On May 20, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. talked on the telephone at Camp David from 2:55 pm to 3:07 pm. The Camp David Study Table taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 167-016 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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. President?
Didn't want to interrupt your workout.
That's good, sir.
And wondered how your work was coming?
It's coming pretty well, sir.
We hope to have something late this evening, and Bryce will be back at 7.
tonight tonight and then we're going to go over the whole thing uh right several times and i'm sure we'll have a lot of honing to do but uh right it's moving right and uh the uh major feeling i have about the whole thing is to really hone this down in terms of the national security thing rather than being a great big
apology about watergate you know what i mean that's right no we that's the that's the core of it watergate should be only incidental to it that's right we've got to we've got to build the climate the situation
what we were faced with and everything we've done and say you're damn right for example somebody told me about the fact that uh somebody tried to make the fact that we had that i ordered lie detector tests of uh of course i did good god you know the uh you know in the in the various departments you remember that and uh and uh by god they and one of that they produced results which we can't talk about that's right but that's you know that is all peripheral stuff we're we've got to take on the big issue of uh the climate
the threat right and just get that into the clearest kind of perspective and the things that we did we did things at the fbi we did things throughout the government that's the big memorandum we did things in terms of a white house capability uh and uh and that's that that's right and that's what we'll do i've talked to elliott today and uh he's quite optimistic now well he'll go through like flint i think now right uh
that's going to be a big help.
When does he think he'll get through, Al?
Well, his man is going up tomorrow, Cox, and he's hopeful he'll get right through.
And there'll be a little bit of squabbling more about his authorities, but Cox has already come out supportive of it.
The press has been picking on the Kennedy and what have you over the weekend.
And I told Elliot to...
Picking on Kennedy what?
Well, to be tough
Kennedy has said that?
No, Elliott told me that they have been working on Kennedy to stand firm against any Elliott authority at all.
Oh, boy.
But this is a very minor hairline issue now.
and i i think we'll uncork it here he's got a good man he's got uh he's giving him great authority one thing at the battle that was mentioned uh i think somebody was talking to me today about uh some uh stuff where henry was done some hand hand-wringing about you know about the
And he, Henry, was concerned about the morality of what was done.
With God Almighty, he's got to, when he gets back out, you've got to tell him he's got to stand like a rock on this because he is the guy that Ehrlichman, Haldeman, everybody's going to say, push for this, you know.
Well, you don't have to be concerned about that.
I've talked to him twice a day now.
Oh, tell me about that.
And he's fighting mad.
He wants to get out and just fight.
He wanted to give a press conference and say, you're goddamn right, and I'd do it tomorrow, and I'd do it forever.
Yeah.
You don't want him to, though, huh?
well we might i think you may want to we might we may want him to you mean after tuesday yes afterwards as one of the follow-ups yeah i think he's got to actually i think it's very important for him to come out and say we had a massive problem we couldn't have had our china initiative our russian initiative or our vietnam successes without having some sort of control and as it was they leaks impaired those initiatives that's right
Well, the Post is working on Henry, and they're trying to get to me now the same way, you know.
What?
Just talk about immorality?
Yeah, as a sort of a brutal type who was instilling this...
God damn it, I did it.
Let me put it this way.
I'm not going to be a bit apologetic in meeting with those leaders.
I think we've got to put her right on the line.
So do I.
Of course I did it, you know, and everybody else has done it, every president.
And the height of it during, of course, the Bobby Kennedy administration.
Damn right.
There's nothing to be apologetic about in any of that.
Not a thing.
Absolutely, because we're really standing up for our foreign policy.
What we've accomplished, we've accomplished great things, and God damn it, we can't accomplish them without having everything printed in the press.
Nope, that's exactly right.
And, uh...
That's the way it goes.
Well, then I won't bother you the rest of the day then, Al.
No, I don't think you should be bothered with the paper until it's worth your time.
Yeah, and you just work on it and do your best.
And what time do you want me to start looking?
About 9 tomorrow morning?
Or would that be a good time?
Yeah, I think we ought to have a draft for you at 9.
Right.
I think the best thing is for just you and me to talk about the damn thing first.
Don't you think so?
Right, sir.
And I'm sure we'll have some stops and starts.
Well, I know that.
I know that.
And I know there are questions that you'll have to have answers to and so forth and so on.
But that's that.
And we'll just nail down every goddamn thing we can think of in this thing.
I just put her all out there.
And they want to fight on the national security issue, and that's the way we'll take on this whole damn CIA thing.
It's national security.
You're goddamn right you're worried about the CIA, and it's national security.
And that's why we did it, and that's why my conversation with Peterson was so important.
