Nixon & Haig on Watergate scandal and White House communications strategy

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I had a hard day, huh?

No, sir.

I think it's a good thing.

I had a good talk with him.

Hold on.

I ran out of the line.

I said, look, did you ever talk to me about three dead people?

He said, no.

I said, do you ever get hurt in front of people?

I thought you'd tell them.

He said, do you ever get hurt in front of people?

I said, no.

I was on the beach one day, and he just casually stopped me.

It might arrive.

But he said the same thing.

He said, I, the president, told him, God damn it, get the God damn story out and get all of you to tell it all.

And I said, well, what does Colson know?

He said, I don't know.

That was in.

I don't know what the Christ of Colson knew.

Except the only conversation I know I ever had with Colson.

So that's the story.

All of them said, will Ehrlichman stand up?

He said, yes.

He said, will you stand up?

He said, I don't need to ask that in person.

He said, Ehrlichman, stand up.

He said, Ehrlichman.

I said, what about Dean?

He said, I don't know.

I said, what the hell is going on right now?

He said, we just don't know.

He said, what?

Let me trust, period.

That's the story, as far as he told me.

So, okay.

I think we're going to do this.

It's going to be a tough job to put together, you know, who the apocalypse is.

And we've talked to the writers.

The writers are going to work.

So, yes, we're going to do this.

It must be done.

It has to be done.

How about that?

That is 100%.

Christ was born.

There's a little goosey end, but he was so pleased.

I just went through the broadest terms.

I got it.

It's an incredible story, but it has to be told.

It has to be told.

All right, let's move.

That's all.

Can we talk to Stannis tonight?

I won't say a word to anyone, but I'm sure that no one will know why, but I'm going to try to keep the waters out until I speak.

That's the best thing to do.

I'm going to have to do something.

There will be nobody standing up on the box there.

I think the data is very bad.

Unicord, you know, it's very bad.

So this HEPA, the system, it affects the program more than what I have there.

And that, this is the platform.

Now quite frankly, we're going to have to check this thing out.

Yes, we should.

I think they're going to be all very good, but you'll see.

Bob's fine.

John, I think, fine.

I wrote that belief.

John will be fine.

John will be good.

Real quick, he stays in there.

Just protect him.

I want them to look over.

Well, they're really the only ones that know the facts from the president's perspective.

And the main thing is,

that I just want to be sure I don't break a leg.

I, pal, did not goddamn think about anything until March.

Which, you know, is an incredible moment.

That's the way I describe it.

I said, here's the plan.

Ben will protect the National Security.

The National Security.

And then we get victimized by a goddamn series of men.

The moment you had no control, everybody in the White House Council was supposed to be handling with the whole fucking thing, and then decides that he's going to do it right in his own way.

That's it.

That's the tragedy of it.

That comedy tragedy.

But I do think that we put the goddamn thing out, and we're sure we can stay alive.

God damn it, that's, that's the line.

Right now.

Hands it up.

We've got it done by one day.

I, I suspect that if we work almost around the clock then we'll be lucky to have a question.

And we're going to do it through a bit of writing, just a little bit of knowledge kind of thing.

You've got Desire working.

Oh, yeah.

Desire's got the other thing nailed out on it.

Oh, that thing is nailed in.

Very well.

Well, we've got a lot of work to do with this stuff.

We'll be sure.

Actually, we've got plumbers doing activities like that.

We've got Helms School up so they can resign.

Yeah.

You talked to him.

What'd you say?

I told him, well, I told him, I said, I'm going to show you how to stand out in the present.

Did he recall when he told me that they weren't involved?

He didn't recall them.

He didn't recall them very well.

He said, of course.

He said, I thought the president mentioned that, you know, two, at least two separate things.

Why do you have to take all this?

You should have told me.

Perfect.

Here's the funny thing about a soldier.

Christ, I'll take the pain in your combat that we killed in five minutes.

There's something here for the testimony that's important.

We cannot let this happen.

You know, I decided, you know, I thought it was about seven minutes.

We thought, I have to do that today.

We've got all this shit.

But believe me, we ain't going to resign.

We're not going to push for, uh, for this piece of, uh, uh, bizarre sort of headache, uh,

trial in the House.

We don't need to do that.

We all go through strength, positive.

God damn it.

Tell the leaders, we've got a good case.

We've got a great case.

I mean, God, you're the president of this country.

And you've done things for this country, and there's more to be done.

Let's put on this famous picture that I'm keeping.

But that paper, the paper that

The fact of the speech has got to be solid as gold, solid as gold.

It's bizarre to work on that, I guess.

It's worth doing.

It's kind of a good lawyer.

Price is worth doing.

Price is worth doing the speech with.

We've got some, we've got some.

We're still working over there.

Thanks.

Yeah, it was a bad day.

before, but now it gets national, implicitly.

Basically, it's going to be a long way.

The unfortunate thing is there's no way for the president to defend himself.

There's no running down on him.

