On May 18, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the President's office in the Old Executive Office Building from 3:35 pm to 4:34 pm. The Old Executive Office Building taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 437-019 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I don't think there are any.
I think we've got everything there is to get.
I want to go up.
I don't know.
The problem with any of this stuff, and I said that out.
If you'd asked me a week ago, I was in.
Yeah.
that you'd asked me a week ago if there was anything more about you going out.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know why everybody feels suspicious of Burdick.
I mean, that's bizarre.
I asked Al about that.
He said, well, it's just that he...
I'm not suspicious of Burdick.
Burdick was an honorable man.
Yeah.
What he does, though, he... John feels very strongly that he has sort of an obligation to force you to face...
all the unpleasant faction, and he hits you as he did, uh, that Candidate Weekend, when he talked to you on the phone the night before, apparently, uh, on the thing of, of, uh, you know, you've got to face what your problems are on this, too.
You're to blame, too, and, uh, don't, don't go off the hook.
He takes time to blame, totally, and he's not to blame at all.
No, he doesn't.
He doesn't feel like it, at all.
But, I don't think you've got any problem with John.
But, you know, anything coming out contrary to what's fact, and I think what you're talking about doing here, this is exactly what John's been urging them to do for four days.
Yeah.
To get the whole government to get out.
You know our plan.
Tuesday, I go on and I tell the whole goddamn story about Mike Cooper.
Can you do it in a speech?
Well, I can cover the things that matter to the folks, and then...
The white paper matters to the assholes.
Let the assholes picket the pieces.
But Bob would ask to be done.
I agree.
And it would be good for you and John.
Because basically...
I talked to Wilson and he thinks it would be good.
Let me say, basically, I had a, you know, I told you about the conversation I had that horrible April 15th.
I didn't mention Dean.
Didn't mention Dean.
Huh?
And so I said, well, what, uh, I don't know.
I don't know.
What I mean to say is this.
talking in the confidence of this room.
There's nothing more important that you and John have than to keep me in this private office.
Because I don't give a shit what comes out on you or John, even as far as they have done John special.
There is none of these that totally pardon what I've done.
don't even say that.
You know it, you know it, and I know it.
No, don't say it.
I don't think you ever heard it.
It has to be done, Bob, because it's wrong, wrong on you guys.
Well, not Mitchell, but you and John, Mr. Mitchell, you and John cannot be condemned for something you didn't do.
I don't think we will be condemned.
You don't really?
No, sir.
Why not?
Because we didn't do it.
And I think we can prove we didn't.
political pressures and all that.
I think that we probably will be invited.
I don't think we .
I think it's good that you are.
If you aren't, we'll cover it up.
But let me say this, I'd rather have that be sent to trial.
Let me say a couple things.
First, Bob, was there ever any
I must not lie.
Did you ever tell me about the 315 being used for recovery efforts?
No, sir, because I did not consider it.
I never thought it was.
Did John Erdogan ever tell me that he was calling Combox for recovery efforts?
No.
I doubt he agreed.
Oh, sure.
I doubt he agreed and told you about his call.
I don't remember.
Nothing in my mind, but good God, I don't know what it is.
And it's goddamn M-Con, you know.
These assholes write these M-Cons.
And that's the one thing I just told Abe about.
Abe, I mean, we give on executive privilege regarding conversations.
Abe, Abe, but never, you people didn't write M-Cons for yourselves.
You wrote for the president, for Christ's sakes.
Why didn't you write M-Cons?
You don't remember why.
For my part, I don't know why.
Because whatever it was, so did Ernie.
Ernie, when they say, gave every goddamn thing in every conversation.
So, none of you agree.
But the main thing is that John knew citizenship.
Anything that ever happened between you and the president is totally classified.
Correct?
Are you?
Absolutely.
If you give them that, if you give them that, you must know that they paw through that shit.
You and I talked about a lot about that.
Yes, sir.
Not for the purpose of covering up for the first time, but what did Christ do?
And the whole point of the reason for privilege is so that the president can't freely discuss all kinds of things with an aide.
Can you ever talk with John on this point?
Sure.
