Conversation 423-013

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Well, we've got a beautiful day.

Good morning.

Where it really is.

Spring.

Real springtime.

What do you have in store?

What are you looking for?

No, not really.

A conversation.

It's an interesting conversation.

I'm finished with my niche here.

My niche.

Love for Arizona.

That's about it for today.

We'll be back, though.

Have a good weekend.

I think I'm back over there.

One hour.

Yes.

And he said that, he said that Bill Bryant had talked to Mitchell today.

And Mitchell had told him that he was having a general off the scene.

He said that there was some issues with us.

And Bill Bryant said, Mitchell,

And in fact, told me that he's going to make the plan to include her, that Jeff's got to make his own decision on how to approach this thing.

So he's going to make it clear to him that he isn't lying.

He meant to listen to what he said.

Dean talked to Mitchell today, also.

And Mitchell told him he needs to step up.

And he said, you should understand that if you go ahead, if you go up before the grand jury, you've got a problem.

You won't be believed.

Because your story doesn't jive with mine.

Doesn't jive with mine.

And all we're going to do is open a can of worms.

Dean has a distinct feeling that Mitchell was saying to him that he should consider adjusting his story so that it would fit with Mitchell's.

Just so you understand my position, if I thought I could be guilty and solve this thing, I do believe that I could do it.

But I cannot live with a grand jury and not tell the truth because I know how hidden, unable I am to lie.

He said, if I start doing that, my hands will start trembling and my voice will shake.

And I said, I can't get away with it.

So he said, I just don't even understand.

If I go, I do the best I can, but I will not change the path.

The idea of

I don't know if, uh, jurors are going to, you know, call the circuit and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,

He's opposed to that because he said, lobbying the whole thing at Cerrito will scare everybody.

He said, oh, he's done a lot of lobbying anyway.

That will be a scare.

Because the only way they have a chance of a fair trial is when there's a hanging judge on his last big case and has to make a name.

He has that problem.

He thinks the panel idea is much better because they can make a fair assessment of the facts out of the public eye.

And the court can't.

Right?

Totally gets it now.

I was telling Maya, I also told her

So his name is

And as for that one, he totally disagreed with John.

John wanted to, he said, we need other stories to get out.

He said, well, let's act on what we need today.

And he wanted, uh, he wanted to figure it out somehow.

I mean, we listened to that, but he still didn't share the story.

First of all, we got other stories.

All he needs to do is pick up on this paper.

You know what the story is?

The last of the prisoners are on their way home.

That's the story.

You hear it on television, on the interview, and all over again.

They did all that last night again.

They're obsessed with the damn president.

I can't imagine why.

It must have occurred to somebody that is helping us.

They do it anyway, I guess, because that's what the people really are interested in.

It's a fascinating story.

But they get those damn guys on, and they're waving their hands and banners at the door.

They sure as hell are.

I don't know about this last time, but the ones that are on their way down, they didn't know it, so they were probably like, well, we don't know.

Some of the new ones are less, some of the most are.

But you see, Bill's reaction to Sojourner, and Bill is the one I thought was going to follow me on to see that.

His reaction to Sojourner is totally different from early on, in regard to me stepping out and making a big statement on this presidential statement that I heard on the show, and I'm not going to do it again.

But he is.

Because it is.

That's why it's valuable to get a guy, and even he is damn close.

What the hell, he's sitting here in Washington, he reads the Post, and he's sensitive to this man's side, talks to these people.

If you had a Bill Rodgers guy in Chicago, called him and said, look, what I can do about this, he would think you lost your senses if you were talking to a guy like that.

Bill's point is that if I go on, it looks like I'm guilty.

I hadn't thought of that, but I think he's right.

They think it's embarrassing to do this.

This is bad, this is what Johnson must have gone through when he caught one of his top guys, a mentor, a homosexual, and the other one is a crook.

That's Bobby Baker.

And his top lawyer, the one that made Gene Justice, was the one that also made me embarrassed.

This is where ethics is true.

So if he doesn't want to read it, I can see the point of that.

The panel then just doesn't work.

He doesn't have any options.

That's why Mitchell's saying you should go up to the grand jury because they won't believe you.

That's a terrible thing to say to people.

First of all, it is Dean's decision to go up to the grand jury.

How the hell did he not go?

That's not a correct charge.

Well, Dean's, he's afraid, like a bunch of other kids on the line, huh?

He's afraid of that idea.

Dean's afraid it'll be, it'll call the piss on Dean.

You know, the two of them should line up for Dr. Moreau and Hank Dean.

But the point is, that doesn't solve a goddamn thing.

For them.

Well, getting Dean in to attest to how bad it is.

They can make a case of Dean, although it's a little expensive.

I don't know.

