Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Watergate and John Mitchell

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or from Mitchell?

Yeah.

He's, uh...

He's our brother.

But he has talked with Fred a little bit, and he's coming back down this afternoon.

He's still up there.

That's right.

Huh?

Yeah.

In our...

That hurts him.

We have a lot of Marthalians in this country, not even though she is unintentional.

And I don't think she's going to make a blessing for us at all if we're still a hell of a lot of people here.

People of what?

Well, I don't know, positive people.

Jesus Christ.

I was just saying, Bob and I were rather surprised that the governor had the bad teeth to take Mark Williams.

Yeah, nor did you think that was just smart crap, smart ass crap.

I think it was a wise thing to do.

She's a sick woman.

I have to think that's getting, that's a crud.

I have noticed the way the press is, when she said she was a political president.

I know that.

Everybody knows that.

What I meant is that I have a feeling the way the rest of the press is laying off, they have a feeling that she is the chef, you know.

Well, that's what I mean.

Yeah, that's...

I think they're also making, which is kind of interesting, the way it's getting played, I don't think it's hurting as much as we've been concerned about.

There have been so many political divorces or marital problems.

Yeah.

Tunney's divorced, McCloskey's divorced, Dole's divorced.

There were a couple others.

There's a half of those that go right down the list.

All just, I mean, within the last few months.

And so they just say, this is the latest in that stream of blood.

Then they go into a very sympathetic thing about the real problems.

That was the thing that Billy Graham was worried about.

He really felt that there was a problem between Martha and that he could go to the preacher's office and shit.

No problem.

Martha would live with the God damn when he does.

I mean, John was...

All of them have these problems, you know.

Very agreed with the OSHA.

Of course, he may be trying to go the other way, which is to, in fact, appear to be on Michael's side against John.

Yeah.

I'll take it as a deal.

He's bugging everybody.

— 31 min 8 s with no transcribed speech —

Here's the point that I make.

There's another reason, too.

It's my thought of building a new establishment.

I want to build a new establishment.

And as I look at these guys, Dan, they're good-looking guys.

They're masculine.

They've got good voices and the rest.

They're just as smart as Chancellor who's an ass.

Order, order, order, order, order.

and so many of the others that we have here.

Billed our gods.

They're all on the bank.

Every one of them would like to be the next John Chancellor.

Every one of them would like to be Billed.

And a lot of them make money locally that even Chancellor may not make.

Some of them.

Well, not many.

There aren't any jury funds.

Funds would make that kind of money.

I just meant to say, I just meant to say, I do know that, sure, they all want to be ever-impressed.

But I saw, for example, at least, and I like the guy very much, I saw at least half of those people, from a television standpoint, were infinitely more attractive than her and Capo.

Oh, yeah?

Capo was not attractive to a television personality.

Now, you've got to say that that's not a big trend, or it is.

I mean, looks do make a difference.

Voice does make a difference.

I know, it's true.

It's true.

Take it in average.

You're right.

It's true to me.

But I think you can have a lot of fun, Chuck, with that.

But if you can have, at least as long as you can call it really deep enough.

And can I suggest this, that this is more important than spending hour after hour and hour with Henry and Herb and all the rest, with, say, one of our wonderful friends in the politics.

God, I love them.

And we read them.

You could say, gee, wasn't that a great book?

They read them, too.

It's also a... Well, that's true.

Those guys think that's a good thing about that one.

Sure.

Both count.

You know, the best thing about those guys is to force Henry.

Henry now has lunch with Chancellor once in a while.

He wants to do it then.

Of course.

You don't remember about me?

He wouldn't do it to you.

He wants to see the crowd.

Yeah.

Big problem is trying to get that lunch with Harvey K. Smith once every six months.

Yeah.

Well, he does that, doesn't he?

No.

Well, you know, the jurors spent this because of that.

You've got to turn him on.

He's a friend.

It's harder to get him to talk to friends.

But at least we've got to find the influential enemies instead of Murray Martin that he used to spend all his time with.

Oh, Christ, Mary, Martin, who's that other one?

Chalmers, Roberts.

Chalmers, Martin.

Chalmers, Roberts.

Christ is retired now.

He's still retired.

Roberts is retired.

He's still retired.

Well, he may need some mental service documentation.

But Joseph Joe Kraft.

That's not not.

But also Raleigh Evans.

Now, you've got to give him some credit.

You've got Raleigh Evans.

Every year, you turn him around, and he's made a difference.

And that may be the most influential role in his life.

But the college, none of them, right?

