On August 11, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and Ronald L. Ziegler met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:53 am to 12:51 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 561-008 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Very much so.
I had him in this morning.
I had an idea of a story we have that we might want to put out.
I think that he ought to call, he ought to call both Saxby and Taft and Dalton too, which is probably a good jump for the government.
We would appreciate their support of this action.
We would greatly appreciate it.
Now he is the one who,
Both indicated they both would advise us.
They both told us not to have that.
Yeah.
Maybe it should be done by Greg or other than that.
What do you think?
Well, I think they've both been talking to Mitchell.
I'll talk to him, see what he thinks.
Yeah.
And say, look, we want to, if he wants to, we can hand it down to a congressional leader.
It's not where these people could call.
Oh, I see.
Maybe at that level.
The other thing is, you put out another story that day, which was telling the truth to me that we might put out the...
Right.
You know, it's a song that speaks out to people standing.
Right.
It's a story about our declassification order and some of the...
Okay.
It's covered.
for World War II, Korea, and then I would just mention 11 in the Eisenhower administration.
And then the Cuban, the Cuban incidents, just say the Cuban incidents in the Kennedy administration.
that these are among the major historical incidents that are now being examined for the purpose of declassification, that they will be declassified and that the President, that this is a long process and that this part of the recommendation was made by the group we set up in January for declassification.
And the second point is that they will be declassified and then except for those items which might jeopardize sources that currently are in our field of use and except for those items
that would, it might in some way, imperil current negotiating positions with nations around the world, current negotiations, or imperil our relations, our relations with governments, other governments as well.
Now, then I go on to say, it might be a few years, maybe a little bit, a few months ago, I was on the track record with the president, and now, the record is over, as we know, it's kind of long, and the president is also working on a new declassification system.
I was on the track record with the president.
a person that from now on, there can be no discontinuation of off the record sessions with newsmen.
where any classified material is revealed.
This is not done.
It is not done.
It becomes an antagonism.
But since certain speakers have made the decision that they will make the judgment,
as to what is or is not, may or may not, a terrible national interest, and we do so without regard to the bail-in, even worthy of whatever demonstrations or objects that we cannot run at risk.
Second, that we
that we are far over-classified, and that it's like a battle.
If you try to defend all points, you lose if you defend none.
So what we're going to do is we are currently limiting the classification to what really matters.
And we are also sharply limiting the distribution on those matters.
And we're, so that we can do a better job of defending what really needs to be classified.
And that's the other, because we feel the other materials should be made available, available to the press.
The firearm materials should be made available to the press, the president.
And we may call it, and maybe we may call it nothing, because we actually know it's only where the national security is involved.
And you could say, like, for example, the arrangements with regard to the presence of Strictly China.
That's a very good example.
I can't even put it in this jargon.
The question may arise, well, what about the story that affected the Strictly China ?
What we're referring to is the very simple fact that we have the guarantee
security prior to the time that the final decision was made on each side to have the meeting.
And this wholesale revelation of documents was made.
The president had to go the extra mile to make it so that at least the Chinese would know that he
even where his political interests might have been surveyed, by having these documents out, that he was going the extra mile to defend the security system.
And that concern was expressed, it was expressed in the U.N. account, by a number of governments throughout the world, including, interestingly enough, a number of friendly governments to the security of their future implementations involving current negotiations with the United States.
Can I say, uh, that as far as this is concerned, the lead that really did this is not the background story.
It's a goddamn state department story.
They put out the ambassador's story.
And the ambassador's story is already mentioned in the back of the story that Henry Dishonor had to take care of.
Not personally his fault, but it was some of the patient's son.
That story, we got a message in the back, so we thought some other reason to do that, to cover that.
I see.
And is the timing such that it could clearly be said that our prosecution of the New York Times case seeking the injunctions and all of that was directly related to that effort of reassurance?
Yes.
that there are some very sensitive that there are very sensitive negotiations this administration in its year of negotiation competition cannot succeed unless we can guarantee the security of such information uh this is true of friends i use this example with the congressman they understand even with a friend it is essential with an enemy
or one who has, one who is not, but it was a potential opponent.
It is indispensable, because the first element of trust is to be trusted with regard to keeping confidential the willingness or the ability to keep, and this is particularly true of countries like the Soviet Union.
and the Chinese, where they have absolutely no problem on this, where there are beliefs.
You know, for example, despite that Joe and I have had a part on this interview with Preston, that Joe and I have talked about a number of things, but he refused to disclose one iota of the conversation.