The main thing John's got to understand is that by God, I go out to the church.
By God, we're trying to be good for him and good for you.
But the main point is we've got to understand that anything he ever said to the President in the President's office is the President's papers, Christ Almighty.
And we cannot put that out.
I don't have any other things in mind.
John apparently wanted to put out something about the fact that he met in my office prior to the time that we were in the same place.
Well, that's fine.
That helps him, but it just destroys me.
I've got to admit, John must not do that.
They're pushing for how do they get you a log, too, which is, which shows that they get your log.
But it seems to me your log is just as perfect as anyone else.
Absolutely.
Who's pushing to get my log?
He sent it to me.
He was, okay.
Bernie was sent to me yesterday.
Logger, who am I talking to?
Yeah, he was pushing Caroline.
Oh, shit.
Better get him out of that man thing.
But to say, but the point is always take the offensive.
Oh, we can't get the president to walk away, but we'd be glad to testify with the curtain if you wanna know, Senator.
Yeah, we can, I don't see that we have a problem on any of that.
The thing that Al's pushing me on, and rightly, is to just try to think of whether there's anything else
that he might come out with or that, you know, might somehow roll out as one of these other things.
See, I've got to make this a talk on Tuesday night.
And God damn it, I must not make a talk around here.
I'm lying.
Now, I didn't know what to do with it, did I?
You never told me about it.
I never heard about it.
I don't understand.
Certainly not long after the fact.
At some point.
Oh, I know.
But at the time.
The thing is,
And I didn't even think about it as a problem until, you know, he started searching for me.
He never talked to me.
He says he walked the beach and talked about clemency.
Good God, I remember that conversation.
It was one minute.
You know, one problem that may arise regarding these assholes wanting to have clemency.
What does he say about that?
That's all he said to me.
It was just that there was some mention of a problem.
And he must have gotten something out of it.
We've got to play this thing old for all the marvels.
John isn't going to put out a show.
John is going to do something to destroy the president.
He must not do it even if it saves himself.
It ain't going to save himself.
That's right.
It ain't going to do it if he recognizes that.
What he was after, and he was trying to put the heat on Ron and Al, that's bizarre.
What he was after was to get this story out of here before we were trying to get it out from somewhere else.
It's fine now.
Let's do it Tuesday.
Do you think we can hold it and set it for Tuesday?
It may not be able to.
But maybe we'll do it Monday.
Monday or Tuesday.
I thought I was going to go on a speech.
It's remarkable.
We did a call for national security, and we'll put it
Everything.
A start, though, by explaining that you haven't gone in, you're going into the details now that you had not gone into before because of the elites.
They were involved in national security, but now the stuff is all out.
And now there's no, there's nothing more to, you know, there's pieces out.
And what needs now is to be put together as a whole.
I had to go into the whole business about Henry's bugging.
That's ridiculous.
I said, get the goddamn facts.
What the hell was the pumper shock version?
Because Hoover wouldn't do it.
So we did it, right?
Yeah.
We got a coffee.
Maybe only a coleslaw.
What the Christ coffee is?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't want to say anything about coffee because I don't want to say that she was present or anything.
I never saw her.
What do you think about coffee?
Do you understand?
No.
At any end of the day, he said take care of it and I don't know what you're saying.
He worked for us for a while and then he worked for Dean.
I don't know what the whole coffee industry is.
So that coffee owner is supposed to have told my carer that you're going to get plants here.
You know where I think he came from?
Mitchell.
Mitchell is the asshole in this whole thing.
Mitchell goddamned his soul.
That's pretty clear.
And McCord makes that pretty clear.
Really?
How?
Well, he hangs Mitchell up on one side of the pen on the other.
How?
How does he do it?
On the basis that he approved the bugging.
He was involved in the whole thing.
And McCord's claim is that he thought what he was doing was legal because the Attorney General of the United States had approved it.
The Attorney General was authorized to approve it.
Now, the other thing I need to know is whether John Kervick...
When the pressure gets on, he's going to say that the President, on the patient side, will not be approved by the CDC.
You got to say that.
I don't think so.
I didn't.
Because he has never told me that.
