On June 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, Alexander P. Butterfield, and H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman met in the Oval Office of the White House from 4:40 pm to 5:13 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 521-012 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Henry's in a hurricane.
He's in a plane.
He's in a plane.
He's in a plane.
So much to do about it.
So much to do about it.
Jesus Christ.
I hope to Christ we don't have that person in here.
Good night.
The guy that I really wanted to chat to, the talk director, he said he was very good at calling.
I'm like, I'm really excited to bring him up to talk to him.
Because everybody, these other jackasses are here.
Now this one we kind of padded in because we added in a little bit of concrete.
There it is.
Any for you sir?
Oh, God, Alan, there's some soul in here.
There really is, but there's another one.
There's the one that I can call.
I hate to expose the poor man, Chancellor, to this kind of watch.
Well, he's gone to check on us.
The business guy, he says, I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
He's, uh, he's
It couldn't be more for your value, but he's, like everyone, he feels neglected.
He's a very good friend of John Huntsman's, as you probably know.
Huntsman worked for Swinburne.
And he's, yeah.
He's always been neglected.
Swinburne's a constant bitch of views, always bitching when he's on there.
He's a constant.
He's called us several times on that, so let's join him in here.
Thanks for the good job.
Well, anyway, I'm going to end it.
I have one from Charles Bluedocker, you know, the God of Western.
He wants to see you to deliver a letter that he has from the President of the Dominican Republic with a back-channel message.
Oh, my God.
On the stability of a friendly government as a result of states maneuvering on sugarcoaters.
He...
I understand that, John, the purpose would not be for you to get into any discussion of the substance of the blue dog, but rather to allow him to deliver the letter.
Let him say he's seen you.
And John thinks it's one chance in ten that we may be able to buy that and then some follow-up and get the guy who swung over to our side.
He's got a lot of dough.
If we can get him, it might be worth it.
Henry says he sees no reason for you not to do it.
It doesn't
I've provided this 10 minutes, but I'll make you a difference.
But a challenge speaking, that kind of thing, when we swing, think of swinging the horse, either way we're talking about money.
And John is speaking, my time should not be spent on one Jew to get his money, let's face it.
But maybe we'll try this one.
I don't know.
We'll try one now.
John, I guess, has had some contact.
I know he was up there to dinner.
Some stuff that worked out.
One of them tried this one 15 minutes.
Okay.
Okay.
That's kind of what I'm trying to, I don't, you know, I don't even agree on it.
Right now, you know, you really need to bother somebody to handle something like this.
In other words,
We've got Mitchell on the physical side.
The Defense Department, of course, is a partying interest.
They can't do anything.
It's worth a damn.
Who's going to handle it?
I was talking to Mitchell an early minute.
They were...
I mean, that should be developed in position.
You know what I mean?
Basically, it's a running, fighting town.
And, uh... Scully, I don't think, is balanced enough to be a...
Everybody's got ideas.
What we've got to do is get them all in one place and pull it together into something.
Someone's got to make sense.
The candidate, very well, will turn to Johnson and make a statement because he's now filed a case.
We've got cold water going on on that side of it.
I'm calling because it occurred to me and I think it's essential that the Vice President not say anything.
I'm afraid he might decide to say something.
give it up to his own development.
Never has it occurred to me that I didn't think he should be so stupid.
Well, but he would be so stupid.
I'm just afraid to assume that he wouldn't be because it could happen.
And, you know, he may think it's a great opportunity.
My view is that I can't say anything because it's a case of growth.
That's my point.
Maybe that's the one.
Somebody's got to say something.
Senators have got to develop one line here.
They're going to call it the Kennedy-Johnson Papers.
The Kennedy-Johnson Papers.
That's good.
And instead of the McNamara Papers.
No, it's the Kennedy-Johnson Papers.
On the war.
The Kennedy-Johnson Papers on the war.
Your basic position is what everybody is basically coming up with in one way or another, but the key here is that this is their fight.
