On May 9, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone from 7:38 am to 7:56 am. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 045-166 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Well, I just wanted to wish you well on your ordeals.
You go today to the Grand Jury?
Grand Jury, yeah.
Is that Bob, too, or John?
John is—he's been there for about five hours, and he's got another
Well, about an hour to go, they say.
I see.
As soon as he's through, I go in and they'll have me for, I would guess, four or five hours.
Right, right, right.
So I've been in for an hour already last week and covered all the ground, and it's just a matter of going into details now.
I see.
So that ought to wrap it up.
I know it's an ordeal for you, and I want you and John to know that
You know how I feel.
I'm working on it on this end.
Appreciate that.
You've got to, and we get to work on it on your side of it from our end, too.
That'll come.
Well, it's coming now.
I mean, the grand jury thing is not an ordeal.
It's a chance to get the truth out and get it established, at least in the prosecution.
They have a distorted view.
prosecutors have?
Sure they do.
They've only heard one view.
That's right.
And of course they don't really have it clearly yet.
And we've got
Of course, they haven't heard Dean yet either.
No, not in the grand jury.
They've heard every crap he can do, but still trying to work out his immunity.
Yeah, and that would be, if he succeeds in that, we can still handle it, but that's going to be very difficult.
I know, I know, but as you know, that's something out of our hands.
That's down at the Senate now.
Well, the Senate giving him immunity won't hurt.
Maybe not.
Because we can fight him on the Senate thing, because we get the same public forum that he gets.
Oh, I see.
He'll say what he says, and I'm sure they'll put him on first.
I hope they do, so they can answer it.
Right, right, right.
You and John really have got to fight him, because he's the, you know what I mean, it's the question of, I was just thinking here, talking to Alan,
little about people to fight, and we just don't have anybody.
You don't want to use Agnew, you know, because he— No, at this point, I don't think you— Connolly, so far.
I don't think so.
And we'll see it through, Bob.
The main thing is to keep our faith and everything, you know, and it's rough, but, you know, when somebody was—I was looking at the cover of Time and how much the president knows and so forth, but
Actually, it's the kind of stuff that they've, I mean, it's really just harder than they've done before.
It's the same kind of thing.
They ride through their own thing, and hopefully we can get our points across to the people who are with you, and they're going to be on that.
We're getting, incidentally, an awful lot of good stuff in here, too, you know, mail and so forth, you can imagine.
I'm sure you are.
I'm getting a lot here.
Good for you.
Good, good, good, good.
Well, there are good people in the world out there.
Sure are.
So forth and so forth.
And they know what this son of a gun is trying to do and so forth.
This key is probably the key that Moxie's got.
What do you anticipate that is?
I can't figure what that could possibly be.
I think it's probably his own MCONs, don't you think?
Well, it could be.
It could be.
And we've got the ultimate protection on that.
How's that?
As far as you're concerned, and with your own record.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You may have to use that.
Well, I know.
It's hard, too.
We may not want to.
It may be better.
No, I'm inclined to think that if you ever get into that, I've just been thinking about it, that the best thing there is not to.
The best thing there is to use our recollections.
One thing I was going to say to you is this, that we're going to have to, you know, as you know, they've sort of
gotten it distorted a bit too much in terms of the fact that even if the legal activities were discussed for the president and so forth, that was not good.
You know what I mean?
The way that I think that it can be handled, it seems to me, is this, is to say, well, let me say that conversations with the president are proving a lot.
Let me state flatly
that no illegal activities of that type were ever discussed.
You see what I mean?
I think that sort of thing, rather than saying, well, I cannot discuss that because it was a conversation with the president, I just wonder if you can't open up that much.
Well, I think maybe we can.
After I get past today, I want to spend some time, and I have already, going through some of those things, because there's an awful lot
If we can work out the right way to do it, there's an awful lot that does a great amount of good.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Getting into that.
But the problem is, if you, and just don't let anybody blow you into a false sense of security on this.
The difficult thing is if they decide to, well, if we let down privilege in such a way that enables them to take my notes,
No, no, no, no, no.
You see, you have a very different... Now, I've gone through them all, and we can live with those.
But publicly, they would be a very...
It would give you a couple of months, I'm afraid.
No, no, no, no.
Well, your notes.
No, nothing written.
Those are my papers.
Those papers are mine.
No papers.
If I have to turn those over.
No, no.
But what I was thinking on that, just to talk about that, you've got the papers, Bob, basically.
All papers are...
belong to the president.
Right.
And your notes belong to the president.
Right.
And I talked to Alan.
I said, there is an absolute line on that.
Absolute line.
No presidential papers, but you can talk on that.
And not even your diary.
I mean, not even your logbook.
Not a damn thing.
No papers, whatever.
All that logbook is, as you know, is a distillation of my notes and comments that fit with those.