I didn't, for Christ's sake.
He just mentioned it, by chance.
He's never told me that.
And I believe that.
He has said it a couple times.
Huh?
John said it a couple times when we talked about it, when I've been there with you and John.
He said that you didn't.
I didn't approve of it.
He mentioned it.
I said, well, it's a hell of a problem.
I heard you about the money.
You know about the money.
Did John know any money?
Well, he made the call to the church.
But did I know about it?
I don't think so.
You may have not.
I want to be sure.
Well, I can't say that you didn't know anything about money, because I think you may have.
Because there was never any book made about the point that money was being raised.
by the committee to take care of the legal fees and expenses of the defendants.
But I don't ever recall you or John ever telling me we're raising money to keep a real ComBoc, to keep these bastards to do this and that.
I don't think John ever said, came into my office and said, or you did, and said, can we ask ComBoc to raise money?
I'm not sure you agree.
No, I completely agree.
The point is, is it true?
I mean, I don't want John to come up later and say...
John has never animated that there was any thought.
If it is, I want to know now.
Then I'll just admit it.
See, I don't mind admitting it, but I need to know.
I wouldn't admit it, because I don't think that's the point at all.
I don't think that you knew anything about any problem regarding money until we got into this investigation.
And the point was then raised that that may be interpreted by a circumstantial chain, and that's how he put it to you.
that a circumstantial change could lead to an Instruction of Justice charge, which was the way he said there was a problem for us and for him.
Yes, on March 21st.
That's right, because we had been involved.
Boy, on that one, you've got to be a hell of a witness, you know.
I think.
It's interesting because, you know, he, over and over,
Because it was more on the 20th.
Well, on the 15th, before Dean came to see me in the session.
No, no, no, on the 20th, before Dean came to see me on the 21st, I didn't hang at all out.
Dean finally came and told me that.
He didn't hang at all out.
He didn't tell me he had support in the cursory.
He didn't hang at all out at all.
He just gave you support in the cursory box, for Christ's sake.
And I didn't know anything about it.
I didn't.
I mean, I didn't really believe Mitchell was guilty, did you?
I did not know.
I really did not.
But you thought that Grady was?
Yes.
I know.
But Dean never told us that, did he?
No.
Tell me what you think.
No, he didn't.
And then?
And you can sort it all out.
That's his justification.
He's going into it.
He says, I went into it because the Attorney General of the United States had approved it and because the counsel of the President of the United States had approved it and because the counsel
of the campaign committee that approved it.
The three of the, the top lawyer in the government, the top lawyer in the White House, and the top lawyer in the Senate.
The top lawyer, uh, Liddick.
Liddick, yeah, right.
Absolutely.
And so, he went in.
Because he hangs me, too.
He must destroy John Dean.
He's a bad, bad man.
He could destroy himself.
Why?
Why do you think so?
Because I don't think he's coming to do it.
I think it's all coming on him.
Really?
Yeah.
I don't know, because I don't know where he was in all this yet, but he has to have been in something.
You know what?
I think he was in everything.
This CIA story tells me that he was in something far beyond what you ever thought.
I didn't know.
You can't imagine me telling Dean or anybody else to say, put the brothers on the CIA payroll.
Do you remember such a conversation?
No.
The way I put that together now, and the best I can figure out what happened then, is that Dean mentioned to us at some point that the FBI was
Asking was seeking guidance.
I kind of remember that.
They wanted to know what to do on this investigation, where to go, because it looked to them as if there was CIA involved.
And they had that theory.
And so he had raised that point.
I think we probably raised it with you.
I'm sure he did.
I don't remember.
I'm sure he did.
I don't remember either.
I'm just saying what seems like it probably happened then.
We met with him.
and probably told him afterwards.
Well, he talked to the Houns, Houns, and Walters, and Walters then talked to the FBI and told them, you know, make the point of limiting this investigation.
To the Watergate, not to get in the National Security Area.
Not to get in the National Security Area.
So he then apparently took it upon himself to follow up with Walters when we didn't get results.
And as Walters went and talked to Gray, then they decided not to do what he wanted.
And then he picked up from there because I have no recollection of...
