On June 23, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, Charles W. Colson, White House operator, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 2:20 pm to 2:45 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 343-036 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Get in there and call the police.
Is there a meeting yet?
Yeah, we're about to begin the report.
Governor Rockfall has cleared the yard.
Chuck, I wondered if you would give John Connolly a call.
He's on his trip.
I don't want to interrupt.
I think Helms did too.
Helms said, well, I've had no contact with this person.
Gray called and said, yesterday, and said, he thought, who had Gray?
Gray had called Helms, which we knew, and said, I think we've run right into the middle of a CIA covert operation.
Gray said, yeah, and Helms said, I think,
It's something we've done, and they said, well, it sure looks to me like that's what we did, or something, and they said, no, we didn't want to do this part at all.
And that was the end of that conversation, and they said, so, and we don't.
There's nothing that we have that's related to this.
So, we talked before that.
He said, well the problem is it tracks back to the bad kids.
It tracks back to some other...
The leads run out to people who have no involvement in this, except by contact or connection.
But it gets to areas that are really undesirable to raise.
And that's the whole problem with this fellow Hunter.
Well, at that point, I was kind of got a picture for him.
He said, he said, we'll be very happy to meet up with you.
I would like another reason for being helpful.
And he made it clear to him he wasn't going to get it.
Explicitly, he said he was going to get the generality and the sigma.
And Walter's always been doing it.
He loves it.
And Walter's going to make the call to Greg.
I think that's the way to put it.
That's the way to put it.
How would that work, or how would the chapel, if they got back to Auburn, and somebody from the Miami Bank leaked it to the company?
The point John made was the Bureau is going on on this because they don't know what they're uncovering.
They just need to continue to pursue it.
They don't need to because they've already got their case as far as the...
Charges against these men or something.
And as they pursue it, because they're there on public.
But we didn't in any way say we had any qualitatives.
I mean, their money moves in a lot of different ways, too.
I remember I had a call from him.
He told us there was a bland new system.
He called me in the morning.
I said, why?
Well, I wasn't there.
Who taught him to do it?
The person taught him.
I looked up in the air and said, it was the poor old fellow.
He told us there was no more Kennedy's, and he said, you're going to do it.
He told us he did it.
Oh, hell no!
Yeah.
Johnson was out of office.
That's the point.
Eisenhower did not free Kennedy.
It wouldn't be proper anyway.
That's the point, because you're disappointed.
They said I would follow the same thing that Eisenhower did.
That guy wasn't running either, but... Yeah.
Uh... Hawkeye.
Well, we can make a case that I just...
I'm sure you didn't have any problems with that.
No.
I just simply said yes, I will provide for greetings from the important parties.
I don't think we have any questions.
I just had an alliance.
They can't see what we have noticed.
No possible risk is to listen to you at all.
That's right.
I'm afraid it's funny how they're not ready to read those things.
Well, it's all the same.
I mean, I was just thinking, what did you say about control?
Well, it's all the same.
It's out.
It's been a long time.
It's important to listen to them.
I wonder why he got out so quick, because visually he stayed there for two weeks.
Actually, this is where his lead time usually was until the last few months, but he's been lacking it, presently.
Now this time he's putting it out fast.
But he wants to get out for a convention.
Well, because he's got trial needs, and he wants to put this out probably before he goes to the second stage for the trial needs.
That's exactly what he's doing.
We thought we were going to do it through going on the Today Show, and the interview there, and all that bullshit.
I remember at that time, we didn't know there was any other type of event, didn't we?
Yeah, which they've always said, and we've noticed the case, that the three events in China, May 8th, and Russia, that's all.
You don't have the event, you've got to make everything in time.
But obviously, you're better off if you put three months or three years effort against one event, when you are quitting.
The same amount of intent as I ever against a non-event type thing.
That's me.
I was really impressed with Schultz and all those guys.
I told him, I talked to Schultz about Don Colley, and I said that you had mentioned how impressed you were with the paper you had done, and the whole approach that you were using.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Heisenhower, I'll show you how elections work.
And then, in November, just before the election, he dropped the 57-20 treaty.
I remember the election treaty.
The reason for that is something he did, which is congressional.
They were taking the shit out of our politics.
That's why I was saying to you that whenever Andy and the rest are kicking us in the balls, it's about them taking on the steps.
I don't know if you probably understand, but the shit that I'm talking about is not something we want to do.
We want to do it.
We have too many people to gather us.
1958, because of the recession, he started here.
He started here in 1960-1930.
He was Eisenhower.
He was 58 on the 7th of March.
In April of 49, 35.
Eisenhower?
Eisenhower.
May 54, 31.
July 52, 32.
August.
September.
October.
November.
Election.
52, 32.
August 61.
For example, here's early July 61.
Late July 57.
Nothing happened.
This is gone.
August 61.
This X-7 was on September 58.
October 58.
November 58.
That's when we were running.
There was Eisenhower in 1961.
We were running a little lower than that.
A little lower than that.
Kennedy, you really can't tell about that.
At the eve of his lowness,
But at 63, at the end, he was 57.
The Johnson thing, of course, is massively higher.
We've never been very high.
We've never been as low as Johnson.
I don't think you ever will get up and shoot an 80.
that were not in these days.
But in Johnson, of course, it was 66, 46, 56, about 31.
And then September of 48, October of 46, October of 44, November of 44, September of 48, December of 46.
That's all.
That's 66.
Now, of course, we've been 48, 49, but in ourselves,
Except his negatives were higher, 46, 42, 44, 41, 44, 42.
Our negatives have never been that high.
We were on 49, 36 in that ballpark, right?
36.
Yeah.
And it was on 46, 48, 45, 44.
It's an interesting point.
You can't, in response to his...
You know, attack them.
Yeah.
He argues quite strongly that the point that the attacks should always be turned to the positive side, that he argues that that's wrong.
And that the attacks should stay on the negative side.
We should not try to weave in all sorts of positives, naming our positive points.
That there should be an attack...
We should do, some of our advertising should be attack on McGovern advertising.
And that attack should not try to make any names in strong points.
It should only make McGovern negative points.
It's argument being that it's impossible in this election for you to get less than 40% of a vote.
And it's equally impossible for you to get more than 60%.
They set up over there.
If we go over early, we can get this assured on the networks.
And if we wait until 3 o'clock, we've got a problem because we're crossing across the film process.
Because if you, you know, they shoot with one camera, they've got to service all three networks.
So if we go over now, we're better off than if we wait for them.
Okay, ready?
Okay.
They're over there at the other side of the gate.
They're going to go to the theater.
I think it's worth doing this.
But I don't want to take your time to do it.
I'll go.
I just want to work with this.
I'm absolutely not going to do it.
And based on the thing this morning, I feel it's worthwhile doing one thing or another.
I think it's important to do this on Monday.
Yes, sir.
Let's do it earlier in the day, because we are immune jeopardizing.
Okay, I've got to put a little bit of stuff on, as soon as possible.
Okay, sorry, can I ask...
You've got 40% of the people who will vote for you no matter what happens.
I agree.
And you've got 40% of the people who will vote against you no matter what happens.
So you've got 20% of the people left in the middle who may vote for you or may not.
And that 20% is what you've got to work on.
His argument is that you're so well known, your pluses are so clear as well as your minuses, that...
Getting one of those 20 who is an undecided type to vote for you on the basis of your positive points is much less likely than getting them to vote against the government by scaring them to death about the government.
And that's the area we ought to be playing.
Wow.
I didn't think...
That's right.
My God, I am not going to do it.
I really want you to bring in my again and all of us others about that.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Never.
Never.