No, and those things are basically that.
You'll do anything you can do.
In other words, the way I talked to Alan, he totally agrees with that because papers could include a hell of a lot of other things, too.
Memorandums from you to me, you know what I mean?
And by God, we're not going to get in any of those because they could...
They're not from me to you because I never wrote you a memorandum, but there are a lot from you to me.
Yeah.
Which are... That's right.
Clearly those are covered.
Yeah.
The one that's questionable is my notes because they do cover conversations on this subject.
But...
But they're nevertheless...
The conversations on this subject are minimal because someone is going to start going through those.
That's right.
No, no, no.
No, we're not going to let your notes...
Your notes belong to the president.
That's exactly right.
On all subjects.
Unfortunately, they're in your possession.
That's right.
And that's been the rule.
You know, one thing I was going to cover that I couldn't have been more amazed yesterday when Al told me that there had been, that Dean had come in on the 15th of September.
And I have no independent recollection ever of that meeting.
Do you?
No.
None, whatever, none, whatever.
It was the day, I've tried to put it together to get it in, I can't.
The day that Pete Daly came in.
I know, Pete Daly was in at 4 o'clock, I saw that.
I was in with him, and then he left, and Ron Ziegler came in.
Right.
And then he left, and then John Dean came in.
Right, right.
And I was in through the whole shower.
Yeah, and he was supposed to be in there for some time.
But the main, the only thing I was going to say that I know was never, that I would recall,
It's very possible that the whole purpose was just to come in and say, well, the grand jury has just indicted the people, you know what I mean, or something like that.
Sure.
That's very possible.
But the one point that I know was not discussed, and I'm just giving my own recollection, because if the jurors ever asked, have you ever talked to anybody, you should say, oh, yes, I've talked to the president.
He said to me to testify as freely as I possibly could, you know.
Right.
But getting to this one, I know that there was no discussion of, say, for example, the funds for the defendants or anything of that sort at that point, was there?
Do you ever recall any discussion of that?
No, sir.
And as a matter of fact, that's very important, because let me say first, if it were, I wouldn't want to lie about it, but
But I know that you and John, and incidentally, if that ever, when that question is raised, like with you or John about, well, how could you have combat do this?
I think the point is, you say it was our policy not discuss finances with the president, right?
And that's true, you know.
It's true.
Financial matters were never discussed, and this was a perfectly proper thing you thought to be done.
Isn't that the way you're handling that?
Absolutely.
Although I must say that there isn't even much opportunity to work much of that in because there is no inclination at all on the part of either the Senate people or the prosecutors to try to tie the president in.
There isn't?
None.
I mean, they don't even tiptoe near that.
I think that's probably logical, but what they're trying to do is make the case against us, then move to the president if they can.
They're not trying to go to the president now.
But the whole point is this, though.
The press is the only one that's working on the president.
I know, and they will.
But John Dean is.
And John Dean, he could have made a mem-con, it seems to me, of even that conversation.
He must have had one.
Because, Bob, it must have been only a...
a minor conversation or, you know, when we were talking about it, you or I would have remembered it, wouldn't we?
Sure.
Remembered something.
Sure.
If he'd come in and said, look, Kahnbach is raising money or are we the defendants?
No, I'm not sure there was none of that.
Yeah.
Well, that's something that we... And his memcon, of course, is all that.
That doesn't have any authority except what he chooses to say happened.
That's right.
After the fact.
That's right.
That's right.
So...
Well, anyway, we don't know what it is.
We're not going to borrow trouble, but I just wanted to be sure my recollection was covered.
I have no problem with that.
That's right.
Except surprised that there was such a meeting because I didn't even remember the meeting.
You probably don't even have a note on the damn thing.
No, I don't.
They didn't make any notes.
That's right.
Your notes, though, as you say, are in the possession, and John's notes are in my possession.
They belong to me.
Right.
I'll have that.
Don't worry.
Okay.
And you've just got to— I'll stand absolutely firm on that.
There's some steel in Len's spine on that.
Well, no, Len's not going to make that decision.
Okay.
That's Al, and don't worry.
Don't worry.
I know what that is.
We've got very tough peoples working on that.
It's got to be Rose.
I think you got, you know, you got things moving, moving the right way.
And I think as we get into this, I think we can, there'll be some other bum shots, I'm sure, but I think we can deal with them.
I don't know what I think.
We were talking a little bit around last night.
I mean, you know, I was thinking, and even that conversation on the 21st, goddammit, you know,
there where we have a very good recollection, obviously.
When you really look at the whole thing, and particularly the conclusion, Bob, we're getting at the goddamn investigation.
We didn't participate in anything.
We didn't order anything.
And you go past all the other things at that point in time, and there's no question about it.
Well, he went one day later or two days later up there.
That all fits together extremely well, and it all fits into part of... Now, the whole point of the matter, too, is that length of time.
