Conversation 424-030

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I'm not sure.

Well, that's the problem.

Back in the old days, before you were president,

one candidate, you can turn off four days to a speech.

That's hard work, but at least you can get three weeks when you don't get that chance.

I'm glad I decided to read it to the bottom.

I just haven't got the

It's not going to be trashed at all.

Well, it does.

Don't do it as well.

I see.

Well, I mean, I'm dad.

I've been good at the other one.

I'll say that.

I just think it's important.

Frankly, it's important.

I feel.

Yeah.

Sort of.

Well, and the way you did the other one, you don't have.

Which is, you don't have enough time.

Well, Charlie, we are out here getting ready for it.

I agree.

are you going to use him?

Jordan said this morning, you're going to say freeze, which is me.

Well, that's what he had, but we all jumped on it.

I said, you know, you can't say freeze.

What you're saying is we're going to guarantee they're going to stay the whole time on it.

They're going to put a lid on it.

Yeah, I think it's worth taking if you don't mind breaking into this hall, because there are a couple of things we can and can't not do.

I don't know if you caught up with the news this morning at all, but the guy there, he said, you know, he said, you know, that's what was said there.

I don't know if we're working that.

Obviously, this would give us some credence to this point that Baker's AA made that he is looking for a way for somebody to talk to the White House.

And I guess that would be communication with the White House.

And what he said to the vice president, the vice president called me, and what he said to me was that he has a firm conviction, Howard does now, that our stand on executive privilege is very unwise in a public relations sense that it's hurting us.

And the time is of the essence on it.

The president should waive privilege for some people and let them come up.

The vice president said, I'm not sure whether I do, and I'm passing the message along.

I do agree with your comments.

Well, we all said, well, that obviously, you know, we've been, you know, back and side.

But what Baker told us in the names, the White House names and so forth, were mentioned as was reported in the paper that was even printed, accuracy in this paper showed.

And then said that McCord, however, could only give them, as you were saying, he did not have direct knowledge, but he did identify two people

From what we had gotten as information, each of them did have a direct knowledge.

And Baker didn't give the Vice President those names, but he made it clear that they were not political.

And he further made it clear that the Senate Committee intends to immediately call land.

And that they expect, therefore, to hear during first-hand testimony that Mitchell and the Gibb-Hunt-Leddy-Kaugh hand-computer, Gibb-Hunt-Leddy-Kaugh, did this.

I've been laid out to the Vice President in very brief form on our problem.

The point that we, the Executive Privilege, go up and look what the Senate is doing and you have the overriding service problem of they get one person up there and they get what they can out of him and chastise him and degrade him and all that.

and they do an executive session, they then put it out on this link.

So you have no protection there.

And then all of that simply proves the validity of our judicial system and the point of a grand jury in something like this.

I said, I don't see how we could be in a position to forget the separation of powers question, which is a very serious question and a problem.

But look at the practical one.

Can you send people up there?

Is it a practical question?

He said, no, it's not.

I see that problem.

And I said, well, couldn't you then let him go to the grand jury?

And I said, I would want to go to the grand jury, but people here have been named.

And he said, well, then I would urge, looking at it from an outside viewpoint, that the president say, I mean, have Ron Ziegler say it.

The president should not, but have it be the president.

Directly the same reporting that the president says,

If the grand jury wants to interview John Dean, and he hopes very much that they will, since his name has now been bandied about revocously on this night, that John is very willing and anxious to appear.

And the president is, of course, desirous that he appear.

And he is not only his executive privilege, but his waterline privilege, as it pertains to any acts or steps involved of Dean himself in any

You don't cite any of the answers.

In other words, Zuma doesn't answer any questions.

He just says that.

We'd have to work out the statement very carefully as to what precisely he does.

And then say also that any other members of the White House staff would presumably come under the posture of executive privilege.

We'd also welcome the opportunity of the Grand Theater Englishes to talk with us, to cover their knowledge.

The way you started this, I would say, what is involved here in charges of criminal conduct.

Yeah.

And charges of knowledge of crime.

A proper place for such charges to occur is in the Grand Theater.

Therefore, I don't think that this is not bad.

That's why he wants to do the grand jury because

You clearly don't, as you don't say this, you don't waive executive privilege of any of us in regard to our conversations with other people in the White House and hearsay or anything else that we picked up because that is a different area.

Michael, we've gone around it and it's not a place to be on.

That's what we're all for.

We know we've got it.

We've got it.

We're getting to it.

A small amount, might be important.

Another is probably totally irrelevant, but it's kind of too late.

