Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 039-078
Date: Monday, June 4, 1973 at 5:00 PM
Participants: White House operator; Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haig, Alexander M., Jr.
Recording device: White House Telephone
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/039-078

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 Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] General Haig calling you.
[0:04] Yeah.
[0:04] Thank you.
[0:05] Hello, Mr. President.
[0:07] How'd your meeting go?
[0:08] Oh, fine.
[0:09] Good.
[0:10] He came over to tell me what I had already known.
[0:13] What was that?
[0:14] You know, in my case, I had a... Oh, that, that.
[0:18] No, I meant how'd your economic meeting go?
[0:19] Oh, it went well, sir.
[0:21] Can I meet with him tomorrow?
[0:24] Yes, they're redoing the package.
[0:27] including John Connolly, are quite strong with essentially status quo with those option one things.
[0:36] They've now gone back and re-looked at the whole economic picture.
[0:41] And they feel that what we need is a statement, a reaffirmation of a direction, a positive presidential action, meeting with groups later on.
[0:53] Right.
[0:53] You know, get you out of Washington.
[0:55] Sure.
[0:55] And I said, put the whole thing down in two options.
[0:58] One is that one, and the second one is the Starchier one.
[1:02] And we'll be ready tomorrow.
[1:03] Yeah.
[1:05] Buzard has finished everything.
[1:07] He's been through every file cabinet.
[1:09] He said, this man never kept a note, a memcon, a meeting discussion paper, or anything.
[1:16] No.
[1:17] I wonder if they're putting us on there.
[1:19] I wonder if he could have just carried it all out.
[1:22] Can't Buzard tell?
[1:23] No, he said...
[1:25] If you were looking just Watergate, you'd assume that he took it all out.
[1:30] But the whole character of all of his files are such.
[1:34] It's very clear he never did such things.
[1:37] It wasn't his style.
[1:40] Because even in other areas where you would expect him to have had a MemCon or a meeting discussion— Is it possible he could have carried those out, too?
[1:49] Fred said it was totally impossible.
[1:52] taken too careful a screening job.
[1:55] And he's been through six filing cabinets.
[1:58] And he said the man has just obviously got nothing.
[2:02] What do you think he's doing, that lie?
[2:05] Or bluffing?
[2:06] He thinks his lawyer, who is an unscrupulous son of a bitch, is in charge.
[2:12] And he said that explains his funny attitude of Dean's on Saturday, which suggested that he is a little frustrated and wanted to
[2:21] to make peace with us.
[2:23] I didn't know about that.
[2:24] Well, he sort of suggested to Fred on Saturday that he really didn't
[2:29] Yeah, that he didn't want to be a national traitor.
[2:34] Well, let's not overlook this now.
[2:37] You know what I mean?
[2:38] No, no.
[2:39] And he didn't.
[2:40] But he's in the hands of a pretty unscrupulous Mr.
[2:42] Tide.
[2:42] I know.
[2:42] Let's not overlook it.
[2:47] I'm going through this.
[2:48] It's the hardest work I ever did in my life.
[2:49] I've just been at it for seven hours now.
[2:53] So with the rest of the evening,
[2:56] just for my own satisfaction.
[2:58] I think it's a very wise thing to do with the notes you're keeping and we'll know how to play each milestone that we come up against.
[3:07] I get asked based on what I've seen so far that it's a damn fraud, the whole thing.
[3:12] That's exactly right.
[3:15] But there may be something a little later that, you know what I mean, I'm only up to the 15th of March, the 16th of March.
[3:22] be too bad.
[3:23] Yeah, well, it's off of close to when we were starting to get it.
[3:28] And incidentally, there are at least two or three places, one before a press conference for asking, how can I say no one in the White House is involved?
[3:36] And he said yes.
[3:37] And that we conduct an investigation, yes.
[3:40] Well, that's great.
[3:41] He tells me that.
[3:42] So you know what I mean.
[3:43] I know that's what he told me, but nevertheless, we can't use this.
[3:48] Exactly.
[3:48] But at least there's your satisfaction on that point.
[3:50] Not only that, we can find—we can speak and act with the kind of confidence that we have to be able to do that.
[3:56] The other thing, there's only one plunker in, which, you know, it didn't appear to me at the time that it didn't sound funny, but I was trying to run down.
[4:06] I said, who the hell could be—could have had any knowledge on this thing?
[4:10] I said, I want to go down the list here with you and how they're doing.
[4:14] And he was talking about how they—and he said,
[4:21] And he threw in Strawn's name.
[4:24] This was about the 13th, Strawn.
[4:26] He didn't expand on it, and I kept coming back.
[4:31] I said, Strawn?
[4:32] He said, yeah.
[4:32] But quite apparently he was referring, and he indicated that Strawn had testified at the grand jury.
[4:41] Because I said, well, that would tie home on it.
[4:43] He says, no, not necessarily.
[4:48] The point is, you see, the
[4:51] What he was apparently saying was that Strone may have gotten some information.
[4:56] He may have gotten the information, you know what I mean?
[4:58] Yes, sir.
[4:59] At the time it made no impression on me though.
[5:01] I mean, it didn't make—it didn't even ring any bells, you know what I mean?
[5:05] Exactly.
[5:06] But on the other hand, looking back, I suppose Dean could say I mentioned the fact that Gordon Strone had some information or was involved, you know?
[5:15] Yes, but that's a—God, that's evolution in the context of what we're dealing with.
[5:20] Yeah, I know.
[5:21] I then probably talked to Haldeman about it and said, what the hell is this?
[5:25] And Haldeman said, hell no.
[5:28] He did, you know, I'm sure.
[5:29] Well, anyway, I'll go ahead and do this work if you think it's the best use of my time.
[5:34] I really think it is, sir.
[5:37] Well, I'm glad.
[5:39] Tell him how much I appreciate it.
[5:40] I know if he thinks that was hard, he should be trying to do this.
[5:44] I think there's a lot of bluff in this goddamn thing.
[5:48] I'm convinced of it, and so is Fred.
[5:51] We've had all these meetings for cover-up.
[5:53] If you listen to it now, you can see what the son of a gun was up to.
[5:59] You can see that he was involved.
[6:01] He had a thread.
[6:02] He had a thread.
[6:04] I didn't think of it at the time.
[6:07] It never occurred to me.
[6:09] All right, sir.
[6:10] Good.