Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on Declassification and National Security

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I don't know what the schedule is, but I don't know what I'm asking you to do.

I have a staff interview with Margaret, so I'm going to leave it to us.

And I'm going to leave it to you.

I'm going to leave it to you.

Yeah.

That's good.

Good.

I talked to Dick Allen, and he's sent in a, I don't know how to go out there, congressional, I mean, the declassification project.

It has some names.

One of them sounds like he'd be pretty good, and Allen says he would be.

To run it, I don't know.

I think it's terrible, I saw it.

I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, it may be easy to have a gap, right?

Because I think the idea of a global line at the end is probably a good idea to do this.

Common purpose, even being a brother to this guy, absolutely ridiculous.

I mean, it's the way of America to be number one in the world is for all Americans to become one of the people.

I suppose that's, that's almost like you're behind the plenty of the plenty on it.

I mean, it's the same kind of a,

It seems to me this is pretty good stuff from Andrews.

Do you think so?

Yeah, I read it.

I think it's probably not kind of enough solid stuff, but he's got some damn good, is it, the feel of it is, to me, is 100% better than the feel of the sound box.

Did you ask Andrews to come?

Yes, because he did and he worked in the, he used that as a base, one base for.

I wonder if I can get a copy of that.

Get a copy of my 1969 March device and put it in this folder.

Do you have it?

Yeah, that's the folder.

I'll take it over.

Well, he's got one guy that looks like he has a number of them, but the one that he thinks probably would be the best and who, he says, interestingly enough, is convinced there's a conspiracy and has been for three years.

He is, at the moment, the deputy general counsel at USIA.

We brought him in.

He's 36 years old, longtime Nixon supporter, worked for eight years in the tax division in justice, was moved over to USIA by Shakespeare.

Has a super academic credential of B.A.

and M.A.

from Notre Dame in politics and political science.

L.L.B.

at West Virginia.

Excellent political sense and very hard working.

Currently he considers deputy general counsel at IRS.

They recommended him for assistant A.G. at the tax division.

Basically a large agency in the U.S. Army.

He's documented the international stuff he says he sees.

the kind of guy you want and he has the convictions you want.

He's very bright, he has a very good jugular instinct, and is very totally dedicated and thinks he's been in the woodwork here enough that he knows what's happening in the woodwork.

The disadvantage is whether he really knows, has the scope and knows the people that you need.

I've explored back with Colson, the guy he

former CIA guy, and I raised him about, Alan doesn't know him, he doesn't think, he's not sure he is, and he might, and he said, that kind of guy might be better.

The guy with the CIA experience, the problem there would be he is known in the intelligence establishment, and he'd send out some waves, and I said, what the hell does that mean?

He said, this guy gets started, he's gonna send out waves no matter what.

And he said, yeah, that's right.

I still put down for consideration the possible pattern here and really put in the damn job.

I just wondered who should put Colson in charge of it.

And then putting in him and put him in charge of the team.

And for example, Houston.

I realize Houston is no good unless it's something that he really believes in, but couldn't you bring him in to put him in on something that he didn't believe in, you know, and say, all right, this is yours, Tommy.

And yet he's a loan operator.

You say you can bore him and don't come up for air until you can produce something.

You want to get a bold thing, you've got to do the declassification thing, or you want something, you want a thing, of course, you've got to do it.

In any event, he ought to be ordered back.

I just went through his files and he's done a dang good job on this.

He hasn't finished it.

He didn't do the last three days.

He says he's got all the stuff and he just didn't get around to doing it.

Well, son of a bitch has to have nothing to do except get around to doing it.

And I thought he had it done.

He just got involved in other things, I guess.

I think we ought to get him back.

I think, listen to that man, I think you need more than, I think you need a team.

This is a big job.

But you need a commander of the team.

And listen, maybe, Alan's fine.

Maybe, incidentally, Alan should not be the commander, should he?

All right?

What should Colson be when you come down to it, Bob?

Is he, are we, are we putting too much below him?

But what is, um, structure so he can get, he's got a lot of people working for him, I think.