They say, well, why didn't you do it right away?
Well, obviously, I had to get the facts.
Of course.
I don't know what the facts were.
I didn't.
This fellow for nine months had said, there's nothing going on here.
And then he comes in and loads his whole bunch of crap on me.
How do you know he's telling the truth?
And I didn't know what the truth was, and I'm not going to go running to the U.S. attorney with facts.
Why didn't he go to the U.S. attorney?
That was his job.
You know?
And so we've got to be firm on that.
I'll tell you, it's perfectly, absolutely clear as you go through all the period from June on through the election, that your concern constantly was, how do we get this thing cleared up?
How do we get the story out?
We've got to get this, you know, whatever happened, and you say, you know, we can't
There can't be any covering up here.
There can't be any falsification.
Well, I used the term in August in my press conference.
It isn't doing something wrong.
It's covering up what's wrong, and there's no cover-up going to be in this case.
And that whole point was very clear all the way through with what you were saying and what we thought we were saying in talking to John and all that.
But John, at some point, started moving in a different direction.
I think probably Mitchell was moving in that direction right from the beginning.
That was it.
And I don't think Dean really realized it.
That's it.
And John, I think, in retrospect, says, well, gee, I did it all with the approval of Alderman Ehrlichman because he had to pull everybody else in with him.
See, that's the point.
What was being done with our approval was an effort to stay on top of the case.
be aware of what was happening, because obviously there was a high degree of political sensitivity to all of this, and we were concerned about, you know, what event was going to take place next, who would be arrested or who would be indicted, and all that, to know how to deal with it.
Like, for example, Mitchell or somebody that, and incidentally, any business, well, did you smile or did we smile when we said something that somebody came in?
I'd characterize that sort of thing.
I'd say,
I'd bust the executive publisher and say, look, I can say that our only concern was getting the indictments and our relief that nobody in the White House staff had been indicted.
That's right.
And we were damned pleased.
But, you know, I still don't—that conversation doesn't ring true to me somewhere.
It's on your book, but I imagine it just came in and informed us of the thing, you know what I mean, because we had to know.
And that we probably chatted about the case.
Or it could have been on a totally different subject, you know.
Oh, I doubt it.
I doubt it.
Because that— I would assume not, though.
But it's amazing how little you were involved in that case during all that period.
Well, you know, we thought only August 14th.
There was one appointment with Dean on the will.
Now we find there's another one.
But we can...
But it just, if you go through... Well, the point was, the point was, Bob, the staff, to its great credit, was, you know, we were trying to keep me away from the damn thing so that I could concentrate on other things.
We weren't that deeply into it either.
Oh, I don't...
It's just much of a matter of concern other than, you know, as there was a new development, how to deal with it.
How to, you know, if they put out a story about Chapin and Segretti, then we'd have some discussions about how to handle that and...
when the story came out about me and a Stanton Safe Fund and all that, we talked about how to handle that.
That's right.
But we weren't sitting around
I know.
Worrying about the defendants and all that sort of thing.
No.
We didn't pay any attention to them.
Not at all.
To wonder when the trial would be, because there was a concern if the...
Yes, to when the trial...
The election, that would be something we'd have to be prepared to deal with.
And that's exactly what... And on the assumption, the only reason... That may have been, well, what that conversation on the 15th was about.
Right.
And we assumed that the trial would bring out a lot of facts about the thing.
In other words, if we had known that they were buying off defendants, we wouldn't have worried about the trial.
That's right.
Well, they weren't.
How do we know they were?
I don't know that they were, but that's the whole point I'm making.
I know, but my point is, as far as, you know, the thing is, as far as you and John were concerned, when you did the so-called activating of Kambach,
My God, Comstock didn't think he was raising money to buy off defendants.
Absolutely not.
He thought he was raising it for the purpose of defendants' fees for people that had been employed by the committee.
Wasn't that it?
Exactly right.
And at the time of the 350, you weren't thinking in terms of buying off defendants?
Absolutely not.
At that point.
They'd been indicted, but they hadn't pled yet, had they?
No.
Right.
And that was the whole point.
And at the time of the 21st, that was certainly trying to buy silence.
There was no question about that.
But that was in relation to a totally different thing, and no action was taken.
Yeah, not by us.
He'd probably try to remember the next day, that side with Mitchell.
Yeah.
That was again, though.
Between him and Mitchell.
That's right.
We don't know what that meant.
That's right.
That's right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And that's his problem.
We're in good shape.
Well, just keep your faith, hang tight, and don't worry about those notes.
Don't worry about those notes.
They're mine.
They belong to me.
It's like that damn Henry's notes, you know.
Henry's got notes of things that he's taken.
He's not going to let his notes ever be put out.
That's right.
Because they belong to me.
Okay.
Okay.
Good luck, boy.
Thank you.