You know, just a gentleman, so have I.
And you can find that out on the paper.
He said that it's no serious and very surface-read about that.
He's not sure about the situation.
So we...
But the other thing is that the President believes that, are you sure this, that our, that we, that we have, that it's our...
It's our token or, can you say, our...
It's our earnest money.
It's our earnest money.
In fact, there is some here in Laquette.
To our friends and allies, we are having sensitive negotiations in a number of areas where we must, people must be assured that their confidential information cannot be compromised.
You could say that now there's some other graces coming up in the next month or so, including this one, and people need to go into them, but they aren't like China.
They're not that important.
And now that you say that, and as far as the President is concerned, one of the reasons that he's had so many good constructive
And probably, and if your president's the most, forthcoming conversations with heads of government, like even with Dutito, Pichetto, and so forth, if the president has a rule, which he did with great reluctance, if the president refuses to debrief anybody on his meetings,
He makes a record.
I mean, he has obviously a record for his own purposes, but he doesn't.
But he, unless I disagree with the chief of state, he's had conversations with 75 chiefs of states and heads of government, and not once has anything ever leaked from the president with regard to that.
But I must disagree.
that it was to be put out.
As a result, our conversations brought firing in and prepared the way for arrest.
And they'll say, well, what is this just a secret government?
What about Senator Wilson's open comments?
Well, if you read that, you've got a very good answer there.
You can say, well, I wonder if you gentlemen have ever read Colonel House's explanation of that.
Colonel House said President Wilson was not naive to make the negotiations took place in the press and everything was open.
what he meant was that there should not be secret deals, that is, there should be, whatever, there was a treaty, there should not be, and he said, ultimately agreed at, there should not be, the ultimately agreed at really referred to a private deal.
You see, privately agreed at, which supplemented or made possible the open covenant.
So we must have open covenant and also private, and understandings, of course.
And that's what we're talking about.
But there, they, that you can, in negotiations, as a lawyer, the relationship between individuals, the president being the lawyer, maintaining the confidential relationship between attorney and client is essential for successive negotiations.
in the south of the recent steel and railroad controversy.
The fact that we kept the president, both the labor and management spoke to the president with complete candor.
And either that or the reason is they knew they could trust him.
This is the president who can be trusted.
He knows that they know he can keep it secret.
Now, if the president had gone and not gone all the way back to the extent that he did to protect the security of these documents, even though much of it should be declassified and so forth, it would appear that
It would raise a serious doubt about whether he could be trusted in the future.
in talks that he must have if negotiations are going to have any chance for success.
And basically, John, this is the total truth.
That's the reason we had to do this.
It was to prevent it.
It was to put every foreign leader on notice that I, by God, was going to fight to keep things, fight for the system.
However, having said that, the president had already begun long before the Pentagon leaders came up.
He felt things were over-classified.
He felt that a lot of past history should be declassified.
So we're doing two things.
We're declassifying past history on the country, as I mentioned.
And second, we're setting up a new classification system where we classify far less, but do it far better.
And that means that we're not going to just say one of the things, and this will give you a little, you know, one of the things the president says he doesn't, he says as far as classified documents are concerned, they're no longer going to be put on the, you've got that information, what do you call it?
Zero.
No more zeroes.
No classified documents are going to be zeroes.
that there were no Xerox.
That is a classified document.
There will be a this high classification.
But the Xerox machine is a very useful machine, but it is not in the interest of that.
Yeah, I was going to say that in terms of the
How to protect it?
By protecting less, not only do you classify less material, but the president is working on a system whereby any information involving presidential initiatives, presidential initiatives,
will be disclosed only on an even-known basis to others.
And then we get back to this, and I want to sustain the firm sense of the officer.
Gentlemen, there's not going to be any record involving classified documents that that is a violation.
You see?
You can also say it's not.
I recently appeared in the New York Times.
I would use that as a good part of our assault position.
uh, caused great consternation in our SALT delegation.
And they said, we tried to find it, we tried to find it, we had not.
The president is damn well gonna make sure it isn't gonna happen again.
Uh, we do know quite a bit about that now.
I know, but you don't know who did it.
Well, I think I do.
I thought, I thought everybody... Yeah.
...asked about it.
Yes, they did, but analyzing the files, I think we can reconstruct exactly what happened now.
And it's the old story of a reporter.
As a matter of fact, three reporters who've got several tidbits here and there.
And finally, we know from the polygraph that Beecher called one fellow and said, OK, I've got the whole story.
