On April 28, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Ronald L. Ziegler talked on the telephone at Camp David at an unknown time between 8:21 am and 8:41 am. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 164-002 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
No.
Mr. Dickerson.
Yes, sir.
What time did you get to bed?
Oh, about 12.30, 1 o'clock.
Well, you're a young fellow.
You can take it, I guess.
Fine, fine.
Well, it's quite a collection of headlines this morning, isn't it?
Oh, boy.
It was obvious last night they weren't going to go with anything, and they can.
I talked to the fellows again, Gergen.
I didn't call you back because... On that subject, yeah.
Well, always call me if there is something I...
I mean, I had gone to bed around 11.15, and I figured maybe nothing had happened, but I was thinking of the other hit.
Oh, I know.
That's what I mean, yeah.
The gray, let's see, the gray headline, and then, of course, the Ellsberg thing broke, and then how they got poor Ligman on that fiscal thing.
He's got a hell of a good defense, but they don't play the defense much, do they?
That's one of the difficulties in all of this.
He also has his defenses backed up with the State Department tables.
Right, right, right, right.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Well...
The Ruckelshaus appointment seems to be received well.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
I hope your morale isn't down, Ron.
No, sir.
Mine's not.
Huh?
I don't mean to sound that way.
Right.
No, no, no.
I didn't mean you did, but I just want you to know, I mean, what the hell?
We've just begun to fight, haven't we?
That's exactly right.
I'm on my way now to meet with Price again.
Right.
Yeah.
The way I feel now is that it's almost as well.
You know, it's a funny thing about timing.
Funny thing about timing.
You know, if we had had them move earlier and all this shit had broken, it would have been awful bad.
You get my point?
You've got to let the other side play their hand a little bit.
And then crack, you know what I mean?
I mean, it's a mix because it appears that maybe the president knew and didn't do something or they waited.
But on the other hand, we might have made a sort of a bland statement when, after all, there's a hell of a lot of other crap going to hit.
That's right.
And that's that.
But anyway, that's that.
But don't you, don't you, you know, this is a time for strong men, Ron.
I agree.
Don't you get panicky, you know, and so forth.
And our day is going to come.
Yes, sir.
I agree.
Because we're going to clean a lot of things up.
I thought of an interesting comment by Libby's, I mean, or...
Hunt's in this paper this morning with the fact that he will not, unless he's given immunity, won't testify.
What's that line that pulls up to show that maybe we're covering up, we don't get immunity?
Well, that's not my decision.
That's the decision of the U.S. Attorney, and I've told him he can do it.
I mean, the Deputy Attorney General.
I've told him he can do what he goddamn pleases.
That's right.
The way you've looked at this thing, Mr. President, is...
The thing we've discussed is all of these guys now who are trying to throw these threats out.
The presidency of the United States doesn't have to put up with that.
You're not going to.
And as you pointed out, you're not going to.
And these little men cannot sit there and say, I'm not going to testify unless given immunity.
If you feel that's going to have some impact on the presidency, on the president or his actions, then hell with them.
That's right.
They have their...
If the immunity thing comes up, it'll say the president has stated a view.
He has expressly told Mr. Peterson that the decision, however, is one that must be made by the chief Justice Department official.
And he can make any decision that will get to the bottom.
That's all I want.
The president wants to get to the bottom of this.
And I'd keep hammering the fact that I am
I am determined that the chips fall where they may, that I'm going to root this out.
Root it out, you know, root and branch or whatever it is.
I was rather sorry to see Billy Graham join in the chorus of saying, you know, do something, you know.
I was rather surprised to see him say that.
Without their calling, I was too.
Because he had indicated the contrary.
Not that he wasn't concerned, but the contrary about...
his views about it, but I suppose that's just a straw in the wind.
He's probably jumping ship, don't you think?
Oh, I don't know that he's jumping ship.
It's hard to see what context he put it in.
I'm sure he's still very much there.
Yeah, but he just feels that that's the only thing to do.
Right now, though, I mean, when you talk about a special team to prosecute and so forth, God, it's too late.
The grand jury's too far along the line, and they're going to indict, and when they indict, that's going to answer an awful lot of questions.
My view is, that is, that people are going to be really surprised to see a former attorney general, among others, get the axe.
What do you think?
Well, the scope of it, sure.
No, no, no, no, no.
But what I meant in terms of the fact as to whether or not there was an all-out prosecution, you know what I mean?
The idea that you need a special prosecutor in order to, otherwise it'll be covered up.
Well, goddammit, there's no covering up if you get to form the Attorney General of the United States, is there?
No, sir.
Or do you agree?
Well, you get more than the former Attorney General.
I know, I know.
But, you know, that, of course, is the most dramatic.
But it goes...
You know, the Magruder and LaRue.
Well, they get Magruder and LaRue.
Now, the point is that they don't indict Hall and Merlick.
