On November 19, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman talked on the telephone at Camp David from 6:59 pm to 7:05 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 155-004 of the White House Tapes.
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Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Well, I should have thought of this earlier, but when you mentioned Mitchell, and I assume maybe you may have done this already on—because of my previous instruction—with regard to Dominick and Wilson and Dole, rather than having the heat come from us, had it occurred to you that perhaps some people, you know, in the House, the Senate, and the National Committee might— Yes, sir.
In other words, have somebody in the National Committee say, we've got to have a full-time chairman.
I mean, in reading the mail here, there's a hell of a lot of letters of that effect.
Right.
Yeah.
What are you doing about it?
Can we do anything about it?
What I mean is, why should we take the heat?
Let's just get somebody in the National Committee to lead the charge.
I mean, whoever it is.
All right.
We've got to show that we don't do it here.
Otherwise, we're doing it.
somebody in the National Committee and then we respond to that by saying, yeah, reluctantly, we think he's a great guy and the rest, but we need a full-time chairman.
Right.
And the same on Dominick.
And so—and something has got to be developed.
Remember, I—nothing has come out, unfortunately, in the press on him, but we've got to get Dominick and Wilson, you know, attacked a bit for their lousy candidates and the rest.
I really think that's necessary.
It's something that hasn't been picked up.
I don't think we're going to get much on that.
We've got both of them out, and that's the key thing.
Well, what about Dole, though?
It would seem to me that that would be rather easy, wouldn't it?
To get somebody in the National Committee to say that we need a full-time chairman, professional.
Yep.
Who can you work on on that?
John Mitchell's the guy that's got to do it, because I think if any of us— All right, all right, fine.
Then get a hold of—when you get Mitchell, have you got him yet?
No, sir.
get Mitchell telling that we've got to build this fire for Dole's own good and for our own good, too, and going on it so that we don't take the heat for it.
I agree you can't sell the other things because we're going to get blamed for the House and the Senate and all the rest, and our people with all of their good intentions just haven't got the skill to know how to handle that sort of thing.
But that's all right.
On the National Committee thing, though, it should be no problem because that's almost universal except for Dole.
there should be a full-time chairman now that he should leave because he's going to be a candidate.
Let's have it roll back from them.
It's got to come from someone like Mitchell, though, who's known to share your views.
It doesn't come from the White House.
I agree, I agree, but I mean, just have it come from somebody.
Let's get it rolling so that I just don't get doled up here cold.
You're right in getting Mitchell to talk to him first, but rather than just having Mitchell talk to him, Mitchell ought to stir up a few people around in California, New York,
You know, the key states, Pennsylvania, they call for it, you know, and some guy calls for it.
And somebody—incidentally, with regard to both Dominick and Wilson, I think— Harlow could do some of that, too.
Yeah, Harlow could do it.
But I meant Dominick and Wilson.
It would be good to have some young senator, like a Brock, speak out.
Well, maybe that'll hurt him in getting the job himself, but at least somebody in the House might speak out and say, well, we need a change there, rather than just
you understand why you have to do it that way because that way then it puts the responsibility for what happened on them rather than just having them go out too damn gracefully.
I wouldn't let them go out too gracefully.
The problem is they're already going out.
Well, they both announced it.
Wilson has not publicly, I guess.
He has privately.
Well, then I'd put the heat on Wilson because he's been—the way he's handled himself.
I just thought, but I think particularly on Dole, it should be so easy to get somebody to get hold of Mitchell to sort of start the backfire before I see Dole calling upon him to do it.
And that'll make it easy for me so I don't have to say, well, Bob, you've got to go.
And I think it's better, too, than have Mitchell tell him he has to go.
But the thing I'm concerned about is if we call Mitchell, Mitchell tells him he knows goddamn well it's me.
But have somebody other than Mitchell or me fill it up and then say we agree with her.
That's right.
That's right.
Harry Dent could probably help on a thing like this, you know.
Have him, you know, just use players like that.
Okay.
Okay.
Are you up here yet?
No, sir.
Fine.
Well— Great work.
And we'll see you at the—tomorrow, I guess, at the—which one?
I've got one of them in the afternoon, I guess.
Richardson, aren't you there with him?
Yeah.
Right.
Excellent.
Good.
I will fix him up good.
Okay.
You know, I was rather interested.
I saw the life cover and I—
I thought that was pretty bad.
What did you think?
The picture?
Yeah.
It was terrible.
I just didn't want to rub it into Ron, but he browbeat the hell out of me to get pictures taken on the phone.
I said, Ron.
He came in and said, you know, he knew it right away.
I don't mean to rub it in because we did the best we could, but that was a deliberate sabotage job by the editors of Life.
They make that decision at the highest level.
Don't you agree?
Yep.
What did Ron say?
That's exactly that.
So what do you think we should do?
Keep seeing you signing?
That's absolutely right.
We shouldn't have done it.
This just proves he's right one more time.
All right.
That was such a deliberate thing, you know, with all the things they could have shown.
I mean, that was a deliberate thing.
And has it occurred to anybody—I just hope it has so that I don't have to raise such things as this—to have really not only a few letters, but a Don Kendall calling
and others in raising ammo?
Has it occurred or not?
No.
All right, then it occurs right this moment.
Give a few orders out, will you?
Yep.
Okay.