That's right.

Dean has never said that before.

I'll find out what's going on in the ranch.

They're really still tippin' around, you know, nothing.

Yeah, I guess that's the issue.

Early, but what is, what's early enough to not talk to anybody then?

Well, unless he got packed ready.

What?

Unless he got packed ready.

I'll find out about that.

No, you don't do it for long.

It starts at 11 o'clock.

What?

It starts very early.

My kids are out there too.

You know, that would be kind of a good idea anyway.

That'll make it more convenient.

We're all ready for tomorrow, David.

There's a question.

Okay.

We're going to come back.

On the ground.

John, what is our status on getting a report of the grand period activity?

Okay, we're trying to reach now.

He's not here, he's not in the room, he's back.

But we don't know what happened today.

We've got to find out what happened today.

We've got to safely go.

Okay.

What's going on now?

Okay.

Yep.

Let's plan those to give a written statement answering

specific technical questions they've raised, which don't do us any trouble at all, and then we'll get a report from Peterson, but not until later, because there was a King of All counsel in the court who had talked to them, and then they went over again to react to that.

So, if Peterson doesn't get hourly reports, he gets a report from the U.S. Attorney.

If Peterson does report, and if Andrew did, we'll get a report about that time.

So there's a new development.

F.D.

Bailey called Mitchell today.

He represents Hottie.

Oh, Sperm represents, no.

Sperm represents McCord.

He was McCord.

Still does.

But that's the interesting thing.

He represents McCord in the case before Sirica.

Fensterwald apparently represents McCord in his dealings with the Hill Committee and his publicity.

Bailey, Bailey has a thing going, he has a client that has 200,000 tons of gold or something hidden away somewhere.

He has to find a way to get legalized.

And he just talked to Mitchell about that.

And that's good.

In the process, after that, Bailey talked to the World Reserve, and then he said to Mitchell that Mr. Walden called Calvin Shermer, he called all the support of Bailey, but he eventually called Bailey.

to request that Mr. Wald be present when the court meets with Sir Rico on Thursday.

Mr. Wald called Bailey to request that Mr. Wald be present as co-counsel.

And then he made the remark

We don't give a damn about the court.

We're after Richard Benson.

That's true.

To Bailey.

So Bailey don't mention that.

And they're playing around with that now with the thought that Bailey might go out and tell them to say that.

I don't know.

I don't know what it ought to be good about.

Dean also says, thinking about it, that he thinks Spencer always went to, maybe he went to Kennedy, maybe his time, because he was

The Chief Counsel of the Administrative Practices Subcommittee, along with Chairman Kennedy, was the sub-chairman.

And then Kennedy, when the law went out, Kennedy succeeded Chairman.

And he met with the Council for a while after Kennedy succeeded.

But at the end of the day, Kennedy was in there and had a close tie to that.

Or had the potential for a close tie to the Council.

Well, he thinks maybe there's something going there that would explain Festerwell's putting up the bail for McCord, which is secure.

We're looking at McCord and we say, we don't know what he is anymore.

If there's anybody turning, that's McCord.

Yeah.

I would think that would be the line that they're all taking.

I don't see why that's so.

We have a better opinion.

McCord, obviously, is the way that he

This one, two White House people.

The way the story went, you know, I read the posters on it.

All of a sudden, it was the same.

They named the White House people for the poster, but it was actual recruiter and dean.

Same two.

Correct.

What part of the poster makes more revelations, is that correct?

What does it do?

It's right.

The problem with it is that it gets involved just quicker than those other trucks.

We don't give a damn about McCord.

I don't think McCord is terrible.

That's what we're going to do.

We're going to try to get rid of that buddy on the wire.

They moved in on McCord.

They may have picked their target.

They're going to try to attack us.

McCord was one of the guys.

I don't think so, because I don't think the court was involved in any of the charges.

I don't think, I mean, whatever that was done, I'm sorry, I don't think that... Well, the court was in front of the policeman.

Right.

That's what I meant.

He wasn't involved in that.

I don't think we know about that.

I think they had a guy going around prompting people, trying to put some pieces together.

So Bill said, he said, when I was going through some stuff, he said, look, maybe you mentioned this to you, but he said, you sit there, and you kind of look a little concerned and everything, but you tell me that you have been putting pressure on

in order to get a tape recording for Democratic candidates.

Is it not automatically tied into the Watergate?

I said, God damn it.

What we were doing, he would have been pretty stupid not to do.

Intelligence operator, he made the point, he said, hey, don't make any bones about whether you had an intelligence operation or not.

Of course you did.

I said, well, you know, that sounds fine.

But when the Washington Post prints it, it doesn't really look.

I would love to have a story saying I was

pushing.

