On June 12, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr. talked on the telephone from 9:37 pm to 9:56 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 040-043 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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?
Yes, Mr. President.
You working?
Yes, sir.
Anything new?
How did Stan's do?
Mr. President, I don't have a detailed report except the newspaper report.
I haven't got yet the rundown on the testimony tonight.
People told me he looked very good, whatever that's worth.
I heard he looked very good.
He told them he, you know, that everything was by compartments.
He raised money.
He didn't have anything to say about where it was spent.
He was guilty of nothing.
He didn't know anything about bugging.
He didn't know anything about any of the other game playing or anything else.
He didn't know anything about cover-up.
He collected the money.
So far as he knew, it was not an intentional violation of any campaign laws.
It was a very straightforward sort of thing.
After they left him no choice but to either testify or take the Fifth Amendment.
He did go before the grand jury and took the Fifth Amendment.
He was there for about a half an hour.
They did not give him immunity.
Not yet.
No, sir.
And apparently, Cox did that he wouldn't give him immunity.
Speaking for Cox, they all interpreted it as an absolute rejection of immunity.
Interesting.
He must not have so much after all.
You think that's it?
I only assume that because I'm satisfied that Cox wants to get your ride, worse than anybody.
And if Dean had something, I think he'd pay almost anything for it.
You know, right?
Why would he then go before this darn Senate and talk to them, figuring he'd spoil the prosecution?
Probably.
That's the only way to do it.
And then he's in a box, too, because they did give him use immunity, and he has to face a contempt charge if he doesn't.
I see.
So he's kind of caught in between here.
Well, that's a dangerous road.
I wouldn't want to be on that tightrope, would you?
It's quite dangerous.
Because on the use of immunity, well, of course, what he might do is to go in there and confess to everything he did, figuring that that got him out of everything, right?
Maybe he's done something that nobody knows about you.
I don't know what it could be, but, you know,
Something he wants to confess to, you mean?
Well, if he wants to, this is the perfect place to do it.
Because if he will lay it on the record now, it will contaminate any evidence as to that kind of offense if they don't already have it at the grand jury.
See, the grand jury has been working frantically on the prosecutors to get everything nailed down.
...to get affidavits and everything down in writing and signed and dated before he testified.
That was evidence against Dean.
After something they don't know yet.
Right.
They're out of luck if he testifies.
I see.
Well, let me ask you this.
If they've got it nailed down before he goes there, then what happens?
They can at least say that they didn't use anything that he said or was derived from his testimony as a means of gathering evidence.
I see.
Were they working practically?
You know that?
Yes, sir.
I know because they were running around getting people up here to put, you know, last-minute things down in affidavit for them so they'd have it signed and sealed.
Uh-huh.
Wrap up as much as possible.
Yeah.
And I'm obviously running around wrapping up questions about Dean.
Who did you talk to?
The Red Feelings One.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah.
So they were asking him on that one, on what he knew.
Magruder will go on before him?
Yes, sir.
Magruder will probably follow Stan's.
Magruder has got a... Well, he's going to nail a number of people, in my opinion.
I suspect Magruder's going to tell a lot more than is the fact.
You think he's going to lie?
He's been lying before.
I believe he lied by the other time, and evidently it was a very convincing liar.
Right.
And...
It's just a personal opinion.
I think he's over-implicating people this go-around.
What's he implicating?
What leads you to that?
He's reaching out to implicate everybody he can in an effort to get that sentence reduced as much as possible that he's going to get.
He decided he could not get immunity.
What do you think he's going to try to implicate?
Mitchell, of course.
I think he's going to try to implicate Mitchell, Dean, Strone.
Strone, of course.
Probably Bob Haldeman.
Strone.
Maybe.
Not Ehrlichman.
He doesn't know anything about him.
He doesn't have any ties with Ehrlichman, apparently.
He has none with me, that I know.
No, none whatever.
He'll probably try to implicate Stans, Hugh Sloan.
Boy.
You know.
I'm convinced he's going to spread this as wide as he can, and I just don't believe he knows all that, Mr. Buster.
I don't either.
So I think we've got the other end of the problem.