I suspect Mitchell killed him too.
Mitchell?
Yeah.
And the other thing is that I think... And the other thing, I'm very concerned about Mitchell.
Me too.
What do you think?
I agree.
Right?
That's what you start seeing, is that Mitchell was, like if he was involved in that Vesco thing, which he apparently was,
Everybody else, a lot of strange things are out there.
What men thought, you know, I've never heard of this.
I've never heard of a fucking festival in the U.S.
It was intense.
It was a thing.
And the only reason I didn't, because John's problem was with trying to keep Johnny missing.
It was pretty much.
I didn't even talk to you about that.
I'm not sure you didn't know.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're all thinking a big thing about it.
No senator was ever allowed to see the president.
They told us they wouldn't allow any senators.
And that no help was given to the candidates in the campaign and all that sort of stuff.
And if it is, that gives me the perfect opportunity.
But aren't they starting to, where does this problem come from?
You know what, I know that you're up here.
We've been working on it.
You know what they were trying to do?
They were farting in the smoking case.
Remember, you and John, and even they, are getting greatly helped by this whole fucking Irving committee.
They're going to replace the camp, they're replacing the casements, they're a problem.
The problem is the Seattle pigs.
Christ, they cut that asshole off.
Yeah.
What the hell is up with you?
Oh, shit.
Oh, God.
Everybody's crying.
Everybody's crying.
Everybody's crying.
Everybody's crying.
Everybody's crying.
How the hell, after all this stuff, did we get a first drive?
Well, we could never find a hundred and ten parking lots.
Maybe drive.
I don't give a shit about how many thousand pounds we're gonna spend on the facility.
I don't believe there's anything else.
But, the time's over, I'm pretty sure.
We're back on the very strength of what we started.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.
I'm not worried about that.
But how many notes does he have to do with this conversation?
Everybody knows there's a congressman who makes notes.
I could have a baller who makes many comments.
I'm not sure we're going to make a notary of that kind again.
Bob, do you think I should resign?
No, sir.
Absolutely not.
You know what I have?
I have a quite dissonant affection for the actor.
I checked through the page.
You were required for a little longer than that.
That wasn't for lawyers.
I was just going to put it on the table.
You're required not only to make a movie, but one person's second.
It has to do with many, many things.
It's true.
It's true.
We've got a hell of a lot of support in this country, Bob.
We're going to be asked.
You know, really, we're not that bad off.
I mean, I, everybody here, not Al, but other people, you know, the rest.
God damn it, I ain't going to get one inch.
I'm going to fight this son of a bitch to the end.
Well, he'll be something else.
I didn't know that.
Two of the most mild drinks in the world.
That's the best thing to get over this weekend.
Get as much sleep as you can.
But the main thing is, Bob, fight in the back.
Or do you agree?
Should I fight or fly?
Fight.
Fight like hell.
But fight it from a basis of strength.
In your conviction that you're right, that you're doing what has to be done.
That you know what you did right?
Yes, sir.
And that you did it all along.
You did what had to be done.
You were doing the right thing at each step.
And given that point in time, what you were doing was right.
And you've got to go on that basis.
And you can't be apologetic.
And you can't be antagonistic.
But you've got to be firm and convinced.
And this time, the last time you went on TV, you were tired.
You were emotionally wrung out from the terrible ordeal and all that.
This time, you've got to go on being confident and positive.
You've got to...
say what you did and why you did it.
You've got to explain on not a defensive basis, not a defensive explanation at all, but a totally positive explanation that this is what was done.
You're damn right.
And that you would have been derelict in your duty had you not done it.
And that these were steps that had to be taken in our nation's interest.
And that unfortunately not enough of them were taken quickly enough.
And that a lot of the damage has been done.
And then he's, you know, one thing is trying to be tied to another that doesn't tie.
And, you know, that's that.
I think it's something I wouldn't be able to talk about.
I don't know.
I really don't.
Who was his supervisor?
Dean Colson?
Dean?
Or...
He never worked for Colson?
No, I don't think so.
He may have done some stuff for Colson, but he was under Dean's thing and under Earl's before that.
