Nixon & Haldeman on Pentagon Papers and Polygraph

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I made a couple of very small changes to this part of the text, okay?

The other part is, if you're going to write a happy draft, I have to .

Some part of that just doesn't come off well, and it's too, right?

They're too cute, precious, you know, and it just has to be right, beautiful, and there you go.

I may be right and wrong because I,

I'd love to just take a draft and not have to worry about anything, but I just don't think it feels right.

Many Americans, these specific goals, present a full plate.

But I would suggest that even after we achieve all these goals, after we clean the plate, there will still be a hunger in all of us.

Good God.

That really kills me.

It turns me off so quickly.

I just can't stand it.

It's a strange kind of...

It's like what they would say, and I couldn't say it.

It's a dark issue, isn't it?

I guess, I don't know if it's even that, but it sure, it ain't what you want it to be.

Was there anything immediate to do, or just about, regarding your conference?

Roger's going before the press today, but we didn't have time to get on TV tonight.

Mitchell was put out of state.

Being

First of all, I talked to Conley and since the group that now both together was basically in accord with Conley's view, which was his immediate reaction was for you to continue to stay away from the issue.

And he said if you do it at all, if you make any statement at all, do it in Kansas City, don't do it now.

We've already missed the point of

immediate reaction to the Corp attack that was last night.

You know, and nothing's lost now by delaying further.

We should never have done that.

Right.

He's not arguing you should.

His point is the only way you're doing it sooner would be that, and that isn't valid.

Also, you should have a forum.

If you're going to speak at all, you should not speak only for that purpose.

You should be somewhere for a reason that was already established and then use that as the place to say this.

He says everybody that he's talked to so far down there is outraged at the course of me.

He thinks that'll be quite a strong reaction, at least in Texas.

If that's Texas, that's soft.

He says he doesn't see any need for the person to do anything.

We want to be damn careful not to confuse the issue here.

We don't want to, the person should not defend the papers.

And he should not defend the classification of the papers.

The Johnson papers, if I'm trying.

Also, or the newspapers either.

That's right.

But the only point that you want to make, really, is that newspapers that receive stolen goods can't be the judge of declassifying those goods.

Right.

They said, you don't need any presidential safety to do that.

We ought to be able to get that point across without the presidential safety.

They said...

If you're going to say that you've got to do it in a previously planned form, and you should just deplore the fact that a man from St. Louis documents into the paper would publicize the publishing.

And you should deplore, not attack.

If you do it, you should not go on live TV.

You should escalate it to that.

You should sort of say, you're sorry you've reached this point, and it should be in a scholarly, thoughtful manner, deliberate, calm, not in anger, not even criticism, just kind of disturbed.

The attitude has to be changed so that we can't survive the falling government's ability to act.

And so he said, if you're going to do anything, the way I would do it is at the media briefing in Kansas City.

I would make a statement.

I would allow television.

I told them to film the camera, the cover, so they'd get it on the TV news, but I would not ask for time.

I would do it live.

I said, I'm not sure.

Now that, as it boiled down, came out where you all came out, where the group came out.

I talked to, I called Olson on getting out the unemployment thing tomorrow.

He told me that, briefly, because of what you heard.

That's the...

And I think we can ride for a couple days and see what we really mean on the basis of that.

Yeah, I'd look at another thing.

I had my last problem with Henry and Bob.

When he comes back, there will be an announcement of some sort.

It will be quite dramatic.

It's going to wipe this goddamn thing right off the front pages.

They'll say, what the shit was, why don't they trust this president?

See what I mean?

I'm not so sure that we want to come driving around right now.

I'm not so sure we don't want to build up a little, let them whine around, say, what are we doing?

Are we having peace in Vietnam?

Are we doing anything?

Why is the president so silent?

Why doesn't he leave?

That begins you.

He argues that we're being damaged on three grounds, that we're being portrayed as repressive for attempting to hold up the documents, political, because we're trying to cover them up, and ridiculous because we've been ineffectual in trying to do it.

That's the first thing.

Secondly, and more important, American support for the war effort is being seriously damaged by the troops.

Well, except, you can make a pretty good case that there isn't any sort of war effort anywhere.

That's right.

You and I know that.

We've seen it.

There really is private polls.

Nobody wants to put forth a war.

And third, the whole question of lack of trust in government is being used by us against, as well as against Johnson, and we have to build a wall between the two administrations.

Because we can't take into consideration the fact that Russ was running on and Johnson may go on all the way.

He says on the necessity side, we have to get clear of the fallout from this.

On the advantage side, the Times and Post are vulnerable and there's some mileage to be gained from speaking out on them.

Gary's the Times.

Right.

Right, of course.

Okay.

We're going to divorce ourselves if the Times is vulnerable.

They're at their crest right now and the President can throw them on the plate and deem that's it.

The President, I totally disagree with this, the President tried being magnanimous to LBJ and JFK.

I think the American view was to suspend judgment on the basis of a biased report.

They fought us, all those people, without losing anything.

