On June 22, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander P. Butterfield, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, unknown person(s), John D. Ehrlichman, Henry A. Kissinger, and Melvin R. Laird met in the Oval Office of the White House from 1:50 pm to 3:07 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 527-004 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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 see.
You have not.
So that he doesn't raise this thing around, I want him to come in and commiserate with me about that.
He doesn't know that you're considering talking to Rod, because I don't want you to tell him now.
I think we've got an eight now, at least.
We've got a lot to do after this.
I can wait until tomorrow to tell you all the details.
The whole figure here, it was just ten points off.
It's forty-one.
But we proved it this way, which is basically the same.
Okay, 46.
Well, it seems to me that this tells us a hell of a lot.
It tells us a hell of a lot in one sense.
The idea that we, the argument that the presidency is incurred, we incurred.
Certainly these figures would indicate that we have not yet been hurt.
Right.
Which is weird, I agree.
I think the figures are that much.
They tell us we haven't been hurt.
They tell us this is not an issue of super interest or awareness or involvement of people.
They tell us that generally people are opposed to the principle of printing stolen documents.
But that generally people are divided on the question of whether our minds are doing the right thing.
Are we getting those two open-ended answers that we have?
Okay, it's important.
Okay, keep going.
You know, I had to take one of the items from the future and take the picture.
He should not be talking to me more now.
He doesn't have to be talking to me about his church anymore or anybody else.
You know, he's got Henry to report to you about.
And you, if you want to hear about the people and the...
I, uh, I did feel that, uh, I wanted to see Bob Anderson.
I'm interested in seeing him again.
That's a clear thing for sure.
I don't give a damn how it's happening.
So you'll watch those.
I know Frank.
Make the point to Frank.
Just say that.
Say, you know, keep Bob posted on any of these personnel things.
Keep Henry posted on any of those.
Just say it.
So he knows.
We'll turn.
That's hard.
Frank, you're going to have to see once in a while.
Just as a moral issue.
Christ, I thought we had it.
I know.
I said, what if we did not?
that he sees himself as a strong Mexican partisan and is trying to fight the State Department and the bureaucracy.
That's the stuff.
And he is, basically.
Hello there.
Hi.
Why don't you go home tomorrow?
That's right.
On Thursday.
No, I'll be there Thursday, Friday.
We'll visit the department on Saturday.
Good.
Yeah.
Am I supposed to be in Camp David?
You can come back Sunday night.
Or you can stay if you want to.
You can stay Sunday night and come down.
You have a shipbuilding thing going on, I think, Monday morning.
This shipbuilding contract business, we have to sign before July 1st.
Oh, I see.
So, no reason not to come back.
I'd rather come back at night, and that'll be better.
You stay here, and I'll see you back in Camp David.
And I'll come to see you as soon as I'm back.
I don't know how time to get back in, but you may be back earlier than I am, or I may stay there at night dinner and come back and be ready to ride here tonight.
I'll call you, we'll talk to you soon.
I just thought the first, as a matter of fact, we did ask to have David for Monday also.
That's right, you went to the meeting on Monday that we changed it, so you changed it back, so the budget sessions are on Saturday.
I have, I get Sunday flexible just in case things are straight, which is highly unlikely, and I have to go back there for further, for further talks.
I talked to Dabrini yesterday.
Uh, mostly about Berlin and complicated machinery set up on how to get it settled.
Well, I want to give them a maximum incentive.
Also, I set up a machinery that's going to get out through July and August.
Uh, at the end of that meeting, uh...
I first said two things.
I said that...
We were outraged by their linking this administration with the previous one through the Vietnam papers in Sweden.
And if they were going to start playing that sort of a game, we would know what to do.
But then the major topic was the summit.
As you had told me the night before, I said, now, I just want to remind you, I expect an answer by the end of next week.
If you can't decide on it, we'll just have to let it last.
Well, that got him terribly excited because he said, oh, God, no.
He said, then I've misreported.
Because he said, you told me in Camp David, and that's true, that if it isn't September, then the only other time it can be is in the spring.
And he's now reported that to Moscow.
And he said, should he pull back from that?
In any case, he had told Moscow that they must make a definite decision by the end of this month, that we will have it no later than July 4th.
He said President was in Germany, and therefore the decision couldn't be made right away.
Now, I then tried to reach Uyghur at dinner and tried to reach Ba'ath, he was at dinner, and I decided we didn't have any choice anyway, because if I insisted that it had to be September or nothing,
And then they said September, and then we kicked them in the teeth with the Chinese.
It would really be brutal if they didn't give us September.
So I told them to leave it stand.
And it has this other advantage that if they don't give us September and we then do go to Peking in October or November, let them cancel the spring.
Why should we do it?
It's...
And this spring, this spring wouldn't be announced.
The other thing, of course, that really should be, I assume you have already made to it.
What we are thinking of, they go in September, it's a return visit on their part next spring.
