On February 9, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and John D. Ehrlichman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building at an unknown time between 1:05 pm and 2:52 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 321-008 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Where you can talk.
Yeah.
Uh, you're going to see Don today, are you?
Uh, there's not any further, uh, information or guidance or anything, huh?
Okay, well.
I'll be leading the, yeah, the helicopter.
Yeah.
But I'll be leaving about four, so that'll be good.
But that, of course, is only a...
I think there can be absolutely no compromise on his seeing me at any time.
Would you agree or not?
How can you present that to him, John?
If you talk to him, make sure you have his details.
Good.
I had forgotten.
Every time he's involved in anything, that's good.
Yeah.
Like, uh, no, wait, no.
When you say involve himself in whatever, be more specific in what you would tell him about you.
He'll try to explain each thing, but you can...
Right.
So, because he otherwise will be greatly intimidated by anything he does in the business world.
Of course, on the other side, you don't want to give them a free hand to go out and make an ass of themselves with more deals.
So you could say because of the passageway, you could say that.
Is that what you mean?
In the case that he's got approval for this kind of thing, for example, if you know the slightest idea, he's just given them a fee, and he's paid by the homeowner, or his friend-in-law, or something like that, and told you the same thing, didn't he?
Good.
Of course, some place.
Madrid is a little safer.
Paris is a Madrid university there.
And we've done a lot of, you know, the Istanbul election.
I guess that's an idea of genius.
So I just said, I love you.
We're going to have some more education.
I think we're recording.
We're recording.
Take it to Spanish.
Take it to Spanish.
We're going to start in Spanish.
We're going to start in Spanish.
We're going to start in Spanish.
I think your point is that maybe that's not the difference.
It's probably true.
It's just, you know, maybe.
So, I guess, I'm courageous to your mind, but it would be best if you just got to take it like that
He watched every step of the way now.
His moving in here is one of the real, real, every case that he's ever been involved in.
Of course, these stories are going to come out right away after the action story, Friday.
Yeah.
They'll probably be, your view there is going to be goddamn rough, aren't they?
Yeah.
I don't care, frankly.
I just don't believe, and I've always thought that, you know, I've been here at Roosevelt.
I don't believe that families being involved hurt you all the while.
But it could have done things because of his total insistence on being, you know, don't hang around.
And he does.
He's broken.
He's broken to death.
I did want to tell you that I had a good talk with Connelly about that, that he said he brought up this, that I brought up a lot.
He brought up a lot of that.
And I said, well, you know that what John said, yeah.
And I said that there was certainly more attention to it.
I'm afraid I may have it.
Is that real?
Yeah, it's good.
You were going down there and so forth.
We're going to indicate it.
I know a lot of things that we won't do at all, but you, I want to chat with him on the plane.
John, it just didn't get ready.
Maybe we can talk.
Is that something that... Yeah, now...
Right.
What I would suggest on the airplane is to do
through this, if you will, the rockers are going down through the state of the hotel.
And I don't think you have, so I'm gonna let them sit in the lounge.
I think I will let you refuse what is basically the, you know, the two departments, the Hatch Department, okay?
What your conversation of that, sir?
So you can say, you know, see what I mean?
so that you can get as somewhat of an awful feeling so that you can go all night.
And I'll say, come on, I don't know about you, but come on.
Why don't you all thank me right now?