On May 13, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone from 10:09 pm to 10:43 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 046-023 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Hello, Mr. President.
I just hope you had a little time with your wife today.
Yes, sir.
Good, good.
Well, she's not unhappy, huh?
No, no.
She's all for the big battle, huh?
Did you have a good, productive day?
I think it was very good.
We've got—everybody is— Well, I'm ready to, you know, to start doing whatever you want.
And this is probably the—I mean, without, you know, we don't want to move precipitately, but this is a time to start moving out on our own and our own initiatives.
That's exactly right, and that's the way we're going.
A lot of paste.
I think about a week here.
We don't want to do anything too much before Thursday when this nonsense starts on the hill.
That's right.
Let them pop off.
And then we're going to go just build after that, increasing.
I think we've got a lot of good things.
We've got good farm stuff.
Yep.
the freshmen and the... Well, sure, we've got good foreign things, and we've also got...
I'm going to try to get together with the domestic people, you know, and see whether there's anything they can rub out there that is useful.
We've got some good things.
A lot of the policies have been announced, but we've got a great deal that you can do to influence helping getting these things done.
That's right.
How about Ruck?
Did you ever work him around today?
Yes, sir.
He's having a hell of a time with statistics.
And he's going to go at 2 o'clock tomorrow.
Statistics how?
You mean as to how many they did and all that?
Yes, yes.
He's afraid to use those old figures.
They don't hold up.
And his people won't.
Well, goddammit, they gave me those figures.
That's right.
I think what it is is a damn bureau just lying like hell, don't you think?
That's what I'm afraid of.
They just, he said that they'll, they'll work at them.
Well, then let it come right away.
That's right.
I just don't know.
He just should say, as a matter of fact, over a period of years, there's been a, this has been done for purposes of this and that and the other thing.
Exactly.
I don't want him to do a damn thing that makes him have to answer any questions he doesn't want to answer.
But in terms of this stuff,
This stuff was turned over, it seems to me, over a year ago.
To us, wasn't it?
By Sullivan.
Yes, it was about, well, Sullivan's been gone almost a year, you see.
That's what I mean.
He did it before he left.
Yeah, and he did it because of the leaks and so forth.
Well, he did it, we don't know why, because of rivers.
But I don't know why the hell he did it.
I guess he just decided not to be at the White House.
They were afraid for their lives over there.
That's the way that guy ran that place.
As a matter of fact, yeah, as a matter of fact, you know, what really is in effect all these things they turned over had to do with White House personnel investigations.
And that's, you know what I mean.
That's right.
They didn't have to do it with a goddamn thing else.
You know, we weren't investigating a newsman for the sake of newsmen.
We were investigating leaks and
That's right.
And it's all related to that and there are absolutely no difficulties with it.
And nothing of any potentially political advantage.
There wasn't anything that could have been or should have been used in that area.
So it's not going to be anything but an air cleaner.
The idea being that we were conducting investigations in order to plug leaks.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And you won't give a damn thing on names or numbers.
No, names should never be given out.
Numbers should never be given out.
You won't even give the totals.
Huh?
The totals involved, which are very small.
The totals.
And he said these were always with regard to proof by the Attorney General for the purpose.
And it sounded like
We were finding out his name was on the damn thing.
On the transmittal sheets, you know.
Mitchell signed them personally.
Even though this was one of the major bones in this investigation, he denied it.
He denied having done it?
Yes, which is a damn shame because it's a self-inflicted wound.
I think the poor guy just perjured himself.
Yeah, unnecessarily.
Good God, he should have just, yes, I approved these various things.
He got so tangled up in the other stuff, I guess he felt that he was going to incriminate himself with that.
Which he probably felt was maybe illegal, although he knew it.
Illegal.
It's not illegal at all.
No.
What about Walter?
Do we know when he's going to go?
We haven't heard yet when he's going to go.
But his offer is there, and he's already given them whatever he knows.
Right.
And they were going to call him anyway, so he said, I'm willing, able, et cetera, et cetera.
And he reviewed what he could contribute, which is not much now.
Most of the people up in New York have taken a great deal out of that piece that he doesn't really have anything.
I'm inclined to think that that's so, other than his oral testimony.
What do you mean the people may argue?
Well, I had some friends up there and they said they were all so pleased to see that.
That this is just a tiny hole, you know.
Well, he may, this may be a, you know, it could be a come on, you know.
It could be, but it's a funny one if it is.
He was so rattletailed that
And my God, yes, he was threatening and screaming and all the rest.