Bob, you know, Henry has done a hell of a job.

I was over last night with him some time.

You know, God, I just think I've introduced you.

You saw Senators in the morning.

Another group of those, I mean, 53 back from the period of the days, Bob, and I've worked on those guys.

He was a good guy.

Oh, he's putting out, and he's generally effective.

He's good.

Yeah, that's correct.

He's the only...

You've got to find something else to do instead.

That's why you love to rock.

That's why you get all that social life.

You know, you know, the one thing was to show you what a hell of a, hell of a, hell of a person you're fighting against.

It was great elation.

I heard about it, so I didn't look for those damn things.

They're not damn close to the network.

The Times was great.

It ran through and gave me the leads.

The network's practically black.

And here's a very significant vote on both Saul and the best vote in the world, and John Adams.

Here in the House of Representatives, they all voted.

You can see where the House members get discouraged.

They go out and fight and so forth.

But did you notice what the goddamn polls did?

I think this kind of raises the theme of the meeting.

I'm so sick of it.

Did you notice the big play that we got on our vote of support from the county officials?

I didn't see that in any place.

You wouldn't?

I don't know.

It wasn't in, it didn't get printed.

But it didn't get printed here in the Washington area.

It may have gotten printed around.

And I'll tell you, that was supposed to be something.

By God, you know, I have to say, Bob, this morning, I just...

I just...

It's really a joke.

I thoroughly expected, though, Chuck, this morning, after Henry and... You should have heard Henry and Larry were on the phone in Colorado Springs.

They were ecstatic about this great victory.

You called me to listen.

I called him.

So I picked it up.

I walked over to him.

God damn it, what the crisis, the wrong party.

I couldn't find it.

I did the same thing.

I picked up the books and finally I turned the page.

Where did they carry it?

What page?

Page two, but inside page two.

In a way that he wouldn't have said anything.

In a way that he didn't want to say anything.

And the story was good.

It was a snide story.

That's fine.

Well, I'm saying that it was obvious that maybe it was to find students in the middle because he was the person who needed the same speech.

He could have.

He never said he was going to do it.

Thank you.

Bob, did you ever get our researchers to look into what I suggested about Lincoln and Adams?

Did they ever?

Yeah.

Did they find it?

Yeah.

I mean, the reason I ask is that I'm afraid that probably they missed the point because, let me explain, which only is, you know, somebody who studied the Civil War more recently.

there were two Lincoln Amnesty Orders.

The first Lincoln Amnesty Order had nothing to do and is not in any way related to Israel.

It was a war major at the same time as the Emancipation Proclamation, which was not a major to free the slaves but to win the war, in which he offered amnesty to anybody who left the South to come north.

That's totally different.

But at the end of the war, about three months before it ended,

Congress passed something.

And then Lincoln said, you know, the Congress denied citizenship to deserters, deserters from the North.

And Lincoln said, uh-uh, I'm not going to do that.

That's too hard.

And Lincoln said, we grant amnesty, provided they return to their units and serve 60 days or something like that.

It was ahead of reach.

Yeah.

You're right, though.

Well, let me give you one other line.

Of course, Lincoln had all sorts of things, but all sorts of things where he gave amnesty to those waiters and all sorts of things.

Listen to this one.

A deserter wrote from Canada that religion had won him to repentance.

And at a certain hour, he was in a White House crowd, ready for military service again.

Identified by clothes he said he would be wearing, he was arrested.

The president wrote on his letter that he should be returned to his regiment without penalty.

except that when his term of enlistment service expired, he should serve in prison the number of days he was absent by desertion.

Now, God damn it, if we let them get away with that kind of shit, I just...

There is a book.

Our people just got to read a little more.

There's only five volumes, but I'd rather not read five volumes.

Did they find it?

They had found it.

I don't mean to say, I just want to be sure that they found it.

Because there are two kinds of ants.

I didn't dream that anybody would have thought, confused the two.

But it's very easy to confuse the two.

It's like providing, for example, in the North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese have their Chu Hoi program.

in which they offer total amnesty.

Did anybody fight in the Vietnam War?

Come over.

Come over, kids, and you can be one of us.

It's a war, mayhem.

But if a South Vietnamese deserves, he's shot.

And Lincoln did the same damn thing.

That's what we have to get through here.

Because they have in their platform amnesty under certain conditions.

Now, don't let them get away with it.

We're against amnesty.

unless they serve.

No, you agree that's what the public wants.

There's no question.

Let's try that again.

The gentleman knows about China.

I'm amazed.

Because that's really something.

