Conversation 168-011

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Hello.

Mr. President, I have Mr. Hall to know.

Yeah.

Go ahead, please.

Hello.

Hi.

I thought you'd be pleased to know that, uh, uh, David said, uh, he said that you just came through like gangbusters on television.

Oh, good.

After you'd appeared, and, uh, Hague read the transcripts and said that yours was exceptionally good.

Well, I...

He was rather sorry that John got in a pissing match with, uh, Cushman, but...

I couldn't avoid it though.

A goddamn Cushman is really screwing him.

What does Cushman do anyway?

I don't know.

A bad memory or what?

Well, he's sort of gotten himself trapped because he came up with conflicting stuff in his own testimony and he has to try and untangle it.

And he is.

Yeah, I see.

Well, you understand.

Al said as far as the whole transcript was concerned, it wasn't bad.

He said that the only problem was that the press sort of played up that phase of it rather than John's very strong denials, which were very effective.

What was your general feeling about it, Bob, about the two days that you and John discussed it?

Yeah, we had a chance to, on the record, we've got some awfully good stuff and it's helpful all the way around.

The problem is that McClellan and Pastore are both

clearly using it politically.

Even McClellan?

Oh, yeah.

Too bad.

I was waiting for the opportunity where he was pouring in on me on my political stuff to say, yeah, that one of my principal political chores and one of my more difficult ones had been to avoid anybody running against him in his campaign for re-election.

But I didn't have that opportunity, so I didn't say it.

He's senile.

He sat there in those hearings and he couldn't quite get on the track.

And he'd go wandering off reading pages and pages of transcripts of somebody else's testimony and getting nowhere, and then he'd just kind of quit and go back to something else.

Pastore's trying to make a big thing out of the Bay of Pigs part of it.

And he keeps coming back to trying to put me in the position of saying,

that the only thing I was trying to do was hang it on the Bay of Pigs, which of course I wasn't.

Oh, hell no.

And we went round and round on that, but it's what you'd expect.

They're trying to make their points out of it.

McClellan, going after the president, that would surprise me.

It did.

Not really.

In his press thing, he wasn't in the hearing.

In his press thing afterwards, he said, well, now the president's the only one who can tell us what the facts are or something.

But, of course, there's nothing you can tell him that hasn't already been told.

Well, of course, as you know, this crap about me and the grand jury and committee saying the president could tell them.

That is one line that we just draw it right down the middle of that floor and say, hell no.

Don't you agree?

Sure.

John did an awfully good job, which they didn't give any play to, of laying out the national security problem.

He does that well, and he'll have a chance to do that again at this grand jury in Los Angeles.

Absolutely.

He'll take another swing at it there.

Yeah.

and uh good good good i know where somewhere he's going to get through on that point and because he knows it very good he knows that he's a very effective and i wish he would get through publicly too well he will he will he will he steps up he steps up on the tv like does he oh yeah yeah we're all playing the same game now you know they were doing it the way they play it out all right and i've i've hit it

I decided to just go with the categorical denial thing, which they play the hell out of for some reason.

And I swamped the whole news thing after my day by simply going out and making a flat statement.

And I said I categorically deny that I had any that I suggested, directed, or participated in any cover-up.

And I brought the president in and said that any actions that were taken beyond the specific things that I outlined for that meeting were without my knowledge and without the president's knowledge.

And, you know.

You mean that basically was the, you mean the Dean actions?

Yeah.

I didn't say Dean.

I haven't named anyone.

No, don't ever do it.

I'm not about to.

Now, John did.

Yeah, he should.

I think that's a good idea.

John should not, all he's going to do, I know how strongly he feels about Dean, and I feel the same way, but there's no reason for him to keep hacking Dean and then forcing Dean to hack him.

Yeah.

You know, Dean could be bad enough on him anyway.

Yeah.

Well, my position on that is that I don't know what anybody else did, and that's the truth.

That's right.

I lit in very hard.

I got a chance where Pastore was grinding on me in the hearing.

It'll show in the transcript at some point when it comes out.

But I finally did it on purpose, and I planned to do it, so it wasn't an accident at all.

But I said, Senator, could I speak to a personal point for a minute?

And McClellan looked kind of startled, and he said, well, yes, go ahead.