You see, the thing about the court is that Cofield probably knew him.
Mitchel would have said that.
That's possible.
Mitchel was in the middle of something.
At the time, Cofield was doing all this.
He was at the Treasury Department.
And he moved out of the White House.
He moved out of the White House.
I know, but nobody cared.
I don't know.
I think Mitchell's up to it, into it, up to his ass.
I think Mitchell was part of it.
He worked on a very cold, you know how Mitchell did, very cold, cynical, above the board basis, above the battle basis.
That's a second.
Okay.
You see, the whole point is, three key witnesses.
You know about Dean and all of that.
Dean will be disqualified because of it.
They wouldn't be happy.
We've got a new John Mitchell.
I don't know what Mitchell is going to do.
He can't visit the president, can he?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think he will.
I mean, he will watch it.
He won't.
Mitchell made this on us.
Old-ish.
We have possibly some things in front of us that he may think.
You see, Dean had claimed this stuff.
Our claimants, for instance, was absolutely astonished when he found out that Dean hadn't met with you at all during last year.
Dean always said he'd met with me every five minutes.
Our claimants thought Dean had been meeting with you every day.
So there's one thing now.
It may well be that Dean was intimating to Mitchell
that he was meeting with you or that he was meeting with us.
And that, you know, all these things were worked out.
Because I have a feeling that Mitchell thought we were more involved than we were.
You know what I think?
I think Dean was in this up to his ass.
And I think Dean was into it.
Now look, we all want to see concentration.
Dean was into it for the right motives.
The right motives.
And up until March 21st.
Yeah, except that he was going too far, even on his right motives.
quite likewise on his, on the cover-up vector.
Because I think he was in a cover-up like the CIA business.
Now that, see that puts a whole... CIA things, believe me, I believe, you would never approve, I would never approve, Charlie would never approve, because it's such a stupid, popular thing to do.
It just doesn't make any sense.
So?
I don't, I don't think, you know, that, that he must have done it because, again, Walters...
Well, I think he...
Unless he was in the Watergate part of it himself.
Which is still, I think, a possibility.
He had a more than normal motivation for recovering from that.
That'll come out later on.
They'll bust that son of a bitch.
What do you think of him now?
Is he the only buddy to carry the burden?
I don't think that is his only motive.
I think his only motive is to save his own ass.
Why do you want to get into the testimonial area?
That made sense.
until he gets it.
If he doesn't get it, then he's got the other side of the coin to look at.
The danger, and it's not your danger, it is mine and John's, is in the Justice Department.
I think they would very cynically make a deal with Dean if they were sure he could hang on us.
But I don't
I don't see how Dean can hang us.
I don't see how Dean can hang us anymore.
He's got no evidence that hangs us.
Where did Mitchell come from?
Oh, Christ, Mitchell comes out.
Comes out guilty three times around on the Vesco grand jury.
He'll come out.
Did you ever know about Vesco?
I don't think Maury did.
I still will bet you Maury gets out of here.
I don't think Maury would do it.
Maury's an honorable man.
But I think they're going to get him on that, and then they have to get him on perjury.
They've already got him clearly on perjury in this thing.
They've got him on perjury before he flatly said that he had not had anything to do with campaign decisions until he went over as campaign director.
Bullshit.
The Senate Judiciary Committee.
Who's been paying for that?
Well, Rob Opal already got it yesterday.
Tied him up one side and down the other.
And so will everybody else.
He can't possibly avoid that.
He was making all the campaign decisions.
You and I weren't making these decisions.
They're trying to hang the thing that I'm just making, and they're still trying to do it.
You and I, we were so confident in this thing, we had nothing to do with the campaign, we left.
Rachel, I heard about this.
They checked on some things with me, but Dan, he...
Oh, they'll hang him on that?
Oh, yeah.
Good.
It just wasn't any question.
There isn't any question.
And Magruder will hang him on it.
And anybody else that I get from the committee has to.
There's just no question.
Every memo that was written over there was written to John Mitchell.
Every okay that came through.
What is Magruder going to testify?
I don't know.
I think he's going to give the story of when the last story was heard, which is...
Do you agree with the strategy then?
