On May 17, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr. talked on the telephone from 4:58 pm to 5:16 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 046-105 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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?
Yes, Mr. President.
Hi, Fred.
I got to go out to see my daughter and wondered if there was anything further before I took off.
No, sir.
It's going well.
Yeah.
We're still moving on the... One of these guys have such a long way to come, you probably won't get them until about Sunday, will you?
I would hope we'd have them by Saturday, Mr. President.
But, I mean, Giler can't get here that fast, can he?
I believe he can.
I haven't read back yet, but I hope that they'll both be able to get on the way today.
Well, of course, this is Thursday.
Yes, it is.
Oh, yeah.
That's right.
So hopefully by Saturday.
Yeah, we want to get this one really nailed down before that time.
We want all the facts, and I don't want to start anybody writing until we have a look at all of them to make sure what the precise details are.
Did McManus find anything yet?
No, sir.
No, sir, but he's looking.
Of course, it's really terrible to go through files.
I used to try to do it.
Goodness, you know, going back four years, I bet the poor son of a bitch doesn't even remember ever seeing Houston.
Well, he remembers Houston.
They apparently were fairly well acquainted.
I see.
Uh-huh.
And Houston kind of thinks there was a memo.
Well, that's all right.
Let me say, the oral thing will do if we don't get the other.
That's right.
I hope we'll find a copy of the memo.
Oh, good God, yes.
God, yes.
Yes.
And did any of these guys find any notes that they'd made at the time?
Yeah.
Jarlone made some notes, and Brennan at the Bureau, who sat in on the meetings and acted as kind of a secretary, has notes.
He has rather voluminous records on it.
And hopefully one of them will be the memorandum we're looking for.
He's going through them.
You mean the memorandum indicating that we started and then no go.
Yes.
But as far as their oral recollections are concerned...
They all say it did not go.
And that means by all name again the people... Sullivan says this.
Sullivan says this.
Tordello...
Recalls it.
Recalls it.
And has some notes.
He has telecon...
telecon notes on three telecon, telephone conversation.
Right.
Uh, with Sullivan.
Um, DuPont says that, uh, a man named Stillman, uh, got the word from General Bennett.
It was no go.
Uh, so personally, Bennett will remember also.
Um,
I do not have the response from him.
When was the date of Helms?
You haven't heard from him yet.
No, sir.
I haven't got the answers back from him.
I have these dates here, Mr. President.
It was on June 24, 25.
That was the period.
That was the period when it was go or no go.
Yes, sir.
And after that date, it was all up.
It was just within a few days after that paper was finished and signed.
Oh, I thought you said it was two or three months after the paper.
That turns out different.
Now, the conversations continued, but they went to final draft on the 15th of June.
Of the policy paper?
Yes, sir.
I see.
Now, it went in within the next few days, and let me see, I have the date of that thing.
It was dated June the 25th.
Right.
Of 1970.
Yes, sir.
And actually, they were given the green light, I believe, on—let me see, I've got that date here.
Just let me look a second in my notes.
Fine.
And then I'll find it.
I had a little trouble finding it.
That's all right, Fred.
It was July the 14th.
Yeah.
Before the paper actually went in.
Went in to me?
Yes, sir.
I see.
Before the final paper went in to you.
I see.
It was when Harlan's note was written to Houston.
Houston, right.
And then apparently the actual paper came in on the 25th.
about that date.
And that's the time who made his protest.
The final paper went in the 25th of July?
No, it was the 25th of June.
Yeah, but then...
Apparently it was all turned up about time he actually got the paper.
Apparently what this is, is they were given a preliminary signal to go ahead with all the discussions.
Discussions before the paper ever got.
On the basis, when the paper came in, apparently, almost contemporaneously, it was turned up.
So it looks like very much a tentative decision, and then it was all turned off.
But the paper came in, and then apparently I—but then right after that, we indicated to go on it, but it had been turned off.
In other words, we said go after it, but it said no go.
Is that what happened?
Well, it could have been, but anyway, it's all confused.
Well, what we're trying to do is get it nailed down, if we can, with some documents.
And Brennan's notes look like the best source of documents, Mr. President.
Because if he was the driving force and he has the notes there, he's having to search through the records, their old records, and hopefully he thinks he has completely comprehensive notes on the whole thing.
Now, basically, as far as Sullivan is concerned, has he back yet?
Are we able to get him?