The problem that he's got is that I'm just thinking, you know, in terms of his own liability, that is apart from anything else, that is because Magruder will testify that he fixed him on his testimony, which is subordination and perjury.
Walters' testimony just devastates him.
Walters is going to hurt him very badly.
And...
saying that he was trying to get covered up with the Cubans and so forth.
The CIA, I mean.
That's right.
And then, of course, all of the shenanigans about whether or not money would be raised for the defendants.
That, of course, can be defended if it's in the proper sense.
But nevertheless, he was in it.
He was in it.
And he's the only one that made any overtures of that kind.
Yeah, he was the one that brought it to Holloman, brought it to Erlichman.
That's right.
Well, you know, you figure—he talks about his lockbox and the rest.
I just—we've got to figure that—whatever the hell is there, you know.
You never know what kind of a memo all of them may have written to him or anything like that.
sort of hurts my mind if I ever wrote him.
I don't think so.
I don't think I ever did.
Well, it's inconceivable.
At a time when he was playing for immunity, which is exactly what he was doing.
That's why all the bravado that it wouldn't have leaked out that he really had something by now.
I'm just damn confident that they could not have up their sleeves given the way everything else has leaked out of that thing.
It could be that much, he said.
The thing that I'm wondering about is why the hell don't they call him in as a witness?
You know what I mean?
If they're still screwing around, thinking they may still give him immunity in order to prove their case, I guess.
Well, that's right.
They're not going to shoot their one.
And the fact that they haven't moved there yet is indicative that he's not the decisive element.
They don't feel they can do it with him.
Right.
I think the indications are that we're getting pretty close to the end of this damn thing.
The main thing is that we're getting pretty close to it.
I just hope to God after they hear all of it and then hear the interest that, God damn it, they ought to hand down some indictments.
That's right.
You know they got one on Magruder, right?
He's testified.
No question about the attorney general.
He'll be indicted, won't he?
Yes, yes.
And on the other two, as you were telling me, it's a close question, but he guesses it may be so, huh?
He thinks it could be so based primarily on their driving the jury to do it through refusing to testify.
He said he thinks that's the best thing for them to do, is to hold on that executive privilege.
What do you mean?
You mean for them to?
Well, they've been, you know, when they got a tough question that involves anything which they consider a role as a transmission belt, they just take executive privilege.
They're not answering it.
That's all right.
And that's better.
Let me tell you, I've swung completely around on that from everywhere last week.
I think they ought to just play the goddamn Executive Privilege there for all it's worth.
There's no reason that they're not going to just regain anything.
And when you get up in the committee, it'll be tough, but they can always, there they can make their little speeches and see.
But now let me start by saying, first, the President had nothing to do with this damn thing.
Second, however, as far as our own role, I have to take the Executive Privilege because
with matters that involve conversations, but none of this has anything to do with him.
And I think they will.
Well, I think they will, too, and that's why this is the strongest way to hold.
There's just no reason for any goddamn breast-beating weakness on this thing.
We'll hold tough, and then when we see what we're up against, we'll make decisions if there would have to be a change.
It's inconceivable that at this point
Well, it would be necessary.
Well, if the point is, much better to take the executive privilege than to have them put out a whole lot of damn memcons and documents and all that sort of stuff.
To hell with that.
Well, if I get down to this thing, especially with these hearings, we're playing a battle of public opinion.
It's not a case of justice.
Absolutely.
You're not going to get fair treatment by being forthcoming.
Every time we're forthcoming, they just take another bite out of us.
That's right.
And it gives them a chance to push the within you window in a way that damages the interest of innocent people.
And that's the way it's been.
And I don't think we can assume that it would ever be different.
Interesting reaction.
I don't know whether you had heard of it, but I talked to several people today.
You know, they happened to call me, and they were really pissed off on the Ellsberg thing and on the judge.
They think that was just unconscionable for him to just drop the goddamn case before, particularly after that thing he sent out to them, you know, before he even got that.
Yes, well, it was, but that is going to help us.
What do you think so?
Yes, these are the kind of... Well, in the first place, it was nothing but a goddamn circus out there anyway.
And in the second place, it was a platform for innuendo, which was affecting the problem here in Washington.
In the third place, it has gotten people mad.
They know Ms. Justice resulted from this goddamn...
They know this son of a bitch stole documents.
Sure.
Put them out against the law.
Violated the law.
and really did, you know, despite what Bundy and those assholes said.