I haven't said that yet.
I thought you should do that in Moscow.
Well, I kind of think that's what we want.
And it may be that he has dropped, I noticed, several hints regarding his not traveling abroad, wanting to do some foreign travel and so forth and so on.
And it may be that that's what we want.
If that's what we really want, that's what we should put it up to him.
I'm actually coming to the view that we might even be better off not having Moscow this year and having Peking, getting that under, that's the one, and taking our chances on Moscow next year and putting Moscow on incentive.
Except if you've got Mink and Pop for next year and still get Moscow this year, you're in pretty good shape.
That's the point.
Well, we'll know.
Well, we got another panic message from the Chinese that all technical arrangements are going forward.
Right now, I've been on the phone practically all day with senators who are collapsing all over the place on the
Stephens-Cook, now the one thing we can't have now, we may have to put up with it this week, on top of all the other stuff, as we're going into this meeting on... Well, apparently they're going to have to pass on that.
Not so sure.
Is that right at all?
McGregor's and our leadership's meeting group all felt that...
It seems that the vote will lose by a close Senate or by a big vote if there's a Democratic defection, which they expect them to lose.
They're in favor of Ben Steele, which would be the... And they're going to do what the Democrats see what they will do.
The Manfield vote, you know, is 10th of the Senate.
So that gives these irresponsible a chance to be a little less nervous.
That's what I understand.
Later it seemed a little less certain.
And I've talked to Senator Packwood.
I've really shaken him.
I've got Miller, got Crowdy, and Bok and Baker coming in at 2.30.
And
Are you working on Steven Scooker?
On everything.
I'm telling them, I'm telling them, what are you trying to achieve?
We don't need instructions about the desirability of getting out.
They do enormous damage to Hanoi.
I say to them, this is our last chance at negotiation, and you're killing it.
If you want to take this responsibility, I say to them, any of you who stick with us,
Can look good.
Can look good a few months from now.
I do not say this lightly.
Well, two of those that didn't sleep, but that's okay.
We're probably going to have that across the bear.
Let's assume that.
Well, that's that.
Just praise me now.
Now, just tell the doctor or whoever is there.
He hasn't shown up in Paris yet.
Maybe he won't.
No, he doesn't come.
It would be unusual for him to be in Berlin.
He may not come until the last moment.
I know he's seen senior members of the delegation in Berlin.
But at any rate, then... You know, he's staying past the meeting on Thursday, depending on afterwards.
Yeah.
Well, the point is, Harry, really it's not this, which I...
Whether there's any setting for them is a very, it's a close question.
The second one is, the Chinese game has gone forward, regardless of any of all the rest.
I don't think these events we have to worry about.
The Chinese, my judgment is that the Chinese will be least affected by these things.
Hanoi will be most affected, and Moscow is so petty and gangster-like that it will be somewhat affected by it.
Solely tempted, but they may at the last minute.
It's just a damn temptation to knock you off for Moscow.
I mean, we have to face that.
There's...
And to them, all of this is, they've already published articles proving that the New York Times, which is controlled by capitalism, when they oppose you, they must prove that the contradictions in the American capitalist society are enormous.
So, speaking, I can say a word about any of this.
I'm monitoring the press.
Well, I'm glad you're working on the centers.
We're working right to the last, not to throw in the sponge.
I don't want our guys to throw in the goddamn sponge box.
If there's any chance of any people throwing the sponge, it was lost.
That's good.
Yeah.
Well, that's how it looked this morning, Mr. President.
That's all I've got to do.
Well, I don't know.
I just thought it was, I said, all right, it's lost.
So we just fight on some other ground?
We have one problem, Mr. President, and it's petty compared to these, which is Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
Yeah.
Which are laughing if we don't do something.
Okay.
Evan refuses to make a continuing resolution.
Everybody thinks that you called him.
Oh, sure.
He might do it.
And the question is whether I was worth it.
a couple of hours of my time.
No, no, call them on the phone.
No, no, no.
Elder wants me to sit down and talk to him about Russia and see his motion picture.
He's been after me every damn time I've copied it.
So there's no way that it's just going to make any difference.
I've seen his motion picture.
No, it's not.
It's actually pretty good.
No, my point is, I just thought I was going to sit and talk to Elder.
He's a stupid man.
He knows nothing about it.
He thinks he knows everything.
Well, he's a sucker, isn't he?
But it literally means the collapse of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
And I think it is not worth two hours of your time if you will not do it on the telephone.
I mean, I would try a phone call.
If the phone call doesn't work, I would not give it two hours of your time.
It unfortunately has to be done today.
Today or tomorrow.
It can still be done tomorrow morning.
I'll try it tomorrow.
And we'll write out the talking points.
And the basic thing is to ask for a continuing resolution while we get the bill passed, making it public.
Now, he'll say a continuing resolution, keep it in CIA.