He perjured himself one way last time, and I believe he's perfectly willing to do it this time the other way.
Now, in his case, though, he's already guilty of perjury, isn't he?
Yes, sir.
They've got him.
says they've got him for 135 years those are his own words 135 years he had a long he had two conversations with larry higby which were taped and one with paul palmerman that was taped this is before he went to the grand jury yeah he was saying he thought the only thing he could do
and hope he got off as light as possible.
He knew he was going to Lewisburg.
You know, he was quite frantic.
Desperation.
Sorry, sorry.
So, you could see it all come out.
At that time, incidentally, he stated to Larry Higbee that Bob Haldeman, you know, and Haldeman gave him this tape because it, uh, he clearly, uh, that Haldeman could have known anything.
Yeah.
And he did not at that time implicate either Stans or Sloan or any people in that circuit.
Mitchell?
Mitchell, Dean, Stone.
Stone, definitely.
But those are the only ones.
Boy, I really feel for the guy, you know, he's a...
You know, a hot shot kind of a guy.
He had a great future and this and that, good heavens.
And he was really coming off the deck on us.
Well, he and Dean, in a curious way, are a great deal alike, aren't they?
Very similar personalities.
I think Mark Luter was a bit more aggressive, a bit more outspoken.
That was Dean.
That is Dean.
Not as clever, huh?
Not, well, I don't know that Dean's that clever, Mr. President.
I hadn't quite thought of him as being clever.
Really?
No, sir.
Boy, you sure fooled me.
Well, he has absolutely no expression.
He wears kind of a mask.
Not a smile, but he doesn't express himself very much.
You know, no emphasis.
uh land sort of approach uh seemingly very objective or give that appearance and so that type of of personality is given you know to keep in tax in he was not a flappable sort of person he was not excitable he was cool cool very cool uh but i don't necessarily think that makes him clever i see i i really believe
He tells the same story to the jury that he tells to... that has appeared in the press.
I think he's going to be very vulnerable because his memory is not that good.
He's got his dates confused as to whence things took place.
And I think we'll be able to do pretty well on him.
Right.
Maybe his memory will improve when he gets on the oath.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm misjudging him.
It may, and of course he'll have a...
logs and all that sort of thing.
Those logs, but they're very deceptive, Mr. Preston, unless you really do a lot of digging as to what the surrounding packs are, I'm finding out.
In other words, what could have been discussed, huh?
What could have been discussed and what was obviously discussed at that time.
And surely he must know that there were things over here like briefing books that he helped prepare.
You know, his name's on every sheet he prepared.
And he figures, he's got a figure that, except for me, others made him a memorandum of all of his other conversations.
That's right.
He knows that Moore's going to follow him and that Haldeman, Hurlickman are.
That's right.
He knows these briefing books are here.
He knows how many pages he prepared in that answer to Pat Buchanan's questions.
He wrote out for the answers during this period.
You know, you must know that's in existence.
wrote out stuff today yes sir i've got that's kenneth's briefing books down here so he was writing out the answers for the press conference of march 2nd conference of march 15th and working on the executive privilege statement that was released on march 12th he worked on that too didn't he remember we threw all that with him yes sir there's a lot here that he must know there's a record of
He must surely know that Jerry Warren, every time he called him and asked him a question, wrote a note of it.
And Warren did.
And Ziegler did.
It turns out that Warren called him more often, really, than Ron did.
It's a very interesting thing.
You know, on the...
i'm looking at an answer he gave jerry warren on march 7. it says uh did dean give the fbi memos to creep dean said the president is not aware of the report that he did he did not give the uh memos to creep he used them solely for his own purpose
And then the question was whether he gave them to other presidential aides or White House aides.
Dean stated these reports never went out of Dean's office, only used in connection with the investigation.
He treated them as being entrusted to his sole use.
Absolutely certain that no one ever said shown them to Segretti.
Never left his office.
He told me that nobody showed him, that he didn't show them to Segretti, nobody else did.
Well, you know, but he sent Fred Fielding out to help Segretti prepare a statement.
Yes, sir.
What advice he gave to Creep?
He said he conducted his own investigation, and that's a private matter.
