Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and John Ehrlichman

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Hi, John called in so they put him through to me so I can give you a rundown on this if you'd like it.

He says on the psychiatrist thing that he doesn't believe you knew about that until February or March and he suspects that the first thing you found out was that Dean told you about the picture.

but i think that was probably march 21st then okay well that's he wasn't sure when but because uh we never discussed anything bob and mark in february or early march in the early thing and he said that but being you know kept saying craig had a problem yeah and uh i never you know i and john said he didn't you know what i mean he didn't have a problem remember right and uh and i guess that was the problem they were referring to oh that's my recollection he said that

and the CIA developed the picture and turned it over to Peterson.

And he says that Dean told him in the late summer about the whole story of that and about the picture.

But he said that you had made the point very strongly to him that you wanted him to be sure that Young and Krogh maintained absolute secrecy on the plumber's operation.

And that was in late December, January of 72, long before the Watergate.

Oh, yes.

And so they had the right, EFEL, Young and Krogh, to assume that the whole deal was impressed by your national security.

Oh, that's right.

And that, incidentally, has to be John's defense when he goes down to the grand jury.

Right, it will be.

But he says anything that your statement or anything could say in that regard would be very helpful.

Well, that's what I plan to do.

Covering their grounds.

ground work because yeah he felt that all three of them were under total wraps on the plumber thing and they they need that's the line they're going to take and they any instantiation they can get on that will be of course i suppose that even under the plummeting the illegal activity is not uh and not not impressed with national security well what do you think on that they thought it was

And, of course, you didn't know there was an illegal activity.

I did not.

No, no, no, no.

And so you can get into an honest misunderstanding there.

They knew there was an illegal activity.

And John knew it.

Well, John knew it last summer.

He didn't know it before that, apparently.

Oh, I thought that Craig had said that he had told him and then he had dressed him down and said, don't do it again or something like that.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

I'll break him.

That's right.

I guess it was the picture story that he didn't know about.

didn't know the evidence story that's right see the the problem that i have is that knowing it in march the question is uh whether or not i should have immediately gotten a hold of uh the uh peterson and told him now look here because he already knew about it yeah at the time you found out about it you also knew that peterson did

Well, he had the picture, but of course Dean... And Dean told you that Peterson knew about it?

Yeah, that he was aware that there was a picture which indicated that there had been a break-in.

Yeah.

But he informed me of that in March, right?

Right.

Okay, he has no problem with that.

On clemency, he says his recollection is better than yours, really.

He says the only discussion on clemency was July on the beach.

That's right.

And he says that your recollection is correct, except that,

He said you very strongly took the position that no one was to even infer or imply any offer of clemency.

Because that would appear to be looking like we were trying to cover something up and that that was not to be done.

I told him that?

Yeah.

And he has so testified.

Oh, he has.

No, wait, excuse me.

No, no, he has not.

Oh, I see.

Because he hasn't been asked about it.

But if he is asked, he would.

That's what he would say, and he feels very strongly on that.

Yeah.

The only problem that he has, and he can't testify to it and has no knowledge of it,

I have no problem with that either.

I told him that you did.

He said good.

Because basically, I didn't raise the thing.

Colson just said, just raised it about Hunt.

And what the hell he said, you know, Colson, from what I heard, went out and said then afterwards that he just had told him very little.

He said, well, what Colson said, well, I have reason to think that I will be paid attention to and I'll do everything I can for him and so forth.

But Colson, I don't think you have any trouble with him on an issue like that, Bob.

The other thing is he says he does not in any way believe the Dean story, you know, of Erland going into the office.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Let me back out.

He says there's just nothing to that.

I know that.

And he has no recollection at all of any discussion with Mitchell or hearing of any with Mitchell on clemency.

You know, there's any question of whether you had ever talked to Mitchell.

I know I never talked to Mitchell.

But he has no feeling that there's ever been any claim of such.

on the uh on the walters helms business ehrlichman recalls that after our meeting with walters and helms he informed dean of that meeting said that we had met with walters and helms regarding the fbi cia question i think and he he says he thinks that he probably told dean that he was should be walter's contact on this

That's the only connection he recalls.

He doesn't even remember that.

But he doesn't...

But he remembers...

But none of this gobbledygook about... And Dean...

He's never heard anything about a CIA payroll or anything... And Dean never reported to him about that or told him.