The answer is that... Now, who has really talked with him to think that the president should call him to help?
We thought we'd use this president.
He's a goddamn loser.
Not this election this year.
It's two years ago.
Who is suggesting this?
Alex Johnson.
Should everybody really tell him?
They all feel this is our last hope.
Why?
They think there's a chance.
They think there's a chance.
They think there's a chance, but not... We all know he's a nutty old...
There's no other way to get it done.
Well, I'll be glad to call him if it makes any difference, but...
And the second, if you don't do it that way, then we have to do it through a continuing resolution through USIA.
Yeah, quite is the question.
Oh, can't they, can't the House put something in?
No, the House is going the same way.
It's really an unbelievable period.
I had lunch with Stuart Alsop.
He's a great booster of you, as he says.
I know.
You're going to go down as one of the great presidents, he says, but it's unbelievable what we've had to go through.
He must be just probably incredulous about his goddamn craft.
Well, what he says is, it doesn't occur to me, he said in 1961 that Kennedy's encouraged law-breaking by the kids.
And we paid for it for ten years.
But now we've got to the point where the leading newspaper in the country openly, defiantly breaks the law, knowing from its counsel that it's breaking the law.
And the impact that this will have on our society is incredible.
He says we've done absolutely the only thing we could do.
I've been interested in the weekly news magazines we came out pretty well in.
Yes, we hear.
And, uh, I was at a reception at the State Department yesterday.
Hightower and Ward were retiring.
Yeah.
And Chalmers Roberts and a lot of the newsmen were there.
And they don't seem so confident of themselves as, uh, as one might think.
Well, but we had it.
It was happening.
We had it in preparation.
And he had it running.
It's not been any well in terms of presentation.
I won't say against the strategy at all.
But boy, when you've got a case like that, I wouldn't leave it to an Ivy League, New York dilettante, U.S. attorney to present the case.
That's, I mean, that would be North Seymour as a left-winger to begin with.
As a liberal, and we're up before a liberal judge, hold a point of ass.
I put it in good water.
That's when I ripped those bastards.
I mean, if you go down, you're going to lose the case.
The thing to do is to make a public relations lawyer.
We've done neither.
We lose the case, we didn't make the public relations.
Mitchell hasn't made any points fairly that effectively.
Laird hasn't made any effectively.
Rogers hasn't.
Well, Laird has been graphing some cheap headlines for you.
Yes, sir.
Now he's starting to understand how leaders should be classified.
You hear about that?
Oh, yes.
He's going to go down.
That's fine.
I already know that.
Keep him right over there.
How is he going to be classified?
Is he going to be terminated?
Does he have the right, Mr. Secretary?
Well, he's got the right, Mr. President, but I have the greatest doubts about this.
When we...
This creates a precedent where any son of a bitch who leaks a trunk full of documents can force a declassification of these documents.
And having marched up the hill last week with Planfair to achieve this result, that we're declassifying it anyway, just isn't a very... Is he declassifying all the documents?
doing a study, a 90-day study, whatever it was we were going to do, he's doing it.
Yeah, but the way we were going to do it, John Ehrlichman had drafted it in a completely different way.
What we were going to say was that you had already ordered on January 15th
1971 a full study of the declassification procedures that as part of this study we were going to make those those 47 miles the top priority item now that would have kept it within the framework of existing policy and it wouldn't have looked as if we were stampeded into it this way it looks like a cave-in
I just talked to the lawyer.
He and Rogers are on their way up to St. Elmer at 4 o'clock to turn over the documents to him.
Unknown to us.
He told me.
And Mitchell is upstairs in a meeting in my office.
He feels very strongly that that should not happen.
And that the proper way to do this is for you to talk to him.
with him.
That's a surrender.
To Alvin.
Yeah.
And obviously Laird has engineered this and just can't wait to get up there.
What is it?
So I just wanted to look in.
I'll go turn it off if everybody agrees that it should be turned off.
What the hell, uh, John?
What, what, what was Rogers going there for?
Oh, I think they were probably called traffic defenders.
Rogers has been very nice to the board on this all the way.
And, uh, does he believe... What, what...
A little bit.
Let me go back.
What is the situation here?
Is it the fact that Albert asked for the documents?
I'm sure not.
What's the purpose of all this?
Laird leaked everything that new today.
The APA's getting started.
Yeah.
That he has directed that the documents be declassified.
All of them?
to declassify as much of the McNamara Papers as possible.
You can't declassify all of this letter of criminal prosecution.
And he's also going to meet with members of congressional committees, such as Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which demanded to see on a classified basis the top secret studies the U.S. has fallen into.
And he goes on and talks about how this won't impair the criminal prosecution and so forth.
So he sees the nature of this thing about 11 o'clock this morning.
And it's apparent to me from talking with him about this Albert meeting that he undoubtedly set it up with Albert and he's probably gone, I'm guessing now, gone to Rogers and said, come on up with me.
