Nixon, Kleindienst & Ehrlichman on FBI and Watergate

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Hi, how are you?

How are you?

Glad to see you.

I think you had a little money.

No, here's the note.

Here's the note.

It cost me $137.

I had, I was insured.

I got an insurance.

Oh, you had insurance?

I had no insurance.

Of course.

Never had any insurance.

I had to cap it up since then, I must say.

But, uh, you got a dollar a year.

I had some chicken.

That means $15,000.

I would say that you, with a little golf, you get to play.

If you pay a dollar a year in insurance, I'm going to take it away.

All right.

I will probably be getting a hole-in-one.

I don't know if the client can tell you this, but my secretary had a hole-in-one.

He had a hole-in-one.

They have a reporter there that's going to fix you up.

I think he's going to fix you up.

You've got to do it.

All right.

Well, getting off to the, let's get off to the, let's be honest, what's the situation with regard to, is he still a connected person?

No, well, I spent an hour waiting my opportunity in my office.

He's not here.

The deputy went down to the floor, but I guess it seems he's not here.

He really wanted to go back to work himself, but I think they were urging him to take the ETA.

I had heard that they didn't want me to stay in for two weeks.

That's what they did.

The cost of that.

It seemed great, but I thought, I'm going to be fucked.

He had a completely uninvestable recovery.

You know, Pat doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke.

I know.

He had no band-aids, so...

He put no band-aids on everyone.

That's what I told him.

I said, do you...

What do you feel about it?

Well, I've just racked my mind.

John and I have talked about it several times.

We know John mentioned it to you.

Well, John, at least what he expressed was great.

I have to clarify all these things.

Well, my version of John mentioned to you is that there are seven reasons to not reinforce F, but who have you got better?

And when I prompted John about some of the negative aspects of F,

I sent it in, and I'd like to say to you, if I may, that some of those negative readings get busted.

Because one concern, if I may, would be what happens during one of the Senate investigations, or the Senate hearings.

Yeah.

Let's say there were investigations.

He has a story to tell, which really not only would affect his confirmation, but it could also, once and for all, put forward a very good clip to stand for the administration.

That is one of the most unusual, bizarre situations here at the political.

What was done and how it was done was a remarkable situation.

You can't say it.

I can't.

But if the Senate confirmation is in, if they get into it, it will get a lot of attention.

It might conceivably put that little crappy thing in.

Of course it is.

They'll get out.

They can figure it out.

The other point

It seems to me that what you did in the Martin case decades back, you know, that reduces that down to a certain degree.

Secondly,

Uh, I think you ought to have somebody in the FBI who is totally capable of doing much truth.

You don't want some great man, great man over there who doesn't give a shit about anyone or anybody else.

Uh, if there is a hope that he will be contained at all after the next four years, I think that would be realistic if we get elected Republicans.

If Teddy Finley is the next president of the United States, if the president is the president of the United States.

And there isn't anybody, it seems to me, that you can spend over there that's getting better at that.

If you're a liberal Democrat, you're getting up there.

And then on the positive side of it, there was undoubtedly, you know, a hundred great business companies, they were great, they were better, they were bigger than Pat Gray, but who are they on the other hand?

That organization had a pretty severe trauma, actually, that they were passing.

It was anybody who could have gone in there and looked at the executive and visited every one of those field offices, definitely known.

Started putting in the general kind of report to that place.

We did not have a substantial issue, but some of the discipline reports.

And we got a hold of the discipline area.

the maintain of these fascist policies.

He had a lot of ideas which he would like to discuss in a future table there, most of which he referred to after the election, right?

So after an awful lot of thought, Mr. President, I believe, at least in the names that he was badly about,

I just really have to come to the table and say, I get along fine.

Take that as a sign that even when I'm not in the government, I know that I'll always be available to go to Pat Gregg and all those things that I've done with him.

Listen to that.

He's much better than I thought.

He's the best.

Just segregate yourself in the home industry.

He's 60.

Doesn't need it.

He's a good politician.

He's supposed to put his money in 66 cents.

He's going to stay after that.

You're quite right.

Now, I think we're right.

There's a couple of things that he said to me.

Not that he was, but he's a good person.

He has a job.

He's doing a good job.

And I think he's probably the president of the United States.

Do you have any other names?

Well, in my opinion, there'll be somebody here to turn this down for everything I'm saying.

We can't have the FBI.

We can't have the Attorney General or anything like that.

Everybody wants to be in there.

You can't.

I'm not going to take that.

They're going to lie 20 feet long for that.

