Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and John Dean

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Mr. Holloman calling.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Ready.

Hello.

Hi.

Want a quick rundown?

Oh, yeah, fine.

Hunt spent four hours with the grand jury.

They gave him immunity, and according to the report, he created no problems on anything he said.

Erica has now changed his mind and is not going to hear McCord in court

private session as he was planning to, he's instead going to subpoena him and send him directly to the grand jury, which he will probably appear at on Friday.

They'll apparently issue the subpoena tomorrow for a Friday appearance, rather than the meeting in court tomorrow.

It has the effect, among other things, of getting those who would have reported to us out.

because he doesn't have an attorney at the grand jury.

I see.

But hopefully we'll find another way to find out what's happening there.

How do they find out about the Hunt thing?

Hunt's lawyer.

Oh, I see.

A reporter to O'Brien.

He wasn't there, so he's just going on one hunt and told him.

They gave him immunity, huh?

Okay.

Didn't do anything with it.

I wonder why not.

He doesn't intend to, apparently.

Uh-huh.

George Webster called John Dean and said that Baker's AA, Branson, had asked to see him today and he had seen him.

And the AA said again that he wants a link to the White House.

Baker is not happy with the Klein Dean's contact and wants to be in communication and be helpful.

And Webster said it took him about an hour of sort of looking around to get

to come out.

And Webster, he said, so who should I deal with?

And Webster couldn't think of who to tell him, so he said, Murray Chotner.

God.

Oh, boy.

And then he called John Dean and told him what he'd done.

Oh, boy.

Now, we're now in the position where Webster's, I mean, Baker's AA thinks that he's supposed to handle his White House dealings with Chotner.

Never.

We've got to get off that track.

Right.

He did it with Webster.

that's exactly my point i said that to dean and said because they don't think webster's wired in and i said well i can assure you no no no no webster that's better and uh yeah i think maybe uh what we ought to do the only thing we can't see webster he won't believe what's here i think timmins ought to call branson right and just say i understand you've raised no question and try to give you a bum tip on that which is not his fault

The president wanted you to know that Webster is the guy to deal with.

Yes, that he's absolutely, we have no, that he would be absolutely clean of everything.

Now, Howard may feel he has to check that or something, but... That's what humans can say on our top, that the ideal man would be Webster.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

He's from Tennessee, of course.

Yeah.

So the guy has some confidence in him, their rapport with him, because he comes to talk to him.

And then other things are, says he can't do what Mitchell and Magura want him to.

So he's trying to figure that one all out.

And says we're in a sticky wicket.

And I said, well, that gets back to the point of the need for a criminal lawyer, I suppose, doesn't it?

And he said, it sure does.

And it's important that we get someone.

And he came up with an idea, which is, why doesn't he hire one?

Well, yeah, I suppose so.

He's been named.

He's entitled on the basis of that now that he's a principal to seek counsel himself.

And he wouldn't do it publicly.

I'd bring a guy in, name him as counsel.

And, you know, if he gets a guy he can trust, then give him the privilege.

story and ask him to help him out.

That guy will lend a lot.

I guess the problem we got there, Bob, is really the dean now, isn't it?

That's one of them.

Yeah.

they're crazy to try and stay with that anyway both of their now turns out that mitchell has turned his diary over to that grand jury in new york which means the u.s attorneys got it which means they can give it to justice which means which also shows those meetings well it's that story that basically dean dean and everything else can uh

Everything else is all right.

And that's all right as far as anything except the... Their recollection.

Yeah, the disparity in the recollection of the two.

Mm-hmm.

Dean's story, I would say on Dean, well, at least that clears it up.

Dean isn't saying that he figures that he can't have to go all the way, in other words, on all of his...

know anything else.

I met on stuff afterwards and so forth and so on, which does involve the White House staff.

So he's trying to untangle that.

No, he doesn't.

You know, he can do the council thing on that, can't he?

That's right.

And he also, he said the more he looks at that, the more he needs to feel good about it.

He thinks that, there again, he'd like to have some help.

He has a feeling that that may be alright.

That it may all

problem.

Oh, because?

I don't know.

Maybe because basically because Hunt Hunt's not saying anything, right?

No.

See, there it is.

McCord is not part of all that.

He'll have a lot of hearsay.

Yeah, he may have some.

he'll have a lot of hearsay about it.

Told him things.

I think I'll get Timmons now and have him do that one right away.

Right away, right away, right away.

Good God, that would be the worst thing in the world.

Webster would be just perfect.

Absolutely.

And he has the, he's smart, and he has the

You know, there's interest.

Right, interest, right.

Fighter, everything.

What is Dean's feeling, Bob, as he says he can't stay with Mitchell and the others?

What does he think they have to do is to just say that they were mistaken or they were...

Believe it or not, there's a disagreement.

Do you think that'll come out in any event?

I'm not sure, but he thinks it's pretty much inevitable because that's really the only area in which they can set the record of what they said.

And they're going to ask him, was he in this meeting?

And what was the subject of the meeting?

And he's going to have to tell them.

Well, his story can be, I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm not too Pollyannish about it, but I meant the point is that

particularly since they turned it off.

In other words, they talk about the prior knowledge and all that sort of thing.

It depends on how they simply say, well, we just turned it off.

We didn't figure that was knowledge at all.

You know what I mean?