He's off and running.
And neither of them checked with us.
I don't know if you did the check, but you had talked to Laird earlier about not paying.
I had talked to Laird at 9 o'clock and told him under no circumstances to blow your two stories, these two.
Then this came on the wire, and I immediately put in a call for him.
He didn't get it until just 15 minutes ago.
So I challenged him on this.
And he dodged and weaved and I kept boring him and finally he said, well, if I've blown the president's stories, I'm sorry.
Then he said, of course, the thing was all going to come out this afternoon at 4 o'clock anyway when Rogers and I met with Albert.
And I said, what's that?
And he said, well, Albert has asked for these documents so that he can form a select committee.
And he said, Rogers and I are going up and discussing with him.
Well, they can discuss it.
They're not going to give the documents.
Well, uh... How can they?
What is the question?
Is that what it is?
They can avoid having the meeting.
I never had to have the meeting in the first place.
He knew very well that you were going to have the meeting.
See, the way it stood again the last time I talked, which was before you called, was that you were going to meet with Albert and Boggs and Mansfield and all these people tomorrow.
All right.
But he went ahead and said his meeting for today at 4 o'clock.
Just say that I'm meeting with him and that's it.
That's what I'd like to do.
Just call him and say, I'm sorry, but the president is having a meeting.
I will have him in the eyes of the... Don't have Mansfield breakfast.
What the hell are we talking about that?
Well, but McGregor wanted the Mansfield breakfast for, as I understand it, was...
First to set the stage for this, and also to see whether he could, whether you would want to moderate Mansfield a bit on his resolution by telling him some things were going on.
That was McGregor's.
Yeah, well, he advanced it.
What the hell did you tell him?
You mean there's something that's going on in Paris?
No, you can't say Paris.
You could just say it's very dangerous.
But I don't think it's, uh...
It's just not doing anything, dear.
He wouldn't care.
He believes so deeply, Henry, about this that he isn't going to moderate anything.
Did he moderate his Mansfield Resolution?
Did he moderate his opposition to ABM?
We told you we were negotiating this.
Has he ever been on our side?
Never.
If that is true, then there is no reason for a separate Mansfield Brexit.
At Mansfield, the sequence, which is of some significance, is there was originally proposed a practice of Mansfield.
Well, a practice of Mansfield has already been set for the first time, had been set some time.
That was just a routine practice of Mansfield.
The next event was the scheduling of the Big Five leaders tomorrow morning to discuss the papers, the Pentagon Papers, the Pentagon Papers meeting.
Then the question came up of the vote today on Cook-Stevens and at that time the vote also today on Manseil.
And your feeling that you could not meet with the leaders following
you know, getting them all in conjunction with that vote.
So the leadership meeting was then, that idea was dropped.
Then the suggestion was made that the Mansfield practice be moved up from Thursday to Wednesday in order to take advantage of the opportunity of possibly putting over the Mansfield vote and getting some revision out of Mansfield on that.
And presumably, I don't know, to the Times speakers or whatever else we were going to do, the idea was just do Mansfield tomorrow instead of Thursday.
Yeah, I also said to set up the... To set up the...
But Rogers knew it because Rogers asked McGregor whether he could sit in on the Mansfield breakfast.
I don't know how he knew it because McGregor called me and asked me.
Well, if you have rockers sitting there, what the hell do I tell Mansfield about this?
Well, that's why I told McGregor to turn it off.
Yeah.
To say that these were usually private.
That's right.
And so Rogers did know that there was a breakfast with Mansfield.
Well, Mitchell also knew it because McGregor told him.
Well, who knows what it is now?
I can see what the sequence is.
The fight is.
The fight is.
Is it to our interest to have me make this decision about reclassification or have Lane?
I just heard that.
Is this something we want to get into?
It's almost back.
Let's forget it.
Not necessarily.
There it is.
The lifting that I can make by telling Larry he's not going to have the meeting, you know, but it's on the wire that he's made it.
But you could also move now out of the White House to say that Larry was acting under the order of the president under NISM 793 or something, and if you would order it.
That would have to be done.
That would have to be done.
It's your vision, Frank.
If you say it's academic, Larry has already announced why we're having that meeting tomorrow.
What we want to do is,
Now let's, I don't know, let's come back.
Do you want the meeting tomorrow or not?
Let's start with that.
If you're trying to just turn off, with Larry having made this announcement, Mitchell's trying to turn off the other guy, turn off the operator.
Fine.
The best way to turn off the operator is to say, I don't have a meeting.
Right.
All right.
Fine.
If I have a meeting, that puts me right in the middle of the whole damn thing.
That's right.
Do we want to be in the middle of the whole damn thing?
Just fine.
That's the whole point.
in view of the fact that the layers have already moved.
I can see the advantage of doing it if we had moved on the whole thing.
And if I don't do anything, how will you turn off Rogers and Layard from going up to Seahawk?