Now let me ask you one point that I want you to take an awful hard look at, and I don't want you to ask Henry about it, and it's this.
I think we should just declassify Lebanon with everything going back—everything that's ten years old.
and declassify the whole Leipzig plus the DM thing.
God damn it, you know, that can only be helpful.
Now, you know, you say, well, it'll stir up things in Vietnam.
The hell with it.
You don't like that, do you?
I'm not sure, sir.
I think it's a thing that should be considered.
It's not one that I could be very quick with.
Well, you have guys working on it.
They're just professionals.
But I've got it.
I'd like to do it because, look, I have not looked at the big stuff, but I know there's stuff in there that makes Bundy look like a goddamn, you know, terrible.
You know, the messages that went back and forth, you know.
The lodge will not be, will not look good.
He's looked very bad.
But God damn it.
You know what happened.
They set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the murder of Jim.
No question about that.
None.
Never has been.
Well, the vice president's aide was there.
He was Lodge's assistant.
I talked to him some years ago about that.
What did he say?
He said, my God, the poor guy called Lodge on the phone and said they're going to kill me for God's sake since then.
Marine Guards up here just as a manifestation of continued support.
You see, the point is, talking about offenses, this is a good, juicy thing to get out.
It isn't going to hurt us in Vietnam.
It really isn't.
I just want somebody other than a technician to look at that, you know?
I mean, that was what Hunt was looking into, you know, and screwed it up.
But the point is that
There's a hell of a record there.
Now, somebody, if you've got some trusted person that could look at that goddamn thing, it must be classified.
It's ten years old.
Yes, I can get somebody to do that.
See, the Pentagon Papers are out, for Christ's sakes.
That's after this.
Pentagon Papers are after Hill.
Right.
There's an awful lot in the Pentagon Papers that covers it.
But you see, here we are sitting here wondering what happened now.
Let's let the Clippers—well, not the Clippers, but certainly McNamara didn't look good on this.
No.
And Mundy looks terrible.
Bobby Kennedy looks terrible.
Jack Kennedy looks terrible.
He was up at Hyannisport.
I don't think anybody came in on that one with clean hands.
There were some that were very strongly opposed, but they had no voice.
That's right.
But the point is just let it lay.
Say the public is entitled to know.
If they want to play the business of the—that's the way I feel about it.
It's certainly not something that we should dismiss.
Well, you could put a strong fellow—Bazard's so damn busy, perhaps he shouldn't do it.
But if you've got some man, you know, trusted person that you could—you know, the work's been done.
They've got a little committee and some bright little guys working on it who kept sending me in a report was very, very inadequate because, you know, he was going with the numbers and all that.
Rehnquist started it, you know.
And I said, now, goddammit, I want the facts out.
I just wanted them out just to get the record out.
That was on the Pentagon Papers.
I said, for Christ's sake, what is the record on?
What went on then?
I mean, the public is entitled to know.
That's right, because what you end up with is a very distorted view of what really happened.
Of course, that's true with respect to a number of incidents portrayed in the Pentagon Papers.
Yeah.
Now, you see, you could stop it.
See, my point is, this is 1973.
So you could say everything 10 years old is declassified.
Yeah.
That's my point.
Right.
I mean, we held up the ceasefire in the...
in Pakistan intentionally to give us time to get that fleet over there.
But it's the right thing to do, and it's proved to be the right thing to do.
But you know, the goddamn libs have blinked all over the place about that.
Well, maybe they will, but you know, a little controversy about things like that isn't bad.
Your thought earlier very much appealed to me to have some controversy, not just about whether we have oil going to Libya, but about things that people are really interested in.
That's right.
Well, this is one of the things we're working on today.
Now, not self-defeating controversy.
We don't want anything that gives us unnecessary problems, but matters of keen interest that are good in public debate.
and get these guys' minds off this thing.
Just not be getting their minds off this thing, Al.
It's getting their minds on the unbelievably incompetent way that these clowns handled the Bay of Pigs.
Now, that damn thing's got to come out now.
That was a horrible thing.
I mean, what Chester Bull did, you know, leaked out in order to stop it.
Right.
But Abbie Stevenson did.
Jesus Christ, that would be out.
Yeah.
I don't know where.
There's one report that really lays it out, and that's Max Taylor's report.
There were only, I think, three copies made, but it was just— Well, let's see it.
And if it's, you know, take a few risks.
You know, the point is, we're in a hell of a public relations battle, and by God, we can win it.
I think we can win it, and I think we're going to start winning it.
