Nixon & Haig on Watergate scandal and Vernon Walters

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Well, before I went to camp, they went over to the pre-tank and said, well, let's get out of your care.

That's a good idea.

Of course, that's where we went.

Got to be with the man.

Gordon's down here.

Let me say, that's what, regarding Henry, I took him to the mountaintop, and I told him the scheme that was in.

He wants to play ball after Roger's release, you know, and set him up so that he's the assistant to the president, and so he carries things like children.

Fair enough, excellent, good.

Not going to be, he gets to go soon as he may.

Then right after the Soviet sign off, out he goes, and the cop will come in.

That's, that's, that's the best way of doing it.

That's fine.

Second thing with regard to Walters, I want him to be sure to get his tail over there as quickly as possible to see Peterson, or call it that way.

Calls are going to be to Peterson.

And he's going to blow his way over.

and she's not going over to see Walden.

Walden is on his way to see Peterson.

Yeah.

And she will, I'm told, throughout the day, tell him he's ready to contribute to the CIA's science.

Now, suppose Walden was asked about the documents and so forth.

Let's go again to what you said.

Well, in the first place, he's not going to volunteer anything.

He's going to sit there right on his diet.

They'll say, I don't think he means such and such.

I have this discussion with me, me, me, me, me.

And that's the bulk of it.

I have one discussion with Gray, personally, and I think one telephone discussion with him.

Well, and now, other than what is it that you're saying with regard to, can he get in touch with health?

sure Helms knows what the hell the story is.

Helms knows the truth.

Helms knows that he came to see me and Helms said the CIA is not involved.

I said, good.

That's all.

That's right.

Helms is not back yet.

I don't even know when he's going to be in.

I'm not concerned about him because he told the world that he was getting out of

He wanted Walrus to handle it personally, so he gave Walrus the charge.

And, uh, well, it helped.

And then, uh, well, he...

I don't expect anything from him, you know, except, you know, to be frank, if he ever was under pressure, I wouldn't trust him on anything.

He hasn't seen his men come, and he won't.

He must not.

On the mat, not.

So, uh, Buckley's, uh,

I asked Walter, I said, you know, I'm very concerned.

I said, I read these things, and knowing what I know, they're perfectly innocent.

But if you were looking for trouble, in the window is that Bob and John could possibly

And even implied the president.

And even the president.

And I said, I'm concerned that these men haven't seen these men, which are out of context in the whole revolution, don't have a feeling that the president may have had knowledge of this thing.

He said, there is no question of that, none whatsoever.

There has never been in the agency.

In fact, we knew that our greatest protection was the fact that the president did not know that.

Therefore, he never has to come to the pressure, come to me.

All right.

Okay.

What?

He says here, I'll have to start something.

With regard to this, they've got that hard line.

God, I've got those that know.

You agree?

Well, if they come around and they really nail the law, he's not going to volunteer that.

He's going to say, here, I'm using my diary.

And I recall, he says very clearly, what did you have?

Did you make some money?

Yes, I made some notes.

Now these subjects covered a number of things involving CIA techniques, foreign nations of great sensitivity, and embassy of Mr. Powell.

That's right.

And therefore, I took these to the Council of the White House because of this.

And there you can come on here.

But I assure you, Colin, that everything that has to do with this case is totally legal, freely.

If there are any questions about it, presidential papers of the national security area are totally, I mean, cannot be legal.

That's right.

And these are, after all, only my recollections, and I haven't viewed them by hand.

Right.

These are not more valuable than his testimony.

He's going to go talk to Colby on this.

He's going to do it, but in a very careful way, other than that, I don't know.

He's just going to say that he wants to use the lawyer here from the papers because they've covered national security, and he has to start going to testify completely.

But I've got to point out that all the CNA operations, and I'm sure they did, just kept picking it up.

Therefore, I mean that was, that was the concern that generated the meeting between Colby and Hill.

I mean earlier, and Hill himself was concerned that CNA was involved in the security, in the belief that that was going on.

Right.

So that's all he's going to do.

And I told him to do it lightly because he has to be very careful with people who say, you know, if they don't have a dog in their mind, then you're going to start hitting them too hard.

And then it placed there.

And he said, if all this is going to be here, at least they're concerned about it.

It's going to come.

It's a problem when you shut it in.

But they were concerned with it.

So they were going to tell him about it.

Okay, now, let me tell you about the PR Center.