We found out inadvertently that an individual, for the last some weeks, every day, drops off in front of an envelope at a stand-up, at a Senate stand-up.

which every day between 3.30 and 4.00 is picked up by another individual and that's been going on for some weeks and the individual who drops the envelope is an employee of the Judiciary Commission they don't know who the person is who picks it up

Inadvertently, the person who played the girl who works in the newsstand yesterday, I think it was yesterday, opened the envelope, thinking it was something else, and it contained water-based materials.

She singles it back up, realized it wasn't for her, she thought it was an unreadable person.

She says, so I've got to put it back, and the man came and picked it up and took care of it.

Observation.

Watching the drop man wake up today and put a tail on the pickup.

Secret service.

Head for the screen.

But the odd thing is the employee in the junior sheriff's committee, a bully, is a super hardline, right-wing, fur-chopped type of guy.

Or people consider basically a good guy and he says,

I mean, what would make that a watergate, except this girl says the material isn't there, and we're about to watergate.

We did it with somebody else.

We'll get to that later.

I said, that is going to make Senator Baker happy.

He said, these people are very nervous.

They don't, they're, they're, the Senate's interested not in giving the facts out.

It's giving their service out there.

He said, I understand that, but it will take the ball away from them.

And we'll put the President in a position that means doing something important.

I mean, all this stuff, the obvious stuff, the same.

I'm not discrediting.

No, I don't say it quite properly.

He said, I know.

And I will say, as I always say when people ask the question, that we have

Make the plan.

Total cooperation.

But our people haven't cooperated.

They have appeared before in the Grand Prix.

They have appeared before.

They've got help, and nobody gives a damn.

He said, that's the main experience.

Whenever we get that option, if Sigler says Dean won't go, that will mean that

So he's had with anybody else, with anybody else.

That will make sense, but he's going with it.

He won't see anybody else in before he won the position.

Now, his point is with the president of that coalition tonight, that it would be wise to do that beforehand, for what we've done today, so that when the president, so that there's no, we don't expect the enemy still to say when the president goes on, he doesn't stop talking about it.

You don't know what the other one is trying to cover up.

He's trying to divert attention.

I mean, I want to make that, that the, that's come to me, you know, that you're being kind of loyal to Frank, or, you know, that you can't, cannot, cannot, but now, whatever you think about, I'll go back to that hang-up, that is a super hang-up, hang-up, and it's gotten worse now, because it completely, I mean, I wasn't saying, the court has testified that,

There was a meeting.

The dean says there was.

He said it was there.

He said what it was.

He said that there were charges.

And all that.

Now, let's begin.

Here's a, except in this case, the court, they have or have seen the charge.

And they have called the court back for next Wednesday and told them to bring evidence.

And one of the senators afterwards told the reporter, check what the court's going to bring back.

That's your story.

I don't know.

And I see that's an area I've purposely never asked about.

Because I've always been convinced that if they were doing that, they were doing that.

And I've thought that I, that's an area that's better not to know.

But I have a horrible feeling that there must be an area that's probably...

I don't know that it's waterproof.

which were not identified as water heat reports, they were rewritten to say, boy, the ODI does seem to require FDI facts, and they rewrote it to say confidential sources inform us that, or reliable sources, or whatever that code word is in the library, because they use the same background.

And those were, some of those, apparently three, were sent to Stront.

Only three.

And Stront did not know what they were, did not know the source of it.

They simply said confidential sources revealed that, uh, uh... Dean's problem, I should say.

Dean's problem.

The nature of the effect is asking Dean to commit perjury, is that what it said?

Is it true?

What they're arguing is that the reason is because he asked them to do the, uh, to do what he told them to do, the police need to do, is to do this statement.

It doesn't totally agree with that.

It doesn't agree with the discussion of what would be the best.

But that was the meeting I had with Becker's office.

Becker was not there, but they moved over to Becker's office because some people were there that day.

Dean says that, to begin today, I cannot.

He said, no, I mean, yesterday I had a special inspection on him.

So I put that in a plastic bag.

He's a very close friend of mine.

If I could appear, I would stop asking.

Maybe.

I called Bill Rogers and asked him if I could talk to him now.

The way I would tell you the problem is not that Dean told the lie.

I don't know.

Not at that time.

Of course, it never actually made it on.

But, that's where it was developed.

The other guys would get on, and they would turn it off.

The way Dean couldn't handle everything.

But he would have to think about it.

He'd have to say, well, my recollection is that the meeting was primarily for the purpose of, you know, of advising on, or whatever it was the member said it was, that, uh,

There was a presentation by this committee, which was just out of hand, just rejected.

