On May 12, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone at Camp David from 10:11 am to 10:49 am. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 165-010 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Good morning, Mr. President.
How'd you survive the night?
Oh, in very good shape, sir.
Yeah.
I had a couple of thoughts.
If time would permit, it seemed to me that maybe you and Buzzard and I might have a thing to drop up here.
We could just have a general sort out for an hour or so.
sometime today.
How does that sound to you?
That's fine, sir.
Or not.
There are more useful things to do there that don't come.
What do you think?
Well, we had planned to have a session of this kind after Henry's press briefing today around 31.
We could come up to the end of it or whatever time you prefer.
Well, if you prefer a word about Henry's press briefing, he's going to go forward with it, isn't he?
He's going to go forward with it.
He's going to
If this question comes up, we don't think it will.
We do not think it will.
Why not?
Because it's a funny thing.
The reason that I think it might not is that the Buckingham Newsman is on a little question particularly.
I don't know.
You know what I mean?
It's self-policy.
These bastards don't want to know.
Well, and if they do...
Henry would say what?
He's just going to say I've received reports from time to time through constituted authority covering a range of foreign and early partisan administration internal security involving personnel under my supervision.
The Director of the Federal Bureau has been investigating these reports and
We'll make a statement in the very near future.
And I should point out that this is not a new custom.
This is not a new practice.
This is something that has been done in all administrations.
Right.
The best thing for Henry to do is to get the hell out of it.
He can't.
He anguishes over this in that breastfeeding liberal world.
Well, basically, even though he was all for it.
That's right, but we're going to put this in very good shape.
As a matter of fact, Bazaar said, hell, we'd be fools not to turn this box back to Ruckelhaus.
He said, Christ, this is just clean.
Well, let me just raise, have you got a minute now?
Yes, sir.
Raise that report points that I did want to discuss, and maybe we can just not, a lot of coaching fellows might be able to bear it.
But get Henry, Henry ought to be up for his briefing.
That's right.
And he feels pretty good that he's going to, and I got to get this folks work along, so that's the one thing.
He's in good shape.
He's probably glad Ellsberg is out, too, anyway.
I think he is.
He's a former student.
Well, yeah, this guy will take care of him.
It seems to me that just to get one minor thing out of the way that the blood I expressed to you last night with regard to Felt is correct, I think.
Doing something now looks like a reaction, an angry reaction to the fact that Phil, that we'll claim, had won the one that had blown the whistle on Ellsberg, see?
On the Ellsberg trial.
Yeah.
I think the thing to do is to wait until we get the new man.
And then the new man is told to clean house.
And in the meantime, Phil, everybody has to know that he's a goddamn traitor.
And just watch him damn carefully.
That's right.
Yeah, he can.
He has to go, of course.
because it's now obvious.
You see, we had these reports, an interesting thing.
I had these reports out.
I got them directly, you know, from the Time magazine, from their attorney.
This was a month ago.
And before I said, Pat, what was his name?
I said, Pat, I said, I want to check these leaks.
He said, well, they could be in the bureau.
I said, yes, they are.
I said, some are.
And I said, we have a very good authority that they're there for felt, but we couldn't get them felt.
I said, damn it, there may be.
And I said, you ought to get them a lie detector test.
You know, I went, I was very tough.
Oh, we can't do that.
He said, but I, he said, I vouched for felt.
I also arranged it with Plain East.
Plain East vouched for felt.
which shows how clever Felt is.
But my point is that this was three or four months ago that we were off to the son of a bitch.
We had something.
We had to leave.
And it shows you how important it is.
You and I have got to be sure when we get things like this in the future, we don't disregard them.
That's right.
That's right.
Isn't that interesting?
What did he do?
Did he go out and tell them about the thing?
What did the judge dismiss on?
Just on the fact that he had heard that there had been
The wiretapping of this phone took what occurred long before the case began, was that it?
Yeah, well, the way he described it, of course, is that the irregularity...
I see, okay.
Aren't you just glad it's all over, though?
I think it's good to have it over.
You're not going to get anything from this.
Yeah.
The liberals can now have their time, and this guy ain't going to be the big hero now.
The other point is that with regard to the material, you did send it out to the judge.
Sent it out, and as soon as it gets all through the system, which is what we want, then we'll find a way.
Now, with regard to that, too, I want the word to get out that it was sent out.
Or should we say that?
Yes.
Well, I gave it last night to the investigators.
You know, I was interviewed last night.
on the wiretaps.
