On June 4, 1973, White House operator, President Richard M. Nixon, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 10:05 pm to 10:20 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 039-081 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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?
You got a minute?
Sure.
I thought you should know that starting at 9.30 this morning, I've been working until just now.
I listen to every tape.
Good Lord.
You know, the thing that you did, and boy, I know the agony you went through.
I put the earphones on, you see.
Did you?
That's the way to do it.
And I listen to every damn thing, and Bob...
This son of a bitch is bluffing.
Well, sure.
Also, we sent Bazzard over.
And this is just for your private information.
Yeah.
He went through the files.
There's not a goddamn memcon in the files.
Really?
None, period.
He didn't make any.
Well, I didn't see how there could be any that would matter, because you don't have anything unless he made them up.
Yeah.
Well, he could make memcons a conversation, you see, but he didn't have those either.
Yeah.
Unless he took them out.
I'll be darned.
And we don't think so.
The other thing is that throughout this thing, you should be...
He doesn't mention the 350 until the 21st.
I didn't think so.
And he didn't mention Ehrlichman's deal with the Kambach until the 21st.
I didn't think so.
I thought that came through on the 21st.
And also, he did mention the Krog thing on about the 17th.
Oh, really?
Yeah, but that's all right.
You know, he mentioned it.
Yeah.
Well, he must have mentioned at some earlier point the doctor's office break-in.
That's what I mean.
Yeah, because it became sort of apparent at the later point that he had mentioned that earlier.
Yeah, but that's it.
I thought you should also know that he said throughout this conversation that
Nobody in the White House was involved.
He said that Erlichman isn't, Haldeman isn't, you know, he said that on at least four occasions in this thing.
I hit him straight on, you know, at that point.
He said, nope, they're not.
The only thing that he has in there, which he did hit about the 17th or maybe the 14th, was at Strawn.
might be involved in terms of getting material.
Yep.
Only that.
Yep.
But, you know, what the hell was that?
What could I make out of that?
I didn't know whether that was true or not.
And that was a might, and there's still doubt about that.
Mm-hmm.
There still is.
That's only his—he didn't indicate that Strawn knew about it in advance.
Right.
He only indicated that he had some of the—as he put it—the fruits of the investigation.
Well, there's a question about that.
And be that as it may, I want you to be sure to tell John that all of you and he just threw out until the 21st.
He didn't say one damn word that indicated that Peter, he mentioned that Erlich was involved with something about the Chappaquiddick thing, and there's nothing wrong with that.
You know the Chappaquiddick thing?
That was with that Tony or something?
Huh?
With that guy Tony?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so what the hell is that?
That we've done an investigation with this conductor.
He says that's a problem for Ehrlichman, he said.
That's no problem.
Those are all—what he's talking about there are— There's nothing with Watergate.
—political embarrassment, maybe, or public embarrassment, but not problems of any legal— Nope.
Nope.
—ability.
But I thought you'd be interested, pleased to know that I went through this agony for eight hours, nine hours today.
I'd done nothing else.
It just damn near broke me down.
But you know how tough it is to listen to that stuff.
Oh, it is.
It's nerve-wracking.
And of course, I was trying to make notes, which you probably were, too.
I made notes all the way through.
It makes it even worse.
The only thing I miss, that I hope you will do, I did not
I did not take the 21st conversation because I figured you ought to be the witness on that.
Yeah.
I did not make notes on the 22nd conversation, figuring that you, Erlichman, were there, you know, and that you would make notes on that.
Yeah.
So you'll have to cover that, if you will, and give me a little, you know, just for my own information, what the hell he said on those occasions.
You got it?
On the 22nd.
And the telephone calls from Key Biscayne, I don't have because they don't have those recorded.
I called him twice from Key Biscayne.
But I think it was about McCourt, but I don't know.
I think it probably was because, or it could have been on a lot of other sort of question things, but they weren't on this subject at all.
It could have been about Bittman, you know.