And so I said,

All of the people who have appeared here and testified seem to be drawing a conclusion, which appears in your transcripts and the record of your committee hearings here, that I and John Ehrlichman committed some crime or participated in some way in the Watergate crime and therefore were motivated to try to cover it up afterwards.

And Joe Alsop has said this and your witnesses have said this.

Goddamn Walters said it directly.

He said, it's now apparent to me that Erlich and Haldeman were involved in this crime and were afraid the president would find out, and we're trying to find a way to cover it up.

Oh, for Christ's sake.

And I quoted that, and I said, for instance, I said, some of the senators have said the same thing, which they have.

And I said, I have complete confidence in the American judicial system, and I know that when this case is completed, it will be totally clear to you, gentlemen,

to the witnesses that have been before you and to the American people that I had absolutely no involvement in the commission of the Watergate crime whatsoever in any way.

And a lot of people are going to be very ashamed of themselves when the truth is known.

And I looked right at Pastore and he wouldn't even look up at me.

Good, good.

Well, that's the way to do it.

That's the way to do it.

I've... We've got to get...

more categorical, I think.

I couldn't agree more.

Just hit it right square out.

By doing that.

And I followed the Scali advice and the advice I kept giving you.

And it worked.

I wrote out a, well, it was about a 90-second statement.

I wrote it out.

I went out and read it.

And I refused to take any questions.

I just walked away.

when I finished it, and they carried the whole thing on television.

And it led.

And it led in the news stories also, instead of McClellan's stuff.

And the key is just don't... See, John goes out and answers questions.

Ah, I know.

And that's the mistake.

And that, you see...

They carry his statement, which was extremely good.

I know.

His answers to some question that they...

In other words, it makes their... You see, it makes their story rather than his.

That's right.

Couldn't agree more.

Just got to play the game the other way.

The lawyers wanted me to do a longer thing because they wanted it in the record.

I refused to do it.

No, sir.

I just did this little thing.

Then I told them at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you can release my long statement to the wires if you want to, which they did.

And of course, it got no play at all, which was fine.

I didn't want it to because my short statement...

Well, that's all the people, all that really matters to people, Bob, is categorical.

Did he or didn't he do it?

And why doesn't somebody say so?

That's right.

And so you've got to pop it right out there.

Then Pastore said, well, then Mr. Holloman, who did plan and execute this Watergate thing?

And I said, Senator, if I could answer that question, nothing would please me more, but I don't know.

And that's the problem here.

Too many people are concluding things on the basis of a non-knowledge.

I said, the president doesn't know today who did it.

I don't know today who did it.

And when people say, why doesn't someone come out and say who did it, it's because the people who are asking to come out and say it don't know.

And the difficulty that you gentlemen are having trying to find out the facts in this one little isolated area of it should indicate to you the difficulty in finding out the facts in the overall thing.

You know, I can't understand what in the hell Walters did this for.

He got himself kind of trapped, too.

He's a super egotistical guy.

Yes, I know.

And he has this great pride in recollection, and his recollection got crossed up.

Yeah.

And I think it's the same kind of thing that a pushman did.

They kind of got caught in the middle of their own web.

Yeah, but damn it.

I'm sure Walters has got to know that you and Johnny have a goddamn thing to do with, you know, with the Dean thing.

You know what I mean?

Well, I would think so, but I don't know.

But you never know.

He's a suspicious type.

You never know.

That he does.

Well, anyway, this is only one sideshow of it, but it was good to get him and to let Pastore and the rest of it.

But don't you agree that with this...

business of the mean McClellan and others mumbling around that the president's the only one that can clear this up.

But that's the one thing.

That would be the biggest trap of all.

Absolutely.

If you start down that, you're on a rollercoaster.

You can never stop.

Well, for Christ's sakes, the president can't go before any committee, ever.

I mean, he shouldn't even be doing this.

But you know what I mean.

If you ever get into that, Bob, I mean, you're changing the whole scheme, and they goddamn well know it.

What in the world would I be able to answer that you didn't cover?

That's the whole point.

You answered all our questions, right?

Yes.

I answered every question.

I took no privilege on anything.

I took no national security cover on anything.

I answered every question and expanded on it.

They say I was evasive.

The point I was evasive on is purely a point I don't remember.

which I can't lie about.