I want to be sure that you have not told me about
John was involved in it.
No.
Or wasn't he?
No.
I wasn't either.
But I know you were.
John wasn't.
Now the question is, was the president aware of that?
That's the thing that I ask.
He never told me.
Did John ever tell you?
I don't think so.
How about him?
I would say I don't know what the president said.
I had no knowledge that he was.
If they said they could get me anything specific on that, I wouldn't be concerned that the president was aware of it.
Because, again, it was a perfect, what appeared here to be, a perfect, but all that said, my April 3rd speech, and I was not aware of any covering.
Well, that wasn't a covering, actually.
It wasn't.
You weren't aware of any covering, nor was I. I don't consider that to be a covering.
I consider that, what the hell, the committee right now is paying the legal expenses of Rob Odom.
Sure.
And I think they should be.
Poor son of a bitch got home because of his job, and he has no work now, so they pay him a consultant's fee, and their pay is new, as much as they can well.
They can well better pay Strong's than everyone else's.
How's Strong doing?
He's all right, I guess.
He's been sort of cut aground, but he's... Yeah.
I think the rooter's going to implicate Strong.
Do you?
on the basis that Strong had the ocean reports.
Well, shit.
You know, we've all, I've seen, even myself, a few of these Henry, you know, Ruffalo, a ship.
What the hell do we think they were?
Huh?
Well, we did those reports.
But I mean, that was either Strong's report
I think our strategy is right to go on about Tuesday.
Particularly because of this goddamn border.
We can't let that hang up there.
Well, the only question I have is Monday rather than Tuesday.
Right, I do.
Yeah, I'd be ready for a couple reasons.
The Senate committees and stuff will be rattling around on Tuesday.
The urgent meetings will be on Tuesday.
All right.
We can do stuff by the end of the day on coffee when they're talking about who will be the next win and stuff like that.
All right.
I just want to see you get out ahead of it.
The only advantage of getting out, I don't want to get out and lie.
Good God, you know, I don't know that I don't lie.
But the important thing, it seems to me, in your statement, is never to say, I knew nothing at all about this or that.
And I don't think you should say that.
I think you should be positive about what you did know.
And what you did say, and what you did do it.
And don't say that's the only thing I ever did, because you couldn't get caught in that.
It's the same reason the lawyers don't want me to make a statement before I go before the Senate.
They said, don't try to make a statement that pretends to be inclusive, because if you miss something, then they'll hang you on that.
They have a list of 20 witnesses, and they keep adding intervening witnesses.
My number's 20.
Your number's 19, and Mitchell's 18.
But the way they're going now is no way I can get there until the end of summer or something like that.
Sure.
But see, they only meet 50 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then they take two weeks off.
For purposes of a factory.
And they get a two-week job.
You know what they're trying to do, right?
They're acting it out.
It's a punishment.
I'm not so sure as far as that is concerned.
The weather's pretty dull there.
It's even dull for me, you know what I mean?
in order to get interested in him.
Part of the time.
Because they, well, in the first place, they're not very big cats.
Kirtland is an absolute sly.
He comes off very fast.
And I thought he could come off well, because Montoya is an unbelievable idiot.
In a way, he comes off quite well.
He's quite a capable guy.
He's sharp, he is sharp, and he knows what he's doing.
Howard Baker comes off very well.
He does a very good job.
Does he help us?
No.
Well, yeah, he does.
He does what he's doing, which is very helpful to us, and I hope to hell he keeps it up, because he keeps quoting from the Washington Post.
He keeps taking very ruminous reports and saying that the Washington Post reported that on such and such a day you did so-and-so.
And that gives you the chance to shoot down all those stories, which is very helpful.
How's Gurney?
Gurney's bad.
Very bad.
Why?
He's just mean.
He's mean.
He's mean to worry about everything.
Sure, do you remember this?
Well, let's wait and see.
I don't want to keep on thinking.
And Weicker, of course, is a disaster.
Weicker's not affected.
His questions don't make sense.
He's antagonistic to the validity of A to M. And he's sort of an ass down at the end of the bench.
The main thing is that you brought it to hell, and let's keep it here.