But both of you, you have to pull it back a little bit.

I think that's good.

We're going to call it a day.

Back here on the ground, that'd be worse than...

It's more political than that.

who has a great constituency, which you know, Los Agos, who is unfortunately one of the various parties with.

And he put me in a bad direction the other day.

But I don't believe that any improvement in his team might not be as good as that.

And it's a troubling situation.

And I think you always have to come back to it.

Somebody who, who's, who in the universe has got to have, what's a cuss?

Otherwise you just screw it up and it'll kill you.

This is bad luck.

It's not bad.

It's not bad luck.

It's not bad luck with your friends, you know.

You know, with just casual acquaintances over there, I mean, it's just, you know, it's even worse.

Yeah, what I meant is what...

They saw what happened in 1972, and they did.

Well, let's leave it this way.

I don't want to, I want to, I have a friend who got a candidate, but I'm not going to talk about that.

I'm sure as you do, because I want to talk to John, I'm sure as you do.

We didn't have a goddamn Senate.

You run the government a lot there.

But you take that committee.

The big majority of what he's behind me all the way up, you know, he's talking about how she was a jerk, you know, and she was completely, you ate him.

Now if you showed up with somebody that the committee was divided on, or it might tilt the other way, and the better, then you really have a problem.

He was talking about 9, 10, 12 versus 3, as compared to maybe a 7-8 situation or a different kind of situation.

You have to look at the whole sign.

Well, if you take a head of time on the floor, it's not going to be a big issue.

It's going to be a big issue.

It might have, I think, been that often, such generalities that they wouldn't be able to take them.

And they never did.

Let me say, I'll talk about it.

Well, I feel very good.

I might even see him on the floor.

He's part of something for us.

He was down there last week.

I don't know whether he's come back or not.

He can come back down.

I did.

But I just don't have any other viable suggestions.

I was trying to shoot him.

You know, I worked for a Democrat, Matt Stern, who was a United States attorney out there.

He was a fairly fine, able ambassador.

He was great.

Objective, though.

I don't know that he was objectivity at all times.

He didn't pick a judge, but he was a lawyer.

I just knew they'd done it.

I just picked out the letters and went through the book.

The juror, of course, used to talk to me about it.

He said, there's been many trouble with this.

I said, you can't claim one, but I'm saying all.

Number one, there's a major culprit, because he hasn't undergone it yet.

That's the process of doing that.

He hasn't done it in five years, so he's not been out to the field office.

He's been in the field office, and I've been there.

I don't have any evidence against myself.

I mean, I have nothing in mind.

There are things that we know that was Mark's fault, but nobody's given that evidence for the intervention in that direction.

So we get that.

Everybody agreed that they should make a thing about it before the election.

Oh, and then Pat was sick.

And we didn't do what Pat wanted to do.

But he washed up.

We know that from the funeral.

It was dead.

It was the time I was in the league.

I don't know.

The questions just always come up.

Mitchell said, sure.

The story's inside Tom Hanks.

I will have to find out.

But Pat Gray did not know that.

I told Pat that I was leaving before I fell.

Have you?

Yeah.

I never talked to him.

I didn't.

I kept miles away from him.

Delivered him.

I kept calling him.

He was sick.

I wanted to keep him home.

But he shouldn't have been isolated.

He was.

But I know Pat.

Well, in any event, I'll talk to him and we'll see about it.

Try to think of any other names.

Right.

I really want to ask you, and I'm going to talk to John next weekend.

He and Mark are both smart people.

I'm going to ask you to settle that issue.

A poor woman.

But I was still sorry for her.

I was sorry for John.

My mother.

But she was sick with it.

She's sick.

And John has gone through the torture to get all of it.

And she's hurt a bit, but it's myself.

To be frank, we tend to devise all of this mindfully, but it has a lot to do with the problem that John is currently having with his mother.

I mean, he was put on a show.

But it's with John.

It's not with John.

It's with John.

But I mean, there's also delays, you know, because people, you know, there's all kinds of reasons.

Well, even though he wasn't there, basically, he was sort of in charge.

But I, in terms of, it must have been pretty worrying.

I didn't know she was up to it.

There has to be a substantial reorganization of full federal government allocations of resources on this final area.

If you go to France, for example, they have 4,000 addicts, 50,000 people.

We have 500,000.

We have nearly an epidemic in this country.

We have 20,000.

First in fact, in Japanese, in English, in Spanish, and in other countries as well.

We've done a pretty good job over the four years that we've been in Shizuoka, I reckon.