I can't say I remember.

Well, as a matter of fact, I can't remember that whole situation back there now at 8 either.

It's very, very dim in my memory, you know, because we weren't paying that much attention to the goddamn thing.

That's the point, really.

They can't understand that at that time this wasn't an overriding matter.

I know.

Let me ask your judgment on the whole...

Now the hearings start back next week, huh?

Yeah, Tuesday.

Yeah, with the Harmony Girl and that sort of thing.

I guess so.

I don't know who they—Harmony Girl and Bob Reisner, who was Maguder's administrative assistant.

Oh.

And a few other folks.

I don't know what they—see, apparently— Why are they pulling all these small fry on there?

Well, because they're trying to lay this whole base of what actually happened.

Yeah.

And then get to who caused it to happen.

They're going to bore the country to death unless they get some big shots.

I'm not sure to put the big shots on, but I think their problem is that they can't get Dean and Magruder until the 18th of June because of their immunity strength.

Oh, that's because Magruder asked for immunity?

At the Senate committee, the Senate committee has asked for immunity for Magruder.

And they've asked for immunity for Dean.

And they will get it, but not until June 18th.

because the Justice Department took the 10-day and 20-day delay.

Do you think both will get immunity?

Oh, yeah, they have to.

As I understand it, the judge has no option.

He has to give them the immunity.

The only question is whether he gives it immediately or after delay, the 30-day delay period.

And if justice asks for a 30-day delay, then the judge can give it to them, and he did.

So there is a 30-day delay.

What could happen in between then?

Nothing could happen.

Well, they could indict them.

And then what?

Once indicted, you could make the point that having been indicted, they can't be called by the Senate committee.

But I don't know that that's what Cox intends to do.

I don't know that it is.

I don't know anything about what Cox intends to do.

I don't think he knows, do you?

I suspect he does.

I think Cox is trying to, obviously, he's trying to turn off the Senate hearings.

You think that's true.

I see they had a hassle about it.

Well, yeah, but the only thing he denied was that he had said he was going to go to court about it.

He didn't deny it.

He had asked him to turn it off.

And so it would seem to me obvious that he did ask him to turn it off, that he's trying to get him to turn it off.

I don't know that that would be good for the Senate to turn it off.

In fact, I'm not at all convinced that this Gurney ploy, Talmadge and Gurney's ploy, would be the best.

What is that?

They've said call a big five up because we've got to set the nation's mind to rest as to whether the president was involved or not.

That there are a lot of unfounded allegations being lobbed out here by peanut, you know, little people that don't know anything, that are talking hearsay.

And he said there are only five witnesses that can give us any information on whether the president had any knowledge or not.

We should hear from them.

and go out of order.

Now, Irvin's refused to do that.

Gurney, Talmadge took that line first and pushed it hard.

And then Gurney picked it up yesterday or the day before and pushed it.

The vice president has sort of nudged it a little, too.

And I'm not so sure that wouldn't be helpful, but Irvin isn't about to do it, so it doesn't matter.

But if they were to do that, then they would call...

They'd fill in Ehrlichman and me and...

Dean and Colson, I guess.

Oh, yeah.

And what, the five of us?

And they would just explore the area of the president's knowledge.

Now, we could set that to rest pretty quickly, I think.

I would hope so.

And once we've set it to rest, that's the end of that.

Because nobody else can tie you in except by hearsay.

Including Dean.

See, Dean can't tie you in either.

You know, up to the point of the end of, at the start of March of this year.

March of this year, when he told us.

And then he contacted you in March of this year.

And on this matter, yeah.

That's right.

So, except when he came in and reported about the, oh, yeah, September, but that was a nothing, you know.

He didn't have to make anything out of that.

But in March of this year, he can just report that he, but as we know, God damn it, he comes in there for the first time and reports that he thinks there's an obstruction of justice.

And I mean, or what we call it, blackmail, that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

But that was pretty late, wasn't it?

Yeah.

He's playing his string pretty hard, isn't he, Bob?

What do you think?

I'm not sure how much string he's got.

I wonder, don't you think that it was quite a disappointment to him when his little lockbox didn't prove to be a,

didn't sail.

Yeah, although, of course, it doesn't sail in any way that helps him.

They are trying to lob that around still.