The only position, the only thing the administration's doing in this is the proper action for protecting national security, protecting national security, but on the other hand, you've got to go one step further to say why this does injure national security, and that is if documents are secret.
In other words, why do you have to have some secrecy in the words in that ?
That's the point.
Roger made a good point.
Several foreign governments have contacted the embassy and their documents were secured.
The other thing is that the question of breaking codes involves the breaking of codes.
put it out of information and my contingency planning and so forth.
Somebody's got to sit down about this and thinking about it.
I don't know who's doing that.
I know a lot of people thinking and have a lot of ideas, but somebody has really got to kind of pull it together.
Is that working?
I got Ray, Ray's ready to do it, but he's too close to answering you, my name of Ray, you know what I mean?
Although he, I don't see how anybody, anybody would believe me, and could honestly, could honestly tolerate me.
Ray, he's,
Why don't you ask him who could really take this over?
To develop a, to develop a quiet aspect maybe even.
I think maybe Sapphire's the guy.
It's a public relations problem, Mark.
I'm getting out the, the lie.
Don't leave that to Colson.
It's a bad one.
No, he doesn't understand.
No, it's, it's Scali and Mark.
Scali, Mark, Sapphire.
Rumsfeld got into it on the political side because he's, you know, been involved in this stuff.
The scenario is fascinating.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
Congressional days, a bunch of liberals.
Just to, again, PR from a political view.
And here you see the Kennedy-Johnson papers.
It is a family fight, which they now have put in the public.
We're not going to comment on that.
in their efforts to expand, fancify Washington.
There is a preface of the Kennedy-Johnson era, period.
That's the life we should take.
But on the other hand, we will.
We do believe that the security of the...
But I'll tell you one thing that is delighting.
We know that I... And I'm just going to say that
The, this, this, this cut, this, this, this clamp down on the times, is the best thing we can do for a while.
And it's going to be as bad as it's going to be for decades.
But, uh, we've just got to do about it.
You cannot allow them to have it both ways.
You can't allow them to come in here, pick our brains and so forth, and then at the same time go out and do this sort of irresponsible thing.
But you agree?
Yep.
I also gave it to her to work today.
I'm a lot of times personally cool clients.
Why else?
Yeah.
And if you should, we were saying earlier airplane pools for a while.
I guess let them be.
It's worth more.
He said he was going to recommend not doing Q&A.
Yeah.
Well, you can comment on this.
I can.
I'm like that.
I really can now, but I just want to file criminal charges.
He's going to work up something.
He says you probably have to say something that makes the point that you can.
Whatever the situation is, obviously we can't get into that.
Well, we should point out to him.
The Attorney General now is filing today the criminal charges.
Now, under those circumstances, I cannot comment.
I cannot comment at all on the case.
The only way I can, I don't know how the hell I can do it, is simply say, by attempting to say that classified documents, or at least work up, work on it.
Maybe they can work up something.
It says that
says something so you so they can't say you totally ignored the principal issue of the day that doesn't say anything responsibility
I think you ought to make that a pretty sure-sure thing.
I'm sure they're going to have a lot.
Sure.
You should.
I haven't got much gain in that.
It's essentially, it's a domestic policy where you can trust what they're there for, and they'll help.
They've got to have a little interest in it.
Oh, and you should see whether or not they're having any on drugs.
They should have something on drugs and substitute that for some of the revolutions and crap.
That's a revenue reorganization.
They're having a hell of a time, you know.
Same anyway, you know.
I don't have a great comment.
Pat's got a computer that's permanently charged over all that information.
All the ones that are going to stay out of that issue.
White documents aren't classified, but they may go to read Roger's press conference.
White classification has to be respected and supported.
See, the real question is how this all sorts out as it goes out across the country and the airways and the rest.
It sorts out as the New York Times is putting a lot of stuff on the war, where people just get the idea it's Mexico.
Now that's, Ziegler said, well, that's pretty clear.
No, it isn't.
Never clear.
You know what I mean?