That's wrong.

We want LBJ and, frankly, JFK, the first group, to go down.

And I think that's overreacting because he concludes, he says, nationally, there is an ongoing orgy of self-flagellation.

The country is beginning to think it's so guilty of the war.

I don't think there's an orgy of self-flagellation.

I think there's.

There's a declining level of concern, and I think that's exactly what we're on today.

And I told Colson to get that out of it.

He said, well, you've got that, and then tomorrow you've got unemployment, and you've got in a couple weeks a major announcement on Henry's trip, and then you have this, I don't know.

I really question whether, I still think, I doubt they'll do anything.

Why not wait?

And that would be about 9,000.

But basically, there is, well, keep your mouth shut, unless there's a hell of a lot to be gained.

Yeah.

But it doesn't, it is apparent that there is at this point.

If we take that approach, then our options are open.

We can schedule Kansas City on the basis of the timing so that if you want to do something and let the camera into coverage, you can.

Or if you don't, you don't have to.

And nobody will ever know that you had it.

I don't think in Kansas City we should do a block, though.

I think everybody feels that.

They should do Kansas City and use whatever the camera is that they want to use.

All right.

So that gets us out of California.

He thinks he's talking to Buzzard.

He has not talked to Elliot.

He was a little reduced in his determination after what Elliot said, what he still thinks.

Well, he would like to do, but he wants you to know he's doing it, but the boy doesn't.

He'd like to take a following that I find.

But on the grounds that there's a story coming out and that the guy ought to have the chance to learn, so...

It's ordered.

It's ordered to be today.

He has to do it voluntarily.

Oh, I know.

I want him to ask me.

Just like we say, look, we're doing this, but he should tell Elliot that we want to clear the record, we want to be sure, we want a hologram.

Good.

Excellent.

That'll satisfy me on that.

He says that has two values.

One is to find out if the guy...

But far more important, the word will get out that he was part of the government.

And he says it would be immutable to turn around this administration if we start moving on some of these things.

Now, this is a must.

Elliot used to do it.

And he used to say that, I want to do it in order to protect Elliot.

But I believe Elliot.

But I want to be sure it will be covered in bases.

I thought it was right for me to do it, but you think you let it go?

Buzzer is much more convinced this guy is what you think.

And Mitchell said the same thing you did right away, of course, which was

So he didn't violate any law or regulation in showing the cables to the guy, but why did he show the cables to the guy?

He didn't do anything wrong, but what was the right reason that he could do that?

Why should he show the cables?

When he knew the president was taking a different view on the matter.

You were taking it down because the cables were on your view.

The cables were from Bunker telling Sanger what was going on.

But he thought it was the right thing to do.

And they did believe him.

They did believe him.

They sure did.

So, as a result of his action.

That's right.

So therefore, he's responsible.

That's right.

Okay, well we'll have him do a... As long as he's willing.

That's right.

And if he doesn't want to, he can resign.

He takes a polygraph and he resigns, Bob.

That's all there is to it.

And that's the way that I think we ought to handle that one.

He should go over it and he should have tough problems, very, very tough ones, with Elliott and say, look, we're not condemning him.

I think that we've got to be in a position to answer the grades here that we have really explored something within our own midst.

You've got to do this.

All right, here it is.

Okay, we're at holographic.

We have this breaking thing.

You've got something on there.

You've got to know what you're doing.

That would scare me.

Well, it would scare me to tell the truth because I think it isn't going to come out that way.

It would show that because I'm scared about it, it'll show the wrong way.

It's like a heart.

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

That's a good job.

I know this was a good meeting with these guys in here.

I think they now have their message, and we shared a lot of them.

And they got enough work to keep them busy a long time.

I think that's a good point.

So they can, as we were rattling around in the intelligence community,

Reduce the number of people who get it.

Stop the RAND corporations.

Stop the RAND, the Brookings institution, you know.

Well, we've already had the word on RAND, obviously.

But I want you to follow through on Brookings.

I want Brookings.

Be sure to cut off.

I don't want any son of a bitch Brookings having anything.

Because we know what they are.

Although Harris comes out the week of Thursday, the 8th, President Nixon continues to rise in his standing with the American people, and for the first time in eight months, even 50% of the public is in positive arms in his standing with the President.

President Nixon's current 40, 58, 50, 48.

percent positive rating reverses a 47.50% negative rating scored by President May and is sharply improved below a 41.56% before the 9th of March.

That's Colson, that guy, he's very talkative.

Colson, your scientist has put the carrot out there and the guy who's doing it.

Although I think Bob, that he may be right about this.

He may, it may be we have too much sun.

What do you think?

Well, it may be we have too much.

Our poles don't show that.

But our poles show a more solid thing than that.

But it may be we could have pulled the margin down.

The book says two opposite trends appear to be in the making.

Standing on foreign policy and moving up aren't particularly viable for breakthrough in our relations with Russia and China.

At the same time, he's not registering any progress at all for his handling of the domestic economic situation.

What do you expect?