Irvin Scranton standing that.

Oh, yes.

He's read the stuff, and he said it would really startle people.

Of course.

He's going to put it out if he can.

Recommended by all four, and not put out.

I know, I know.

I think we just, on that national security issue, we can stand very firm.

Don't you agree, though?

Yep.

And on this one, it's absolutely cool.

And standing firm on it is not to be dragged into apologizing for it by all the people saying that this is a phony thing.

Now, George Bush did a good job yesterday, apparently, or somewhere, that wasn't reported anyplace except it was the lead in the Christian Science Monitor, which happened to say that where he made the point that the president isn't pulling national security over Watergate, the president is separating national security from Watergate.

and pointing out that there were some national security problems.

And those were a legitimate concern.

But he in no way was involved in trying to do anything about the Watergate thing, and that's true.

Certainly is.

Yeah.

So we just got to get people cranking in that direction.

Yeah.

And everything we say will go that way, trying to separate

the one from the other.

You had the feeling then that the best thing is to have the hearings go forward and the big five get in and testify.

I don't know.

I...

Train is due.

We should get it out another way.

That's the only thing.

I mean, like with your categorical statement thing.

I mean, in a way that it's not harmful to any of your cases, but Mitchell has so stated, you've so stated, John Ehrlichman has so stated, hasn't he?

Colson has stated it.

What the hell?

I mean, they want to get up

get up for a committee.

You see, I suppose in Urban's case, Bob, despite his approaching senility, he and the others, they don't want to get this thing brought to a head and finish quickly.

That's right.

They want it to hang over.

of the public mind and the doubts to be out there.

Or do you agree?

Do you think that's what's involved here?

I think that's why Gurney and Talmadge are going the other way, because I think they are approaching it, they recognize that, and are approaching it from the other direction.

Well, I just got this in mind.

We might be able to give that a little nudge.

How's Baker handling himself?

Well, since they've been in recess, he hasn't been heard from, really.

He's sort of, I think he's, well, let's see, he did, I think he did sort of on a low-key basis backer, and he said he understood the point that Gurney and Talmadge were making, but that he felt that it had to be done in an orderly way or something.

And the New York Times has a big editorial today against the Gurney-Talmadge approach, saying that that would be a terrible thing to do because that would throw the thing into confusion and they never would get the facts or something, that that was just a gimmick to try and cover it up or something.

Good God.

Well, I'll tell you, nevertheless, I'm hopeful that this is not an inaccurate appraisal, but I think that the Times, the Post, the networks and so forth and all this, they can get the goddamn country bored as hell with this thing if they just continue to whack it around there.

And everybody is, you know, like when you go out to Iceland and you see 4,000 or 5,000 Americans at the airport and so forth,

And it's just not there, you know what I mean?

I'm sure it worries people, and they wonder what the hell is it all about, and so forth and so on, and it gnaws away.

But it's not a, as Bryce Harlow says, an issue that has legs.

I don't know what he means by that.

But anyway, my own feeling is that there does come a time when the people become just saturated with stuff.

They want to get on to other things.

Don't you think that's true?

Yep.

When it comes, I don't know.

We'll see.

It may come this week as they start plowing through all the secretary stuff and all this.

It just may get to the point where they just aren't very interested anymore.

And then they have to go with the others.

But in the meantime, I think that our friend Cox and Dash are going to have themselves a good game.

Yeah.

Because Cox is going to have one hell of a time getting anybody convicted if those hearings go on.

Anybody, including Mitchell.

Yeah.

Don't you agree?

Yeah.

The columnist is starting to point out on the basis of that somebody's decision back in 1952 or something.

Yeah.

Is that right?

said that there can be no fair trial when there's been a circus.

Right.

And there's no question about the circus.

Well, the circus has already been.

That's right.

They don't need any more.

I've been convicted every day for months.

For months, and so has Erwittman, but not as much.

But Mitchell has been convicted.

What the hell?

Yep.

Well, anyway, getting back to the main point, it was really good to hear that everything had

that you had done so damn well and that John had done so well.

As I told you about John, he was not critical of it.

He just said he was sorry.

I think he was more concerned that Cushman had got into it with him.

Well, I'm sorry about it, too.

And so is John.

Because John, he said, did so well.

