Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 039-051
Date: Sunday, June 3, 1973 at 9:37 PM
Participants: White House operator; Nixon, Richard M. (President); Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/039-051

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.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] Jessica?
[0:02] Yes, sir.
[0:03] Hi, Ron.
[0:03] And getting that stuff ready for tomorrow, I wonder if you would give a call if you don't already have it and get the days that where he saw me.
[0:17] Oh, we have all that.
[0:19] Yes, sir.
[0:20] Because that will mean you won't have to look at an awful lot of stuff.
[0:26] Yes, sir.
[0:26] We have it all.
[0:27] Right.
[0:28] We have the dates and the times and the lengths and the whole thing.
[0:31] Right.
[0:32] And we're going to get on that first thing in the morning?
[0:35] Well, I talked to Al after I talked to you, and he agreed with the idea.
[0:40] The problem, of course, is how to do it.
[0:42] And what a bizarre or the consensus of the group for you as to what Dean and his people are up to at this moment, you know, with sort of his
[0:58] almost a wild exaggeration and so forth and so on.
[1:01] Well, basically as I understood it, my discussions was the desire for immunity and the desire to muddy the waters really as much as possible from their own self-serving standpoint.
[1:16] And therefore to make the immunity more desirable and so forth.
[1:22] To make it appear really that he is more than he in fact has.
[1:27] kind of like his key and lockbox thing.
[1:34] That's right.
[1:36] But they don't know—we don't know whether—with regard to Xeroxes of materials, which doesn't bother me particularly, if he's got them, that's that, because that's probably better than his recollection.
[1:51] But the point is, we just don't know on that, because he could have done it any time before April 30th, couldn't he?
[1:56] That's right.
[1:57] And he might be referring to that, but he throws that out, and the idea of taping telephone calls and that sort of thing, which also doesn't...
[2:06] I don't think, Mr. President, knowing the way Dean worked and operated, I don't think he has anything in his cron file.
[2:16] I think everyone's making altogether too big of a deal about so-called cron files, those types of things.
[2:25] Well, anybody, of course, goes in and makes a memorandum after a conversation, but he's probably got that.
[2:30] I don't think Dean even did that.
[2:32] No?
[2:32] Quite frankly, no.
[2:33] He didn't work that way.
[2:36] He didn't?
[2:36] No.
[2:38] It'd be interesting to see his files, and that's one reason why that would be a good exercise.
[2:44] I don't think Dean was that disciplined in his work habits that he would walk out and...
[2:50] But he might have later conjectured it all up and...
[2:54] made up a lot of crap, but that would be dangerous as well.
[3:01] But Dean was not a very disciplined worker as such.
[3:05] He wasn't, no.
[3:06] I don't think so.
[3:08] That's what I observed.
[3:11] But we'll— Well, in any event, you've got the—you do then have— We have Bob, yes.
[3:17] —like these—like, for example, you told me today,
[3:21] They went the 28th of February, the 27th and 28th, and the 1st of March, the 2nd, and then skipped over for about a week until about the, you know, without any— That's right.
[3:31] Yeah, the pattern fits on press conferences and so forth.
[3:34] The 1st and then the 14th.
[3:36] Right.
[3:37] Then the 21st and the 20th.
[3:40] The 20th, the 21st and 22nd.
[3:42] Right.
[3:43] And then I made two calls, Troy, from Keebus again at 23rd, and that was the time, as you know, of the—
[3:49] That's right.
[3:50] So I'm sure that's what the damn conversation was all about.
[3:53] And he was up there, I think at Camp David, trying to write something out.
[3:59] Yeah, I think so too.
[4:02] What do you think he is referring to when he says the President directly directed him to cover up and so forth?
[4:12] That is unbelievable.
[4:14] I don't—I think it's an exaggeration of some of the discussions we had on the
[4:18] executive privilege or on his appearance before Gray, none of it, you know, not a goddamn thing I do with cover-ups.
[4:27] That's exactly right.
[4:28] I mean, we weren't...
[4:30] executive privilege and so forth had nothing to do with that.
[4:33] That all related to the, and I remember the discussion, and remember the whole argument of things that related to the, whether or not it would be a violation of separation of powers for men in the executive branch to be, or on the White House staff to be questioned.
[4:51] That's what the discussion was during that whole time.
[4:55] Well, it didn't have a goddamn thing to do with cover-up, Rob.
[4:57] Not a thing?
[4:58] No.
[4:58] I mean, the whole point was how we were to handle this in a way that was consistent with separation of powers and so forth.
[5:07] Well, be sure to have your talk with Dick Moore and really ring him out, you know, because he isn't too disciplined either, but he'll recall anything that's interesting.
[5:19] And, of course, Dick is not only totally loyal, but he's also a fellow that will
[5:27] I think recall the truth.
[5:30] That's the point around him.
[5:31] He's very believable, too.
[5:32] Right.
[5:36] I'll talk to him in the morning.
[5:37] All right, fine.
[5:38] I'll see you then.
[5:39] When are you going to work on this?
[5:42] But I want to get that done in the morning.
[5:44] First thing in the morning, I see Lazard at 8.30.
[5:47] He's going to meet with Charles Wright at 7.30, and then I'm going to see him at 8.30.
[5:50] The thing is that I want this done, however.
[5:53] I don't want it done by Lazard or Garment or anybody else, you know.
[5:57] I think it's
[5:58] Al is the best one to do it.
[5:59] All right.
[6:00] I think he's—if he thinks it's proper, he should just walk in, take a look.
[6:05] Oh, sure, it's proper.
[6:06] I talked to Bizarre tonight.
[6:07] What did he say?
[6:08] He said, thank goodness.
[6:09] He said, that's fantastic.
[6:11] What, to go in and look at the files?
[6:13] Oh, sure.
[6:14] Well, I read a journal that we couldn't do that.
[6:15] No, he was under the impression that there was an order that we couldn't look at them.
[6:22] Well, there is an order that we can't look at, basically.
[6:26] Yeah.
[6:27] Ron had other files.
[6:28] I don't want him to paw through all of them.
[6:30] That's right.
[6:30] He understands that.
[6:31] Yeah, but in the view of the fact that the security has been broken on Dean's files, God damn it, we're going to look at his files.
[6:38] No, Buzard says it's perfect.
[6:39] He said those are the President's files.
[6:42] I see.
[6:43] I think there was some confusion there, but Buzard, when I told him you said this and that directly ordered it, he said, that's great.
[6:50] And he said, we'll do it under whatever procedure we're authorized to do it.
[6:54] It would be tremendously helpful.
[6:57] Right.
[6:58] But it'd be best to have all of it, I think.
[7:00] Yeah, and we have the dates, and they're only... And I don't know that Xeroxing is necessary.
[7:07] I'm not sure that taking copies out is the right thing to do.
[7:12] We just want the substance of the damn thing.
[7:15] Xeroxing makes an awful big deal of it, doesn't it?
[7:17] Not really.
[7:18] How do you do with your Xerox?
[7:20] You can do that pretty easily, can't you?
[7:21] Oh, sure.
[7:24] We'll have Al take a look at it and see what's there.
[7:26] And then we can go from there.
[7:30] Right.
[7:31] Okay, Ron.
[7:32] Thank you.