I'm not going to.
One would be for you to meet with the big five and tell them that you're going to get the documents.
Another would be simply to send them all a letter within the next several hours saying that to them.
Another would be for you to meet just with Mansfield and say, I understand you're going to have a select committee, and I will turn the documents over to such and such a house, I understand it to be.
And then I will turn it over to a group like that.
The whole purpose of this, of course, was to appear somewhat outgoing.
And not to be repressing the information.
Now, in the light of the Laird statement, it would be my guess that anything he did at this point on either one of those would be pretty much an E2.
And he's pretty well still in the punch from both of them.
Well, his statement doesn't say anything about turning over the committee, does it?
It says he will meet with members of congressional committees who have demanded to see on classified basis the top secret study of U.S. involvement and so forth and so on.
All right.
Ziegler is going to brief this afternoon.
They're going to say what does this all mean, Ziegler says.
The Secretary is acting at the orders of the President, who has told him the following, and then Ziegler says that he has instructed the Secretary of Defense, first of all, to set up a declassification review process of these papers, and the Secretary will be doing that over the next 90 days.
Secondly, he has instructed the Secretary to take the necessary steps
to make the papers available on a classified basis to the proper committees of the Congress for their review, recognizing that they've already been compromised and whatever your case was going to be on it.
In other words, instead of the president meeting with the leaders tomorrow morning, forget about where the president is going to meet tomorrow morning, he's going to say, do these things.
If instead of doing that, the president now in effect says, out of his mouthpiece,
I have ordered the Secretary to do this.
That will ride for tonight's story.
Nobody reads wire stones.
People only read what the papers print or what the commentators say.
If you want to keep the president out of it, you have the opportunity to get, quote, well, as far as repression and all that sort of thing is concerned.
if they move on it.
That answers the question.
I really think it does.
I mean, who the hell in the Secretary of Defense is doing it?
There's not a hell of a lot of credit in this now.
They're just stepping in, for me, stepping in and declassifying these papers.
But you will have to answer the question
Oh, yes, I know you're not in the President's direction, of course.
But I'm not stepping in at the very highest level and bringing the leaders in and all that.
I mean, that could have been a fairly effective move if we wanted it.
I mean, it could have been before this happened.
But I think John is right.
I think this is too badly compromised, and hell, having a leaders' meeting is going to look like a major operation.
I don't think you should have the leaders' meeting, Mr. President.
I think we go to say what Bob said.
But I do not think that Raj and Laird ought to go up there this afternoon.
Let them go up tomorrow if they want to, so that your story is written.
for two reasons.
One, because of internal discipline in the administration.
This is just a power... Let me just say this.
Tell the president, because he's concerned about you, is the case being decided?
Because until this case is argued, there should be no consequences, there should be nothing.
And you just call Rogers and you call Larry and say that's the president's order.
that there should be no meeting whatever today, and they're to call the Speaker and just knock it off, because I do not want any meetings to occur while the case is being made.
As a matter of fact, Larry's statement should not have been made before this case was decided, because the statement compromises the case, and that's the only way to end it.
I know, but you see, by making the statement, it makes it appear what the hell is all the fighting now.
These papers are not going to continue.
The other thing is, is anybody entering your office, when will they get back?
I want to get paperwork on this for me.
What I really want to get at is, I've got to get at, get something out of this goddamn bureaucracy with regard to what papers are important.
That should not be declassified.
That story is not going to be told if you have the people who support us on that secret document.
Vaccination is secure.
That case has not been made.
Some of that right to have a speech for the son of a bitch you gave today?
Yes, sir.
You can, I think.
That was pretty good.
No, it's a speech that the U.S. attorneys are giving in both courts and gigs at times in pretty good style.
It's a pretty good...
But at least you got into it.
You got into it a little bit, not negating it, but the point is that there are papers that are... Oh, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
And as a matter of fact, very strong on that point, that the Times has documents that we don't even know what they are that aren't in the 47-line.
You know, one thing that's really pleased me is that I got a call from Chicago Christian.
I was right in line.
And they said that in view of this, they requested that I declassify all World War II documents and all Korean War documents.
That is to be accomplished immediately.
Like that.
Is that clear?
Also, they want the Bay of Pigs.
That's to go too.
And the Cuban Confrontation.
Now, if the only thing that's not to be declassified is something that is of the highest order involving all personal practice to be declassified, then we will not declassify anything that affects national security.
But all this horsing around, they're not going to declassify the stuff about what they think is a immoral war.
I'm not going to do the rest.
There's 100 million pages on World War II.
There's 75 million pages on Korea.
There's 25...
I'm trying to remember.
which stands about 8 million pages on the main page of the Cuban confrontation.
And it's not going to be declassified.
It's going to be declassified.
It's an old story.
And it's going to come out.
So we've got to get in some pros in here to handle this.