And nobody gave it a thought.

Well, that's one.

Then there's the question of the second team.

Then there's the question of the second team, which both.

Well, they kind of said it didn't happen, which didn't happen.

And we've chosen both of their diaries to happen.

And both of their diaries are in the hands of the president.

Well, so they...

They don't remember the second meeting.

He said, yes, there was a second meeting.

The third meeting came at a tail end of the meeting.

What happened there was an old sale.

No go-ahead.

It was a revised presentation, a revised language meeting also.

I think we should stay out of any further

I had a knowledge that of course it was a zero.

But nobody ever had to put together some systems and intelligence gathering.

But then they say it was not Mr. Hallman to know there was some bugging involved.

No, absolutely not.

Dean did not recognize at all that Dean was ever bugging involved.

Actually, it's a pretty bad plan that they presented.

Yeah, he must have because apparently the charge showed that up.

I'm pretty excited to be some of the examples of the far out things, but I don't think that's allowed.

I felt he probably did.

He may have.

It didn't make any impression.

I wasn't concerned with it because he said it was a far and a lot of consideration.

And John Grigate, Grigate I was quoting on, he actually was a participant in the fact that we had so much going on.

I was thinking this is the kind of thing that Dean might have talked to his father about.

I didn't talk to him quite so much.

We never discussed it.

I never saw Dean.

I never saw Dean on a recruiter.

I don't know if he was on a recruiter or something like that.

I never saw him.

Remember they said, thank John Dean.

They brought him in.

Colson, as I said to him, said, I don't think he was on a recruiter.

He never told me.

I didn't think that offered me anything.

They're going to get it anyway, and we've got this problem with New York.

I don't know how we deal with that problem.

And maybe our offering him accelerates the problem, but that's all it does.

He's got to go.

He argues the question of whether he is going to have to go to the grand jury.

We don't know for sure, but we sure as hell, for a practical purpose, don't do this.

Well, we can say that he waived executive privilege with regard to any matter involving any personal charges against him about the inquiry.

That's the way I do it.

Well, I think you'd have to get going on this announcement.

Go right away.

I agreed to be back tonight.

Are we rushing now?

Yes, I don't think we are.

You know, we are moving around a lot of times.

I think I've got to make one more round.

Well, we've got you on the three o'clock clock.

You know, if one of us is too long, you know, we're not going to let you back on.

We're going to make sure you've got any personal involvement in this.

Got it.

And, you know, we're going to need to bring you back.

Yes, that's correct.

What do you check?

I think I've got to check Mitchell.

He's got to know, right?

Actually, me, obviously.

I wouldn't check Colson.

I would just hit him.

Absolutely.

Right?

And Irwin, at this point, who has been on the front a little bit, who's been on the wing of this a little bit for a couple of days.

Well, Irwin, of course, is not necessary.

Irwin is part of it.

and hang out through and so forth.

But also as a true lawyer, I am thinking about this criminal lawyer and so forth.

And I just rather wonder if I should have got a good job.

Because all of the problems he's got, John's a goddamn good lawyer.

He's an honest fellow.

And he understands the crime scene.

And he's been telling me the truth.

And I've got to also understand, Bob,

For example,

And I decided to parse that out in my own mind and find somebody like this and heard and listened to all the questions.

And it was sort of flooding around like a, like a, like a shutdown there.

And a lot of the stuff that you see is, they're not really codes, all that.

And it comes to $28,000 in post-doctor codes.

We've got this for a male and this for a female.

What the hell is the difference?

He stood before you when there was a crime crime period.

But then at that moment, what are you?

His idea about strong, you, and so forth and so on.

A lot of that is a set motion.

It's a set motion.

A situation where we've got two men and a special encroacher who's got the problem.

He said it was so ridiculous that he didn't know.

It seems to me that's it, that they're not gonna try to get Mitchell on purpose.

What they will want to do is try to use that to get him on signing off on the water game.

They're a big dude in this department.

Really?

No.

Let's see, I've never heard of it.

The situation came up that we were permanently forthright.

I don't know how they got that forthright.

That's the problem.

It was never discussed.

I don't know how they get off of it.

That's the problem.

They would get off of it.

They would say the water deed was never discussed and it wasn't.

But maybe they were asked that.

It was not discussed.

Maybe they were asked .

They've got a problem, but it seems to be .

What if they pulled up the charts and said, did you ever see these charts?

Are you going to say no?

I got it.

Bob, well, I'm moving.

