Conversation 038-155

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I wanted you to know that I just talked to Cline East and told him that I wanted him to tell the prosecutor, Neeson, or what his name is, and Cline East totally agreed that this was, I wanted them to know that this was a national security investigation of great sensitivity and that I, that none of the information of

been there, but there was only percentages so that they would have it in their file and that I would, you know, and I said, do everything you can to see that this is not something that comes out publicly.

Great.

At least I don't know whether it'll work or not.

Yeah, that's terrific.

I don't know whether it's terrific or not.

Well, it's the best that can be done.

But you can see why, though, you could say that the lawyer was having a gun at their head.

Sure.

Sure, I think he had.

I think he put it out there solely for the purpose of, what Peterson told me, he says, I think he put it out there for the purpose of frankly blackmailing Peterson and frankly maybe the White House.

Well, then the best thing to do is what you did.

We are not going to have any blackmail.

Did he give you any sort of a reading on timing on Dean?

Goddamn, he doesn't know.

I should see why, if they're playing that kind of a game.

Yes.

He's waiting for them to come to him, you see.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I might as well tell you, since you haven't talked to Bob yet, that Dean isn't involved in another one.

He's probably been called in the Vesco case.

Apparently, it is alleged that Dean made a call on the Vesco case to attempt to quash an indictment.

And they're going to call him on that damn day, so he'll be up there before that grand jury, too.

What in the world did he do that for?

Well, because that's what you'll ask him.

I don't know.

But so there's that.

But just for your own computation and so forth,

a lot of thinking about this, and I want you to do a lot too, but I told Peter Sunday, I said, look, I said, I, he's getting his, I told you, he's getting his paper to me Friday.

I told him about the desire to have you people, your preliminary, you know, informal discussion, and up here before the graduate, I said, well, we might have to have him again.

I said, all right, have him again.

But I said, we're on the offensive here.

I said, I want to be on the offensive on this thing.

You see, that's a positive action too, John.

Sure, sure.

And I said, the other—the Dash is called—oh, that's the other thing.

I didn't tell Bob.

The Dash had called him and said that the Dash had called—was trying to get Dean before their committee.

They talked to Dean's counsel.

And so Henry Peterson is going to try to get Urban and other people out of the country on Monday to try to get that knocked off.

may want to go up there and spill his coffee.

I'm inclined to think with Dean, we'd like to play the string out a little bit.

I mean, just a bit in terms of seeing just how far he wants to go.

Just keep closing doors on him.

Yeah.

And incidentally, he said the prosecution, which originally was thinking in terms of possible immunity, has now reached the conclusion that

It's turned around.

I said, not because of what I said.

No, Henry, I said, I want to make it clear.

I said, any major person, it's your decision.

He said, it is their decision and ours that they can't do it because of what is involved.

I spoke to Clint.

He said, it depends about the... And he said, hell no.

He said, one thing about...

He said...

the president can't be blackmailed.

And he says, and Clint East can't be blackmailed.

He mentioned himself.

And he said, Peterson can't be blackmailed because he's just shooting them all, all of them, you know.

And I think, John, that's what it gets down to.

We're in a fight here where he's trying to blackmail everybody.

And I think he did the right thing.

The main thing we've done is not to make a precipitate decision about anything.

And we're going to do it in an orderly, right way.

Now, the other thing, too, I want to tell you that on the...

I want you to think about this business of the, you know, what we talked about, leave of absence and so forth.

I'm not too convinced of that one on Bob.

It may be.

I mean, if you've got a minute now, does the leave of absence thing pass anything, really?

Well, it depends on who you're talking to now.

I think Connolly's about right on it, that it's not good, but it's also not as bad as the resignation.

That shows you're trying to do something.

That's right.

Basically, but not for you.

Well, in time.

I think we have to contemplate that in due course it'll come, but it can't.

In due course.

It's premature right now.

Well, we can't do it on the basis of what we've got, but let's have something go on this thing of the... Sure, or the...

The Ellsberg interview with a U.S. attorney or something of that kind.

That's right.

But that's all right, too, but the point of this is the leave of absence doesn't convict anybody.

That's right.

And also it provides the...

I'll tell you, I made a mistake in joining with Bob in retaining counsel.

I think you're right.

Yeah, because your case is so different from him.

And if I can figure out some way of getting a little separation, I think it's wise to do.

Couldn't agree more.

You've got to do it.

Because, Bob, John, I love you both, but boy,

together, you're in a hell of a lot more trouble if you go separately.

That's true.

And I know your situation and what it is.

And Bob's is more difficult.

It's different.

Bob's is a hell of a lot more difficult on two scores, let's face it.

One, the whole business of whether he had information before.

That, I don't think they can make stick because it's drawn.

I think you don't get it.

Second,

The money.

The money specifically is going to be one son of a bitch.

It is.

Fred, we've got to face it.

There's no way.

You're getting launching Kambach and all that sort of thing.

It depends to a certain extent on LaRue, too.