It's got to be repeated and repeated and repeated in the Kennedy-Johnson papers.
I get that around right away and I get that up close and get it from members of the House.
The other thing is the next administration on secrecy.
In other words, suppression.
Why are we being secret?
Earth feels people don't like it.
their governments not to disclose anything.
I don't think that's true.
You polled it a little.
We polled it in one sense and 68% of them said they agreed there were governments under which you should not tell the truth, not give all the facts.
I would like to say something.
to say something like this.
Because I, I think maybe that's the only way we're gonna get our point across, is for me to say it.
You know, don't you think so?
I don't mean about McKinney-Johnson.
Yeah, I know.
But I'm just gonna face you in a posture.
Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what all this is all about.
It's just taking a closer look now.
He's on the Scoop Jackson kid too, huh?
Yeah.
Well, he's dead worried about it.
Well, he was supposed to be later.
That's where the stroke is, that's right.
It's the opposite.
Mitchell wants Scoop Jackson to get the most strength he can get.
Yeah.
The main point is, Bob, you can't do a goddamn thing about it.
So therefore, don't worry about things you can't learn about.
Don't raise it.
I mean, old people love to talk about it.
Let them all talk about it.
But believe me, they're not thinking about who's going to run and how they're going to do it and so forth.
The idea that Joe Little, a little, what was it, Lee Knight?
I'd certainly read that county one more time.
The more they fight, the more trouble they have, the better off we are if they fight.
No, they are.
You think they are?
Yeah, they're hitting each other.
Not much, Bob.
Fewer.
They're gone.
Must be a little bit.
Who else?
They're arguing back and forth, and they're not...
They've certainly not joined in any clear-cut attack on us, and they...
They have not...
capitalized on their real opportunity, which is the economic thing, started really banging, rebuking them.
It's their real opportunity, except for the fact that it could change.
It could change.
That's the one we could get.
We're really the father of mercy in the war, too.
We're at the mercy of the events that we really are.
The economic, we can do a little more, aren't we?
And others are suggesting this and that, but we don't know how much it works.
And again, the economy's either going to move or it isn't.
You're going to have inflation, you're not.
You're going to have inflation for sure.
The question is how much.
It's really a mixed bag, though.
The economic guys, they may come in and they'll board a group and do them all over the place and follow some other people.
Collin, Schultz, safety key three is a little better.
Archer is the most mercurial of the bunch.
And he's up and down in the readings.
He has no consistency, whatever.
It's rather surprising.
And McCracken is the same.
Worried about whether he'd get to J-65.
Well, I worry about it.
But again, what the hell are you going to do about it?
What the hell are you going to do that we're not going?
Something like, something in the control area.
Well, the war issue, of course, is there.
It's just, you've got to be totally fatalistic.
And the idea is, if we get a break, we might have a negotiation.
If we don't get a break, we've got to see it through, and we will.
It'll be over, that's all, as an issue.
The thing to wonder is, it'd be interesting, you can't tell for a while, so what impact the New York Times papers really have, the Kennedy-Johnson papers really have.
The country, they're hard reading and they're dull reading.
I don't imagine they'll be very well read.
I would guess you'd find that the people in here have them.
No, they all know they haven't read.
And they don't know what the hell else is going to do.
I know what the hell's in them.
I mean, I know what it's all about.
I know that kind of crap that a bunch of people... You know, you can assume that just like the stuff we have coming in here, you've got to be pretty involved before you want to read it.
As a matter of fact, this is an interesting historical reason, so the real question is whether people get the impression that something's smelly.
And we have to stop it due to the fact that you cannot have a massive security breach law.
Don't let any of the staff ever question that point.
You cannot have a massive security breach of government.
If you do, you can stand by and watch.
If you do, you're going to steal other stuff from us, you know?
That's what I'm thinking of.
I'm thinking of our own stuff.
You've got to put papers on warnings.
and others who go out and do this, by God, they're going to be prosecuted.
Would you agree?
Sure.