Oh, yeah.
Laid it right out.
When I got finished, the guy said, God damn it, he said, you're the first man I've talked to that did things in the country first and not covered his own ass.
He said, this stuff is all vital.
It's been done for years.
He's an FBI investigator.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, and he asked him about it.
What did you tell him about it?
I told him everything.
I said, we had a series of unbelievable leaks in the early days of 69.
that only a few people had this information.
So we started surveillance on these people, and one lead would lead to another, that it was a very modest operation in its scope, but that by God it resulted in some personnel actions which were taken at the time.
That's right, and everything was done...
And the only way that Ellsberg's name came in was tangentially.
I told him exactly how it came in.
And I said, we have sent the results of that surveillance to Peterson at the request of Judge Byrne.
And Mr. Ruckelhaus will be over this morning.
He's going to look at the entire package.
And there we go.
Right there.
Right.
That's the way to do it.
Really relieved.
And Ellie Richardson, I talked to her for about an hour last night, and she just pales up.
He said the best thing that ever happened was he got desired over here and said the whole thing is coming into focus.
Is he beginning to, did you tell him the story about this?
Oh, yes.
I told him everything.
He said, God, I can't tell you how relieved I am.
I said, hell, you got a reason to walk around.
He's got to be.
He's got to be relieved.
Well, he wasn't in defense then, but he knows it had to be done and that we were doing it.
That's right.
Well, he's delighted with it.
Another point that I wanted to make on that, uh,
I was wondering where the wire traps were that Johnson, that were done for Johnson and Kennedy.
They're over in the Bureau.
Are they for sure?
That's the report I have.
Now, I got that last night from the... Yeah.
That's why we're... That's another reason why these should be over there.
That's exactly right.
And Mardian brought these over when?
Mardian, we don't know.
But Mardian testified that he delivered the boxes to Henry and to me.
Yeah.
Sullivan said, no, they were delivered to John Ehrlichman, which is the truth.
Yeah.
So we don't know why Marty had that crazy statement.
Well, in any event, the whole point was that he delivered them for whatever reason, because they involved our personnel.
No, what we have found out is that Sullivan took the initiative.
He was fearful.
The Hoover was going to use these reports to blackmail the White House.
Now, that can't come out.
Yeah.
But that's the fact of it.
Well, I'll tell you, the movement of the boxes back and forth, can we do that discreetly?
Well, we just turned them over to Ruckelhaus.
Yeah.
Assurance that Ruckelhaus will keep them in his own safe.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
That doesn't bother me.
But I just wanted to get out in some way or other.
Marty and first they were moved to the White House and now they're back at the Bureau or something like that.
No, I think we should tell them exactly what happened.
What happened?
That they were delivered here because that was the practice.
That's right.
No, I want to just say this, that Marty delivered them because there were so many leaks from the White House.
I mean from the Bureau.
That's what I mean.
The atmosphere was leaking.
Because of the sensitivity, personal damage this could do to people.
That's right.
Innocent people.
Right.
And they were put in.
But Mr. Hoover directed that anything that's dealing with them, they should be delivered right here.
And they were delivered here by then.
Let's put it that way, that the barrel was going to leak, okay?
That covers it.
Hey, Roco House, this investigation is going to...
touch on this that's why we can't force him out in front too soon because he sorted it all out and sure must be relieved about this artist you know he's very relieved yeah he knows uh he told him what his car is yeah he knows and he's going to be here at 11 this morning go over prepare a statement which we have all the material for him yeah we let him write it itself and be sure that it's right
Right.
And then he can go out Monday or Tuesday at the latest with the whole thing in perspective.
Right.
Now, be sure now, Al, if I can just respectfully suggest, to go back to that news conference I had in which they prepared the briefing for me, in which they gave me the numbers of briefings, which should have been done this early, and it's going to be even more real.
Isn't it true that there were the highest number in Bobby Kennedy's administration, right?
And we're going to make a significant reference to that.
Yeah.
That there were a blank...
Things of this sort, they get blank in this and blank in that.
Don't you think that's a good thing?
Exactly right.
Oh, no question.
And then they're going to say, what are we doing now?
And what do we say we're doing now?
Well, we were compliant with the Supreme Court ruling, and I wouldn't say what we were doing isn't compliant.
Now, on the lake thing, you did look that over and found that that was thorough stuff, you're pretty sure.
Very carefully.
And the only thing there is that if Hunt did something,
We would have no way of knowing it, you see.
Yeah, but if he did it, he might have it.