I'm going to quit screwing around with these bureaucrats.
First, don't even study the documents.
Don't know how to make a case when they have it.
And the rest, we've got to know.
It involves a source, it involves a helmsman.
It just involves, basically, whether some guy 25 or 30 years ago lied.
God damn it, it's coming out.
We've got to put a foot around this.
Coming back to this thing.
Harry is right.
We've got to keep the bureaucracy in line.
Larry, you're not going out there.
That's right.
It should not have been made today at noon for the same reason.
Let's put it on the basis that we can't do it.
The second thing is, I think Bob's point is correct.
Do you not agree that I don't think I should be the leader's audience?
I'm pretty sure I agree with that.
Why do I get my hands in this dirty, goddamn mess?
I think there's something to be said just a little bit away.
And all that, well, we will get the credit for being this.
But if this is Larry Mitchell screwing up things,
A lot of people think Larry Mitchell screwed it up anyway, and was certainly shamed.
Both have.
So they continue to screw it up.
Because if you buy their run, you get blamed for screwing it up.
You get blamed for their screwing it up.
I know.
If they haven't screwed it up, I ain't going to take the credit.
But they're going to bring it out rather than me stepping in and saying, no, I'm going to take this old bloody mess and I'm going to do the con.
I'm not really sure if they should go too heavy on this either.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Just understand that only those documents that are, that will not, that there are documents in this file that would affect the national security of the immigrants.
Those will not be released.
All there is that we determine will not affect the national security that are simply past history.
Pretty little.
Well, that's the policy that we're going to follow.
And say, next week, we'll win.
Next week, it's going to be World War II.
Now, Mitchell has instructed the Justice Department not to go forward with the Supreme Court appeal because he had an opportunity to talk to me.
So it's on dead center.
And you and he come in and talk to each other.
We've worked, I've talked to you in a great length, and he came around quite a way.
And my whole feeling is there is this, that it's just the fact that I, if it's in bank and that court,
Which is really, frankly, in many ways, as good as the Supreme Court in terms of quality.
Don't you agree?
Second circuit.
Second circuit.
Yeah.
I mean, the best lawyers in the country, you know, are these gentlemen.
They're good lawyers in other places, but the second circuit is a goddamn court of court.
Correct?
Correct.
If, if they rule, I do not see any reason to take it up to the Supreme Court to have those gadgets swirled around.
We're very likely to then make a term of law, and we may have a case, a better case, which we will handle and affect the Supreme Court.
And I'm going to talk about an argument in response to that.
It's going to look like we didn't do everything we could have.
to enforce the law.
Well, what's the answer to that?
Well, it's a question of popular perception.
If you have two district court judges knock you down, and if you have two inmate hearings, and you lose them both by seven to nothing, it's pretty ideal.
And also, you have this.
The view of the fact that this would delay further publication.
That point is a very important point.
Delay for the publication.
We have decided to go forward on this.
While courts have now spoken, we believe that a judicial test was done.
We've adequately presented the case to the courts.
The courts have made their ruling.
And as far as this particular matter is concerned, there is no precedent for the future.
Chances are that tonight at this dinner is about when this will come up and have to be decided.
And Mitchell will be there, so it would be a fairly easy thing to get him disposed of.
I'll get you some talking time for Alexander.
What?
For Alexander.
Well, I don't mind.
I don't think it's useless.
That's all.
There's no reason for me to talk to Alexander.
It's just that the railroad in Europe collapsed right now.
And we might sell it for something.
You got a lot of robins working here.
Yep.
Coming on to this, I understand.
We got, you're all set then.
I agree with that.
I agree with the procedure.
I would, in the secret announcement, make clear that we'll declassify, the procedures will be in line with the January 15th order.
We're in view of declassification, not we are declassifying.
It's not a new thing as a result.
Laird's got to be repositioned on that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And with Larry, I have, just frankly, the president was shocked.
I've already got rather damn shocked because the attorney general's got a case in court.
And he's not the one.
Well, it's worse than that.
Because I had his personal insurance he wouldn't do.
It was at 9 o'clock this morning.
And, uh... What the hell?
I went to call Rogers, too, and I said, how's he doing?
All right.
You told me you had your personal insurance, and I didn't tell you.
He said,
We're going to lose the case, but goddamn it, we've got to at least have a semblance of doing things in a hard way.
Well, the President specifically asked Rogers to consult with you, counsel you on this thing, that he was uniquely qualified.
I talked to him at 10 o'clock this morning.
Well, has he told you that he's going up next?
I don't think so.
All right, that is important, and there is no appeal.
If they want to resign...
That's damn good, too.
Remember, John, those World War I documents you told me, the World War II documents, the Korean War documents, the Bay of Pigs, the confrontation government.
I want to get Houston back in here.
I want a small group of tough guys.
And Hague and his people, they'll be fired unless they do what I say.
God damn it, they are not doing what I said.