Oh, I don't think he's attached to any kind of an easy line.
Well, we shouldn't be too gracious of him.
Why not?
So should the chairman write a political and PR wicket by prosecuting also the, I don't know, the Kessler?
I'm just not sure.
First of all, I don't know about the people, but there's a...
Provided we can get across the fact that he did it for all the security of the country, then it's something disloyal basically.
That's what I mean.
Yeah.
The press putting the interests of the press of publication above the interests of the country.
God damn it.
I think you've got to prepare some hard-hitting speeches down there in that Congress.
From the Senate floor, they can say anything.
Senate and the House floor.
So that's why I really think you've got to get a, I think more than, more than a sapphire conservation act, I guess you've got to have a little team.
You want to put together a little team, might as well have a little quality.
I had to have bought all these things before they published.
And, of course, they would think of them in terms of their own immediate family, their own New York environment and constituency.
I'm sure they thought that they hurt us massively and hurt us on this vote.
I'm sure they did it for that reason.
On the other hand, they'd be wrong.
Well, what the hell?
Wrong or right?
What's the difference?
It's going to be a story, and it's gone like the others.
Do you realize that?
Yeah, it's how long you'll keep this alive.
So it's really a big sensation, but it is this, it is nearly as sensational as that, it was Zacharias, there's a guy called Admiral Zacharias, where he proved that Roosevelt, you know, knew about and brought about Pearl Harbor.
I don't know whether he proved it or not, but he made the case.
U.S. News did a big thing on it, and he wrote a book.
You know, that's who it was, Zacharias.
That was pretty sensational at the moment.
Because it was far more dramatic than this.
And then the Pearl Harbor, the thing that we had, well Roosevelt did, set up the Pearl Harbor in effect in order to swing public opinion to back him.
That was an award that he had to get into for a number of reasons.
For his policy and domestic.
Probably he had to, I think he did it for domestic as much as before.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
There were a lot of circumstances there.
He just blighted the other bad times.
There's something he can make the thing hang.
I don't know.
He's going to, I think they're going to give him a good college term.
It would be great if they could.
Well, I suppose there is and there wasn't.
They're going to go on and say, look, what are we hiding?
We've got nothing to hide.
That's not a lie.
We have nothing to hide.
This is false.
We have nothing to hide as far as protection.
This involves a family quarrel with the previous administration.
And some of the, you know, they're going to get simple little phrases.
We have nothing to hide.
There's no skin off our hands.
But the point is that it's a family quarrel with the previous administration.
The Kennedy-Johnson papers.
What happened to the Kennedy-Johnson?
Conducting a war.
We developed a new policy and it's working.
We have nothing to hide.
But the point is, we do have a bigger responsibility, which goes beyond these petty political considerations, and that is the defense of the integrity of the people.
I've got to see that, but you're teething now.
Now, we ought to get ready.
I'm 70 years old.
Now, that's, I haven't realized what, if you've noticed this, I'll be here.
They just ain't got it anymore.
Only one of them, only a seven-year-old one that's got it is Buck and Bruce.
Both are 75.
They're amazing.
Both of those, both of those are amazing men.
They really are.
They are amazing.
And so I'm glad even though there isn't anybody on, I'm supposed to get to them.
I am glad that you expanded it because there is no earthly reason for me to sit around with those.
He's only bringing second graders, second liners with him, you know.
He's just bringing his top cabinet people, you know.
There's one of them in there.
These are all sub-cabinet people.
Professionals.
His minister, Ford, if there is not here, his minister, Treasury's not here, nothing.
So if I have to Christ him, I've got to sit around and talk to them about it.
See, that's what these, and with Hill O'Brien, now there's, I've seen Rashi's one man over there I want to see.
Another thing, you know, it's interesting to me, probably good to be able to fight around here sometime.
Maybe it's good for the blood.
We're in them all the time, but I'm in at this time, so.
Yeah.
What do you mean?