Well, it's conceivable.
But it wasn't in that box.
It was in that box.
That's all I need to know.
They authorized the work that you, you know, by inference, approved.
Well, then that would simply be a case we have to bear in mind.
We said that was unauthorized, just like his crazy junket out there, and that we have no information on it, that we never have it.
It fits into every other thing.
But in any event, I just wanted to be sure that the lake thing was done by the Bureau.
Yes, it was.
And it was legal.
And it was legal.
Thank God.
Okay.
Now, another point that occurred to me,
because this gets back also to where these damn documents are.
Could I come to the CIA for a moment, Hunter?
I don't see what sense it makes to have Walters have his Mimcons here since he's already shown them to Schlesinger and Corby and since probably Helms has copies.
What I'm getting at is this, that I
And also, isn't the most, almost the first question they'll ask him if they get him into that kind of a box, well, did you make them comms?
Where are they?
Why did you deliver them there?
Maybe gone through that little thing with the bazaar.
Yes, very carefully.
What's his, what's his view on it?
His judgment is we should keep it here.
He said if, if anybody else has the ability of the court,
This is not executive privilege, though, is it?
It's national security.
But my point is, what if the question is asked, and let's be very, very direct now, what if the question is asked, I understand they're getting helms back too, aren't they?
Yeah.
All right.
What if the question is, do you think helms made a memcom?
Would you guess?
My guess would be no.
Particularly with the other fellow there.
That's right.
On the other hand, you're exactly right.
This is a very sensitive and important judgment.
And we've got to war game every bit of it.
We did it very carefully yesterday.
I'm not convinced that we don't want to reconsider this.
For the very reason you have learned.
But you see, the point is, the point is that if they're delivered here, they'll say, when did you deliver them?
Well, do you see what I mean?
He can say, well, he says, who has seen them?
And he says, well, I've shown them to Mr. Colby and I've shown them to so-and-so.
Where are they?
Well, they're in the custody of the White House.
And he would say, they're in the custody of the White House.
Why?
He'd say, because I've
I think he could stand on that pretty well.
Well, they almost have to.
That's the difficulty.
Because these papers would be very, very damaging.
Yeah.
And that's why Bazaar comes out with the decision that we've got to hold firm.
Yeah.
Now, I think the characters involved were...
in very good shape with.
Like with whom?
Colby won't have any difficulty there at all.
Schlesinger?
Schlesinger will be no difficulty.
And after all, this was a judgment made by counsel and not anybody else's judgment.
Counsel, you mean?
Well, the only man is the counsel here.
That's right.
Now, the real problem on it is how much Colby
could remember that would be in him or him, which, see, the only guy who really, there's a lot of detail in there, and I think only Walters knows that.
And he assured me that there's no other copies of this thing.
Well, as a matter of fact, Walters then would probably just stand for him while they're at the White House.
That's right.
And because they're men cons instead of something else, if it was something else, it would be
We couldn't do that.
But they're men comms, and he said, why aren't they White House?
Because he said they dealt with, why did you keep your men comms in your own possession?
He could just say because they dealt with highly sensitive matters that I felt should be in the White House.
Is that what he'd say?
Yes.
That's right.
He stands firmly with that.
And then he'd have to have some help on that.
This is all extremely sensitive for us.
But we do that.
This is the only tough one at the moment.
Quite frankly, Lizard and I are both increasingly confident.
The great thing is playing a little fuzzily today.
Some papers are playing it very good.
Others are playing it with bad innuendo, and it's a twist the papers are putting on it.
What's the great thing about it?
About what his instructions were?
It's a discussion with you on the telephone where he reported that there were bad things.
You should go along with the investigation.
And take it to the highest point.
That's right.
And that's come out clearly, but a little different interpretation in different articles.
Actually, what can we do on that?
That's a PR plan.
He was, I think, one of the lawyers or somebody on a report.
Here's the way we're doing this.
We think the best guy to do this, now McGregor could be his, because he happens to have been knowledgeable of the discussion, but he's just not a good guy to do that.
No.
The best guy is Gray himself.
Yeah.
Gray himself should, because he's a friend of the president, and I was actually up by him.
That's right, sir.
We tried to get Gray all night long.
He's not answering his phone, and his lawyer is the same.
But Bazar's going to talk to the lawyer.
You see, his testimony was very helpful.
Why?
How was it helpful?
Well, he put that in its proper context.
He said, go press on with this thing.
Well, the men who come from Walgreens is terrific on that.