We're going to do it.
Call me right away.
I've got Frank Shakespeare.
I've got to hold his hand.
So call me right away as soon as you find out.
Call Rockridge first, then Laird, then do it.
That was a perfect way to do it.
Yet, the stage was set absolutely right.
And it's a dainty, politically, strategically sound hell of a good move for us.
Let's dunk the goddamn markets.
Fill the markets with classified documents on the World War I wars.
And let everybody sort out all these goddamn wars.
and start talking about other wars, and how the government was about getting into war, rather than just talking about this one.
I think it might help the country a lot to realize that things haven't gone downhill so much, that things in that area are pretty over the line.
Oh, yeah.
I don't care who it is, but they try to get along with people that don't have to be shot in the ass.
Well, it's true.
Huh?
It's true.
This is his name before he died.
Yeah, we can close up on that if you want to get it to be covered there.
I'll get it over with.
It's the one time we were keeping kind of clear of the press conference.
I don't think I've got a true repeat of what the hell is Gideon's own thing.
And I know it's frankly a funny concept.
But...
He has the idea that I'm to sit around the parlors afterwards with winning groups to get their advice.
Well, I need advice like a hole in the head from that bunch.
I mean, they don't know that much, Bob.
They're, they're all bright guys, you know, as a country.
But Don Kennedy's there, so he'll stand half all around the Mideast, and somebody else wants us.
I just don't know what the hell the purpose of the meeting is, but it's gone.
It's a different kind of group than I expected.
Now it's been expanded.
Well, you asked him to expand it.
Yeah, I didn't want him to just have some of the stuff that wasn't there.
The people he's got, he's got every one of them on the basis of the commitment that that guy understands the point of what he's enlisted for, which is to carry out the need for, you know, carrying the Nixon line externally.
whether he agrees or disagrees with us, he heard internally.
On that basis, I would suggest that, well, I think his format is wrong, if the idea is to talk afterwards, because I think it's very important that what you do instead
And I think you've got to do it because it's your thinking then.
The guests will have to send their email and read comments in order to encourage a free interchange of ideas.
The guests will be encouraged to sit down and develop a dialogue with you and your ideas.
Now, that's the underlying, I'm sure, of knowing who monopolizes your attention.
But Christ's sake, if that's what, I don't know, maybe that's what it takes to get them going.
I think that's the way it works.
I don't think, I think the way it would go, in my opinion, is that you would do the little
You can tell them some of the things you said to other people about what we have coming down the road and this kind of stuff.
I want you to appreciate their commitment to the cause, and you recognize that each of them individually is going to have certain areas where he's going to have disagreements, but that we all have that, that our understanding here is that we're going to unite in our outward front, because our overriding problem, then you get into the, you know, so you'd rather not have family assistance, but would you really rather have your welfare program instead kind of thing.
that they're mobilized as purely a political army.
Speaking of the fact that some of this administration spoke at the job about it, they must have had it began.
We simply have to, I'm going to drop that thing down the tube, if I can get over, you know what I mean.
House separated from Social Security yesterday.
They did, yeah.
Which may give you a chance to grab it better.
Maybe they'll drop it.
They may, yeah.
So the House will go with votes on either one?
Apparently.
They moved yesterday to separate them.
I think you should talk in that vein to the extent that you can and then you should adjourn the dinner on a high note.
And let them go.
They've had briefings this afternoon.
They've had, and in this column they said, I think you should not talk then.
The problem is, in my view, if you go back into the park and sit down, then if you've gone up to the peak and you start filling back down the other side of the hill again.
Some of them, I would be able to let each of them, all right?
So, I mean, get Pete to arrange four or five.
And then I'll listen to that and talk a little.
And then about the economy, raise some concerns about this and that.
And I'll try to summarize it.
And I get the hell out.
You should, you should deliver.
I just don't feel it.
I mean, I feel that I'll meet them all, and I'll have a little forehead to see them, and I'll sit with them.
And God and I have to sit with them, so I'm not at one table with them.
Let's put it all, let's put them all at one table, not round tables.
Oh, I don't care.
I think you're right.
I think that's the way to do it.
The difficulty with the round tables, I've got to talk to ten out of two people.
trying to remember tantrum of things.
The letter is probably going to be incredible.
Yes, sir, it is.
It has been on other son of bitches.
I called the Secretary of the Army.
It's partly our fault we let it get away with too much.
Let's just get to Henry's point.
He knows he can get away with it.
The son of a bitch just, he does that.
He looks you right in the eye and says, oh, I wouldn't do that.
And he goes out and does it.
It's a hard kind of guy to deal with.
Rogers, when did you know him?
Almost, yeah, I've never seen Rogers.
Well, if he, he must be being kind to this and not realize it.
Because Rogers wouldn't do something like this, I don't think.
Well, I'm meeting with these people who say, you know, I really ought to be received.