I think they'll probably have to get it.

I was pushing for recordings.

Of what they sent?

Yeah.

Sure.

What recordings were there?

Some of them did.

Oh, and you know perfectly well, if a recorder's coming, you can send it over there to tape recorders.

All the microphones and the speakers, I can get.

Because they're too lazy to work anymore.

They don't have to sit and write

I can see he's wanting a dramatic step.

He'll sort of agree with that, too, but...

It's early, more than the two behind.

John sees it, and John, I don't criticize him for it, but it's his method, you know.

It's not the equation for doing it.

What?

Well, always to, you know, to be out.

to try to say something, do something, and all the rest.

That's why John would have been a disastrous foreign policy advisor.

He shouldn't have done anything wrong.

Out of the three things to the right, you just got to decide what the right is and stick to it.

Take these for a while.

What is...

He figures that McCord says that he's going to leave the house tomorrow.

Mr. Wall is there, Mr. McCord is there.

I mean, that's what we get started the other time.

Incidentally, Howard Baker did step up in class for committee council.

Did he really?

He did yesterday.

He did it yesterday.

Of course, he didn't get it before the committee council.

He didn't order it.

He doesn't say it now.

It's in the paper tonight.

How did he do it?

I think that's all right.

Because it was improper conduct.

You can't mess your own story out fast.

You can't.

We don't know about you.

You can't.

I never spoke on the board of words before, but I did once.

I was in Chicago, and I was thinking about myself.

And I said to everybody, you know, you got to work.

And I had to do a little bit.

I was an actualist.

I was literally standing in front.

I told Bill, I said, my guess is that he was.

and that he just did, but probably not, not totally.

I mean, he's just one of those people who wasn't watching the story, but he was allowed to look at it.

But I said, but he said, don't ask me.

I said, try about that, Tom.

I said, that would be in a position to say, so let me ask you, what about John Mitchell?

And I know that John Mitchell is a citizen.

I don't get it, but he said he's made a public statement on this.

I've always been very careful about that too, to say that's not going to happen.

If you go the Sirocco block, you're going to scare the hell out of everyone.

Yeah, but, whatever it may be, how are you going to not scare them?

How can you not do the Sirocco route anyway?

Wherever you go, it's going to be dark.

Or to rethink the circuitry we've got on that basis, which might say that I think we're going to be in that thing anyway.

It would be better to consider that.

I go with Colson on the idea of not saying that we involved her, which is, you know, I mean, they were testified and, you know, well, it's just a little better way to detect it, but specifically as regards to what it is.

We can do that.

Except that no privilege exists because there was no communication.

Except afterwards.

There was no communication afterwards.

It is a matter of waiting.

You can make it seem that somehow the point can be made that there is no question of exactly a privilege.

And that's leading up to the watergate because the person had no knowledge of it and had no communication with anybody regarding it.

Therefore, no one has the privilege to shoot that in their eyes.

That's correct.

Well, then why would you let a long road into hell?

The privilege question on the Hill is a question of the privilege of being called at all.

The question of being called at all, not the substance.

That's right.

If they were being called on the Hill on a criminal matter, which was not being handled in a proper criminal place, they'd go up.

And that must have followed.

Here, the Justice Department is prosecuting.

they are here you see my point is that they are that's that's that's the way it feels like if you've been able to run that one by

He doesn't like me going to the very church.

He doesn't like me.

Uh, no.

Clanky's gone.

This is the sort of guy, you know, now, if there really isn't much of one, except you're simply saying that Clanky talks to him.

Oh, the way it would work is Clanky doesn't talk to him.

Except I don't talk to him.

Clanky's a fellow who goes and talks to the church.

I agree with what he says.

First, would you want to apply to a special class?

and have a special counsel with relaxed confidence in the counsel of the present counsel.

2.

Whether he wants another grant jury to speak.

And 3.

Whether he does want to or not, or whether he does want the present counsel to have another grant jury, that there will be total cooperation from the White House, including testimony by members of the White House staff who have been named director and director

I don't know if that has any matter on this, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

No.

Yes.

All right.

Hi, Julie.

That was great.

Well, how nice, how nice of you to go about it.

I'll get down to see you sometime.

And I won't get over tonight, as I told you.

And that's great.

You have a good time.

Great.

Really?

Thank you.

Really.

That's great to hear.

Well, when does mommy leave?

Great.

Well, I'll give her a call tomorrow.

And then, what the way- Can you go a little bit further and say- No, I don't need to go into cooperation, but I might ask that the President has requested that all of the White House- He requested that all of the White House people, that all of the White House people who have been named appear before the Rancor.

Well, I'll put it as the President, that all of the White House people who have been named have requested and volunteered, to put it that way, have volunteered to appear and testify.