He's flying back early tomorrow.
He had to get to a place where he could catch an airplane.
He was up in New Hampshire in the woods.
But he has recollections, does he?
He has recollections.
But he didn't make the notes.
He's coming back tomorrow, and he will go over the records himself, the Bremen finds, and then we'll get him down with the update.
Well, as you know, when you've got a bunch of jackasses like, you know, a bunch of bureaucrats doing this, their notes...
Taken out of context don't mean nothing.
It's really the critical question.
But the important thing here is that from everything you have to date, at least you could say with conviction today, it was no go.
It was absolutely no go.
We have one dissent to that.
That's right.
Nobody says yes.
There's no indication of action under the damn thing.
No, sir.
Absolutely not.
They all deny that.
Absolutely.
They won't be believed, but they'll deny it.
What about the time he came down to the Senate?
What happened down there?
He's not worried yet, Mr. President.
But he'll tell them to go ahead and print it all in the Times, won't he?
No, he won't do that.
I don't think he'll do that, but I think he'll just work on his objection from letting it go.
Yeah, or something like that.
Right, right.
But that then, however, will put the committee in the position, the committee council and so forth, of leaking it.
Don't you think that's what happens here now?
I think they've already, you know, already started discussing it.
Oh, yes, I understand that, but I mean in terms of its totality.
Yes, sir.
At some point they will use it.
I don't know what that is, but at some point they will use it.
I would say that...
Probably.
I wouldn't anticipate it.
And then a day or two.
I mean, I think they're going to...
I do not believe we'll see it for the weekend.
Of course, we could always be surprised and they could make a Sunday story out of it.
Sunday story or a magazine story.
Yes, sir.
But we'll be ready by that time, too.
Yes, sir.
And I think the thing to do there is to be ready and just lay in the bushes and whack them.
Right.
I think Sunday would be the earliest we'd see it.
Right.
And I doubt if it comes then.
Well, we'll see.
But let's be ready.
Let's be ready.
We will.
And we'll be ready with the goddamnedest...
I don't want too long, you know.
I think it should be... We'll save the length of the backup documents.
Right.
But the point is, the main thing is to have good, sharp rhetoric indicating what had happened.
It started in 67, 68, etc., and we finally— I'm having this all written by the Bureau and authenticated, too.
Oh, you're having them make a report?
Yes, sir.
They have confirmed to me that it was done until 67, you know.
And several of them tell me it was.
And they're willing to make affidavits to that.
Or sell them on Lakeland, too.
Sell them on Lakeland, too.
He said he would.
Right, right, right.
So you will do your best to be sure that Ruckelshaus is aware that you're conducting this investigation.
And you told him, did you tell him all that it was no go?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, that made him feel better, didn't it?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
You just said flatly, flatly that it was no go.
That's what I want to know.
Well, not only no action.
I mean, it was turned off.
Are you putting it on the basis it was turned off?
Why are you saying that because of Hoover's objections?
I just told him there was no go on it.
Basically, the way we ought to describe it then, Fred, is basically it was a
sort of a policy, a contingency plan that was, that's really what it is, isn't it?
A contingency or a policy, or how do you want to describe it?
It was actually a study paper.
A study paper?
Presenting the pros and cons of various courses of action.
Various courses of action.
Policy courses of action.
Right, right, right.
And approved unanimously by all concerned.
That's right.
Recommendation for it.
Unanimously, right?
Approved.
I approved it.
And then, within a few hours, it was turned off.
Yes, sir.
A few days.
And it looks now, Mr. President, as if the actual affirmative approval was on a tentative basis before the final draft was ever in there.
And when the final draft came, the answer was no.
That's what it looks like to me at the moment.
Oh, I see.
In other words, they had a tentative thing, and I said, okay, go ahead.
Right.
But then when the final draft— The final came, Hoover footnoted it, and the answer was no.
Yeah.
Well, basically what I'd like to be able to do to be in a position that tentatively that this study was made, it was tentatively approved, and that's where all the crap that Dean had.
But that the final paper, the so-called Dean paper, was one that was turned off before the goddamn thing ever saw the light of day.
Right.
And no action was ever taken under it.
And it looks now as if it will have been turned off at least by the time that paper's dated.
Really?
Yes, sir.
I'll be damned.
Boy, that shows how our bureaucracy works, doesn't it?
Yes, sir.
It's a mishmash.
