Nixon phone call with Haig on Watergate and National Security

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You know, one thing that I was going to say,

I had a press conference at one point where I pointed out that the hype of the national security type things, which, you know, there are many more than Herrera admitted, but the hype was in Bobby Kennedy's administration.

That's right.

And then this and that.

So in the stuff that has developed, the records, I should say, you know, in a locally, yes, the FBI has done

a lot of national security investigations.

The number in the county administration was blank.

The number in the Johnson administration was blank.

The number in this administration was blank.

And its powers are going to be lower than anybody else's, you know.

Right, right, exactly.

And I think that's a good way to put it.

And then he should go on to say that, what about those men?

Those men were not, there was no tapping of those men as those men, but only

for the purpose of determining whether or not people with security information had leaked to them.

Yes, they were always based on that.

And this imputes nothing of guilt to them.

It's sort of for the purpose of determining whether or not the public is going to be witness on this now, because most people don't want those men to print this goddamn crap.

That's right.

Exactly right.

Don't you agree?

Yes, I do.

Now, I've gotten some readout that

on some of the yesterday's and today's activities.

Gray made a statement that he had called Clark McGregor on July 5th in San Clemente and asked if he had any evidence of presidential suppression.

Clark McGregor said, absolutely not.

And yesterday I understand Gray, because I stated this in his testimony.

Yeah.

And in his testimony, it was very strong that there was no presidential.

Well, now the main thing about that is to get Walters' cryptic statement to the effect where I said, go to the very top, you know.

That's got to get out.

That's right.

I don't know how you can do it, but.

Well, now Walters has gone, has seen Peterson.

Yes.

He reviewed along the lines we discussed, including that.

And he said he'd be prepared to submit an affidavit.

Peterson said, no, don't bother.

You're going to be a witness.

You know, we've worked on Swester a little more.

I was a little nervous about him.

Oh, he'll be all right.

No, I forgot the men cons.

Yeah.

We were handling them.

Yes.

And I had Lazard talk to him.

Yes.

And he's very comfortable.

Well, you can't give him the Memcons for other reasons, but we can testify about everything that's in them.

That's exactly right.

He's on board with that.

Now, he's also going to see Colby.

Now, Colby is an old pro.

He's behaving, isn't he?

Oh, yes.

I'm not too concerned about that, any problem there, that we're going to have any kickback.

Allen Richardson, we've had a little problem with his image, which has been too much of a clean boy, but not enough of a gut-fighting prosecutor, which is exactly what he is.

He's a death-righting prosecutor.

That's right.

So we're getting some stories out on that.

William has described him as the best prosecutor he's known.

Who?

Bennett Williams.

Yes.

And he handled the Goldfein case and the Boston Money case.

We're getting these stories out.

Right.

That helps his image.

Right.

And he goes back on Monday and Tuesday.

Right.

And the timing on his list has been held up by the FBI checks.

We don't dare not execute them carefully for the prosecutor, the special prosecutor.

Yes, who's he leaning to at the moment, do you know?

Well, no, I don't know.

But they've got to check every one of these guys out.

Tell me this, how about making Byron the head of the FBI now?

You know, he was a top candidate before all this.

I don't know why not.

Think about it.

Yes.

We played that goddamn case.

We had some director.

We played that case.

We had some director.

I see.

Yes.

Well, there's another judge.

In St. Louis, that's been considered.

And I'm sure his name is looked into.

They tell me he's cleaned his hounds to the hell of a guy.

Check that name out.

We'll know, you know, whenever people will know.

And God damn it, let's just get somebody in there.

Because we've got to clean the goddamn place out.

Now, with regard to this guy's resignation, I would not do it.

Why have him go out and start slashing the president right away?

Yeah, that's a good point.

Right, right.

Is it worth it?

Well, this thing's supposed to change its flavor a little bit anyhow.

I think we ought to go slow on that.

What do you mean, change its flavor?

Well, the Ellsberg thing is dead now.

That's right.

Good.

Don't you think that's good or not?

Yeah, I'd hold up for it.

Ruckelhaus will have some ideas there.

Tell Ruck that he's got to just stand firm and he can look at all these things.

He can look at all these goddamn Mimcons and all that.

Sure.

Doesn't bother me a bit.

Well, we're going to go through the whole thing tonight.

I'm sure we know exactly what we have.

That's right.

You and Bazzardo.

That's right.

Right.

We know exactly what we have.

Right.

I think I know and I think

There is no problem with it.

I got it pretty easy.

But on the work that you're concerned with, I just want to know, who the hell did it?