Right.

As a matter of fact, in all of our conversations with Dean, Bob, you know...

He never raised...

He never told us any of that either.

So, God damn it, there's, you know...

I was the one that raised that as a, you know, at some point as a question that might arise.

That's right.

I know that John is.

I know that he's absolutely solid on that one because he's extremely careful.

He's solid on all of these, and he is very firm in what he recalls.

On his whole business of the picture thing, you see, the thing that I want to be goddamn sure of is that

that I didn't have evidence of a crime that I was trying to withhold from Peterson, you see.

Now, the point of the matter is, Peterson had the goddamn film, but on the other hand, on April the 18th, John was here at Camp David with me, you remember.

And he asked me to call Peterson and to tell him that in the questioning of Hunt, they should get out, stay out of national security matters.

That's right.

That an investigation had been conducted by the Hunt group in the Ellsberg matter.

Yep.

Now, I don't think I mentioned a picture or anything of that sort of thing.

I don't think I did in that conversation.

but in any event I told him that and I was very tough you know I was frankly angry at that because I John had told me he was pissed off and we all were at that point and uh so uh as I told you before this this causes Peterson no problem because as Peterson says we did send out the information before the jury before the damn trial was open and also because on that occasion he asked me if any of the evidence had gone to the prosecution and I looked over at John and John said no

The only problem is whether or not at that point somebody, some asshole might say, well, the president tried to keep the Justice Department from following up on basically a burglary.

There's your how you have it.

Good night.

I don't know.

What do you think on that?

I guess you get back to the point there, Bobby, just every time you turn around here, there's some damn thing.

But that was the farthest thing from my mind, though.

I didn't give a shit about Hunt.

He was covering up the burglary.

It was covering up the national security operation.

Well, the whole point was that I wasn't trying to keep them from getting into Hunt's illegal entry or whatever it was.

But they had to know about that earlier.

Yeah.

John thinks that Dean told me about the picture before April 18th.

He doesn't think he told you.

He said that Dean had probably told you and Mark.

Or maybe he told me in April, on that April 18th.

Well, anyway, I don't know.

Let's just assume Dean told me that the Justice Department had it.

he feels very strongly that you didn't know about the psychiatrist break-in until that i know that period i know i didn't and at that point let's face it i was investigating yeah you know god damn it bob it's uh you know as you know i i really was i was trying to find it and that was that was the one farthest from my mind about whether some crazy picture they had and a camera showing a

uh john's uh john will be for a grand jury tomorrow huh no he doesn't go he goes to the grand jury out there on uh june 5th or 6th i think no he's just out there he and crow uh will be before well damn it for them to have a grand jury about this stinking little thing is unbelievable they didn't have any grand jury about the breaking into lundgren's office did they no no no well

is a terrific fella he's solid on all these things the only the only point he made is if the white paper or something could make the national security security i'm going to put it in there strong as hell that's my intention all the way all the way don't worry how that we can do the better off i'm going to put it on there you look at everybody else well after all that shows you why you do such things

reason you gotta fight it right down to the end in fact uh hell it's it's wrong to to bug people some it's wrong to uh but it's wronger to steal national secrets that's right and the point of this instance uh we uh was a national security thing i don't know whether as a matter of fact uh the the very thing even taking the breaking and entering croak's deal i suppose with ehrlichman they could say he should have reported the crime right

I guess so.

That's the only thing.

Well, that's not, but the point is...

But he's got a pretty good mitigating circumstance under the national security question.

That's right.

Maybe it's illegal, but there's certainly a... A strong mitigating, and also you've got to remember this, that Bob, the whole thing here is that this, I don't know what it is in the California code, but Buzzard was pointing out that generally speaking, a breaking and entering where, which involves no

anything, you know what I mean?

That is probably, as in most states, only a misdemeanor, but which I hope to Christ is the case, because it's just a crime to have Bud Krogh kicked around on this to him, eh?

Well, we'll fight this national security thing, and all of us have just got to be strongest.

Well, I'm awfully glad that to be reassured on the... Yeah, I don't think you have any problem at all with any of John's recollections or...

Okay, fine.

Well, I'll get at the thing in the morning and start trying to grind through it again.

Okay.

Nixon phone call with Haldeman on Watergate and John Ehrlichman

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 20, 1973

Cite this conversation