I don't want to go to the bazaar or anybody else.
You, John, should let it out of your hands.
I don't want to say anything that's going to hang you or John.
You understand that?
Yeah.
Or hang the president.
Well, I told Al, I think you ought to give me a chance to take a look at the white paper, Graham.
Right.
So that may jog me on something you're leaving out or something, too.
Right.
Just to be sure that's not inconsistent anywhere.
And then I think that we'll want to make statements also on the CIA department.
Right.
John may want to go on the whole thing because he's involved in it.
All right, I'm not.
But our statement should follow here.
Do you agree with the strategy?
I sure do.
Do you go Monday or Tuesday?
Monday, if possible.
All things being, if I go Monday, I think the senator could get out today.
Oh, all right.
and get yourself in good physical and mental health.
That's important.
You're going to get up to Camp David tomorrow.
You're going to get up there and hopefully get some sun.
Don't just grind away on the speed camera.
Because your attitude will be as important as the content.
Because the content will be covered by the white paper.
And as people are going to look at you, they're going to be sitting there at that tube saying, is this guy telling the truth or is he evading something?
And is he confident or is he worried?
Now, before you looked worried and you should have.
You were going through a kind of period and that was good.
If you had come on looking cocky and confident, then you would have been adverse.
But now, come on, but now you're not cocky but confident and quiet, not antagonistic, but very powerful.
You think it was your pride?
Well, yes.
Why?
Because you got to.
You have too much at stake.
You get nothing to gain by not fighting except a little rest.
That's a sure thing.
But why do you got everything to gain from fighting?
Because it's a fight that can be won.
Maybe.
Anyway, it has to.
The point is, you've got to try.
Because if I got the whole, if you said, look, the guy sitting in this chair has the whole world in his hands.
God, what a miserable mess.
This goddamn silly thing.
If you don't fight this, the bureaucracy, it's just an accomplished establishment that left and everything else will accomplish what they were after.
We can't let them do it.
And if you can fight this one and win this fight, that may kill them forever.
Because they won't kill them with this one time.
It will give you a basis of strength, though.
I mean, survive.
But down on the side of the property, those are yours.
They lose the rest.
They're on the side of the coast, right?
Yep.
They have a coast
Because I don't know what the problem is there.
I don't know either.
Did he run coffee?
I don't think so.
I don't think he had anything to do with coffee.
He did.
I don't know either.
I don't know either.
Patrick, how do you look?
How do you feel?
The main thing you were talking about is to fight black and white.
Yes, sir.
So there is an alternative.
Because it's the right thing to do, even if there were an alternative, there isn't an alternative.
But it doesn't matter if there were, you wouldn't take the alternative anyway.
You still don't have it.
I guess you're right.
There were an alternative.
But they've got it.
They can't do it.
All of our enemies destroy us over this God damn silly test of faith.
You can't let that happen.
And you don't have to.
And I just didn't mean to go through a span without you making the point to him that your resignation doesn't clear up the office of the presidency issue.
It just makes it worse.
And it doesn't help you anymore because
Unlike me, see, I can resign, and I can go out as a private citizen, which I'm now doing, and fight my case through the judicial system that I've gotten into public breast, but you can't.
You don't have recourse to the judicial system.
And if you go out, you go out, all you're doing is saying, I am not guilty of all the bad things you've said and all the bad things you suspected beyond that.
And you cannot say that.
You can't let this, you can't let the country think that because it isn't true.
Not true.
And also the country would be thoroughly let down.
Absolutely.
The world would be let down.
Absolutely.
And the reason you can't do it is because it isn't true.
If it were true, I agree.
If you had pulled all this stuff, then let me ask you something else.
I'm not so sure of the name, but there's anything that you mentioned, the one conversation that we believe you would no more than two minutes.
You mentioned that.
I don't remember any other conversation with John that we've ever discussed as a payoff or anything else.
I don't think he does either.
And I don't think you do either.
I want to know if there is.
Wholesome, the only conversation was the conversation that he had at the end of the meeting with regard to Hunt, where he said Hunt's wife died and probably did that in consideration.
That was all I said to him.