I can't come out and defend myself and say, look, I didn't do anything.

I think Mitchell was the guy that did this.

It's not a right thing.

It's a political thing.

No promises are promised.

It's a right thing.

I'm right in the middle of a ship.

It wasn't early, but the ship was too smart.

I'm afraid, though, that John Mitchell is very concerned.

That's probably what I'm afraid cost me a long time to write.

Well, the committee's finished for the day.

All the things that we've got to decide on our own mind.

We are going to fight these bastards now because now they really are taking this off of national security.

They don't think I don't like it.

They know I have nothing to do with it.

This is the national security.

You can grow it again.

It's been realized from the middle way.

National security, civil liberties.

by all the things that the gods and everyone through the years have been pushing.

So we fight them.

We fight them.

We're trying to rally the people to try.

Usually, we get quite a few of them, and you'd be surprised.

And people get them all.

Not all, but we get a lot.

Now, anything left for me to do tonight, except the rest of it.

The rest of it.

The rest of it is preaching.

The rest of it is writing.

Well, I suppose the other draft very quickly results in some technical modifications.

In fact, if I have to check out, probably this.

I don't know.

I'd like to.

I thought probably after the card.

I can't do this every night, right?

The price would have something to send you back in the middle of the night around, let's say, 4 o'clock.

How's that?

Right?

Right.

You should have a draft of that.

We'll start working this time of the week.

In the meantime, the white paper is going to do something like that.

It's going to use it to guard the price.

Boy, that's good.

Just lay it all out there.

Boy, lay it out hard and tell it.

Price isn't losing.

It's got to.

that this stuff was just coming out of his pockets.

And he had no platform.

And he thinks I should speak up.

Yes, sir, he does.

Now, I, you know, on the speech, I think we better make our decision after we get the whole white paper, in a sense, whether a white paper or a speech, or both of them.

I keep, don't keep questioning.

I keep open on that.

A white paper may be the best thing, may be quite the best thing, rather than a speech.

Yes, sir.

These may not be the best things to say.

I have no delivery given to my speech.

Trying to rally the community.

I've been out before the whole 30th and the area goes out again.

Saying that the white people might be the best thing.

White paper?

The leaders of the leaders.

That's what all the white people are about.

That's where I take it from.

I prefer that out.

I really would.

That's impressive.

I'll see you.

Well, I, I would give a lot of time.

I'd pick up a white paper and we'd press review at the same time.

Well, you can leave.

We can sign it.

Yeah.

So if you want to find a sitter and take a copy of the paper and then put it on the brochure, that's what to do.

Exactly.

Somebody else can do that.

Well, we've got a paper to go from.

You don't have to explain yourself.

Do we expect the Walgreens to leave this weekend or not?

I should expect them to leave.

It doesn't do it on the other hand.

It's no worse than what Simon said, is it?

It is.

But it is worse.

It is worse.

President did this.

It has one positive thing, at least, that even with the question mark that I said, it even takes it to the top.

That's right.

And plus the fact that, you know, any rational guy, and people know, know A, that you're working on trying to use counts for this type of thing.

And the other thing, too, and the other thing, B, that Walters, after, despite being, according to our stations, trying to take off cities, didn't have quite enough support.

Is that in the White House?

Is that his big news?

Well, there are three.

No, it's not in that sense, but the impact is yes.

There are three runs, separate runs.

So in July, early June, late June, in July, right at the end of July, there are three runs out.

Nothing was ever done.

And the Lord said, by God, you're going to involve the President.

In fact, it was very clear that the meeting was operating without the President.

It's very clear.

They were such a damn dumb thing to put the buggers on the payroll.

.

Sometimes.

We shall see.

Dean appears to be a loose patient.

He's been lucky to be on the job.

Yes, he's made it there.

Right?

Harry Carroll made that any of the time.

If you don't tell me, they don't make it there.

Yes.

I think it makes me think poor Richard was involved.

He often speaks so highly of Dean.

Maybe it would be useful to .

I don't think the is too credible.

Without somebody, we don't want somebody.

Most of this is going to be .

I can .

Oh, a neighbor around.

Is he a head?

Well, I believe in about five minutes.

Colson, you know, he said, he said to the bazaar, he said, God damn it, he said, if you hadn't done it five times, this was the best news I've heard.

The president getting bothered on things, and he had nothing to do with it.

And you can't get out and explain it or anything.

You know, the interesting thing is the white paper may be the better thing in the sense that the country ain't that excited about all of this.

The press, etc.

is.

We'd better get it out to the audience that really is concerned.

See, that's my argument for the white paper.

And we're not sure you can do justice in his speech.

Without making it here, I'm trying to cover up the whole goddamn thing.

We've got to think about it.

What are you going to do now?

He did.

You don't want to go out and have a meal with him?

No, sir.

All right.

God damn it.

Be a soldier.

That's right.

All right.

Nixon & Haig on Watergate scandal and White House communications strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 18, 1973

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