Right, that's right.
So, you see, we want to be careful.
His testimony could have been extremely damaging.
It was not.
So on balance, we have commanded this very, very well.
Except they're press twisting.
That's right.
How could the press twist something where at least there was in there the fact that I told it to go?
Whoever.
We have.
Ron and I have discussed this in detail, and we feel that probably the way it's been conveyed to different press people by different people.
Yep.
You see?
And there's some sons of bitches in the woodpile, probably.
Sure.
So...
But that is the problem.
We have to be very careful with how we manage it, and the best man to manage it is Gray.
That's right.
He's a patriot, and he knows that he got caught here, and that Dean is the son of a bitch, and that I tried to do my very best to save him, et cetera.
That's right.
Now, that just about wraps this thing up, except for the issue we talked about until you got up to Bob and John.
Yeah.
And that's one of the things that we want to talk to you about today.
When, incidentally, well, let me say, it may not be necessary for you to talk to me.
I mean, if you don't feel, you know what I mean?
There's more work to be done when I come up here.
But you can use your own judgment.
Let me ask you one other thing.
It was rather clear that Peterson would not talk to...
He said, I just want you as a witness.
You know, Walter told him what he was going to say.
Oh, he did?
Yeah, he gave him a camera rundown and along the lines that he'd given to me.
Oh, he did do that?
Yeah.
He offered an affidavit.
Oh, yeah.
And he said, no, I don't want an affidavit.
You're going to have to be a witness.
And that's all.
Oh, he'd be a great witness.
He'd be a superb witness.
Yeah.
Well, Helms had Walters talk to him or something before.
I don't know.
Helms was in only one conversation, but a very important one, wasn't he?
Yes.
And I think Walters is the best man to do this.
Yes.
Well, give me a feel for his attitude.
Well, Helms can simply, Walters can simply say, look, I just want to be sure that since I made, since you know Mr. Director, I've used to make fairly
I mean, I have pretty good memory here.
It's what my recollection is and what I testify to, and I want to be sure we're on the same track.
That's right.
And not for the purpose of leaving him, but just for the purpose of refreshing his memory.
Well, that's precisely right.
Helms has got everything right on this.
And he knows he's a pro.
He's a pro, and he knows that we've got depth.
We're not up to anything here.
And as I said, as I told you, it was Helms that came into the office, my office,
And after two or three days, after that first conversation, he said, the CIA is not involved.
And I said, fine, that's good.
I'm glad they're not.
That's right.
That conversation he made, I'm sure we'll remember.
That would be helpful, too.
That would be very helpful.
Now, the trouble with the memcons, as I see it, is that basically if you read the whole things in their context, they're really not helpful to the president.
No.
Nor do you think they are.
I think the sequencing of them, if you lay it out, you know, A, this is the first point.
But the point that was bad in the first meeting, the only thing in the heart of the president there was something to the effect the president thinks five is enough and we've got to get this thing getting out of control, right?
That's right.
Remember I said, Erlichman quoted me to that effect, right?
That's right.
Right.
But it didn't...
It didn't say, there was nothing in there saying, look, kill the investigation?
No, no, no, no.
I mean, tell me the truth, Alice.
No, no, it's not from Bob's point of view, because he said directly, in the memcon, in the memcon, he said, you go over to C. Gray right away and tell him to limit the scope of this thing, and, you know, there's CIA things involved.
That's the bad thing.
Well, looking at Bob, if Bob is going to testify on that, Bob can say that's what he honestly believed.
That's right.
He's going to take good care of that.
In my case, though, with regard to the VIMCons, the main thing is that let's assume they may come out.
Let's assume they do, and we'll just have to fight it through.
The idea being that I was informed that there was CIA people involved and therefore ordered this meeting.
exactly right and they you're also in those that kind of thing you know i'm gonna as high as you go well it is on the gray side i guess uh but you have you have bizarre to read them carefully of that and uh he doesn't quote me any that's the i hope to god because i never saw the son of a bitch you know i never just the opposite uh what what does what those things kind of show and what's testimonially show better is this constant interplay between
Walter trying to fend off the stuff by insisting on some proof that it was presidentially directed and never getting it, and thereby frustrating Dean of each turn, time after time.
And his comments that, by God, this was an action by a middle level guy who had done illegal things, who was trying to somehow get the president dragged in to cover his own ass.
And that's exactly the first... With regard to the first meeting, with regard... Let's forget Bob and John.
Let's look at the President.