Just, just, I mean, our own people, whatever it is, especially when we can,
Now, if we can get it, get it, get it.
Well, if we can't talk, we can't.
That's right.
I'm just relaxed, totally relaxed.
We have no choice.
Well, that's the other thing.
I want you to get a hold of Tom Johnson, and Johnson ought to get some of his friends to speak up about this.
Atchison ought to say something, for example.
You know?
That's another thing.
Get Atchison.
Rouse.
McNamara.
Maynard.
Maynard, they ought to mobilize some people.
Henry ought to mobilize some of them.
Some of the old establishment ought to speak out against this.
You can tell me rock and shit as well, Mr. President.
Poor Bill, he probably hates that.
He's a good guy.
He's certainly on the side of the press always.
He can't possibly be, I didn't even talk about this, just ambassadors, I have ambassadors representing the Florida Governors team going down to this press conference.
What in the Christ do you think they're going to send messages to?
They're going to be leaked out like this.
If you don't have security, then you don't have, you can't have communication.
You've got a real problem.
Well, also .
Disagreeable about it.
Well, let's not worry about it.
Let's not worry about that.
What's your feeling at the present time about, because I should be thinking of that, about whether we want to go on a press conference next week or not?
Sure.
Or do you think we just as well, this month, kind of keep the stable on?
Well, what I mean is that Rochester has a little news.
We'll certainly make some news.
I just don't know.
I want to know the right thing.
I have a feeling that you get the little, one of the, I read through this little,
Ray has been on an extremely good job of sending, sends out every week, you know, a half dozen or so letters.
They're mail.
Yeah.
And, uh, but nevertheless, uh, you see where one person really had a 20-year-old was at the end of the press conference at the wrong time.
No, I didn't see that.
What time do you want it?
6.
I don't know where the hell it came.
I'll send it back to you.
I'll check.
It's over here someplace.
Well, anyway, I wonder what it said to you.
Well, the point being, it's an interesting letter.
She said, I just don't think you ought to happen at 8.30, she said.
And this is, the point that I make is that she said that her husband is home and
gets home, he's tired, he doesn't want to, he wants entertainment at that time.
He de-resents me, he either turns off the TV or turns it down.
He says he's not particularly for you, which is I am.
And she said, I think you'd better have it at 6.30 or so.
And then the seventh season, I remember you had it at 6.30.
And then you said everybody expects to see news and they don't mind it, but you said there's 8.30.
There's an awful lot of people that, that, uh,
You see, it's the point I made that now, even though the size of the audience may be bigger, that's what I wrote on my, yeah, tell Ray, ask Ray to take it out.
Yeah, I'm very happy with the audience.
I was gonna say, it seemed to me quite interesting.
On this point, you are absolutely right about the size of the audience.
The question is whether or not the audience
is somewhat receptive to, I mean, if you're making people mad at me, you know, but do you remember what we said about Johnson overexposure?
And he was overexposed, but people got sick of seeing him.
You know, I never realized what she was doing when she used to come in and just raise heavy hell.
But I suggested maybe that you had a, you could have a situation here where, where we are, where we may, where I,
You've got it my way because I just thought it through and put it out there.
You may have a situation, Bob, where even though you're a bigger audience, you may be alienating some.
Now, if you're alienating some, that isn't working.
Maybe you should go for smaller audience where people are going around.
be there anyway, unless you have a prime time thing and, you know, something that you know is going to be enormously important.
Maybe an announcement or something like that.
Then if you do that, I don't know, I've been around this track, we've been around it so often.
Maybe wrong.
And also you can't base any decision based on
one child at Wright Center.
So no, but it's a point that something that hadn't occurred to me before.
Okay.
Henry's asking if he can change the NSC from tomorrow morning to Thursday afternoon.
We kept Thursday clear.
Thursday afternoon clear with the fatherless.
We were going to do the Q&A.
No, it won't change.
I'll send you a couple things at midday time.
Okay.
Would you look that over?
Yeah.
And, uh, I think it's a fascinating .