I could have mentioned that to him.
That's possible, yeah.
But suppose we did.
I said, well, I understand Bittman's taken care of or something.
That's a question of evidence, correct?
Yeah, but that isn't likely.
I can't imagine that you would have.
I might have.
No, no, I might have mentioned that because I was concerned about it, you know, about whether Bittman was going to blow—not because of Watergate, because he was going to blow on that other project.
Yes, that's right.
But except for those two conversations from Key Biscayne on the 23rd, I've got it all now, and there ain't nothing there, believe me.
As far as—basically, if you'll be interested, though, on the 27th, the 28th, which I have the first, and all the other conversations that we had, Bob, they were about
usually about executive privilege, gray, getting Sullivan to get us some dope on the bugging, things of that sort.
Not a goddamn thing.
He didn't ever mention the cover-up.
Never.
Well, I didn't think so.
And on the basis of the 21st, you have to assume that he hadn't because, as I told you, it was so clear that this was new stuff that I didn't see how he could have mentioned it earlier.
I'm going to have Moore make memos with regard to what he talked to him about on the 20th.
I don't know what the hell he did talk to him about, but I had a conversation with him on the 20th that had nothing to do with all this.
Did you listen to those, too?
Hell, yes.
Good Lord.
I mentioned it to Joe.
I listened to everything there was that we had available, but the stuff in the ERP doesn't come through.
So I haven't got that pretty well.
Oh, really?
No.
It doesn't pick up?
No, it's not clear.
But nevertheless, the point is that those conversations are always one where you or John are both for presidency.
Yep.
So you're the witnesses on that.
Well, there were only a couple of them.
Yeah.
Well, the Mitchell one and another one, apparently there was one—I didn't realize this—on the afternoon of the 21st.
That's right.
What the hell was that all about?
At 530.
That was the one afterwards that he said pull the wagons up around the White House.
Yeah.
Did he mention all this Bittman stuff then?
No, uh-uh.
Not at all.
Not at all.
Maybe the Bittman thing is something that concerns us more than him.
Yep.
But the point is that this whole jazz to the effect that from January throughout we had 35 meetings and telephone calls and we discussed it.
cover-up, Bob, is totally false.
Well, that's how I know that.
Totally false.
And I was sure of that from going through the log yesterday.
I wasn't sure, you know, until I heard it.
And then it just, it's awfully good that you didn't.
What are you going to do with that now, other than know it?
Well, you can't do anything.
I can't do a thing except to reassure our own people and to know that we know what the hell the facts are.
Yeah.
And we're going to let him go out of his train a little further now.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, right.
Because I—don't you agree?
Or do you?
Sure.
Because that—see, that just discredits him all the more.
Yeah.
You get that story out of the 35 meetings to—on the cover-up, that is just clearly not true.
And if it's— The only possibility is that he— Sure, you can prove it.
He might have a telephone call from Key Biscayne on the 23rd.
That's the only thing I can figure out.
That's after the investigation, and when you're into it, you're about to pull him off of it, or, you know, you've got him going on.
But you were talking to him then, weren't you?
Darn right.
What the hell was he talking about?
I've got a lot of details on that.
What did he talk about?
Oh, all kinds of stuff.
The McCord, uh, the McCord thing, and, uh, his, uh, just trying to sort it all out.
Did he go into the Pittman thing with you on those?
No.
It never came up again.
except, you know, later he referred to it as one of the examples of blackmail.
That was on the 26th.
He gave me a long spell out on the 26th of a lot of his theories on things, which was after he'd been up there for a while.
If you could give me, for my own private information, just your, and just send it to me, you know, eyes only, of your recollections of the 22nd.
and the action of the 21st, it would be helpful.
All right.
There isn't very much, but I can.
What?
There's not much.
I can't... Just your recollection of what the hell it was.
Anything that's really relevant to all this thing.
Okay.
But you and John should be pleased to know that there wasn't any...
There wasn't a damn thing.
Except for the Strawn thing.