With regard to the first meeting, the thing that is damaging, and being quite honest, is that the indication of the President said, look, this has gone far enough, or is that what it is?
Yeah, that's the bad thing.
In other words, it looks like that the first series of contacts with Walters was... Walters and Helms.
And Helms, what, came from an initiative here in the US office.
Then, all right, looking at its worst, can't we, isn't that damage controllable, though?
I think very, very controllable on the ground.
The way Bob will interpret it, the way Walters will interpret it, it helps.
But the way I would think it would be controllable would be, I don't know what it was, is basically that...
The president's concern here was not to get the CIA compromised.
Not to have this covert agency of the government dragged into a political thing.
That's right.
That was the purpose of it all.
The newspaper reports came out to that effect and that it was a matter of concern.
It had to be.
Yeah.
Yeah, figuring out the words that he made them, and that that's that.
And, uh, Walter could just say, well, I left him at the White House.
For what reason?
I'm trying to, I'm trying to see, uh, dear Professor Zeminer for a moment as to how you would say, uh, what you would say is that, uh, McVeigh was away, uh.
The CIA got dragged into this thing.
I returned immediately to Washington.
Uh, I, uh, reviewed my notes of this, uh, of all I knew about it.
I had some notes of some incons of this in various meetings I had.
I reviewed them for national security to see whether there would be danger to the national security.
I felt there would be.
I took them to the council.
He agreed.
The council?
The council of CIA?
To the White House council.
I discussed everything freely and openly within those recollections of mine.
I have got, as a matter of fact, you see,
So even though it's physically having him in the White House is better, even if they were still in the CIA, he could make the same position that I, because of national security reasons, I cannot deliver to you.
CIA people don't have to deliver their memcons to a court today.
No, and I'm going to talk to the lawyer about this.
See my point?
He felt very strongly that we should not do it.
You see, if we had, we have got two different problems.
If this were simply a question of executive privilege, like Bob's.
case then we'd have a hell of a different situation if it was executive privilege then they've got to be in the white house or there's you know if they're out there with the colson or something like that jesus christ the hell with it they're gone see that's right but this is not executive privilege this is national security national security now national security documents let's suppose you've got a national security document in the in the pentagon and some court orders you can bring the goddamn thing in you don't bring it in
You see what I mean?
That's right.
And so basically, you could argue very strongly here that you could argue a good case for the fact that even if they were in his own file, lockbox or whatever it is in the CIA, that he said, no, these were national security items that are in the CIA.
I have a copy there, but I cannot deliver them because they involve national objectives.
I can say I've checked with the director, too, and they've involved national security items.
Will Sussinger back that up?
I think so.
We're going to have to war game this.
You see, yesterday we were making our decision in the context of a directive to the war to deliver this to the Peterson, which would have been a total disaster.
Yes.
So that's why we have to... And Walters told Peterson he would not deliver them.
What did he say?
He never mentioned them.
He made no mention of them.
Oh, we'll give the directive to Walters then.
That's Schlesinger.
Oh, I see.
See, Schlesinger said you take a copy of Peterson and drop one off with Haig, and he stopped here first.
Yeah, but then the point is, cannot you then...
In fact, it just started to end.
Walters told Schlesinger that...
Well, there are national security guys.
Well, I've done that.
I've talked to them.
Does he agree with that?
Yeah.
He agreed with it.
He just goes to you about it, huh?
Right.
If he wants to deliver that, if he wants to deliver it, tell him that Jambal does misconstrued that all over the place.
And that's going to hurt the president.
That's what is involved here.
Well, I should have told him that.
The fact is that these were...
chronological things, which are far better put in context, but more accurate and more precise personal testimony, I mean.
And he said, I agree to that.
I said, this is a council decision, sir.
And we have to abide by that.
The counsels at the White House decision, I suppose, is not considered a PR.
I know, I know.
It's great for me, but I wonder if that's good PR.
No, it's not.
It's not in the public sense.
But it's all right with us.
That's right.
Okay.
I see.
I just want to be sure he feels comfortable.
And Colby, you'll think a whole firm on that?
Yes.
Okay.
And certainly Helms has got every incentive to
But we have to review this very carefully.
This is the first thing I had on the docket today.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I don't think your coming up here is really the best use of your time.
Don't you think?
Well, I saw the grease for a minute.
Buzzard is good.
Who do you have to do?
You've got to get Gray.
Right, that's right.
And Gray just...
Well, if you're out, I can't.
You couldn't.
Isn't there another way?