It hurts him.

And he thinks it's wrong.

It's deeply hurt.

It has to have hurt him.

That's like...

But on the other hand, he knows God damn well if the other side came in, they'd surrender to China.

That's right.

But it's still amazing.

He knows what we're trying to do here.

It's true.

Russians love him.

And Henry would never get anybody who is discreet.

You tell them, look, let me just see what we're trying to do.

We've got two enemies.

One is stronger than the other.

We know that both are around.

So we're following the usual practice of joining with the weaker against the stronger in order to screw them.

Later on, we may join with the stronger to screw the weaker.

That's all there is to China policy.

Nothing more.

Nothing.

And that's understandable to anybody except when you get to the water-dead level on the base.

Well, all I'm going on is to...

He's devoted his whole goddamn life to, you know, reaching out.

Forget it.

Greg had told me that he locked the mail of a special country visiting from the Boeings and who locked the mail, the former ambassador who stayed at his house.

Oh, yeah.

He's here.

I mean, he lives here.

He's visiting here.

He's not in any way.

He's incidentally made a break.

as far as the contribution of the campaign, but Anna Chenault had a dinner for them last night.

It was all friends of hers.

It wasn't significant, but the point was that Anna Chenault gave a little coach and then he got up and almost broke down.

talking about what a great man you are, and making the point that just a few people know him as Mr. President, but I know him as a guest at my home when he was out of office and was just nobody to Mr. Higgins.

And it went into what you've accomplished and all this, and he's apparently going to be working full-time raising money for you and cranking right up.

A lot of people out of the woodwork like that, they tell you sometimes, you know, Californians and close friends, they still have cockpites out there, go out to those Filipinos and stir them up.

You get 75,000 Filipino boats, a good 75,000 black boats, writing a little note with you that I heard.

It's a nice thing, you know, of course we have so many lines like ourselves, stuff like that.

But they go back over many years.

We don't know anything about it.

They go back over many years.

I mean, let me say it.

If you do it at 730, you're certainly not cutting off the bus.

That's right.

The part that I make about 730 is it depends on how much we really want.

That is the picture of John B. I didn't have a feeling, and I'm not going to get into it.

I haven't done it myself.

It's a pretty good time to just do one on top of it, which doesn't reach basically three-fourths of the country.

And every major state at 732, each other's major state is on top of it.

Texas is on the 632.

Texas is on the 732.

And at the 632, you're still missing an awful lot, especially in the center of that last portion.

You really are.

But even at 9, you're not doing a hell of a lot.

You're not doing too well in the summer, are you?

Well, not in California.

You're going to lose California either way.

Well, it doesn't make any difference as far as California is concerned.

That's not really what you're talking about.

I see.

Oh, that's quite different.

6 o'clock, you're dead anyway, aren't you?

You don't get any audience in.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Whether it's 4.30 or 6.

Well, you get some more.

You get a lot more than California, but none of it matters.

Basically, you're not going for a California audience on this at any time.

You're not going to get a California audience unless you go on at 10.30 or 9.

Yeah.

So you disregard that.

What's an issue is the...

I'm frankly open.

Let me say, from the standpoint of doing anything, I just don't like to do things at 9, which is a hell of a strain.

But I can do it.

Well, to be up at 9, 7.30 is a little better, but it's marginal.

So that's an hour and a half later.

Well, for that hour and a half later, you're going to reach well over twice as many people.

You will.

And then east and then west.

Probably worth it.

You won't do much better in California.

You'll do a little better in California than I'm not.

Well, of course we do.

I think we do.

Not because of anything you have to say, but because of the show, the exercise, the presentation, and that.

You have to realize that this will be a conference that will be quite a few years.

The questions that are not, it is very interesting.

But I don't think you're going to register very much on those questions, question by question, with the mass of people.

And you are going to raise them.

The people who know the substance of the questions matter will see it at 7.30.

Anyway.

general bunch of swaps.

The questions don't matter.

What matters to them is the President, you know, and we keep talking about this, but the general impression the President is feeling on this.

And I just hate to go on and miss 30 million people.

Do you see any difference?

I do not.

Also,

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

7.30 isn't network time, so you have to force a beat at 7.30.

That's local.

See, we put this new law through the Congress, where at 7.30 is now local option time.

As far as busting up the network.

They'd all go, oh, sure, they'd have to do it.

Well, I know it's a bad time for you.

It's just another hour and a half late.

8.30, sit around and wait.

You can't tomorrow night, but you can do it any time you want.

But you bust up three ongoing hour programs at 8.30.