But nevertheless, while I'm meeting with them, the one problem with regard to the Supreme Court, I think, which has got to be drove into more and more courage, I think, is whether it appears to be quick.
You know what I mean?
It's got to be put in
So it's got to be handled in a strong offense that the idea that the courts now haven't spoken at this level, that we do not want to delay the publication.
So we are proceeding on the criminal plan.
That it will delay the Supreme Court hearing.
You know, it would take two years.
It would require too much.
The courts have clearly spoken on this.
So they've got to think a little about that.
I couldn't believe my ears.
I didn't think you were going to talk to the senator.
So I said, I understand it's done.
Apparently he didn't take no for an answer.
They never quit, you know.
They have these meetings and they... McGregor always tries to give us the cool facts.
He never tries to... You know, their accounts have been almost flawless.
Except on that one where they thought they'd swing some guys over and they didn't.
In a sensitive way, really.
Yeah, I know.
We didn't expect that.
That was screwed up there.
They played it.
That was, you know, he...
His count probably is, it's lost, but he probably figured there's six guys that we can shift over and we can do it.
But it kind of hit the... Don't do me a lot, getting back to this point, I...
I may be wrong, but I...
But that is not the way for me to step in in this case, to call in the leaders.
Yeah?
and to say to them, we are declassified, and I want you to turn over to them.
Why should you call them in?
That is not a big deal for you to do anyway, to call them in.
Yeah, well, what I'm getting at, I think that I can take credit for the declassification.
This is being handled at the Defense and Justice Department level, and so...
Even if you hadn't, if Blair hadn't, all you have to do is have Zegras say, the President has today ordered the Defense Department to carry out this process.
That's the headline.
And it will be, if he says it this afternoon, that's what will be the lead tonight, is the President ordered this down the track.
Blair, second lead.
Or if the Defense Department makes him carry it out.
You've got to analyze this poll in terms of, you see what I mean?
The way to analyze it, Bob, is in terms of here are three points we should emphasize.
Right.
Here are three points we cannot sell.
In other words, let's just put here are two points we can sell.
Get my point?
You've got a very, very strong, or you get up to 70% on two treasonous questions.
Just put the thing that way and put them on the other side of that story and don't have anything else said.
Can we get people to do it that way?
Just make the one point for change.
I said, I want you to stay in with this fellow Shakespeare.
I can move him out in terms of when I have to go to the next meeting because I, I mean, I might, frankly, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to,
They didn't talk about it.
This is the most useless trip a man ever took.
You know, I never saw each one of them.
Boy, they really were good.
They were men's staff.
This is Sir Jeremy's staff.
That boy had a TV.
The rest of them didn't even see him.
I didn't need to see them.
I talked to Dallas.
the damn thing, anyone there to talk to me about it doesn't know anything.
Or unless there's a security mess line, we'll tell what's going on.
And, uh, we've established a pattern now.
We can tear that pattern off.
No more.
That's right.
This is all this.
The noise is out of here.
No cameras are going to report any more trips.
That's going to stop.
That's why I said no more of this.
Getting Bob Anderson decided about the... it's too bad.
Just have a canal, a treaty thing.
He doesn't want to be the ambassador.
Fine, get somebody else.
But Irwin knows about it.
Rogers knows about it.
I accept their decision on it.
Period.
I want to hear about it.
Just give me a... give me the paper.
I'll sign it.
I'll thank you, even if it's just a shovel, of course.
But I must not get involved in that.
I want you to ask McGregor whether he feels that this co-founder is more of a loser than somebody else.
You see, the crazy bastard has hit me every meeting he's had.
Don't let him in.
Don't let him in.
John Goodman's sick on Mel.
You know, telling his brother.
Yes.
John's right, too.
Why the hell do we beg a cabinet officer to beg his pardon for telling him to do what he's told?
You shouldn't say the president has decided that.
And any honorable man, Mel feels that you're wrong.
I think you're wrong and I'm going to do it anyway.
You shouldn't say I agree with you and then
Turn it right around and do it.
On the other hand, how now do we follow up with Albert and the rest?
You talked about reclassifying the papers.
I am not going to have a meeting.
How is this going to be done?
We have Blair and Broncos have a meeting with him later.
after the court thing is done, and then you limit your instruction.
We say from here, you've asked Secretary Laird and Secretary Rogers to meet with the appropriate Hill people to work out arrangements for making the documents available on a classified basis to the appropriate committees, pending the process of declassification.
What are you going to have?
Are you going to have the Army Chorus sing tonight?
Would that be a good idea?
Have a song at the end?
I don't know.
Well, I really don't think so.
All right, go ahead.
I don't want to make it very early in and get all the hell out of here.
It's just, I don't know.
I think people should understand that I think that the little, I know he's figured out that little tenth of tenths is not the way I, not what I had to know I am.
I don't know if you can get one of them on that.
That's the other one.
Yeah.
Yeah.