Nothing more.
Right?
I don't know if you can't, I can't judge anybody for him, right?
I can't.
Postman.
No, Postman's dead.
But Postman, I think, is going to stand for his own.
He's going to protect himself every way.
Oh, I see.
But not at the expense of any damage to you.
I don't believe you.
Now, what do you do with Dean?
Despite it.
Not despite it.
On the basis of the truth.
Let him tangle himself up.
We strike at him, yes.
You should never strike at him, right?
Did we?
No.
Why do you have to strike at him?
He's killed his husband.
Let the process take care of it.
He and the dean is involved deeply in all of this.
Look, he's not only involved in the subordination of Persia, which we were in, you know, you get the brutal, the brutal society.
Second, there is a little bit of a reminder in that post.
And he says that Libby on June 19th told him everything.
That's right.
And that he told it to Erlich.
So I checked with Erlich about this.
Erlich tells me Dean never told him a fucking thing about Libby until March of next year.
That's right.
Is that correct?
Yep.
I remember when he told us we were out in Erlich's office late one afternoon.
He told us the story of Liddy saying, I want to go for a walk with you, and they walked down 17th Street.
And Liddy laid out the whole thing, what had happened, and then Mitchell had ordered it, Mitchell had raised hell, and all that stuff.
At that point, I still didn't know whether that was true.
Because at that point, you're starting to wonder if Eaton's stories didn't make sense.
I just want to be sure.
I don't know now whether that's true.
I mean, I want to be sure that Eaton didn't tell her before March of the next year.
That's the impression we try to give to peers.
I don't believe that.
I mean, it's changing history.
But when he told me that, when he told us that up in Erland's office, I had the distinct impression that that was the first time Erland was there.
And that he knew it was.
Because I think he was, the way he was telling it was that it was something that he had never told us before.
That Lydia told him everything.
Yeah.
You see, we were trying to get the facts.
We're trying to find a clue that Christ did this.
Dean, up to that time, March 19th or whatever that was, never told us that Mitchell was involved, did he?
Oh, yes, a little.
Yeah, well, no, in that period somewhere, he animated that Mitchell would just step out of that and solve his own problem.
Which would indicate that he thought Mitchell was involved.
He thought that he never said he knew Mitchell.
I agree with you on that.
I think he was virtually sure that Mitchell was, and he was damn sure he was.
He didn't know.
I'm not sure he was ever ready to report it.
I'm ready to call it a conversation, but what were they like?
Oh, that's when he was
and reports of what O'Brien was saying Magooder's direct story was and Mitchell's concerns and all that, but I can't reconstruct those without notes because I imagine a different thing.
No, that hadn't come up yet.
No, no, that had come up and gone by then.
That's right, that's right.
So he mentioned that as an example of the black, he was spelling out the examples of black in one of those reports.
But it was just a discussion in that period.
Anything that we should get busy and try to pay off it.
You ever discovered that?
That's the kind of thing you'd like to have.
You don't remember anything like that?
I don't remember it either.
You don't remember anything like that?
No, sir.
That we should get busy and pay off it?
$120,000.
I don't know.
This was after the 120 area was the 21st.
Or was that the 26th?
21st.
I think it was the 21st.
22nd.
22nd was the date.
No, not 22nd.
Mitchell said, you know, he's going to go play Madden.
I guess it's okay.
I guess it's okay.
You know, it's very possible I might have asked you.
Both this goddamn thing was carried off.
I don't think you were there.
I don't think you were there.
This wasn't in here.
This was in my office.
I know, but that's on the phone with Camp David.
I know.
Well, you didn't talk to me about that.
I'm sure you did.
They ran out of time, yeah.
At that time, sure.
They checked your phone.
I don't think you did.
You want me to check it right now?
Yeah.
You want me to know what I said?
Well, I wouldn't know what you said.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, you've got to bite, huh?
Absolutely.
Bite right now.
It gets a little tiresome to have to keep biting like that.
You should.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
You've got to do it.
I was totally aware.
I overheard you, sir.
I overheard you.
You know what I mean?
I want you to know that John Trudeau and I are not backing off of him one inch.