I think it's just—we're very close to the time.
We're going to have a little bit of a circus here at the end of the week.
Oh, yes.
But that's—people are going to get goddamn tired of that very quick.
Yeah.
Well, maybe.
Well, we'll have to see what this security—the way the U.S. Attorney is playing Dean is a silly business to either ought to give him immunity or put him on, one of the two.
son of a bitch is guilty as hell.
He's in several respects, particularly the subordination of perjury.
And I just don't know what's going on there, what your guess there.
Well, I personally encourage that he hadn't given him immunity.
If he gave him immunity and had done it very early, then he would have had something quite damaging.
But Dean has been unable to convince him that he's of that much significance.
Is that what, who told you that?
Well, Bazaar and I both feel that that's it.
We could be very wrong, but there's no real way of knowing.
You never know because he talks about his little lockbox and all that crap.
But things have leaked out of that damn outfit so badly.
And it just,
quite frankly pretty tough to believe that he has anything that would justify immunity and he's god knows he's publicly done everything he could to generate that himself yeah the only thing he could do basically is to say well he's got a memorandum from merlichman or alderman or somebody damn thing you know that's right telephone call from the president or some son of a bitching thing you know i don't know i don't remember any but you know could have made one but not on nothing that i
Nothing that I can't defend, but just trying to get the goddamn facts.
Well, I don't think anything Dean has that's his own recollections are going to be enough to carry it, given his track record and the inconsistencies in a lot of what he said and his own bad, bad performance in this thing.
I must say, I'm anxious to get Walters over there.
One thing I was wondering, which we have to consider, of course, is that I agree we've got to keep the Walters papers here.
And the question is how we distinguish those from the FBI papers.
And I just don't know.
It's just tough as hell.
Well, they're really quite different than normal repository.
before FBI conducted activity of that kind.
It is an FBI.
And that's where it belonged to be.
That's right.
It was an FBI.
But what about the normal repository of things in the CIA?
Is it there at the CIA?
Well, not necessarily.
These in the first place are not official records of any kind.
These are personal memoranda, a man's recollection of discussions with White House personnel.
So he turned them over to us?
That's right.
And the environment was different, too.
The subject is different.
And we just say, well, there they are, but he would be willing to testify on them.
But his Memcons were made for—he made them for the White House because they were being done at the White House for that purpose only.
That's right.
And I, incidentally, I really do believe that there's a good chance that it will never come up.
We're thinking the worst case here.
If he handles his testimony the way that man will do it, which is with a great deal of brilliance and color, and with a notebook in front of him, by God, you know the man doesn't forget anything.
And it's going to be done well.
So I don't think the question will ever come up.
And if it does, he just says, well, yes, I made them, but I turned them over to the
That's right.
Or that was pertinent to this case that is being investigated.
And I am prepared to discuss fully the matters related to this case.
That's good enough.
What will Rupp's line be tomorrow?
What will he say?
Or have you worked that out with him yet?
Well, he knows everything that we've discussed.
But he was having problems, for example, on getting the statistics together.
He wanted to check out as best he can the final—what is verifiable as to why the stuff was sent over here.
There were mixed views on that, you know.
some mixed testimony from different witnesses.
What did they say?
Some of them said it was sent because it was—we asked for it?
Yeah, some said that there was one report, as I understand it, that Ehrlichman asked for.
There was another report that Sullivan went to Mardian and said— I think the latter is true, incidentally.
That's right.
I know how it worked.
I don't think Ehrlichman asked for it at all.
No, the guy that has proved to be the true, accurate voice in this one is Sullivan.
Well, they called Sullivan.
Oh, yes.
Well, he has been called.
And that's not a trial.
That's just an investigation.
There's nothing illegal in this operation.
He had been called before the burial, you mean?
Yes.
They investigated him, took testimony from him.
Well, I would guess, as you know him well, that he would have stood up pretty good, don't you think?
Oh, no question about it.
No question about it.
He's just one good, solid, loyal American who has good law enforcement credentials.
Tell me about, on the Bureau successor, your view is to just continue to hammer away to try to find somebody else.
Yes, sir, I do.
I think any other circumstances, I would have favored Sullivan.
I know.
He proved to have been the good man.
But you've got to put a new man in and then tell him to clean the whole goddamn house up.
That's what we need.
No one else will be credible.
Is Ruppersauce going to say, I hope tomorrow, that there were leaks from the Bureau?
Yes.
Yes.
As a matter of fact, I haven't talked to him directly.
I do this all through his art.