I didn't give a goddamn what they did about Watergate, but I said, you stay the hell out of national security.
Exactly.
That's the way we got to handle it.
I read Henry's report on his meeting.
He seems to be rather optimistic about getting a fairly good communique out of this.
Yes, and that will be great.
We're going to have some things that are just going to go from this point on.
We've got a lot of good positive stuff now.
Yeah, we can hope Schultz gets back from his junketing and gets to...
Who are you having at the meeting?
Schultz, Ash, and he's coming back.
Simon, who's a hell of an impressive guy.
He's impressive as hell.
And Stein.
Stein, right.
And maybe we ought to add Bern.
But I think maybe we go in-house first.
In-house first, yeah.
But the point that I make is this.
They've got to realize that
There are times when we do things that may not be economically right, but which are politically imperative.
That's really the August 1571 thing.
Many had doubts on the economics, but all knew it was necessary politically, so we did it.
Well, that's what we're about.
That's the name of the game.
And, frankly, we've got to push Schultz off of the sort of the doctrinaire view here.
Very much so.
And Simon agrees with that.
What does Simon feel?
He says that Schultz is on the wrong wicket.
He says not only politically, but...
Economically?
Quite frankly, economically.
What does Simon think now then?
What does he believe we ought to do?
He thought that in January we moved in phase three in a disastrous way.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But what does he think we should do now?
He thinks maybe freeze?
Some healthy controls.
But he said he doesn't want to prejudge that.
He's got some broad ideas that will come out tomorrow.
And the same on the energy.
He thinks we've got to really reshuffle.
I agree.
And that's one place where we can get Connelly active in the energy thing.
I think Connelly rather than Agnew, the idea of putting Agnew in charge of energy, that would be a dead loser.
No, we can't do that.
He doesn't know it.
It's too sensitive.
Now, Connelly will have to keep it on a low profile, but we'll give him a key handle.
Right.
Okay, well, I'm sorry you have to work this day.
That seems every Sunday hour.
No, sir.
But, you know, I've been doing little.
You know, you get up here in the mountain, you think a little, and then, hell, there's no choice but to fight like hell.
We're going to fight.
Jesus Christ, you know, I have a friend up here from Las Vegas who, well, actually from Florida, who's just living there at the present time.
He said a very interesting thing.
He said, you know, he brought it up, and I didn't.
He said, people talk about resignation or impeachment or anything.
He said, do you realize what effect that would have on the Russians?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, do you realize the effect it would have on the world?
Do you realize the effect it would have on the American people?
He said, Jesus Christ, I mean, you've got to fight this thing right through.
And he said, you just remember there's a hell of a lot of people out there that want you to fight.
He says, don't get the impression that all this is that big in the country.
He says, of course it hurts, but he says, don't.
In other words, his point is, we have no choice but to fight.
No, and we've got a fellow with one group of people
And that's...
That's these guys on the hill who are being stampeded by the press and get that goddamn thing under control.
Yeah, I guess it is the hill, isn't it?
Oh, sure.
The rest is immaterial.
The press will never... No, I know the press can't... We've got to try, but we're not going to...
But we've got to hold the Stennis' and the Goldwater's and the others and so forth and so on, but I can't help but believe them when they hear me talk that they've got to be with us on this.
Don't you think so?
I would even think...
I don't know.
I don't know.
Well,
I know, I've gotten word that Stennis is being very, very active, totally supportive, and has had a hell of an impact.
Has he?
Yes.
And, you know, it's not like him to surface.
I know, I know.
He doesn't like to fight.
So I think we're coming around, and the time is right.
We talked about timing.
The timing is now, and we're going to take the offensive and go from there.
That's right.
That's right.
Okay, Al.
Well, keep your old kin up, boy, and tell them I appreciate all their hard work today, will you?
Yes, sir.
How's Bazaar doing?
Working good?
Oh, great.
God, he's a tower.
You know, the way he nailed down that memo we were so concerned about, that damn thing would kill him.
Do we think we should put that out?
I just wonder if that thing isn't too sensitive to put out.
Well, it might be, but... We can tell the leaders.
We can tell the leaders.
What I'm thinking we might do is...
Turn out the internal assessment part of it.
Yeah.
And some of the things that are less sensitive.
Yeah.
And say that we have the rest here.
If you want to go, we'll come out with it.
That's right.
But we don't want to open ourselves to charges of being guilty of what we're preventing others from doing.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
But the internal assessment can be put out.
Yeah, and it's a pretty frightening assessment.
That's right.
All right, boy.
Thank you.
All right.
Good to talk to you.
Right, sir.