Yeah?

And he's got good people.

His interests are particularly good.

All right.

I think we ought to consider this problem.

I think we ought to put him over here.

You know, I was on temporary duty for the purpose of working.

Well, the beauty of this guy, the CIA guy, is that QSIA.

Oh, you're talking about this guy.

Well, either one, okay.

Both of them.

The CIA guy, the fact he's working outside, we can just hire him as a consultant.

There's some merit to getting a guy from outside.

All right.

Good.

If he knows his way around here.

Good.

We can get this guy, too.

This guy, just get him from Shakespeare and bring him over.

Just have him assigned here.

I like the idea of a young bear captain who thinks there's a conspiracy.

I put him on the conspiracy side.

The CIA got me on the declassification side.

Allen makes the point of resistance.

He says your principal role is going to be with state, but CIA and defense are not going to be far behind in the declassification effort.

State, for some reason, is self-protection primarily.

Joint Chiefs will be against it as a matter of policy.

CIA will be concerned with methods of intelligence collection.

Actually, we're talking all about it.

I mean, he's talking about going way back to World War II, Korea, the Cuban missile crisis.

Allen's laid out a plan for how it ought to be done.

And I'm going at that.

There should be a little steering committee that is earlier than me.

And he says to suggest to the Attorney General, you know,

which I don't think you want, no.

And he says, perhaps a very trusted senator, if you could give him, like John Townsend, but I don't think you... No.

I think you've got to keep it inside.

Well, you can't take a car if you couldn't pay the price.

And I said, just to oversee it, I think you just... On the other hand, you could do the car for speeches and leagues and so forth.

Oh, yeah.

And he might be your bear cat.

He suggested that.

And the question there would be, would it be a political decision on John's?

or just whether he's up for election, whether that's what he wants to do or whether it isn't.

Oh yeah, he might not want to do that.

Another suggestion for a guy we can use him as who wants to and could be very effective in his own way is Eichhorn.

He is a Democrat.

He is chairman of the committee.

Which makes it the logic we've got to get into a lot of this.

He's just kind of eating to Eichhorn on the conspiracy.

He would want to, he would, he's a Democrat, he's going to pick on Truman.

No, no, I mean, it's not a conspiracy.

It's a conspiracy.

He had it believed in I-Court and let I-Court's committee call him in to testify.

Now, that's a very good idea.

I think the best thing, if I-Court is chairman of the committee, he's willing, the best thing is to have that committee resurrect itself and let it have hearings on this conspiracy.

And they'll scream that, well, we got this fellow Jaffe, I mean, I'm not Jaffe, but

and they're going on a conspiracy here.

You see, they pulled out all, they pulled all that stuff out.

And because it's almost like the period that, you see, with every addition to this case, there was stuff involved in all the others.

The strain was, we went after Nathan, and Nathan, what, John Abt, Victor Perlow, and Preston and the rest, was that they should be tried in the courts and not before a committee.

We kept right ahead, and we tried the bastards, and they all pled salt incrimination, and we're destroyed as a result.

Lesson, lesson, of course, with Mitchell and the rest of them, you never get it.

Actually, when Mitchell leaves as Attorney General, we're gonna be better off, in my view.

I think that, I think that, I think that, well, he is less than judgmental.

One thing about my piece, he has got more of an instinct for

uh, for the character and, uh, is less entombed by, you know, the price and the responsibility and all that.

And John just shouldn't have got a lawyer, you know, who's a good, strong lawyer.

He just repels him to do these horrible things.

But they gotta be done.

I'm gonna fight this.

Huh.

How can he argue that he should work backwards on this thing, that he should make no bones about it, that you're starting with the most recent war came back, go through,

And I says, go through the top and both, Dominican crisis, Cuban missile crisis, Berlin crisis of 61, Bay of Pigs, U-2, Berlin 58, Lebanon, Korea, Berlin blockade, and just walk your way back on the principal incidents related to all.

See, the Berlin Wall was a pretty good one to destroy.

That's right.