As far as their testimony is concerned, there is no privilege on any matters having to do with walking, because the President has no knowledge.

In other words, there was never any communication with the President at all.

Now, where that falls is I suppose it was a communication afterwards, and yes,

Yeah, they had farmed the other encircling, but there was no communication with the president about the finances.

There was no communication with the president about the state, the care of the assholes.

He said return.

All right.

Now, you said yourself you had Dean looking into the farming law.

That's right.

Well, obviously, he could have asked other people, but now that he's in the NFL, and he says there's a record of a trade-off, then he would have Sigrid go out.

Sigrid would definitely announce it.

He was on the list.

The president, the president.

Well, he wasn't.

That's why I told Bill.

He was a complainer.

I mean, I think it's a criminal case.

I'm in charge of the law before the Granger and before the Senate.

I just thought that's a good backup solution.

That's something I'd like for you to run by if you will, Rod.

I don't know if you're not right.

I can't think about Rodgers.

I'm closing down.

I don't know.

Just say there's an idea and say, well, why don't you suggest jumping?

I'm thinking of a way to .

And as Bill says, we do that.

And so then he says, what would you like to do?

And then he said, I don't know.

He said, well, it's pretty hand over here.

had to appear somewhere that's it they're appearing that if you're not afraid to let them appear it's just only that you don't want them if you're in a low situation dark time uh still need to get together

So, personally, the team did take some kind of overreaction, and they're trying to block this position we're in now of appearing to cover up and not go up to the committee and all that sort of thing, which we obviously don't want to do.

Both.

So, brought, then raised, what are the claims?

And he would, Sarika, make the point to him that the president up to this point has been relying on the statements of the people and the staff and so forth, that there is no involvement with the investigation and so on.

But the McCord charges, Grace, you know, has been proud of this whole thing in a very serious way.

And therefore, the president has claims to Prop.

Sarika.

and to take the following suggestions to raise the following questions.

One, whether Sherika wants to feel better if we appointed a special prosecutor to handle the follow-up on this continuing cases.

Two, does he want to appoint a new grand jury to go into this ?

And three, whether or not he wants to do either of those two things that

There will be total cooperation from the White House in terms of your new role as jury and new role as prosecutor, including testimony from all of the White House staff members that have been directly or indirectly named, and that they will volunteer to appear and testify.

The question of executive privilege

On matters leading up to the Watergate incident, it doesn't arise because there was no communication with the President of any sort on that subject.

The President had no knowledge.

And that's something that they're not in here because they're in the prison.

Then Senator Sirica agrees to any or all of those suggestions.

Zipper goes out and asks if the President has asked to turn down the name of Judge Sirica's assistant president.

so that you have the over-action coming from our part on getting our people out into some form where they can testify.

It would help a lot better for them if you could do it today than if you killed them today.

That's the point of being in this way rather than appointing a warrant committee to do it or something like that.

And we would be taking them if we could with that.

Did you have some time now?

Why don't you come over to my office?

You're here to talk to me.

Okay.

He said for one thing, the price they don't offer on a special prosecutor don't ever do that.

I said, why not?

He said, I'll tell you what I see.

He said, just for now.

He said, don't do it.

He's been starting.

He says, I don't like the idea.

He said, look at it this way.

Up to now, let's assume that you believe that we hid behind exactly the roof, which is whatever we can cover up.

So now, we read an unsourced, unsworn statement, everything on paper.

The court has said that someone says that this is what the court said.

Actually, the court has confirmed it's what the court said.

But it's still all the court's, I mean, all the newspaper stuff.

There's no, he's not been under oath.

He's not made any actionable charge that they might be will.

Of course he was, but he hasn't yet.

So he says, so what do we do?

We have sent the attorney general running off to talk to a judge.

to try to work something out.

This appears like overreaction.

Coming over to my office to make sure this is clear.

Then I said, well, that's the reason you would do this.

You wouldn't appear overreacting and going to the normal.

What does he set up to this time?

Nothing.

You know, all the people that work for that theory, nobody except Colson Holt would have done it.

Well, they don't think he'll do it.

But that was the, he was the formal assessment of the, of the dictation theory.

And he made the overreaction to the strain.

He still has two people with him.

He can go, and it is,

McCord is going to name Mitchell, too.

That's the only thing he's going to.

But I don't think he's going to.

Why would he name the Magruder in my instance?

He's going to have to be sold in fact to somebody who's very close to me.

That's the way he's going to go.

That's the driver's license.

That would be an incredibly tricky one.

I don't think he's going to be a guest.

If he's following Magruder, I would think he'd follow Magruder if he were going to be a guest.

There's time at the White House with a deputy director of communications.

That's kind of fun.

The world is making art.