On April 26, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Richard G. Kleindienst talked on the telephone from 6:20 pm to 6:24 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 045-018 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Are you aware you can talk?
Yes, I am.
Yeah.
I think it's very important, and perhaps, and I'll be able to talk in talking to Pat Gray on this thing, that the story to the effect, and I'm talking about the truth, the story to the effect that he came over
to Ehrlichman's office and received documents and was told by Ehrlichman and or Teen to destroy them, which is not true.
I mean, what happened is basically that he was handed the documents and then the Rupert fellow told them they were not related to Watergate, that they were political
and they were delivering them to him.
It seems to me that Gray, frankly, if he just walks out and says, I mean, he's going to look bad enough as it is, but if he walks out and says something that is not true, because Berlichman is, in my talk with Dean, and what Dean will say now, I don't know.
I mean, there's
But my talk with Ehrlichman, which I know is the God's truth, they handed in the document.
And I remember when this matter came up, Ehrlichman called.
You see, it's curious, just so you know the background.
Peterson first called Pat Gray and said, did you receive such documents?
And Gray denied having ever received any.
He had denied it twice.
Denied it twice.
Finally, he said he refreshed his memory.
He said, yes, he received them, but he destroyed them.
Now, the point is, Ehrlichman called Gray also and said, Pat, what about those envelopes that you got?
And Pat, of course, which, of course, he denied receiving them.
And he said, you remember that you got them.
And he says, where the hell are they?
He says, I destroyed them.
Erlichman was utterly shocked, and I'm sure Dean was utterly shocked.
I don't know what Dean will say now, I don't know.
There was discussion, you know, Dean says there was some discussion about we ought to get, we ought to destroy the documents and hunt states that have nothing to do with Watergate and so forth.
But the point was, it was not done.
They handed DeGray, DeGray did destroy them.
But the critical point is this, if for the director of the FBI,
enough for him to say, I took the documents and I destroyed them because they weren't related to any case that we had, and I didn't feel we should have political material there.
That's bad enough.
He says, I destroyed them because I was ordered to.
Can you imagine what that makes him look like?
I think I want you to have a heart-to-heart talk with him on that point.
I don't want him to be made to appear a liar on that point.
I understand.
So are you going to meet with him pretty soon?
Well, I had left the office, Mr. President.
I've got a dinner party of ten people.
I've talked to Henry about it.
I'm going to call Gray on the telephone in the next two minutes.
All right.
He's up there right now.
I told Henry to go up there so that I could... All right, fine.
All right, you call me back.
Yes, sir.
All right.