Nixon, Ziegler & Haldeman on ITT Scandal and Peter M. Flanigan

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Excuse me.

Do you have a good time?

I have a good time.

I think it's a great thing to do.

I get the question thrown at me in sort of a different way.

Sally Clinton is dangerous sometimes.

She doesn't mean to be.

But she led into the thing by saying, she hadn't been around.

She said, Ron, how are you going to clear up this Sherman Adams type situation with Pete Flanagan in relation to executive privilege?

And I said, now, wait a minute, Sarah.

I said, I'm not going to let that question pass.

I said, we're in an election year here that I want to do.

There are going to be partisan, you know, there are going to be partisan charges.

And I'm not going to comment on all of those that will come against this administration order in order to give an effort to get it done.

But I said, when you put a man's name out,

And honestly, on the record, by the way, I had to respond to it.

And then I said, the president of the United States has told me about it.

He feels he has conducted himself properly since he's been in the administration.

And I went on to make reports.

Now, we have staff, the systems, the White House, who have contacts for it.

I went to them.

And I said, the type of partisan charges that are full of innuendos,

General statements are ongoing without any concrete evidence.

They're just not responsible.

And they are partisan in nature.

And I said, I said, I can expect those issues in these years.

I said, I noticed that the senator on the floor referred to a Flanagan factor.

I said, I think what we have in the book of years is a political factor.

Then they tried, of course, after he had been set forth.

Then I made the point, those people who make the charge

had the responsibility to present concrete evidence of any personal meaning.

They had an annexation, right?

Well, they did.

I don't know.

I mean, that's where I was going as well.

And then they said, well, did he say there was personal meaning?

I said, that's an observation I'm making, gentlemen.

I said, the burden of responsibility and the burden of proof is on the attacker, not the defender.

Which is, you know, they tried presently to shift it.

And then they tried to give him the ITT thing.

I said, gentlemen, I'm not going to comment on the ITT thing.

I read it to the board, the commissioner came in and I said, Mr. McLaren, very, very clearly spelled out what Mr. Flanagan's role was.

What was his day?

You know, I said, well, no, I can get you better, I think.

I didn't carry it to Baylor, I think, or something.

Of course, there was...

Skip Isers.

And they wouldn't toy around with that.

Well, it was supposed to be that.

Skip Isers.

Oh, and then, of course, Sheldon.

I think he did it.

Well, then they tried to bring you into it, of course.

And they said, when did the president learn about the $400,000 contribution to the Republican Party?

And I said, now, wait a minute.

I said, now, wait a minute.

This is the very thing I'm talking about.

I said, and I'm not going to get into that, but just for the record, you have said $400,000 contribution to the Republican Party.

I said, now, the record should be so clear.

I said, everything that I have read, everything that I've seen suggest $100,000 contribution

the city of San Diego, who is hosting the convention.

I said, I said three days ago that the president learned of this and I'm reading this and it's very untrue.

And then in other questions, which are supposed to be so externally, you know, they had to ask questions.

I was confused when they commented.

I said, I'm not going to stand here and make any questions about the item.

It's not a problem that I have.

So the Attorney General is testifying.

Jay, were you able to get on the hearsay at the court and agree on that?

No, I didn't look into that, because that's related to MITT.

And I tried to maybe attack the Eagleton thing so that I wouldn't be driven into comments on the initiative that we had.

But I got a little bit, you know, greater the posture of being, you know, in the defense of you than ourselves.

You need to be, you need to get, Ron, the thing we don't need.

Maybe you ought to get...

and they're not going to get a cover grade or some sort of thing.

I told the post-colonels to get on the floor and say that it was the smear they would conquer us rather than the law they would conquer us.

You see what I'm saying?

I'm not cursing.

No, I don't know that you should, but you've got to attack the attackers.

You've got to go smear, scream, and mess with them.

But then there was a bunch of shit asses who was pressing the button.

They must have been dying.

It's that they simply were Washington journalists.

They stand in there and they ask questions.

And they are so poorly prepared.

You know, you have a guy like Kurt Gosselin sitting over there who didn't have a damn thing to say to the lady.

He was not even aware of the extensive wire service that ran around the center.

And then you have guys in there who simply, you know, don't, they seem to be unaware of the good and the bad surrounding them.

That's what leads to good and some bad.

They're bad people.

It's really a phenomenon that has to be done.

Well, you need more gun owners on our side.

Good to you.

Well, I... Now, you're not just saying it, but I do heard you're going to do a republic on 30.

But I have heard that you have to make that happen.

I don't want you to do it.

All right.

.

The thing that I've had a shaking here is that I decided to summarize it.

It's such a long message.

It's sort of complicated.

And the intricacies that I thought were important to summarize it for you.

Do you want that?

I have that now.

I have it thoroughly.

Go on.

Did he ever ask about anything in the truck?

They didn't.

They didn't know about it.

We may have gotten all these sheep better than the same antlered machine.

We don't need it.

It's the same.

.

I talked to a cast.

What had happened was that they said the memo wasn't handed to the FBI.

I said, well, how did the FBI do it?

They said we finally got it.

And I told them to start checking the typewriter.

And they now think that it wasn't done on their typewriter.

They think.

They're not sure.

That should have been done one week ago.

They got that one from the Xerox.

They couldn't move anything off the Xerox.

Now they've got the original.

The TIE fighter.

The TIE fighter is an inclusive definition.

OK.

All right.

This is a presidential participation.

We're going to ask for John .

Yeah, that's right.

Then they stopped having him.

John's a good one.

Actually, he did too.

He did a little bit of that.

The little red arms don't count.

They didn't count.

They shook as they did.

They did it just for information.

They're in the tally on top of that now.

Okay.

Okay, well, John.

Sure.

Hey, go back.

Most of us would expect, well, if you like that kind of stuff, look for it.

He wanted to kind of josh him and all that sort of stuff.

Well, they never joshed him.

I'm sure they did.

They never joshed Kennedy.

They were very easy on Kennedy.

But they kicked the hell out of Kerwin.

The hell out of him.

I admire him for the animation and all that.

I'm a Democratic speaker, excuse me.

It's probably going to be hard to keep on.

It's probably going to be good.

And I doubt it will.

Oh, my gosh.

It's our protection.

Everything that they sell to the people, the people sell it to them.

Nixon, Ziegler & Haldeman on ITT Scandal and Peter M. Flanigan

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 14, 1972

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