Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 45 › Conversation 045-176
Nixon phone call with Ziegler on Watergate scandal and John Dean
Wednesday, May 9, 1973 · 6:03 PM–6:08 PM ET · White House Telephone · 5 min
AI Summary
President Nixon and Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler discuss the legal status of documents seized from John Dean and the administration's strategy for addressing the Watergate scandal. Ziegler reports on a conversation with Newsweek's Henry Truitt, noting that the press is beginning to view Dean's actions as self-serving and that the administration should avoid an abrupt counterattack. Additionally, the two touch upon the progress of the special prosecutor search and Nixon’s desire to reassure Henry Kissinger regarding political pressures from his Harvard colleagues.
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Hello.
Mr. Ziegler.
Hi Ron.
Yes sir.
Any late evening reports?
On the papers themselves, the dean papers?
Yeah.
Apparently the governor prosecutors told Sirica that the department would like to have the papers back and Sirica was expected to move on the matter sometime next week.
Next week?
So not before next week, right.
So that's where that stands.
Have the government prosecutors seen them?
No, apparently not.
See, the Justice Department made the motion and returned the classified documents, and the government prosecutors told Judge Sirica the department would not object if he kept copies of the nine documents and made them available to the federal grand jury.
Sirica was expected to move the matter sometime next week.
on the way till next week.
Yes, sir.
That's the curious damn thing, isn't it?
That's the report as of this afternoon.
Yeah.
Garments.
We'll see garment.
Yeah.
Keep pushing on that.
Yeah.
It's a funny way for them to look to delay on a thing like that, though, isn't it?
Well, I don't know.
I'll have to get a reading.
Right.
I understand.
Garment as to what that means.
Yeah.
Where that stands.
Other than that, the other things are moving about like they were earlier.
The Richardson testimony's moving, I think, all right.
The prosecutor's moving and all that.
You haven't named one yet, but he's... No, but I mean the fact that, you know, freehand and so on.
It's moving.
Other than that, there's nothing really major breaking.
Mm-hmm.
Well, what the hell, you know, we just can't sit here and worry about those papers.
Hammonds, no, of course not.
The way I figure about it is like you and I have said, we know that this is typical of this kind of a guy, you know, to write out his case and put it in the drawer.
Yeah.
And then, you know, try to build it up.
Yeah.
So when he breaks it out, he'll get a bigger story.
I think that's really the whole game here, isn't it?
I think that's the strategy, yes, sir.
Yeah.
But the thing we have to do is recognize that strategy.
Right.
Which we have.
And recognize.
But I do think then you can't really start crediting this to Len.
I've talked to some members of the press corps this afternoon, and I don't think we're going to have to do too much.
I think our major risk, and I may be wrong, but our major risk
moving too abruptly to discredit him.
I think he's doing it himself.
Hank Truitt from Newsweek was just in here, and he said, you know, there's no question about the fact that this guy's moving in a totally self-serving way and that he's tending to discredit himself.
That's moving without our initiative.
I see.
So I think we should let that through and let... Truitt's an honest man.
Yeah, Truitt's a very honest man.
People now are beginning...
They all ran his story, though, didn't they?
What do you mean?
Well, they, Newsweek, ran his big blast last week.
Who, Dean?
Yeah.
Well, I know that's what I was talking to Truett about.
Yeah.
And Truett was really in there.
He said, Ron, you know, he said, I think something people are overlooking here is the national security aspects.
A positive standpoint.
I said, you're goddamn right, Henry.
You think back to the period...
and so forth, when documents were being stolen from the government.
There was massive leaks prior to a summit and so forth.
Of course there was concern about it.
He said, yeah.
He said, people are tending to forget that.
He said, so that's the line.
Sure.
People are beginning to move.
He said he thought, thinks that things might have reached a plateau on this and that people are starting to perhaps get a perspective and thinking about other things.
Well, what the hell.
When Henry gets back tomorrow night, you and Al will both have to hold his hand, don't you think?
Henry will be all right.
You think so?
Oh, sure.
He's floating around doing big things.
The main thing is to just reassure him that just because all of his Harvard people wanted him to resign, that ain't nothing new, is it?
Right?
They wanted him to resign.
Okay.
Okay, sir.
NARA Description
On May 9, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler talked on the telephone from 6:03 pm to 6:08 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 045-176 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 45-176
Date: May 9, 1973
Time: 6:03 pm - 6:08 pm
Location: White House Telephone
The President talked with Ronald Ziegler.
[See also Conversation No. 434-3]
Watergate
-John W. Dean, III papers
-Prosecutors
-John J. Sirica
-Timing of action
-Justice Department motion
-Grand Jury
-Timing of action
-Leonard Garment
-J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.
-Elliot L. Richardson
-112-
NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Conversation No. 45-176 (cont’d)
-Testimony
-Special prosecutor
-Dean papers
-Dean
-Strategy
-White House counterattack
-Timing
-Ziegler’s conversation with Henry (“Hank”) Truitt of Newsweek
-National security
-Situation in 1971
Henry A. Kissinger
-Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
-Harvard colleagues
-Resignation of PresidentAlso recorded on May 9, 1973
- 434-003 6:03 PM · 5 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 6:03 pm to 6:08 pm.
- 434-004 6:08 PM · 13 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:08 pm and 6:17 pm.
- 434-005 6:17 PM · 37 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:17 pm and 6:35 pm.
- 434-006 6:17 PM · 1 min — President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:17 pm and 6:35 pm.
- 434-007 6:17 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Manolo Sanchez met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:17 pm and 6:35 pm.
- 434-008 6:17 PM · 9 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:17 pm and 6:35 pm.
- 434-038 6:17 PM · 12 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 6:17 pm and 6:35 pm.
- 045-177 6:35 PM · 13 sec — Alexander M. Haig, Jr. and White House operator talked on the telephone at an unknown time between 6:35 pm and 7:55 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 045-176, May 9, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/045-176 (accessed October 5, 2026).