deterioration.
Really?
Like what?
Well, you know, forgetfulness and drinking and shaking and, you know, his wife's problem and he didn't want to leave the Justice Department and he went over to this mess at 1701 and he never got a hold of it and he was confused and this and that and the other thing.
It never worked, but go ahead.
He said, you know, I'll bet I could find twenty witnesses who would come in and say the John Mitchell of today is different than the John Mitchell of today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That won't work.
What else?
That's it.
That's all.
That won't work.
That's all.
But he says that Mitchell has to be aware of these other two grand juries going.
And that that is certainly adding to his mental confusion at the moment.
Well, actually, all that you've said doesn't particularly change anything that we talked about this afternoon.
No, not really.
Not really.
Except the cumulative in many respects.
Well, except on the Hunt thing.
I don't know.
I think I had better let Dean know this in case he doesn't know it.
Because this will change some of this aftermath business, I think.
Because Hunt is an actor in that aftermath business.
I don't know if it would change his testimony, but he certainly ought to be aware that it's happening.
Now, let me ask you to do this, and you check with Bob.
He's sitting right here.
You've got to figure what will put yourself in McGruder's and Mitchell's place.
What are they going to do?
Are they going to...
I think they'll come in to the U.S. Attorney.
I think Magruder's ready now.
Come in and confess?
Sure.
Yeah.
But what are they going to do?
They're going to piss on the White House.
That's what I'm worried about.
Oh, I see.
I see.
But you're going to say— I don't think Magruder will.
I think Higby sold him
up pretty tight on this telephone thing, as far as Bob's concerned.
That's not evidence, of course.
He'll try and get Dean and Strawn into this, I think.
You think we will?
No.
I mean, McGridder will.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you see, the telephone conversation is not evidence, John.
I understand.
I understand, but it's a prior and consistent statement, and Higby's a witness, and he refreshes his recollection by a recorded conversation, which was illegal.
Well, sure, but nevertheless, it's basis for a refreshment.
All right, fine.
What does Mitchell say?
What the hell does he do?
He doesn't want to hurt the president.
That's for damn sure.
This is a decent man.
Well, if I were Mitchell, I'd get on a plane, and I'd come down here and ask to see you.
And I'd come in and say, well...
I've put this meeting off as long as I can.
Now you've got to know what happened.
Right.
And it's up to you as to what I do from here.
You see, you can be very considerate about a former attorney general, you know.
Sure, that's the point that he's got to realize.
But God damn, he's...
But he may just decide to storm on and fight it through.
He'd never written on that, would he?
I can't see that he would.
With Liddy cracking, if Liddy cracks and Hunt cracks, would Hunt's hearsay, though?
Well, he's hearsay on a lot of it.
He's not hearsay on Coulson, and that may be a problem for us.
I really think Coulson is deeply concerned about Hunt, don't you?
I'm sure he is.
Or did you sense that from your meeting?
He had had Hunt talk to Shapiro a long time.
The other day, at that time, Hunt was of a frame of mind that he was not going to say anything.
Right.
But now he is.
Now he is.
And I think Bittman has brought him around.
Bittman, who is Hunt's attorney.
Right.
And I don't know what's in it for Hunt to wear around.
Well, what the hell, he probably figures he isn't going to get a presidential pardon.
That's what it gets down to.
Let's face it, he isn't.
Goddamn well, I can't give him a pardon.
That's right.
They're looking right in the eye.
And Colson sort of made all these protestations, perhaps, to him.
And he goes, well, we can't come true on them because Colson has no commitment.
Yeah.
Colson isn't here anymore, and the thing is obviously going a different direction.
So Hunt says, good God, let's cut my losses.
Colson probably said, you know, the White House will hardline this thing, and you don't have a thing to worry about.
Yeah.
So Hunt then will pull the plug and—
Isn't that really Colson's concern that Hunt would put a plug on him?
He didn't say so, but I'm sure it is.
I'm sure it is.
And he's probably doing everything he can to get a line around Hunt at this point.
But at the present time, for God's sakes, keep him from talking.
You know what I mean?
I understand all the truth, but for Christ's sakes, don't go off on his own.
I couldn't raise that other question with Shapiro here, but I will.
And the other, yeah, I know, I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Okay, all right, bye.