And I suppose they'll say, well, they're covering them up.
But we'll see.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I don't see with how aggressively this matter has been aired that anyone's in charge of cover-up.
Good one.
is as extensive as the investigation has been, and as extensively as this has been aired, how anyone can claim a cover-up.
Good God.
And, you know, one thing I still say is, thank God we made our statement on the 17th, don't you think?
Yes, sir.
I don't know whether the press is still aware of that.
Maybe they've forgotten that.
No, it's still running a bit, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
Just like, for example, the leads yesterday on the wires.
It said in terms of the Pat Gray, the president moving swiftly to deal with the Watergate matter, accepted Gray's resignation.
Wanted Ruckelshaus, right, and told him that he was to get to the bottom.
Right.
Ruckelshaus did that, didn't he?
Yes, he did.
Mm-hmm.
And that's that.
Did you want me to contact Rose?
No, I don't need her, basically, not any time today.
You know, I do sort of my notes today, and then she should plan to come up, you know, late tonight.
You know, come up so that she's available Sunday.
Sunday's the day we'll have to do some typing.
Great.
She and Marge should come.
Uh-huh.
As far as Ray is concerned, he should come up when he's got his stuff.
And he's figuring about what deadline have you given him?
7 o'clock he gave me.
Yeah, that's about right.
It takes him that long.
No use to rush him any further.
And you think you got him pretty well, Ron, and in tune with what we want to do?
I mean, due to the things we've said.
I mean, I think I've got...
I sort of have in mind the kind of turn we want and so forth.
Yes, I do.
I spent a lot of time with him after I left you last night.
Uh-huh.
And he seems to sense it.
He wanted to, as he worked all night, working through the night, he wanted to get a couple drafts done, and then he's going to get together with Buchanan and bounce it off of him.
Good.
He's a good team player.
He really is.
Really a good team player.
Gergen is and all the rest.
And that's that.
Are Bob and John coming up today?
That's what they told me.
That's what they told me.
You know, I don't know.
I don't know.
As you know, this is going to be a painful session.
But, God, I don't.
Do you see, Jesus, do you see anything now that they, I mean, with all of this, you know, with the Congress, I mean, everybody else is saying Jesus Christ do something that they really should hang on.
What's your feeling on that?
My feeling is the same, Mr. President.
They better move now or the time will be gone.
Yes, sir.
And move on the high ground.
Yes, sir.
I think so.
Absolutely.
Seems it must be done.
The alternative, of course, would be to... Say, we'll wait for the grand jury.
We'll wait for the grand jury to hang and stand and battle it out on that basis.
But that's a battle you enter into knowing you're going to lose.
The battle you're going to lose because...
It's a question of the president getting at least one head ahead of the power curve.
That's right.
One step ahead of the power curve.
See, that's where Truman lost in the 5%-er.
He just said, well, he wouldn't say a god damn, it's all a red herring and all that sort of thing.
And he waited until he indicted, then he let him go, you know.
Then he had a, we thought it was a big deal then.
But, you know, one interesting historical anecdote about that, however, is the reason it hurt Truman so badly.
Well,
He didn't run in 1952, but it hurt the administration so badly, so it was a mess in Washington, D.C.
It came, the big investigations came in 1951 and 1952.
In other words, the thing about all of these is, Ron, you know, this may sound like we're trying to sort of make a good thing out of something, which is terrible.
It is terrible.
But you know, the main thing about any terrible thing, boy, it's like that damn operation on whatever it is.
I mean, like, you know...
prostate do it now get it done take the pain get it over with and live again don't you agree absolutely i'd rather take all the heat right now and the battle as i was saying that you know can be won as a battle from the standpoint of moving moving heads on with the the major
a weapon, doing the job of the government, the job of the administration.
Yes, yes, that'll be, after, after, yeah, that's true.
We've got a lot of big things left to done, true, and didn't.
But the part is that that can only be done, though, after we do the cleaning up on this goddamn thing.
We can't start that really wrong until after the grand jury nights start to agree.
Well, that's, that's true, right, which is fairly close.
Yeah, two, three weeks away, three weeks, perhaps, depending upon the
Dean is the key to the whole plan.
O'Brien, to a certain extent, because he can talk about the payoff business.
Yep.
Ron, let me ask you a question.
I'm trying to think of what the hell they, this fellow Dean, talked about that he's got, you know, some, does he say documentary or, no, what was the kind of proof he's supposed to have?
Oh, the substantiated...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, you know, from time to time, I don't do it all the time, you know, I'll write a little note on a news summary, you know, do this, do this, do this, do this.
I hope all of them didn't just have those notes meant to be sent to people in my, or how was that?
No, no, you sure didn't.
You're pretty sure of that?
No, I'm sure I'm positive of that.
Because some of them were sent to you, how did they come to you?
In memo form, not even from you.