It seems to me that several people ought to get together and go to various types of places to have familiarities with different aspects of how to sit down and just see what could be done.

And again, it's interesting to see the structure as we've been

Well, I'll tell you what I've had, what I've experienced.

Well, I had a, you know, I've got ash.

It's pretty overactive.

And, uh...

I'm going to build a version of Simon, the gold mess, the gold ball wax.

And we're going to come up with a recommendation regarding one of the integration plans coming from outside, that is, from one of the departments that can't do something in the department.

It is an age of new man from outside, but I'm going to consider it to be biased, and where there's another, we consider it

We don't have him, but if you cooperate with him, he'll take a lot of your time.

I've never said it all my time, but that's a great thing about it.

You have to study that thing for him.

What do you do with agencies or divisions or departments of that government?

We've done that already, but do we already know where he's at?

We haven't.

Has Ash gotten up to the stand?

No.

Oh, he's got the whole organization working out.

Right.

Probably Mark Alger, who started the measure with us in January, wasn't there at the same time.

We can probably get right into it and get him educated.

Well, but that is the main thing is to tell Ash that I talked to Dick about it.

He should start it there.

He said, if we're going to do it, do it while I'm there.

I said, well, I've got several roads to get out of.

And I do get, you start with him.

And then he goes right around the wheel.

And then we sit this down and we've done it.

Because that's one thing we've pushed to do that we haven't done.

We've got to get our conference on.

Do you have ideas about what to do with it?

I think the border patrol and INS probably ought to be put over to the customs.

Customs ought to get out of the investigation.

We're the only country in the world where if a customs man runs into a police officer, where they think they have a law violation, they investigate it themselves.

Every other country turns it over to the police.

Well, there's a lot of police in the FBI in Scotland.

I think that the investigators of BNDT, they might be under the federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI.

They have their resources.

We were never used to want to have that.

We didn't want any of it.

It was troublesome.

We didn't want any of it.

We wanted to arrest people for stealing our money.

Or, or, yeah, check that.

That's really what's true.

We want to organize crimes or crimes or, you know, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or,

I was always worried about how he was going to look and so forth and so on.

His death was a great passion to respect and I loved him.

It was a great way for him to leave.

Thank God that he did.

Thank God that otherwise they would turn him off.

You know, they came here to get him.

He remembered that Christmas a year before.

There was a lot of trouble.

I should ask him to come in.

And I had breakfast with him.

And I heard about that.

He had no intention of leaving.

He said, whenever you think I'm a liability, you let me know.

Correct.

Of course, I didn't tell him that.

What I was trying to lead him in the same, of course, was just, I hear all this stuff.

We don't want you to become an assurer.

Your intuition was great.

If that old man had been forced out, if he went around the country, he would have killed you.

As it turned around, and I remember I was just looking.

I don't know if it was Mitchell.

Was it Mitchell?

No.

Well, it was a total strikeout.

Mitchell was surprised.

I don't know.

He said, you know, and I said, he fits.

He says, of course, the moment he said that, I said, well, of course, it was a little bit.

So he went on, was married with me.

I must say, though, that he did handle his PR a little better towards the end.

He began to develop a quarter of a million bucks with this and that, which they all are.

But I see where they didn't have a problem here, where somebody would give it to himself, give it to him, give it to his wife, give it to his children, do a playoff game.

Well, I don't know.

Maybe he's a Negro.

But that's what it's called.

The Washington Post writer said that when he was buried, he said, you know, the fact that she's been buried, and he has other things, and so forth and so on.

Apparently, he said that.

And actually, throughout his announcement, he's got different things that he's been doing.

Apparently, the question about it, you know, the fourth page, is the answer to that.

Anyway, I don't know what it was, but it certainly was a poster.

I'm going to turn it on TV for that game Sunday.

They've got the dance thing sold out.

There's a playoff game.

I think that's terrible.

I think I might call them and say they don't put it on TV.

I'm all for it.

I've said that several times.

You want me to do it?

Sure.

I could carry on.

I think the playoff game should all be on TV.

Do I have your permission to do that?

I'll do it.

Make sure he does it.

Well, it's a hard thing to do around here, you know.

And it's a matter of fact.

And let's also remember this.

I was kicked every time I put him to the ass.

Is it?

He's the only one who's got that.

Just say yes to me and you'll be on TV.

All right.

I'll call it.

All right.

Good.

All right.

John O'Toole was out to it, so it should be a national policy.

I called him up.

He's a farmer FBI guy.

Then I looked at that.