At 9 o'clock, they all have a break.

So it's a perfect movie starts at 9, and then the hour programs on the other two, that all stand at 9.

So it's also really, really 9 o'clock.

And when you get done, no matter what you do, you're going to have to tell them to deliver it.

The guy who doesn't see you isn't going to get the impression that the guy who does see you gets.

So it's also a lot of you that started and managed to have it.

If it's worth doing it at all, it's worth doing it to have most people see you.

What do you look for here?

I'm thinking to that, the prime time.

That's the bridge time, the 7th period.

Yeah.

10% of the price.

You don't know all the time, but what you have to have is all the press time.

You mean put her back to him?

Sure.

We're going to have to talk live on a squeal by using prime time, huh?

A lot of squeal.

I mean, I said, why don't you go do it?

Now, if you were doing this once a week, I think that argument of the girl who wrote in and said her husband doesn't like to come home from work and have you interrupt his baseball game or something.

You have to sit on it enough to have that problem.

We've been on that road a lot, actually.

But not a preemptive time and not a press conference.

We have just been very heavy on the regular preemptive time.

Well, only one network was around when we went down.

Yeah, the Russians returned.

That, I think, was an event of overriding national security.

We had the Chinese return.

We had the buses return.

We had the airport from the city.

We had the May 8th in 2001.

Once a month.

Maybe not too much.

Once a month is about right, isn't it?

I think we want to preempt any more than once a month.

Once a month isn't very often.

Now that's because if you get a beer, they've got 30 nights in between cooking and all kinds of other things.

I do it all the time.

My guess is Bob, except for the crap on the bugging, or maybe Mark, or Douglas, or something.

I think it's going to be more important, which you would think that was very much done.

Some shit's going to, if he gets the chance, is going to try to log in the bugging thing on his system.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Well, are you all finished?

Yes, sir.

I'm going to be ready to give this to AP.

There are a couple minor things that I want to address.

On Constantine, the original had a winning 20 games faced

Almost, actually the face broke constant, constant 16 games and face 118.

So we just revised that section.

Also Nozo and Doby were not 30, were not 30, 26.

So we changed in their prime.

Well, we said, well into the career, well down to this career, and there we go again.

Without a doubt, it would have had the careers more than that in the short term.

In fact, the color bar is not listed into that, but each would have been well into this career.

Yeah.

Now, age would have been.

would have been in the major leagues for at least five years.

Would have been in the major leagues for at least five years.

Then on White, when you say looking into the future, I would imagine that if I were picking such a team five years from now, I think this was a typo.

They had Bill White

Negro first baseman with the Cardinals in the 50s.

In the 60s, I think he met Roy White in the Yankees.

Yeah, Roy White.

But it came up in the late 60s.

What Roy White?

Roy White.

He's very good.

Roy White, he's with the Yankees, came up in the 60s.

Is he doing well?

He's doing pretty well.

Well, what take him on?

He's not one of the majors.

What take him on?

I'll just tell you what, Roy White, I think he was kind of a late Yankee player.

Well, let that continue.

You've got enough.

Basically, he takes care of a lot of blacks.

That's the purpose of that.

Right.

See, Bill White was a neighbor of E.T.

It was the first basement.

The card was in the 50s and 60s.

That's a good time to find something expensive.

Well, I'd rather not get it.

There was very few.

No.

I think we've checked it out.

I think there's very few.

Well, if something does, that's fine.

We're just sitting there.

Well, it's done on a memory.

Now, be sure you get it out in time, though.

We are.

Yes, sir.

Will this be time for them to make all their wires?

Yes, sir.

So far.

I have a little bit to send.

Would you send a copy to David?

He's on a ship.

Please send a full copy to him.

All right.

Wherever he is.

I hope she's safe.

Yeah, of course, they won't carry much of it.

They'll carry a spoon on it and then get the stars and stripes over on it.

Yeah, because they're afraid to carry it on their own.

Well, we had talked about killing.

No, it's just I wouldn't.

You want me to give it to the store?

Don't give it to those, you know, I paid.

But they're afraid that they'll give it to you to be honest.

Right.

You tell AP that they can take it off and give it to the alert department and so forth.

The AP is going to have to store it.

That might be a good idea.

They don't care about supporting people.

How about what source of the street is?

Well, they carry it.

They come the next week and have a look at it.

I think that the field is very strong.

Good.

Now that's the television.

I'd like to announce a time of three.

I hear it.

Well, it is.

Nine's all right.

I'll tell them.

I'll tell them that first.