Yeah, is that right?
Yes, sir.
From Haldeman, huh?
Well, not even from Haldeman, from on down the line from the staff secretariat.
And it didn't say the president, director, anything of that sort.
The police said, you might want to look into this.
Mm-hmm.
Or it has been requested that you do this.
Mm-hmm.
So it should always be done, you know, because those things are written not with any thought of, you know, of their...
being put out for publicity or written simply to, you know, to jigger people's minds to think about problems and the right sort of thing.
But you see a fellow like Dean could take something like that.
I might see something on the Ellsberg case or something like that.
I say, for Christ's sakes, where is the...
I mean, why can't we...
We get some information as to who this fellow is.
You know what I mean?
But on the other hand, I don't expect such things to go in.
Well, Mr. President, I think the point of all of this is that this is such a maze.
Maybe there's a way to make this point in the speech.
I'm going to refer this point to Price.
This is such a maze full of so many...
closely related individuals who dealt together in all of their daily, you know, activities and work, that there are actions and interactions between people that can suggest, you know, situations that really didn't happen.
And anyone who was involved in that, who wanted to seize upon that, who wanted to refer to those associations in today's environment suggests that
something other than it was can do that.
You see?
You know, there's a...
I think price can...
make that point in an easy way, but this is what you're referring to here.
In other words, can Dean take something that was noted in the news summary to juggle his mind and to do something, or anyone in the state?
Right.
The main thing, let me say, that all the crew, you know, they're all kind of worried and everything, and the rest is, I'm sure, probably they're coming in saying Jesus is throwing up their hands and so forth.
I'm not
I mean, I don't want any of them to resign unless they're guilty of something.
You'd be surprised, Mr. President, now the...
I just wonder about that.
The good men there are hanging in there, and the staff is hanging in there.
You'd be very proud of the secretaries.
Right, right.
Now, the second point is that you just always say...
You're talking to the newsmen.
You can say you have never said the president is going like this in the most tenacious way.
He always goes about a problem.
Right.
And in a fair way.
And that there's going to be more action to come.
Right.
I could say that.
There'd be more.
Don't you think you could say that?
Right.
Or should you say that?
That build-up possibility that some hits are going to roll?
No.
Better not say that.
You don't need to.
The action will speak for itself.
Well, on background, I can soften it down.
The president is looking into that individually, into every top individual in the staff, every top individual.
He's personally questioning them, personally questioning every top individual in the staff.
You know, in addition to getting every bit of information he can, except for grand jury reports, which he refuses to get, because it would be in violation of the judicial process.
But if the president's taking the lead, then he takes the lead and the responsibility.
And this thing's going to be cleaned up.
All right.
quite remarkable you know even in a place like meridian that you we get quite a reception like this with all this that's breaking how do you figure that out well uh i don't think i don't know what the hell it is well of course meridian is out of the way and they're they're all more interested in you know pows and low love of country and all the rest and they don't they think this is political i think i think the story of meridian i think that the significance of meridian
is the fact that the American people, as reflected in Liridian yesterday, have respect for the presidency.
They want to see the presidency succeed, and they have respect for a firm, strong presidency.
mean that's what they have but that's why this speech is very important that's right and strong and therefore it is to indicate that to the american people and they want to they in a situation like this they don't want to see a president destroyed that's why and that's not what we're talking about here of course but i mean in the context of all of this the point i think of meridian is that
when you move, when you state your course, that the American people will stand by you.
Sam, what the, you know, the Washington community says, although they, the Washington community, does affect, particularly in a case like this, national public opinion.
You're damn right.
And that's what we're fighting against.
We're not trying to, well, let me put it this way.
It has not permeated the country yet, but it will.
Quite a bit.
Yeah.
Well, some, but it's going to permeate it more around.
Sure, sure, sure.
I mean, it did with Truman.
It will with us.
But the fight is everything that permeates people these days even more than in those days.
I mean, yesterday's story is very old news because television, television, you know.
That's right.
They'll get on to something else, you know.
And they'll...
In the context, as I said before, that the people wanted to support the president.
Well, and looking back to Truman, they lost confidence in him totally toward the end, you know.
I mean, the old man, although he was able to name Stevenson even then.
Right.
But, of course, what was he doing?
We're not going to get that low.
What was Truman doing?
Nothing.
That's right.
That's right.
He'd already finished the Marshall Plan, the Greek-Turkish loan, and he was in the Korean War.
That's right.
So he was in a hell of a spot.
We've got economic problems, but those problems are at their worst now, and we can probably get better, despite the stock market and everything.
Well, boy.
Okay.
Just wanted to cheer you up a little.
Well, thank you, Mr. President.
We'll be up there about 7 o'clock.
And I'll talk to Ron.
I mean, to...
Robert, see what the crisis is up to and so forth and so on.
Okay.
Bye.