And it was all over the country here.

I said, there comes a point where a playoff game should be available to everybody.

They're all sold out.

Now, they always made a playoff game that wasn't sold out.

It was the first Super Bowl.

You know, it was so screwed up that everybody got out of here.

It was impossible to get to it.

So we didn't buy it.

But every goddamn playoff game was sold out.

... ... ... ... ...

There wasn't a seat, an empty seat out here on Sunday when it was like 15 degrees.

Did you know?

Yeah, I did.

Was that happening?

I had a chance to do a game all year.

They were saving themselves.

It was a good idea.

It's very interesting.

The Giants were a good team.

But Dallas wasn't pretty put down either.

Did you see that?

I saw the school letter when I got home.

What did it look like?

It looked kind of like the game I just got from, where one team was really all out and the other one was just kind of at it.

It was great.

George Allen has been after me all year long to come watch his team play.

I finally believe we have one.

Far wrong, William.

Do it publicly.

Say you've met with the president.

And so I feel this way about it anyway.

I think it's a poor, I think it's bad policy.

And so I've asked you to investigate this matter.

How'd you do it?

Well, I screwed it up.

No, no, no.

I'm going to do it.

No, no, no.

No, no, I don't.

Listen.

Get the whole bunch, get the whole country right on it.

That's my point.

Why didn't they go to Washington?

Playhouse.

And they're living at the playhouse.

You should say this, that the President said this, that he's asked us to say this.

You should call Pete Rozelle and say that if you're going to make this statement, if you're going to improve the President, that I believe that the National Football League should announce to the TV that all the playoffs should be carried on television.

Period.

Okay.

All the playoffs should be carried on.

And then you call the locals on the bench and say that you are going to run

Say, look, Bennett, we've done this with Roselle, and here's the case.

Can you bring me the case?

Oh, I'd like to go to court on it.

I might not let it.

Why don't you bring it?

Why don't you let her know I'm winning?

Where do you bring the case?

Well, you take it to the federal district court here.

All right, take it to the district court.

Ask for an injunction or something.

All right, get busy with the lawyers.

I don't think that's what we talked about.

No, but you can also talk about narcotics.

Okay.

Routine.

No, seriously, I feel this way.

I didn't do anything that we've done.

But why not?

I raised up with the networks on the rerun program.

You know, we're standing up for Hollywood people.

Now let's speak up for the folks.

The folks should be able to see the goddamn games on the Hollywood.

The playoff games.

What's your reason?

Playoffs.

All playoff games should be available to the nation.

Fair enough?

Yeah, we heard.

Now, you might say this.

You might also point out, and I'll say, listen, just so you understand too, Bennett, he says the president is not speaking for himself in this instance because he's going to be in Florida.

He's going to be watching the game in Florida.

He's going to be carried there.

But he's speaking for all the people in Washington that didn't vote for him.

Put it right that way.

Okay.

I'll talk with my old friend, Ed Gray.

You know what I mean?

I love him.

Well, I don't want a guy to get crucified.

Let me say a word about it.

It's just planning.

Planning is very much what I want to be.

That's exactly it.

for that job, they tear the shit out of him.

They tear him apart.

You know what I mean?

They go all over.

They go to the ITP.

None of that.

Oil bank members.

All the rich friends.

So I can't do it.

Now, in Pat Gray's case, I've got to examine this.

I think that's Mitchell's concern.

That's my guess.

But I haven't talked to Mitchell.

Now, on the other hand, you can say, well, I'm going to tear him up anyway.

But, you know...

I don't think John is that much concerned about it.

John may be concerned about the Watergate thing.

And he shouldn't be because, you know, it's in the committee.

See, the Watergate thing is not in the White House.

We have to tell you things that are done wrong.

We didn't do Watergate.

But the goddamn Watergate was in the committee.

You know it was.

And it was very mean.

Very mean.

I think that was the turnoff.

You know, Kennedy is behind the rest of them, and they've had a little fight for us.

We're going to have some fun.

I'm just running out of here right now.

This is the first design that I had that's been fun.

Why didn't we do it?

Why didn't we do it right here?

Why didn't we do it in your shop?

We're overdoing it in our shop today.

But Carl Rosell, he was a crusader.

Yeah.

He was a crusader.

He said it in one very way, which I want you to know, that first, he believes that he, Rosell, ought to be able to get this rule established, at least by the president.

You're saying that in seconds.

A white horse with a black ass.

Nixon, Kleindienst & Ehrlichman on FBI and Watergate

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 18, 1972

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