He mentioned that.
He did mention that on the 13th or 14th about Strawn...
He said, was possibly vulnerable, as he put it.
Yeah.
And that that might make you possibly vulnerable.
And I said, John, does that mean?
All of a sudden he said, no.
No.
Yeah.
Flat out.
Yeah.
In fact, through the 21st, he said, you were not, you and John were not involved.
Except in this tangential way, you know, John on this basis.
As a matter of fact,
The whole thing is one that shows that the fellow was not, if anything, leveling with us about what the hell.
Right.
I mean, except he did mention the break-in on the 17th.
I mentioned that.
But that's when I first heard of it, and I jumped out of the chair virtually and said, what the hell is that all about?
That's the first time I heard about the breaking, you know.
You mean the psychiatrist?
Yes.
Yeah.
That's right.
We covered that in our statement.
I didn't say 21st.
I said in March I learned about it, see?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's very interesting.
I see your friend Cox is all excited now that he's...
What's he saying now?
I heard that he's taking on Ervin.
Well, he took on Ervin on the—he had a press conference and called on Ervin to hold up for 90 days.
And Ervin and all the other senators told him to go to hell.
But they also—apparently the White House was asked if you had a log that showed whether you'd had these meetings with Dean.
And they said that that would not be put out, you know, that that's the president's papers or something.
And then Cox leaped out and said that he would, of course, get those papers.
He'd been promised access to all papers, and that he would expect to have access to all papers, and there would be no... Well, we've got to stand firm on that, don't you think?
So I think so, except... You could put the log out.
Yeah, I'm not sure you have to.
Well, I don't know, though.
I don't want to put the papers out, though, basically, because there's...
You know, there's some very frank talking there about what I think of the Supreme Court and a hell of a lot of other things.
I don't want it out.
Oh, yeah.
You can't do that.
What would you do?
Well, it seems to me that, well, of course, they did.
See, they say they won't release the log.
I don't think you do want to release your log, because that releases your private meetings and all that.
I think what they've done is right, which is, they said, they confirmed that you had met with Dean a number of times during this period.
That's right.
But see, one of the things Dean makes the point is, you know, that the meeting started January 1st, and it is significant that they didn't start until February 27th.
And I just wonder if maybe it shouldn't.
better characterize it.
There were a series of meetings starting on the 27th regarding executive privilege and the questions of dealing with the Senate hearings.
And no cover-up was ever discussed.
Relating to your press conferences.
And there was absolutely no discussion of cover-up at any time in any of those until I think you could say until the meeting of the 21st because you said
In your first speech that on the 21st you received new information.
I wondered if you would mind giving Ron a call and telling him that.
Would you mind doing that?
Okay.
Fine, fine.
Boy, I've never had a harder day in my life.
You could do it with a younger guy, but I can see how you went through the agony of that 21st thing.
Jesus, listen to this crap.
It was unbelievably tough.
But it was worth it.
And as I said, Bazzard spent the whole day in his files, just for your information, didn't find one single damn MIMCOM, unless he's taken them out.
At least they haven't.
No, Bazzard, he doesn't think he made any because he checked other things and he's worked on it.
He has no MIMCOMs on that.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't think he did.
I told you, he says he made a chronology at the end of each day.
But I think that's a lot of BS, just like all the rest of us.
He didn't find it.
I mean, he didn't find any chronologies in there.
And if he did, there wouldn't be anything in it.
All right.
So, you know, what difference does it make if he did?
In fact, it deserves his purpose to say he did make one, because it would disprove his point.
Somewhere or other, I think his lawyer is the one that's moving out here.
I don't think Dean, strangely enough, is...
I think you're right.
I think his lawyer is out really making flamboyant charges and so forth, and they won't stand up.
Yep.
But let's let him get out a little limb, a little bit more.
Yep.
If you would call Ziegler on this other point and say we ought to get that out, would you?
Okay.
Thanks, Bob.
Yes, sir.