I'm sure that's what they'll want.

Go on.

Why don't you just say we take nine minutes?

Thirty minutes.

I don't believe in going over this.

I will come along.

What do you think?

Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes is all right.

That's right.

since we had one last week.

Baseball story, I think it's going to happen all the time.

Yeah.

Well, it's a damn good story.

It is.

It's fascinating.

I mean, I don't know a goddamn thing about baseball, but it's still fascinating.

You know, the people who are actually in there, they don't run the story in an adequate way.

You might tell Ron, an actor, an actor who's running it, to send copies of the story to Chris Porter, maybe, that I mentioned.

You know, like Ted Williams.

You know what I mean?

Maybe his, I'm sure his partner is Ron.

I don't know what it is.

How can they, Bob?

No chance.

July the 4th?

That's what I was thinking.

There's no possibility.

They said there's no possibility.

There is a real possibility of going over to Saturday.

I'm not getting out Friday.

But no possibility of going to Saturday.

Saturday's fine.

We just

keep it on sale, or say, obviously, if they don't do the rules, it's not going to be in the state.

As far as what you said, it depends on how, you know, I can do it.

I can't do it.

But there will be doubt about that.

That's what they'll be saying on it.

You're probably right.

Although, you know, everybody knows you're in total touch wherever you are.

We're going to have a problem, an awful lot of them.

I think it's better to say, I don't think we want to see it.

And I see nothing.

You don't care that much anymore.

I don't care to be in California a day or two.

One day one way or the other is going to make a difference.

That's right.

They think we will get out Saturday.

Well, that's good.

That's good.

That would be a good time.

Of course, there's just no, you don't see any possibility of a thing.

You also said it's social security and it will not get to you.

If it's 20% social security, they're going to kill it one way or another.

You're not going to have to face it.

Not at 20%.

Great.

There may be a 10 of 10.

10 this year, 10 next year.

You'd like to get it out of the way or something like that, but you'll have to sign it.

that you're going to sign 20 anyway, so that anything can get better than that, and you're that much better off on $1.

What's your honest opinion on Mitchell?

Yeah, I do.

Yes, sir.

So, yeah, Mitchell's come to the same conclusion.

because he feels that there's enough for probably his not being fully effective, and he doesn't want to do any, you know, be in any position of jeopardize the full effectiveness of the campaign.

Yeah.

All that, incidentally, the more I've thought about it, the more I think it may be all a very good move.

Well, that ain't your big thing now.

Listen, Eddie, what do you think of the idea that maybe I just sort of can't date him this afternoon?

I don't normally accept his decision.

No problem.

You've announced it at 9 o'clock.

I mean, I frankly didn't.

Let me say, I am not going to grind myself down.

Well, you can take these off if you will, please.

You've announced it.

You know, when you were up there that other midweek time, they were speculating that it isn't your gun.

It is a progress gun.

It isn't.

When I came back, this girl, you don't have to take the shoes right there.

I had to give you a lot of information.

I mean, it's just some of these kids.

I'm going to go with that.

Terry, you know, you took her out last week.

Well, I, we had a, a visit.

Oh, sure.

We always have.

Hi.

Hello.

Uh, oh, nothing right now.

We, uh, just had a little talk.

And, uh, as we got off the helicopter, she said, I just, I mean, having, you know, I had to do one thing.

I think that's the routine of getting the same people out there.

There's no thrill to them.

I don't understand if they aren't confident.

Very much.

That's your role.

They're your work, so you can't do it on the basis of who it's available for.

Yeah, I know, I know.

But if they are, as she is acting, I mean, you may have others around, but I can't do it.

I see people sitting in McGregor's office and in your office and so forth.

Don't hesitate to do it, because as far as I'm concerned, I don't give a damn who's there.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, you do.

When you get to something like that, you've got to make sure that...

If the girl can work a dictaphone, I don't care who's there.

That's my point.

So, well, we will.

It's a good idea.

But I think it's just good.

I just thought that you should know that I'm impressed with that fact, that it means a hell of a lot for the girls.

We've done it for Beverly.

We've done it for McKee.

We've done it for this girl.

And, of course, we're doing all this, which is fine.

We should be there.

We've done it for Mark and Kathy.

Kathy has been the floor.

She's been candid.

She's never...

What I'm going to do next, Captain, I'm going to fight.

I'm going to fight personally.

The little things like that.

are the only things I can do around the staff, and that gets the others rippled.

Those things, I think they're much better for us not to suggest to you or anything else.

Don't ever suggest it.