I would think Dean would, well, so he's going to, the point is, though, that is here is that what Dean now tells Magruder, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that's the link there that is for the week.

So what did he do there?

I don't know.

He left at the point that he had a problem.

When I talked to Mitchell afterwards, he seemed to think

John understood what the problem was, too, and that could be working.

He can't plead the thing on that.

I asked him that, and he said that he's going to think about that.

He doesn't see how, but he was going to work on that.

We'll stand by him all the way on that, just to say that's a privilege, and he can simply deny any knowledge himself.

I suppose that's his problem, Mr. Mitchell, in effect, Mitchell Magruder, they want Dean's recollection to be the same as theirs.

Is that the problem?

Yeah.

Well, he can't do that.

They say there's too much fact that's otherwise, which McCord may have.

Well, I suppose if McCord has that, then what does Magruder say?

Did you raise that with Magruder today?

Mitchell or anybody who didn't get around to that sort of unpleasant thing?

All McCord could have is nobody had prepared stuff for it.

He wouldn't be able to prove his own knowledge, but he had used it.

But he would know damn well in his own mind that what happened, and that gives him a step up.

Did he prepare stuff for the meeting, you mean?

Yeah.

I don't see why that's such a...

I guess I don't understand this.

That's why I would like to see him talk to a lawyer and see if they can work out on that, because it seems to me it's not all that big of a problem.

Especially since they didn't approve it.

Yeah.

That's the point.

Yeah.

What they were talking about is approving the plan.

But the way they answered the questions, they have said...

Across that bridge.

Oh, I know.

That's, I think, their concern.

Yeah.

And I spoke to Dean, too.

Did you see what Martha Mitchell did?

No.

Because that's what John's problem was.

She called somebody?

She called the New York Times.

Told them what?

She went through a whole thing of their framing John, and I'm not going to let them do it.

Not bad.

She says they're not going to pin anything on him.

I won't let them, and I don't give a damn who gets hurt.

I can name names.

She said they're trying to make a goat of him.

Who in the world do you think she's talking about?

Any idea?

I mean, no.

What would you guess?

She also said that McCord was mugging her or something.

Mm-hmm.

A few other strange things.

I don't know who she would be.

Who the hell is she framing?

Maybe Magruder.

I don't know who Martha liked and didn't like.

Mm-hmm.

Did he say what he was going to do, or he just said he couldn't do anything about it?

I hadn't seen the story, and he said, now you know why.

You saw the paper, so you know why I didn't.

And I said, no, I didn't see it.

And he told me she'd call the time.

I said, good Lord, what'd she say?

And he said, just what you'd expect someone full of whiskey to say.

Poor guy's got a problem on top of everything else.

Terrible burden for John, yeah.

I don't think she's going to be taken that seriously, frankly.

I mean, I think that's the least of our problems, frankly.

Any idea of that?

He doesn't.

She, I'm sure, has no firsthand knowledge of anything.

She waltzed into Kambach some.

She said that they were trying to shut her up or something.

And she said, don't you think it's curious that it was Kambach that took me to the hospital?

And why hasn't anybody looked into that?

Oh, well.

That's very deeply or something.

You know, make a pretty good case of heck, well, he has had a difficult life, and he just didn't remember these things, you know.

But that doesn't help Magruder any, does it?

No.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Well, actually, the thing about it, Bob, is that their story is a truth.

I mean, they didn't approve the damn thing, you know what I mean?

That's right.

And I think that's the way they just got...

I think the difficulty in Dean's case is that he can hire a criminal lawyer and so forth and so on, but where that's going to lead him.

I mean, if you look at Dean, why?

He may show him a way around this, you know, the technicality basis or something like that.

I really feel that Dean's damn good.

here, you know what I mean?

I think that I would stand on that.

I mean, I personally would stand back with him on it.

The talent council simply can't talk, you know?

Well, but you can't, he's got to talk on his own charge.

I mean, if he's charged directly, unless he takes the fifth, then you've got to fire him.

Yeah.

Well, maybe that has to be done.

That do.

Questions about the others, huh?

Yeah.

And Dean's capable of just like Magruder is if you undercut him very far, too.

Oh, Christ, I wouldn't think of undercutting him.

He's been a hero.

know really yeah really he's been a sturdy like a giant no no no no i'm not because it's such a fuzzy area you know lawyer client and so forth and so on

So look, look back.

Will you keep in touch with him?

Is that the situation tomorrow, will you?

In the meantime, he knows he's back to the hill, doesn't he?

Oh, yeah.

He's in town.

what at the moment is a knotty problem that he doesn't see the answer to, but he'll answer that.

Yeah, it's interesting that he's, why do you think he's sending him to the court of the grand jury?

The theory is that America is under heat from probably and maybe the court and all on his own conduct that

That he's overstepping?

Yeah, and that they're playing the thing the wrong way, that they're letting the Senate get out ahead of him, that, you know, he did this maneuver of sending McCord up to the Senate today.

Would have kept him in the judiciary process and through the grand jury and all, and then let the Senate help.

They've got plenty of time to get at him.

They didn't need to be the first at bat.

That's right.

And he's got the higher responsibility.

The proper place for this to be handled is the judiciary.

That's right.

So we'll just have to see what happens, right?

All right.

You can get in touch with Colson tomorrow, I suppose, too.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and John Dean

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 29, 1973

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