We've got a different type of PR game now.

We've brought up a lot of people that can't do it.

First, when you buy that memorandum and you read it, tell me if you can't make it what the scientific says.

I don't want to know the whole thing.

And then, I think the proper way, I want you to talk to your superiors.

The proper way of leaving is to find a way to make Jack eggs.

He's known to have searches in the White House.

You know what I mean?

A search to find a way that he gets it through a... Well, I'm sure that Zipper will know how to touch eggs.

Do you agree with that?

I think eggs is a better place to do it, that's for sure.

We are tied to Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

I've been thinking about it, sir.

Let me tell you why I think it would be better to send the judge first.

This goddamn crap of hunts and changing tables and what have you, the fact that the nuns had to capes themselves to back up the transcript, will result in a quick response by people who listen to this sort of goddamn fabricated

Okay, so, and the judge?

The judge is more likely to leave.

Yeah, but if he doesn't, we've got to get him out.

Oh, we've got to get him out.

We've got to get him out.

We can't let the judge sit there.

I'm not sure that we need to knock on his head.

It's a kind of challenge.

If they're coming out, we're going to be a little bit faster to take control of us than we will say, this is a fabrication.

All right, bye.

We've got to send it out to the judge, but quick.

Get it out towards the day.

We have to.

We have to cancel the case on this.

Is that it, Mark?

Okay.

I'll let the judge know.

We're at work.

We're getting it.

He'll get it right away.

You know what I'd like to do is pay him for this son of a bitch over there.

Because we can't even help.

And we have to kind of work our house down.

That's what I'm sure we can do.

I don't care whether he's being presented or not like this.

But it gives it a tighter workout scheme.

Second point.

The most important thing to get out.

That's why I want Walter to be sure to hammer this home.

I want him to hammer it home.

I don't know what Greene has said, but we've got to be sure.

He's already marked that in the paper.

We'll never realize the importance of that particular point.

That's what he said.

That's exactly what happened.

He said, that's what I was told.

And I said, what did you say?

That's what I told the lady sitting right over there.

I told that Porter Soloveitch, or anybody called when I talked to him on the phone.

I said, say it wherever it is, how high it goes.

That's what I, those are my words.

You know, Gray cannot, must not be alone.

I don't think he wants to, but he must not, he must leave no influence.

The president is trying to restrict Gray.

Now, how do we get that?

He'll tell that to them, but how does that get into the press?

I want that in.

That particular part of that is fairly simple.

You don't have to be able to get that out.

That's great.

You don't have to be able to get out of it.

No, the fact is, while there's a discussion on this, so far, we've been able to get that out.

This is very important to get out as soon as we possibly can.

I agree with the table a lot.

The judge had a crack at it first.

In this case we have a good table here.

But I liked that cable out there.

It was smeared on every page.

In other words, let the son of X be found not guilty by this trial.

Let him be.

The cable was not helpful to him, was it?

Yeah, Steve.

Or to help him.

It was devastating.

And I, you know, as I recall, it may be that time was,

Well, you see, for that, if you can get that out early, so I can get it out this week, even after Ballers gets over there today.

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

I think it's very bad.

Oh, it must be up here.

How do we get it then leaked out of justice?

I don't know.

Oh, I see.

I've got to do this job down here and send a batch of documents.

This might be done.

I can't read all the crap, but you'll probably buy it.

That's a 30, so look for the date.

I've been trying to get to it very quickly.

Well, I'll be available by a golden dollar and a half.

I should get one.

Don't you understand?

See, I want to do enough to be sure that it's just the one.

I don't want to recall one.

But the baby didn't want any drugs back then, so I'll go through it.

He's done it.

The judge has done everything that I should do to prove it.

You see, the way the FBI packaged that stuff was always by name.

Calvert was trying to figure out how to get books.

So if that's the way they broke it, I don't know what they're calling it.

If they were, I'd get right to it.

All right.

Now.

I think you went back to today.

No, I had a call with the guy.

I had talked to him last night.

It's all right.

That would be .

We've got Ash working on a list of constructives for .

I don't think that's .

It's terribly interesting .

We're ready for action .

That's exactly right.

That would be a great place for us to go.

God, I seem to be a hearer of the brain.

How are you?

I'm fine.

I'm a little bit tired around here.

That's right.

Other than that, it looks like a great place to be.

.

Nixon & Haig on Watergate scandal and Vernon Walters

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 11, 1973

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