It's only when I feel like it.

When you feel like it, it's so much better.

I've thought about maybe giving you some ideas on that.

Well, for example, one thing is, on the telephone call, this is totally irrelevant.

You know, Chuck comes up with a lot of good suggestions.

He did one thing called the bite of blue.

I mean, I'm not going to call a baseball player if it was his 50th or something like that.

I mean, my point is, you see,

I mean, having the ability to not have to do one at a time.

You don't get the routine of getting the same people around.

There's no thrill to not understand if they aren't competent.

That's your role.

There it works.

That's right.

I try to do it on the basis of who it's available for.

I know, I know.

But if they are, as she is, adequate, I mean, you may have others around, but I can't do it.

I see people sitting in McGregor's office, in your office, so forth,

Don't hesitate to do it, because as far as I'm concerned, I don't give a damn who's there.

When you get to something you want done, you've got to make sure that the girl can work and take the ball.

I don't care.

So that's my point.

So we will.

It's a good idea.

But I think it's just good.

I just thought that you should know that I'm impressed by the fact that it means a hell of a lot for girls to be in here.

We've done it for Beverly, we've done it for McKee, we've done it for this girl, and of course we're doing L.J.

's, which is fine.

We've done it for Mark and Kathy.

Kathy has been the floor, that's right.

She's been candid, too.

What I'm going to do next, Captain, I'm going to fight.

I'm going to fight personally.

The little things like that.

are the only things I can do around the staff, and that gets the others rippled.

Those things, I think they're much better for us not to suggest to you or anything else.

Don't ever suggest it.

It's only when I feel like it.

When you feel like it, it's so much better.

I've thought about maybe giving you some ideas on that.

Well, for example, one thing that's totally irrelevant.

You know, Chuck has a lot of good suggestions.

He did something called the Bite of Blue.

I mean, I'm not going to call a baseball player if it was his 50th or something like that.

But I mean, my point is, you see, it's an obvious flaw.

You've got to give Chuck credit for suggesting.

But what I did call Rizzo yesterday, because he's been in the hospital, and thought that is like money in the bank.

You should give that to him.

You should hear from him.

He did the right thing.

It's worth a hundred thousand by the blue, Steve.

I mean, by the blue, it's nothing.

It's also simple to mention by the blue in my office.

Okay.

The way to take care of anything.

You have a title by the blue.

You have it in the office.

I'm sure that...

The second point is that the...

Sometimes if you want to pay for it, you have to do something nice.

I have figured that virtually every other girl that we have around is either divorced, without children, or not married.

But that's not true because she's married.

You'll see their hoses don't have anybody.

Well, Marge has, but Marge's husband doesn't have anybody.

Sometimes.

He goes to California.

We take a lot of people to California.

That's a very nice thing that we do.

It costs us nothing.

Green's no problem.

But we've got a lot of airplane space where they have to run it.

Well, another girl that I think would be nice to take some time to do this one on here.

She's never been, you know, she's a westerner and so forth.

She's smart, but she's not good to rely on.

But what I meant is she can do the same kind of job Shelly does.

People like her.

They know her, you know, she can have a kid around people like B.B.

and the rest of you.

You need people like that around you.

I agree.

I don't use the word kid, but I was thinking that the people that work close to you should never feel that there's a bleak, sort of bleak that always goes and they get cut out.

I don't think this girl thinks that.

I should never mention goat.

I never talked about it.

And maybe it wasn't, maybe I wouldn't bother.

It doesn't even occur to any of us.

I do have, I've been to California, but look around.

There might be some girl that's slaved like hell in McGregor's office, for example.

I see those girls up night after night.

There might be one who's done a hell of a job in the East Wing.

There might be one that's, well, I guess you're taking care of all the research.

Mort Allen, you took him once, didn't you, sometime?

We've done a fair number of times.

And he's got a girl in there, though, that's worked her ass off.

I like that.

You sort of look around, because they, for example, they said one of the best things that ever happened to me, I used to be scared in my head, and she would move out and say hello to all of you.

You know, that's the thing that really brightens up the day.

This is the Gates office.

Oh, sure.

And I always go to Henry's office.

I usually go to some kind of here.

It's not very often.

Rose's, not very often.

But this is another one.

But I realize that I don't do it at my break.

And Earl's or upstairs is.

But why don't you talk to your top people and see that the top secretaries

I would rather do it for people like that than I would do it for a cabinet officer or a top staffer.

It doesn't, because I know if the cab's out, your couch driver's going to find a way to get it in.