He says, by focusing on the episodes, you limit the scope of the work, which you need to do, otherwise it's just going to get bogged down in the morass.

And in the process, you'll uncover some other things that will be very interesting that can be handled on an ad hoc basis as you get into it.

He's talking about how you handle it potently.

He thinks we ought to announce potently that we're doing it.

The declassification thing is easy.

We can put it under the speakers.

Now, that would hurry them.

We could take a 50-year-old guy and put him in charge as a consultant of this whole group.

Of the group we have already in government, you see.

Okay.

So, Schultz does not, and Hodgson did not believe that that unemployment process

solely due to technical factors.

There are some substantial changes in there.

Well, they can't all be because that's six-tenths of a point.

It can't all be.

You know, we have a strange, you never know.

But there has been somewhat of a better feeling around, you know what I mean, and others come back.

I mean, things are moving somewhat.

I don't know if you have a feeling or not.

Your own vision for us, but people are not talking to us.

Very.

We can start getting out of that plane.

Just keep it below six for a while.

Keep it below six, period.

Yeah.

Well, it's got to be on.

5.6 is too low, because you aren't going to be able to hold it down that low, I don't think.

By the start.

Yeah.

It may go to five, I suppose it goes to five by eight.

But then, if we could approach five at the end of the year, that's all we want.

And then keep it at five, it'll be at five next year.

And that's gonna be terribly hard.

We could crack five at the end of the third, in the summer of next year, that's what we need.

I just told Hutch Schultz, the man in the government that would piss on these figures, the worst would be Arthur Burns.

Because he's just written a memorandum saying how the plunge was gonna go up.

He's really disappointed in you.

I mean, as do you.

Yeah.

I really think so.

I mean, this enormous ego, this puffed-up opinion that he has of himself, and the utter arrogance, you know, well, I've got to...

I think the rest of us didn't have to believe something.

I thought he'd step up to the big job and be a big man, but that doesn't happen, I guess.

He's not very...

He's concerned about his own position.

where he says he shared it.

But I know he's not very helpful.

What I'll think about the other people is, do you think there's possibilities in these things?

He thinks there's possibilities.

He thinks it's imperative that we go ahead with it.

He says there is a network through here that you've got to bust out.

He came up with one name for that word.

He said, you'll think I'm nice.

And I probably am, but there's a guy that would do a hell of a job of running this thing for you.

And he said, you might want to think about it, but you won't think I'm even serious about suggesting it, and that's Fred Russell.

He said Russell came to him two years ago, almost three years ago.

When he first came in, he was convinced to this.

He wanted nothing more than to get in the State Department and start cleaning things up.

and all this stuff.

And he said, I know he's a kooky guy with a lot of problems and all that in some ways, but he is also very tough in this area.

He knows exactly what's going on in his field, he does.

He suggested in the Congress, John Hunt of New Jersey is a guy to think about.

He's a conservative format guy.

I don't think Fred Russell basically has control of either.

You know, that's the point.

You couldn't work with him.

He's not the kind of guy you want in that way.

Of course this guy sounds the best in that.

Well, you see him and talk ahead of him.

Well, you'll have your meeting later this afternoon.

And I guess what I already have to know is what we do Tuesday.

John will be checking with Rogers.

You can meet with the others.

Here we can, sir.

Okay, now don't hear him.

You're absolutely right.

He'll write it out.

Pat, you may also be interested in this little business of leadership.

What do you agree to be the spot?

You can't.

You can't keep me.

I'll sit down there.

I'll sit down here.

That'd be good.

I didn't see.

Or really good accomplishment.

and that kind of stuff, which you don't want to get into.

But you could just stick your head in and say, you guys are doing a great job in the conference.

They're wise.

Bring me to a conference.

I don't think they have a good conference.

I hate it when it doesn't happen, I'm sure.

I want to be sure they're in.

I want to be sure they're there.

Now they're in there James.

I'll be sure.

Yeah, I think that's John.

Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on Declassification and National Security

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 1, 1971

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Nixon, Haldeman & Butterfield on Declassification and National Security

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on July 1, 1971

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Cite this conversation