You don't know yet, huh?

No.

I'm sure, let me tell you, the camp of Marty and the FBI did it.

That's right.

And that's where this stuff came from.

So anything that we'd have, except that Marty might have been working with this goddamn hunt, you know.

You know, Al, I didn't know they were working with him.

I didn't have the slightest idea we had somebody else working on this end of the FBI.

I really didn't.

Well, no, and he may have.

But we'll have to find out.

Find out.

But the point is, if Hoover wasn't investigating Lake, the goddamn guy should have been fired.

Absolutely.

Well, I know he was in on the original stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I know he was in in 69, 70.

The question is, remember he was in in June of 71 when this fellow went over to McGovern, you know, I mean, oh Christ, you know, the other guy, Muskie.

Right.

And, you know, Henry just went up the wall and said, we've got to find out what the hell he's doing, you know.

Now, when Henry, you know, garbles around about this, let's understand, he was the one that insisted we had to find out what the hell Henry was talking to.

Do you remember?

He was up the hall.

I think of a shit about this Link.

Link had been with him to Moscow.

He'd been with him to Beijing.

He'd been with him, you know, and he was scared to death.

Sure, and he, as a matter of fact, well, we've got to kick Henry off that platform tomorrow.

Why?

Because he's out of his mind?

Oh, no, no, no.

Sorry.

As a matter of fact, I have wonderful shit.

I wonder, Henry, should we pop it out?

Huh?

Just let him be the story?

Why not?

Why doesn't he come out and say, look, yes, there were investigations.

I'm not going to discuss them.

But they were all for the purpose of these leaks of terribly important information.

national security things that would have disturbed this country.

Now, God, I think when Henry ought to stand up and say that, why does he just wait until things are good to do it?

Otherwise, I've got to do it.

Yes, I'm a little worried that it wouldn't be self-serving, isn't it?

Oh, I see.

You know, he tried to say he had nothing to do with it, you mean.

He knew nothing about it.

Bullshit.

He knew all about it.

He was cut off quickly.

He not only was not, not only knew about it, but hell, with the crisis, who was in the office pounding the desk saying, we've got to find out.

So I was, and you were, I'm sure.

Right.

But God damn it, Henry was too bad, wasn't he?

I never saw any reluctance.

Reluctance.

Yeah.

Well, but I think, you know, he's more sensitive about his liberal friends than the child.

So basically, let's put out a very good, strong statement.

Don't.

And write it out loud.

No, Henry, write a long statement.

Say the things he was going to say in his opening statement.

See?

Right.

And that'll make a good story.

Right.

Fine.

Put that out.

Now, with regard to Ruck, I think he should say he's investigating the whole thing.

But I think that somewhere we ought to get out

these numbers again and told Ziegler, God damn it.

Ziegler knows what I said in this press conference because those prepared it.

And there were 108 in the, or 12 or so in the Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy was the highest, you know.

And at 94 in the Johnson administration, and we had about 88.

But God damn it, we should have had 170.

Do you see my point?

But my point is,

Don't have Rut go out and say, because, yes, we've been doing it.

I mean, don't you agree with the offense?

He's one of the buzzarders.

He loves his guts.

No, no.

He's the guy that wants to do it.

He wants to get out there and slam it.

That's totally legal.

And it's what you've been doing.

The only problem we've got, basically, is, oh, I say the only problem.

It may be a problem.

It may not.

The leak thing might have been done by somebody, you know, outside.

But if it was, Al, doesn't the President of the United States have the responsibility to conduct an investigation with regard to leaks in the goddamn place on a national security basis?

Of course, yeah.

Or do we?

A man saying, oh, no, I've got to go to the court to ask them?

Screw the court.

Huh.

Well, that's right.

Now, you know, it may be that there's that particular thing.

We have to find out.

I've been to the lake being sent by the FBI.

Yeah, yeah.

I have the recollection that it was.

I never saw any of the lake reports.

Henry used to come in and move them around a little and say, here, the lake isn't seeing anything.

That's right.

He didn't when we were watching.

Did he ever say anything?

Your memory map with Harriman and everybody else never said a goddamn thing?

That's right.

But Harry was scared to death that he would put out everything.

Oh, well.

Fine.

Who's looking at the map trying to find the Lake file now?

Is anybody?

Yes, Bazaar's over there.

I just left the area.

We were waiting to get the goddamn Secret Service to come in with us.

That's what they had to do.

So we're going to be done quickly.

Would you call me back?

Yes, sir.