Plus, they take it for granted, where these people, it's the greatest event in their lives.

If you had that turkey over for the movie that night, for dinner that night, I didn't notice.

You'll never forget that.

And I didn't know you had that, Terry, and that's just great.

We never had a proposal, but that's just fine.

And then Pat and, uh, Joey, what?

Both of us.

Really?

Oh, that's true.

Sure.

I understand.

And you should never feel that you have to do that.

It never gets to a point where you think you've got to take time to butter those people up.

This was not the purpose.

I had to pee over and I had to butter them up.

Because I was there alone at each station.

And I had to eat something.

And I also, I was dying for another reason.

And I just got to know to throw them into that breach.

I think that Terry, well, she's not as good as the others, but she's a proper nice girl.

She?

Yeah.

Well, if you think about Terry, which I'm sure you know.

Oh, look.

She is probably the most beautiful girl right now.

In the face?

Yeah.

She has got a beautiful face.

That child is going to be in the movies.

She's got a beautiful figure for that type.

She's a different one.

She's got spectacular legs.

But she is the beauty of the White House after all.

And you know, that's why, if you want to put, of course, nobody can read that with Schiller.

But she's just great out there, and she knows the state of things and all that.

If you want to let somebody out to meet people, use that territory.

What do you think?

Very good.

She is.

I like this person.

I mean, I like to put people with good personality.

Good looking out front.

I really do.

I prefer to keep the ones that are not quite as pretty.

I like to keep them while places like L.J., Rose, Mars, the rest, they should be back at work, but not off the front.

Do you agree?

I sure do.

I'll go back to Nick.

But, he, apparently he has, you know, all this,

I think there's also lurking down, way behind, there is the question of his involvement in the Watergate paper and the fact that he doesn't know about it.

We've got a lid on it, but it may not stay on.

And his getting out might just be a good move on that, because ultimately it goes to him.

But I don't...

I think, as I understand it, and I don't want to know, because I've got to answer your press conference, because they...

Because I understand that John did not know specifically about this case.

As I understand it, that's right.

I'm glad you did not.

I mean, if people down the line, Cubans and others in the chorus, working with some asshole in there, does something stupid, we can't be responsible for that.

Because I was glad to see that somebody brought out Kevin Dolch, somebody in the back,

We were tapped, you know, Johnson tapped us and tapped us, because he told us later.

He knew we'd made those awful calls.

Not we, but he was a member.

He said that he had the telephone call that was made in New Mexico.

Of course, he had her tapped.

It was a goddamn rash.

Well, I...

My view would be, and John's going to be back in a second and we won't talk about this, my view would be to encourage him to do it on the basis of he's got a, it's a beautiful opportunity.

He'll gain great sympathy.

The Martha Mans will think, isn't that a wonderful thing that the man has given up this, you know, it's kind of like the Duke of Windsor giving up the throne for the woman he loves.

It has a little of that flavor to it.

This poor woman isn't well and all and he's going to be by her side and all that.

And we would leak out the fact that she's not well.

Very strong.

We have to.

We're already doing that.

He might not even leak out.

He might want to tie that right to say my wife isn't well.

I've got to be with her.

And that obviously is, I'm totally devoted to her, but I can't let this problem.

have a full-time job, then what he can, and that's the point, then he can say, I fully expect to help in every possible way that I can.

And that's why he can still do some inside jobs.

Then you use him for the kinds of things he is indispensable for.

The Rockford, Reagan, Buckley, maneuvering, putting the deal together in Missouri, and that kind of stuff, he can still do it without any question.

But getting out of it.

Exactly.

Funny thing, last night I spoke up at 3.30 and

It almost resolves our problem.

I think we were talking about needing to get Malik into an operating role and all that, which was going to be hard.

We were making some headway.

It might have worked, but we'd have a problem.

But the difference, I get to thinking about that, is that in 68, Mitchell had fine deeds in planning

And some people I've met that he doesn't have now, real pros, who were doing a hell of a lot of stuff for him that he may not have even realized himself they were doing.

And Kleinke's was running that field stuff and the delegate lineup and doing stuff that John, you know, he reports to John constantly, but Dick was operating on his own, really, and knew what he was doing.

He was a hell of a pro.

There's nobody over there like that now.

There's no comparable guy to Kleinke's.

Oh, wait a second, did you see where he shafted?

Did I sound it?

Can you imagine what it would have been if I'd gone in and called me?

Terrible.

He was a pretty low blow.

Well, did you, you heard the prison people shut up?

No, did he?