If we discuss that, innocent people might be damaged.
Jerry Warren writes, Dean won't even talk to me about it.
There are all kinds of notes like that around.
and he must surely know that these things exist yeah uh we got one here saying when he started his investigation um i guess jerry warren called him and asked him he started the investigations by the white house he said it was on let me see the question was asked on march 12th when the question arose about his investigation
And Jerry Warren called him on March 13th.
John said he was out of town on the West Coast when the burglary occurred late Saturday, June 16th.
He said he was called by John Ehrlichman, who said he had information that someone who had been on the White House staff had been involved.
John said Ehrlichman had asked him to investigate any White House involvement.
John Dean said he returned to Washington Sunday or Monday.
He was not sure.
But he told Bob Toft that his investigation began Sunday or Monday following the burglary.
And we won't use any documents, of course, but I think it would be perfectly in order for the cross-examiner to ask him and say, now, did you query it in mid-March?
Well, let me say that I'm not sure that this kind of document cannot be used, understand?
Yes, sir.
Well, the information on it can be used.
Then we won't disclose the document immediately anyhow.
The floor around Dean can be asked.
I'd be satisfied if he could win one race.
Yeah.
He's a thoroughbred.
That's good.
You know, if we do it well enough, we don't need an outstanding cross-examiner, just a passingly good one.
Yeah.
If we had Marlo Cook on there, he would do well.
Yes, sir.
He'd do well.
That's what you need.
Somebody to work at it and just get a lot of them.
Well, if we could get Gurney to do it, you know, he would be very good at this.
Yes.
He can be quite insistent.
Yes, sir.
The man I'd rather have than any of them is Herman Talmadge.
Oh boy, Herman would kill him.
Because he's good.
Oh boy, he's smart.
He'd be great, but he...
I'm going to explore that again.
I'm not sure that's a completely dead alley.
If we get this going, and you don't make a dent in him the first day, I'm going to talk to some of the staff and see if at that point he might be willing to see if Herman
The point that I'm sure you've got down on your list of questions is that all those businesses that the president was aware of all this nonsense is that, as I told you, is that his press statement to the effect that when he talked to me on the 3rd, 21st, that that president jumped out of his chair, that's a powerful, powerful thing, isn't it?
Yes, sir.
You came up out of your chair.
Didn't he say that to somebody?
Yes, sir, he did.
That's what he said.
And that was really one of my big leverages on Fred Thompson, you know.
If the president knew all of this, Fred, why in Lord's name would he come up out of his chair?
You know, that's a big mistake.
Yeah, not ours, not mine.
There's a lot to go on here, Mr. President.
Get it all put together.
Friday is the day he goes before the committee.
Yes, sir.
We've got to figure out the leak, and you're going to have a good, tough, good, crisp disclaimer to run whatever leaks.
Yes, sir.
Because we've got to get that so it hits the news magazines in the right.
They may well leak it for the Sunday editions.
I think that's what they'll do.
Sure they will.
Yeah, well, the Sunday and the news magazines.
Sunday and the... And anything detrimental to the president, I don't give a darn about anybody else.
But we've just got to be prepared with the...
I mean, and I think if that's the way it bounces, then he can draw the sword on him pretty hard.
Don't you think so?
Yes, sir.
Or do you think he should still wait?
I don't think we should draw the sword on him.
Honestly, frankly, I'd rather...
not have a little part of security if it seems to be going well for the cross-examination.
Even on Friday?
Even when I'm getting that Friday, you're not preparing anybody.
On Friday, you know, for any material that's leaked.
But then after the good sharp denial, and hopefully we have some people that we'll talk about at that point.
of going on his lack of credibility, his incentive to lie and all this, then I think we ought to be quiet till we get him.
I don't think we ought to put him on too much guard with any cross-examination, incentive to lie, and how he's contradicted himself.
That's something that will worry the hell out of him, too, even if that were in a column.
Well, anyway...
We can even put something in our denial about his contradiction.
Maybe, yes.
Uh-huh.
The things that we're going to deny and not comment on because he contradicts himself.
Something along that line.
Okay.
All right, Fred, good luck.
Good.
Thank you, sir.