LaRue, they're now trying to get the plea.

He may.

He may plead.

Look at the poor son of a bitch.

He's...

But you ought to go separately.

I'm not very wide of that whole operation.

Now, the only thing that you, you know, that they claim isn't, that's not so rudely, but is the call to come back.

Oh, yeah.

That my fellows say they can handle.

John, I think you can do.

Good God, I mean, that was purely, was simply humanitarian, basically.

And very perfunctory in the whole chain of circumstance, right?

That's right.

You basically, let's face it, is with regard to this whole national security area, isn't it?

Well, I'm glad you did what you did.

Don't you agree, though, with national security?

Do you mean like on letting, having Chinese do this?

Well, I didn't have any choice.

He came in and says, I've got to do this.

I'm sitting on this thing, and it's volcanic.

I understand.

I could have said...

Dick, that's national security.

Don't pass it on.

But if I did, there's Dean's got another hammer in our head.

Now, you're quite right.

I hope you don't disagree.

Oh, I don't.

Not at all.

I had to think.

My own view is, as I said, I have told Dick all out there, as I just repeated to you earlier, I don't know whether to do any good.

At least the U.S. attorney will know that I got this national security investigation.

It was, but it didn't produce anything for it.

All right, sir.

Let us suppose this.

Yeah.

But just looking at it, with all the bark off, if you can call Dean, then we'll go out there and he'll testify to this.

He'll probably say that, well, he was doing it as he was working in Ehrlichman, under Ehrlichman's direction, et cetera, right?

Is that what he'll say?

I don't think Dean can say that.

They would have to get some other witness.

They would have to get Lydia or Hunter or somebody.

Say that the dean was not directly involved.

He wasn't?

No.

Then how the hell does he know about this?

It's his hearsay.

Snooping over the fence.

Oh, I see.

He wasn't an actor.

No, sir.

Well, then there it is.

He'll just go out and he'll do it in hearsay.

So if he did, though, say if that comes up, John, well, that's just something we'll have to live with.

And we're not going to die over it, though.

That's right.

If they did, what would you say?

Wouldn't you just do it?

Well, I'd say what is the fact that my connection with it was I authorized their travel, and I authorized them to go out and investigate Ellsberg.

And among the things that were to be investigated out there was an examination of his medical records, if that were possible.

That's right.

They chose a method that I did not approve.

When I heard about it afterwards, I disapproved of it.

And my shortcoming, my failing, was in not bringing them to account on it, not just having them arrested on discovery.

Since it was a highly sensitive area, and you can also point out the Federal Bureau of Investigation at that time

We can never get that across.

Would not or could not?

How do we say that?

We all know why Hoover didn't do it.

That would be a part of that, I suppose.

Again, I think I'll talk to Wilson about this in the morning just so that he's forewarned.

That's right.

And he can do some briefing on it.

Wait a minute.

I don't think there's any legal thing here at Hoover.

Well, I don't either, but I don't know.

Well, for Christ's sakes, I mean, you didn't authorize any damn break-in or anything of that sort.

Right, that's correct.

You had nothing to do with that.

I don't mean that.

I'm referring now to the public thing, John, rather than the... No, you didn't break the damn law.

I don't mean that.

I mean, these clowns did a lot of things that...

We were conducting an investigation of this matter and authorized him to go to check with regard to this and that, you know, and so forth.

We did not know.

They did not know.

In fact, we discovered it later.

Yeah, I was told about it afterward.

That's right.

Were you told?

Yes, afterward.

And he retained after that, I guess he was.

Not very long.

Yeah.

All right.

That's good.

But let me say, there's nothing legal about it.

But the other option for me to try to stomp on East and this fellow again, you know, and say, look, this is national security.

I did that from Camp David, and I think that's about as far as I can go.

Or do you agree?

I think so.

I think you've done what you can and should there.

If I had told him today, look, you cannot use this information, I think Dean then had another club to think about.

Oh, do you agree?

Yep.

Absolutely.

I think this opens it up and lets the pressure out.

Well, not only the pressure, but, you know, an interesting thing is that Peter's reaction to this, he says, and I'm so surprised, he says, you know,

He didn't know about my—he didn't know at the time.

I told him I talked to Clash, but what the talk was about.

He said, you know, he says, I think these attorneys made a terrible mistake in putting this out there.

I said, why do you think it was a mistake?

He said, because they were trying to test us.

They were trying to see if we got this information.

They didn't think we'd use it.

And they thought they would hold that over our heads, that we had this information with regard to this illegal break-in and did not use it in the Ellsberg case.

I think he has a good point.

Yeah.

Or do you agree?

Yeah, I do.

And he said, makes all the poison out of it by, yeah.

Takes the poison out.

And also puts Dean in a position where he doesn't have that, where he can't say that, well, we stopped the investigation, which was illegal.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anyway, okay.

All right, sir.

And stand firm, right?

See you tomorrow.

Cool.

Bye.