Shut up.

I would like to know a little about it.

I would like to get this done by 3 o'clock.

I think we should kind of get it elevated.

I don't, and so then we think it needs to be all I think is, I don't know.

I'm not thinking of it being the first story that will go up and so forth.

You know what I mean?

You just want to get it out and address it so that it gets played, though, so that it is known.

In order to say frankly what it is, in order not to get .

I guess you've got to read what the hell they said about how to do that.

The only way, the only way I can think of a thing is to think, you know, that it's a horrible thing to just say, I'm just justified and I'm sorry for it.

The only way you can, the only way you can reasonably refuse and have any hope of getting away with it, and you can try it at the end of the year, you could have been sure to keep everybody's curiosity

is to refuse on lawyer plan privilege and executive privilege in that this does not relate to his personal problem.

You can say I was in a meeting where this was presented.

I cannot testify as to who else was in the meeting.

We have to talk to Kersh now.

Jonathan, get him.

And what I want to do is get him in.

And I'll call Ido.

I'll be on the record.

I can't get one of the .

Don't wait for .

Don't wait for him.

Colson.

Could I suggest maybe you call him now and let me know what you find out?

I think that would be actually good.

He might call him out here in a minute.

And so I could refer him to meet you wherever you want him.

My office.

All right, fine.

So I ask him to meet you there in 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Okay, John.

Oh, Bob wants to, I just, between drafts there, I got your stuff, I worked it over there.

But Bob wants to talk to you in about ten minutes.

And, uh, you want to give me some advice on what to do with the coast, uh, and the rest of the, uh, the coast area.

So, let's see how good we're baiting today.

We need to be in a heartful, wide group, and, uh, we should be baiting all of them.

Well, no, there are two separate formats, but the coast is doing it, the coast and the parents, and all of them are doing all of them, the parents.

It's more of a high-dose aid thing or something.

I'll, I'll respond.

I think there is.

I think he knew about Liddy.

I know him.

I'm convinced he knew Liddy.

He probably used him.

He was using Liddy and Hunt for various activities.

But I don't find it easy or not easy.

I'm able to believe that he didn't know about Liddy.

The right hand recruiter flashes off hard at Colson.

When you pin it down, it's on things like Colson running ads, Colson buying books.

Colson urging that he had to get the dope on O'Brien, whatever that was.

That would be perfectly right.

There's a question here.

It's not the vote.

It's not the objective.

The question is the means.

That's exactly right.

I can't question our desire to want to know what they were up to.

You can only question how we went about finding out.

And most of the hiding would be us.

Truthfully, there's plenty of any knowledge of how they went about it.

Which one?

That's probably by now, yeah.

He was working at home for a while.

That's good.

We're going to have to cover a track.

Right.

We're going to have to pay.

What should I plan on the monster over here?

Well, actually

Oh, you're all right.

I've got a thing here.

George Bush is called.

Must be for the president as early as possible.

The most urgent request he's ever made.

Discussions.

He's having Jerry for Christ.

I don't like that.

Or possibly.

It doesn't necessarily have solutions.

It feels that this political advice to me and the others is the right thing to do because we have no insurgency.

That's part of it.

Yes.

That's what it is.

Yes.

It's just the impact of the one being a paratank.

Can you handle this for me?

Is that sure?

But that's the point.

It's our people that are, yeah.

How would you, could I say that on that one?

They know I'm going to make a call.

And I don't know why it would be useful to George.

Maybe I can talk to him and see whether it was early to get him and forward.

And I say, there at least you can get that much of the congressional thing and get him in and say, this is the situation.

This is that.

obviously you're protecting somebody now that's what you are doing

And I'm not sure if that's the other thing you understand.

I'm not sure we satisfy the vultures when you give the first piece of me.

And you say, fine.

So nobody in the White House was involved.

So let's call that.

So everybody in the White House is cleared.

In the courts, let's say we don't go to the Senate.

We get cleared there.

Then they say, okay, then where did it go?

Thank you.

It went up.

That's where I ended up the final step yesterday.

Well, I didn't.

Cut it off.

We're on the urge to ask you to place a call in, George.

Would you please place this call in?

I don't know.

You've got a message.

Yeah.

Call it back again.

I'm not really aware of this.

I'm not working on the problem.

You're aware of that problem, but you've stayed away from that discussion to the solution because for obvious reasons.

That's right.

What?

Okay.

Well, to get Harlow in, this is going to be very helpful, you know.

He's going to say, boy, we've got a problem.

Okay, that's it.

That's very good.

Good job.

Okay.