Yeah, he said, when I saw it, I said, I'm going to go and say to your wife, when the president comes up to Pennsylvania, he's always welcome.

He comes up and expresses sympathy to our people, and the governor says he apologizes.

That's the lowest kind of gunner politics.

Ah, good for him, you see.

That's the kind of a guy we need.

I'm not exactly sure if Fred doesn't feel that he should go into it.

But he's made it clear that what he does is going to depend on it.

He has some real reservations.

He wants to talk to me and get back to me about what stuff he did.

Well, let me say this.

I think they're going to hammer John, because they're going to hammer him a lot of times.

But I also think they're going to hammer him, because basically you want to realize that John made the court.

They know that.

And that burns her ass deep down.

The depression goes all around her ass.

I think John's leaving now.

Well, John's tired of a lot of things.

He's tired of the Hardwell case.

He's tired of the Berrigan trial that failed.

He's tired of the Angela Davis trial that failed.

He's tired of the Ellsberg case that's going to fail.

He's tired of the Watergate paper, in a sense, indirectly, and we know that it's more than that.

He's tired of the IT&T case, and the quantity of its business.

He's tired of the Barbara Mitchell problem, which is a

in itself, and there's just a lot of stuff there.

And plus... We don't lose it.

That's the point.

What doesn't...

The thing that I've been worried about, how you can't run the thing without John, and the answer to that is you don't have to.

You still have John.

Because Clark came through the kinds of things that John came through.

Clark came...

I wouldn't keep him in any official capacity, Mark.

I wouldn't either.

But then he's...

You get the worst of both worlds.

They shoot at him and start hitting the president.

And move him out completely.

And then as a private lawyer citizen, he had to move.

He had to check out of the lawyer.

He had to move up to the U.S. And keep an apartment down here for some time.

Come down when he can.

You appear to have pulled out, saying, what time I can't do it.

Well, of course, as a private citizen, do everything I can for the president's real life.

We've got to talk to Barton about if we can take advantage of this to make Mitchell, you know, some of that wood cracking that we're committing about tightening those belts and getting it working on, but with a new manager.

We can do that in space.

Cut out some of the drills and things.

Well, I'd cut it right now.

Shift the working hours, get loose and people out, you know, get Malik in there and start the askation.

Well, get Malik ready to do it now, and I'd just go in with a knife.

The only people you can't cut out are people that know something.

You've got a problem there.

I mean, something.

I don't mean what I mean.

I mean other things.

I don't know.

But I don't know what we know that would be.

We've got to go over that, that is, shove them around to the National Committee in various ways, but just go around to the places where we're counting on them.

They may have to carry some just to allow the load, but that's a cheap way to handle it.

But if we carry them, recognizing that they're not going to deliver and move to put someone else in their place to deliver, that's the thing that bothers me is we've got people...

Well, he's not competent for that.

I don't know who he is, but he is.

That's exactly right.

John had reached it.

Thank you.

I think this is a better way to do it.

I hadn't thought of it properly.

But I'm already part of the last three, so I'm going to have to talk to you as soon as we get up.

I'm just going to ask a question.

Okay.

And I'll never have one.

And you can rule it out?

Just when they ask a question, you say, that's a question of...

I'm going to answer a part of the question.

No, but you have to answer every question.

Yes.

Public Broadcasting Corporation is waiting to arrive in April.

Why the hell are they raising public broadcasters?

They've got a good lobby and they've appointed them to congressmen and so on and so on.

So they can crank it up.

We went in for a raise as part of this deal we're working on and taking over the board and throwing everybody out.

We asked for $45 million, which I think is too much.

So they raised it to $60 and $90.

$60 for the first year, $90 for the second.

But that's just going to build a goddamn other network to cost our people.

Plus, until we get control of the board, we're not about to do anything like that.

When we get control, we can't do anything.

We want to be with our board now.

So...

They had a lot of, you know, I saw that.

The reason I'm here is because I know quite a few of you.

So, you have to spread it over so we have it.

Yeah, I'm scared of that.

It's not anything.

The night of the 3rd is a better time.

The items are good, and it's quite important to like it.

And the 3rd is the official holiday, so that kind of ties into it.

I'll be glad to do it.

It's getting early in the evening in California, for sure.

I don't know.

Well, let's do it.

Five o'clock or six o'clock California time.

That's car driving time.

Sure.

That's a big radio.

Sure.

All right.

Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Watergate and John Mitchell

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Also recorded on June 28, 1972

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Nixon, Haldeman & Colson on Watergate and John Mitchell

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on June 28, 1972

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