And let me say, whatever we did, God damn it now, let's be positive about it.

Let's fight it right down.

Jesus Christ, when I think of the fact that here we are worrying about whether this lake was investigated.

Good God, it should have been investigated.

It left the staff.

He had a lot of confidential information.

We had to know.

It's not that he was defected.

Defected?

That's right.

Now, for God's sake, do we have a responsibility?

It might involve whether we end the war, have the China initiative, or not have it, right?

Exactly right.

Then, by God, let's fight it right down to the wire.

The newsmen don't bother me.

Most people love talking to some goddamn newsmen, believe me.

That's right.

If they were printing unauthorized stuff or... That's right.

Let in the... That's right.

That's right.

You see, Rodden, uh, figures we can just hold what he's got tonight, huh?

Well, I think so.

Uh, there won't be any hit tonight, I don't think.

There's gonna be, uh, they'll probably hit.

And the Ellsberg thing won't go right.

And I don't think you want Henry to go out tomorrow, then.

I mean, the point is, Henry really ought to go out and face up to this damn thing and shoot it right out of the ballpark.

And of course he did it.

Tended to do it.

Uh...

would be from his perspective, you say?

Would you be?

I didn't know a thing about it, right?

No, no.

He'd say, yes, I got these reports.

They were not earmarked as wiretaps.

They were.

No, none of them ever were.

That's right.

And they involved none of this was the way he intended to say it, I suppose.

I received no illegal information.

It was there.

It involved the

I report to people under my supervision.

I report to on them.

Yeah.

They came directly to me initially.

Yeah.

And then after about a few months, they stopped and I was told about cases under my supervision from time to time.

That's the way he had intended to do it.

Did you prefer that it was too weak to block?

Well, I hate to... Why the hell did you...

Yep, I see.

Well, the Soviet announcement's pretty good anyway, by itself, without Henry going on and burping around about it.

What do you think?

Well, I do.

He doesn't know this yet.

He's going to probably be upset, but he won't be upset if he knows he's on the first on line on his own.

That's right.

Now, with regard to Ruck, just say, look, don't you go out until we have all the facts.

Now, what if Ruck wanted to come over and look at the files?

No, he doesn't have to do that.

He just said he's in a hell of a dilemma.

He's anxious to get out and really knock this one over the fence.

And wants to do it as soon as possible, but he said, God damn, I can't get any material.

Our files have been what we have.

What really happened, let me tell you this.

What really happened is Edgar Hoover was a genius in this respect.

He didn't keep any damn files of things he did on it.

investigations with regard to national security, left them at the White House.

Did you know that?

Of course.

And what happened is that the director, of course, probably had Marty on.

He probably told him he could get the goddamn things over to the White House.

Yep.

You know?

That's right.

And some of them did the same thing.

Some of them did it.

He just said, he's just going to play hard line.

He already said the fact.

I think he has, yes, sir, but I haven't gotten any readout.

I understand there was a discrepancy between Marty and Sullivan in their testimonies.

Oh, boy.

Marty insisted that the, well, no, not Marty, but the Attorney General, Mitchell, Mitchell insisted he knew of no wiretaps.

Oh, shit.

Mitchell, for Christ's sakes, approved every goddamn wiretap there was.

He said that, but Mitchell was just lying in his teeth.

That's right.

And he said there's even a signature from Mitchell on the box.

So we got to find that, too.

That's right.

Good.

Well, just another nail in John Mitchell's throat.

But anyway, this is what we're paying the big salaries for.

Fight the goddamn battle.

And you tell Henry that

He's got to know that, you know, everything, including the Indian-Pakistan thing, is going to come out here.

And he's got to say, look, of course we did it.

We did it for the national security.

What do you think?

Well, that's great.

Including if Lake was bugged by Hunt.

Good God, somebody ought to bug the son of a bitch.

That's right.

I hope it wasn't Hunt.

I hope it was the FBI.

But what the hell?

It was.

But tell him.

Don't buzz out if it wasn't just to find out the legal basis that, sure, the president's, my God, the president must have their authority in a national security instance to order that.

Of course, we have, Christ, if you could bomb Cambodia, you could do that.

That's right.

Well, we'll, yeah, we'll have to.

What is it?

Who's working on trying to find Lake's file now?

Bazaar.

Bazaar?

Bazaar, yeah.

You think you can get it for me, then?

Yes, I'm going to take me over, too, so we can do this quicker.

Let me know how long.

Half hour?

I think so.

Call me back.

All right.

Nixon phone call with Haig on Watergate and National Security

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 11, 1973

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