You've come to think about it.
Well, thank God it's one time the bureaucracy worked for us, isn't it?
Yes, sir.
Sometimes they serve a purpose.
One time, sometimes the bureaucracy in its molasses-like way
Oh, I don't mean by that that had there been a hell of a goddamn riot in July, we wouldn't have been unhappy if we hadn't done it.
But that was really what it was all about.
That's right.
Everybody would have been very upset.
That's right.
That we hadn't taken some preventive action.
Right.
That's right.
That's right.
I understand that we'll see some articles about the conditions early.
You know?
given the flavor of what was going on in that period.
That's all right.
Well, look, good God, those articles, Fred, that you want to check with Ziegler will not be new.
Go back and read the papers in the Cambodia period.
Right.
Jesus Christ, I mean, we were under siege, you know.
Yes, sir.
God, this place was in an uproar, you know, Kent State and the riots and all the rest and so forth and so on.
Break-ins of the...
Yeah.
The FBI and all this.
They had a break-in in the FBI.
That's right.
All that should be collected.
All that was.
Is that being collected?
For example, I've forgotten about the break-in of the FBI, but there was also.
Another incidence of that type.
There was a threat, I think, to kidnap Henry.
That's right.
And there was also a threat to kill the president.
Several.
Which I've told Ziegler to get off his ass and find.
Yes, sir.
All that.
That's right.
And an atmosphere should be built in.
Yes, sir.
With a good sharp depiction.
Right.
Well, that's where Buchanan can be helpful.
Once you give him the strength to be sure that all of it is just cold turkey.
And we want to hit it with, if when they hit on a thing like this, you never hit back unless you hit the kill.
Yes, sir.
You know what I mean?
And then let them
be in a position of defending the bomb throwers and then the rest and so forth and we're defending the forces of law and order even though we're defending also using some pretty tough means all right okay okay what is the uh what's the situation and i guess the urban committee grinds on today committee grinds on they're down to the arresting officer ma'am
and going through the tedium of that.
Somebody told me it's a very dull show.
I haven't looked at it.
It is a very dull show.
Is it?
And, uh, you know, the commentators are talking about the impact this will have on the trial, too.
They are.
They're discussing that.
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Well... We have to quickly do the transcript just now just to see... As a matter of fact, let me tell you, let me tell you, Fred, as a lawyer, I mean, I never did much criminal law, but I didn't end it that long.
But believe me, uh, the, uh,
I think this is the SEAL case, but there are any number of cases.
This kind of thing could be Mitchell's, who is, in my view, the prime target.
I mean, hold him and hurt him, yes, but Mitchell, it could be his defense.
It could well be.
What do you think?
It could well be.
It might be a successful defense.
Because how do you work that defense?
How does the SEAL thing work?
Tell me how that works.
Well, in the SEAL thing, they presented the publicity.
and showed that no jury could breach an objective decision.
Yeah.
That the newspaper articles were so one-sided with N.U.N.
Go.
Well, look, let me tell you, this is more one-sided than SEAL.
We've already had more, of course.
And more one-sided.
My God, a lot of people were for Bobby SEAL.
That's right.
And I'm sure that the...
You see, that helps the defense, because all of the networks are going gavel-to-gavel coverage nationwide.
And you've got preemption, and that's, I guess, kind of historic.
I don't know any other hearing that has been gavel-to-gavel with really a preemption, all networks.
All daytime television.
Let me tell you, they're going to find that they're going to lose their audience at that stuff.
People will be looking for late shows.
That's a dull thing.
A committee hearing is dull as hell.
It is.
Unless you've got a striking witness like a Joe McCarthy.
That's true.
Remember Joe McCarthy in Welch?
That was good.
But the rest of that hearing was dull as dishwater.
It really was.
if they're going to prove anything.
Well, anyway, keep going, old boy, and get home and get a good dinner.
Get dinner and, my golly, let's get these affidavits and so forth and so on.
It's a funny mix, isn't it?
It looks like that basically when the final policy paper finally got to me,
that it already had been turned off.
It had, apparently, because we were footnoted.
Now, that's the order of priority, the conclusion I reach based on the information at the moment.
The point is, though, that I didn't sign the policy paper, apparently.
You never signed the policy paper.
I didn't sign anything, apparently, ma'am.
Then you didn't, apparently, sign nothing.
Okay, boy, thank you.
Good, thank you, sir.