Right.
Good.
So there's no sense of any kind of pressure there.
As a matter of fact, he wanted to go initially and just clean this.
Fire that fellow up.
Yeah, all right.
But I said— No, no, no.
That has nothing to do— Just wait.
That's a good new group action.
Yeah.
But we're going to have to say something.
We have to have a man at the end of the month, so we're going to have to—I think we have to extend Ruckelhaus.
I don't know what to do.
Yeah, extend him or make him take the job.
Right.
Yeah.
Problem.
When Colby goes up, are they going to ask him for the memcons?
We don't think Colby will be asked to go up.
Yeah, but I mean when he goes for confirmation.
Oh, when he goes for confirmation?
Yeah.
We don't think that'll come up with him.
He was just a functionary, and there'd be no reason for anyone to know he had any...
Yeah.
Any knowledge or reason to have knowledge.
How about when Schlesinger goes over?
He had no knowledge either.
Well, they were pecking at him about this because he was the director.
Yeah, but he had no knowledge of where these damn documents were.
No, no, no.
What I mean is, when he goes up for his testimony— For defense.
For defense.
When he goes for defense, they say, well, now what the hell did you do with these things for the CIA?
He says, I—
happened before I ever got here.
That's the way he's going to handle it.
Look, I didn't get into the Central Intelligence Agency until such and such a date.
That's a question that took place before that time.
I had no first-hand knowledge.
Right.
You know, there's just no reason for that.
You know, one thing we have to remember, now, we don't need to do this right at the moment, but believe me, as you know,
Once we get—if we get Schlesinger in and Colby in and we get a new FBI directorate, there isn't going to be any goddamn bullshit with these people.
They're going to be called in and that we have no problem with Schlesinger and Colby.
uh, uh, uh, you know, Lily Libert about doing what needs to be done to protect leaks and so forth.
Because that was one of the problems with Kleindienst, correct?
We thought Black Hill would get him in and then he was a lousy Attorney General because he was trying to prove he was a good gunner.
Yes, exactly.
Do you think, you don't think Schlesinger would be that way, do you?
No, no, sir.
Not for a minute.
Uh, because as you know, over in defense, you've got to be tough, don't you?
You have to be tough as hell, and people either are scared to death of what you're doing or you're going to have problems.
Try it.
Now incidentally, I have a bizarre—it's been nice and bizarre to talk to Schlesinger for about an hour or two hours tonight, because we just want to be absolutely sure of our ground here that there is no possibility of any surprises from the agency, both in terms of
that other people might have or think they have.
That's not a building that I have total confidence in.
Total.
You mean knowledge about whether they tried to fix this as a CIA plot?
Yes.
Who had any knowledge at all of this damn thing?
Yeah.
And what's Schlesinger's own investigation?
Well, I really feel that Walters knows more about anybody else.
He was sort of in charge.
And goddamn, thank God, he stood like a rock against Dean.
And Jesus, it's really, really incredible, you know, the thing that really happened here.
And it shows you, as I said, John and Bob are, with the best of intentions, really innocent.
Because they said, for Christ's sake, find out, was this a CIA operation?
And Dean goes out and says, for Christ's sake, pay them.
I couldn't believe such a thing.
It wouldn't work to begin with, let's face it, apart from his immorality.
Well, you know, these aren't morons, for God's sake.
They're going to lay out that kind of a hokey poke with a guy like Helms, who we know has no reason for loyalty.
But also, Walters is not going to do such a goddamn thing.
I mean, to try to set up such a fake deal that, well, this is all a CIA business.
Because Christ, why should the CIA want to bug the Democratic headquarters, let's face it?
And we knew also, everybody knew that Walters had just gotten there and, for Christ's sake, was an outsider to begin with.
It just, you know, wasn't the way to do it.
It was inconceivable that anyone would do it.
My first telehealth...
that it was, you know, in other words, calling into a meeting that would set up such a change.
One thing you could do is to check my own schedule to see when Helms did see me alone.
It'll probably show after an NSC.
That's right.
I've already done that.
And I know he was in through that in the morning.
And I know he was in.
It wasn't long, 15, 20 minutes.
It was about several things.
I just wanted you to know we had nothing to do with the damned...
this Watergate thing.
And I said, okay, good, good.
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
And we want to have that as we talk to him.
If he doesn't recall it, we're prepared to remind him of it.
That's right.
Okay, well, we've just begun to fight, boy.
Yes, sir.
Exactly right.
All right.
Fine, fine.