That's all right.

The coming business figure tomorrow will have a part in that story.

Handling of Russia's stock from 45 to 42 to 45 to 51.

He got an inherently positive starting January 28th, February 27th, April 35th shot up and then now it's 26th which is the lowest he's been.

Yeah.

I don't want him to shoot up, man.

Well, people are getting better, man.

Well, I have a specific answer to that question.

Okay.

That's not bad.

Personally, it's all good.

Yeah.

Continues to rise and ascending with the American people.

That's pretty good.

Now, with regard to our project, who was in charge, did you meet the guy that...

Okay.

Anything else you've heard from him?

No, he's just died.

He was reported to the police and he's been recommended to leave a self-location before the meeting.

Do you think they have a private meeting or not?

No.

I'm back with everyone.

NSC, I think we just threw that on the floor right now.

I think, uh, you see that several assault allegations were present at that meeting with the security officer, you see.

And, uh, I didn't just let them go.

I'm trying to observe over them that, uh, this distance is not good, but I know it may not, may not turn out to be good.

I don't know if you can see what I'm doing.

We've got to decide whether we want to do this off of Yosemite Henry now.

We've found that we can't do it.

If you want it on the 20th, we can on the 19th, which is the date we're shooting for.

We'd have to stay a day later to work out some plans.

We'll do that.

What they're pushing is a very, it's a big dinner, you know, a heartless dinner, like an Eli Vistae dinner.

Big, big, yeah.

For all the people who, everybody who's anybody in that whole area, it's a way to get that whole field of interest.

And that would be running the possibility of a lot of radicals moving in.

Yeah, but I'm not sure that's bad.

That kind of thing.

The Yosemite Park belongs to the people and they know it does.

I don't think they will want it.

If you get all the power, I would say, forward on that.

Let's do that.

I'll approve.

That's okay.

Take more, Senator.

He might like to see you mention something about whether they recorded that lady that

He waved to you across the window in Chicago.

You had a front page story, a picture of her.

Who is she?

A high-rise, hello, neighbor greets Nixon.

Mr. President stood at the window of his hotel, sipping coffee and peering down Michigan Avenue and found himself face-to-face with a woman.

Her name was Mrs. Ralph Hunsteader.

She said she was looking ghastly like we all do in the morning.

She had taken her own coffee cup and gone to the window to watch for a glimpse of the President.

I waved, he waved back, she said, and they blew kisses at each other, laughed and clasped hands like victorious price fighters over our heads.

And the President left his window and walked to a phone.

Ten minutes later, the doorbell of the Kunsthatter apartment rang.

President Nixon had called Ms. Mary McMichael, a secretary on behalf of Governor Oglebay, and had asked her to find the lady across the street and give her a pin for the presidential seal on her for being so friendly.

It made my whole day, Mrs. Kunsthatter said.

The President was just like a neighbor.

He was so cute, it was just a scream.

The whole building was just thrilled to death.

Quiet, she waved.

I wanted him to know someone was on his team and make his day a little happier, she said.

The only one who was disappointed was Ms. McMichael.

She's never met the president.

By the time she got back to her, you know, he was in the hotel.

So we sent her in.

Here we go.

It's a nice little touch.

Yeah, but it's, you know, it's a nice little front page story that she got with her picture with the lady holding her hand to the front page.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was on the front page.

And they got her holding it, you know, holding it.

And it was in there.

It's also got a good wire service, right?

Yeah.

And the little ones like that, it's, you know, they're worth so much money, you know, those.

We're all okay.

Let's keep our heads locked in, all right?

Let's rush around.

We could very well just be...

I don't think we're looking to the president to get into this.

That's, I just don't think it's, it has to be a presidential.

They're looking to open Russia.

That's what you can't, oh yeah, everybody here looks to you for everything.

And everybody here is obsessed with the Times and the Post.

The country is not all that obsessed with the Times and the Post and all those things.

And you're going to have all this other stuff now.

You had McComber and these people doing a hell of a job last night.

We had Rusk on TV.

That's going to make it every time.

Get Rogers on it.

We have General Lewis on it.

All of those over a period of time.

Maybe better than the President was.

Right, one argument for saying something on the record at Kansas City, one of the arguments is, and you're pretty good, is that it then sets your position so that you're set up for any time you do have any press reports or Q&A or anything like that.

Well, that's the other thing.

Nobody seems to have a strong feeling.

That's the other argument to me of not saying anything, is that nobody can say what it is you ought to say.

Even the people who think you ought to say something can't say what?

Maybe Pat can.

All right, let's see what comes up next.

Okay.

Well, that was good.

Take a stab at that.

I think those, I agree with you, the part of the thing that's worth risking on their health is to come out and riot the hell out of them.

Well, they'll get home, love you, or they won't riot.

I think you're right.

Those folks would.

I think they'll probably keep the rioting.

They can control how you sit there and then try to get you.

Okay.

Nixon & Haldeman on Pentagon Papers and Polygraph

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on July 1, 1971

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