Well, Gray's the best one to do it, but there isn't another way that the Walters could leak out what he said or his recollection or somebody else's.
See, at the time, right now, I don't think it's a good idea to have Walters.
I got a key man in this thing.
In other words, what has happened here is that the press is apparently reporting what Gray said to the grand jury.
Is that it?
That's right.
That's right.
It leaks out of that staff over there.
Yes.
And we think that what he said, from what we have, was very helpful.
On the other hand, some papers are reporting it that way.
On the other hand, and it depends on whoever the transmission belt was.
He puts his own twist to it.
And other papers are reporting that the president told Brita to come.
Well, the president was aware and maybe wasn't as forceful as he might have been in getting to the bottom of things.
Now, that's just a thought of a generality.
And the headlines are always worse than me.
the fact of the story when you read it.
Yeah.
Like, Gray warned Nixon.
Yeah.
I know he warned me, which was his job, but then I came right back and said, go through this to the top.
Did that get any of the stories out?
Well, it said to go on with the investigation.
In other words, the president instructed him to go on and continue.
And that's fine.
Yeah, that's fine, except that was really said much better.
Yeah, you see here, the star said, uh, uh, Gray told you, 19 days after the Watergate break-in, people around you are misusing or abusing the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency for their own purposes in connection with the crime.
And that's the way it's conveyed, and it doesn't give your position.
I just wondered maybe Ziegler hasn't even missed a crack.
You know, this is a fast-moving PR thing, you know, if you don't get gray in there.
I mean, but quickly, he's got to say that the president told him to go right to forcefully investigate.
Or I don't know.
What do you think, Al?
It's now quarter of 11.
Uh,
I feel very strongly that that's going to be locked down, that he was warned, that people were misusing me, that he's got to get out the other side of that damn story.
Yes, and I think we've got not a hell of a lot of time to get Gray out there.
That's right.
If we don't use Gray, then we've got to use another alternative.
And it might even be McGregor.
McGregor knows that I told him to go to that.
Why couldn't you say that?
yeah yeah well it's true it's true but you know you don't know what a guy will say oh no he'd say you know he'd go right out yeah so that he ordered that he ordered an investigation as soon as they all these reports came to him and he ordered a complete investigation right oh well
Gray, Warren Nixon.
That's part of the idea of the cover-up.
But God, the real witness here is Walters.
If we could only ever get that out.
You see, I guess you're right.
They don't want to use Walters until he's... What do you mean?
I'll tell you what, you and Bazaar and Ziegler talk over this one subject, will you?
Yes, sir.
And about how do we get that out.
And on Gray, I'm getting urgent calls from the White House to him.
They've got that in, huh?
Oh, it's been in here.
We may even have one in somebody.
Yeah.
To physically get to.
Yeah.
But the point is, just simply for the purpose of saying the president did urge him to give him carte blanche, which I did, not only, as I said, in that old van, the Walters thing, that was the best thing in it.
That's right.
That's right.
That's the best thing.
There are other ways, too, of doing this, and we'll do that.
Get some stories down.
Right.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, looks like you did a good day's work.
It was good, though.
You know, the best thing always, Al, is I say, like, I'm glad you went through all the papers.
Now you know what the hell it was.
And God damn it, it's clean.
It's clean as a whistle.
And we've got to fight for it.
and get off the defensive on this thing.
Gray warning Nixon, good God almighty, hell, I said, Gray, go over, whoever it is, right to the top.
I told the same thing that when Helms said the CIA was not involved, I said, good.
That's right.
That's right.
And he knows that.
That's right.
Now, we've got some other good things coming up, too.
We had some good coverage on your cabinet meeting and your changes.
All right.
And impeccable reporting across the board on your new appointments.
That's really coming in.
It's still very good.
It's going to get the turn some.
I have a feeling it's going to get some of us turning.
It is.
And we got this thing out there.
Got out a little ahead on the election commission.
Got a good story in the Star today.
Good.
Big front page banner.
So it's coming.
It's coming.
All right, but on this one, the main thing is, it seems to me, is this CIA stuff report.
But that I think we hold on the ground, on the ground, that it is national.
It does involve covert activities, period, not related to this case.
That's right.
But we cannot do it, but we'll testify on everything concerning this case.
And we'll take a little heat.
But we can hold on that line.
That's exactly right.
If Schlesinger is told he'll be told that, then Helms is going to be told that too.
That's right.
Okay?
But Helms is an old pro.
How the hell could he do otherwise?
Okay.