But he's got some awfully good stuff in what he covered.

Well, they put that testimony out.

I don't know.

We've put out our statements.

John has a, I don't know, a 20-page statement or something, and he put that out, and it's been printed.

And it pretty well covers his testimony because it took his whole time to read it.

Mine was just a brief statement, a four-page statement, and I put that out.

They haven't paid much attention to it because they used my earlier one, which is better anyway.

Because they don't remember that.

Nobody's going to remember 20 pages.

My short one simply says we had the meeting, why we had it, what was done about it, and that was that, and there was anything else beyond that was totally without any authority or anybody else or knowledge.

Just leave it at that.

I didn't pin it on anybody.

I didn't say who anybody did anything to or anything else.

One significant thing that I did develop in this that I hadn't remembered before, but I think I did mention to you, is that

The reason for that meeting with Helms and Cushman was that that morning, Dean had told me that the FBI was concerned about the CIA thing here.

And he had said, you're going to have to get the CIA together with the FBI and get this worked out.

Are you sure?

Yep.

I found that in my notes.

That morning, Dean had told you what?

Dean mentioned to me that he had been

working on this investigation, he said to me, the FBI is concerned about the CIA involvement in this, and they're seeking guidance as to what they're supposed to do and whether they're involved.

And he said, you're going to have to set up some means of getting the CIA and the FBI together on this.

Did you testify to that?

Yep.

And as a basis of that, he came in to see you and said, Dean says the FBI is concerned about this CIA thing, and you said...

Okay, you and John get together with Helms and Walters and find out if there's any problem there and have them get together.

Just what you said in your statement.

I backed up your statement.

You have to, sure.

I know.

And it fits.

But see, there was a missing link.

And this is what the lawyer was so pleased about.

There was a missing link in a sense in your statement, which is why did you worry about this?

Well, the why was that the FBI had told us, via Dean, that they were concerned.

And that Gray's testimony backs up completely, incidentally, that not only were they concerned then, but weeks later they were still concerned.

They were, yeah.

And there's another fact which nobody's paid any attention to, but which I'm going to get out publicly somewhere along the line.

It's supposed to be a secret, but it's in the secret testimony, is that the CIA did formally request the FBI not to interrogate two people.

Because they were afraid it would lead to other covert activities.

Does that prove the merit of our two?

I don't know.

Two guys I've never heard of.

They weren't Watergate people.

But they were involved in some way or peripherally involved, and the CIA formally requested that they not be interrogated, and they weren't.

So there was a reason for the concern.

And the CIA was concerned.

And there's something more to this at the CIA, I think, still, than what's come out.

I don't know.

The whole thing is such a mixed bag.

I didn't even remember the whole Walters incident at all.

Yeah.

But nevertheless, it's done now.

That's good, though, that you said Dean came in and said they were concerned about it.

You came in to see me, and I said, good, together.

I said, well, you and John get together with Helms and Walters.

Get this work done.

Have Walters and Gray.

coordinate on it so they don't uncover any of this other stuff and keep it on the Watergate track.

I said to the senators, it was about as quick as that.

This wasn't a thing where the president sat down and issued an edict.

It was one of probably 10 or 15 items that I covered with the president that morning quickly.

That was one of the things he told me to do that day was to get together with these people.

There were a lot of other things.

They said, well, did you report back to the president?

I said, I don't recall doing it, but I probably told him that we had our meeting and that, you know, they were kind of carried out and that there were, you know, whatever that was.

But I didn't have any further, they said, well, why didn't you follow up on it if it was a matter of such great importance?

And I said, I don't follow up on things like that.

It wasn't that important.

It was just a matter of this was something that needed to be done.

That's right.

I wasn't concerned with following up on it.

I was simply concerned with getting it in the proper channels.

Which is exactly what you did.

It is.

And fortunately, I have no other contact with any of those people.

And Gray testified to that.

They kept lobbing my name in all the time.

And Gray finally said to the senator, he said, I had no contact with Haldeman on this matter at all at any time.

My contact was with John Dean.

This is really true, isn't it?

All the way through, Bob.

Yep.

The whole contact was there.

Yep.

Well, anyway, hope you play tennis today, okay?

Okay.

Give old John and the rest that we were all damn pleased, okay?

Yes, sir.

Okay.