It's this and this and this and this and this.
And the fellow very stupidly reacted and said, oh, you can't print that.
That's secret.
And then, of course, Beecher knew that he had it.
Well, just to say, unless the president has great respect and admiration for reporters that know how to get it done, there is nobody in this town, there's nobody in this town, I can assure you, that knows this game better than this president.
And it's just kind of a trick to a team that knows how to keep it secret.
And from now on, we are not suggesting that the Congress not support it.
the papers, the press, and put itself above the law.
Do you understand?
We just want, we just want to know.
You could be sure that where something matters, the president is now setting up a system where, I think a little of that is okay, again, that I know the game, I respect it, and I'm smiling a little, but the further it is from there,
It feels that it's irresponsible that the negotiation comes first.
And we're not.
We're trying to keep things secret.
We're trying to keep it more open.
In fact, the administration is trying to keep it more open with regard to classification.
Too many things are classified.
More open with regard to pass history.
But wherever the national security is truly involved, then we are going to be
do a better job, a more effective job, so that no publisher or editor or reporter is tempted to put himself above the law.
And none of you gentlemen, of course, and no editor wants to damage the security of the country.
We don't think at that time.
The president feels it's his responsibility to see to that temptation.
It's not what we're trying to do.
It's what we're trying to do.
Well, I think this kind of a story, but it does sound good.
Is there any planning for it to do it?
Oh, I think so.
I want to check and make sure that we're all set so that we'll be in position to deliver immediately.
You can say, Bob, you can say that it's done.
I just, I just, you can deliver.
You can say, you can say that we're planning to put out some here, some there.
Also, given the numbers of pages, that's very, very, very good stuff.
Well, I don't mean on the details.
On the pages and so forth.
Yeah, all right.
Well, on the new system.
I mean the new system, yeah.
But the presidential system is already in place.
The presidential system.
I'll tell you why I didn't place mine.
I'm not talking to anybody anymore.
You know what I mean?
I'm not going to go just here from now on.
Any favor of mine, anything of mine, it comes in here and then goes to the following people.
Eyes on it.
The president has already had a personal system of classification set up.
Just say that's okay.
Because you can say that in turn.
We're trying to set up an assistant department, which will be requested.
As far as the presidential administration is concerned, he has set up a new system, a different classification.
That will be the lead.
The president sets up a system where there will be no leaders.
How does he know?
Everybody, people know things, and I mean to know faces, and no debriefing.
The debriefing thing is no xeroxing, no debriefing.
In other words, no Xerox, no debriefing.
Everybody knows only the need-to-know basis.
President returns.
How's that sound to you?
That's fine.
That's good.
I think that'll be the lead.
That's good.
I think that is fine.
Well, I'm only thinking I ought to put a pen down here for a second.
All right.
Now, the other thing I want to ask you about is that nobody is guilty.
Yes, they are.
There's one man that I think is guilty of manifest stupidity in the State Department.
He came back from a two-week vacation, and he spent two hours with Beecher.
He's an assault man.
He's an assault man in the State Department.
He spent two hours with Beecher.
Excuse me, Beecher came back from his two-week vacation, I should say.
I've got it here.
It slips my mind.
But it occurs to me that this guy should be made an example of.
in some way, and it may be a 90-day suspension or something of that sort.
Well, we can do that.
We can do that.
What he did, he gave Beecher a two-week catch-up on everything that had been going on.
And one of the enormous problems over there, of course, is that the press roam up and down the halls.
All right.
All right.
All right.
Then, uh... No, I haven't ruled it out.
Uh, at the same time...
I have to go on the basis of the hologram, which indicates that he did not, in fact, touch on the contents of a specific document.
But...
At the same time, he gave Beecher the whole context for his story, and then it was simply a matter of Beecher and a couple of his associates picking up bits and pieces of detail here and there, doing some reasoning, taking a flyer with another man, and having their story confirmed.
But without that two-hour briefing, I'm satisfied Beecher could never have made it.
So they pieced together an hour and a half.
There's your reporter.
Nope.
All right.
Why is the President being so secretive?
Most people are on our side on that issue.
If it's national security, take half the history and we're defusing it.
But Bob, I'll tell you what's really on the security side, especially when they pick up on the Cuban stuff.
The Cuban incident, the cattle center, all the Cuban incidents will be put out now.
I just talked to Martin, and he's in Dallas.
And he's had a meeting with the mayor down there.
And Mitchell's asking to go down to Corpus Christi, which he'll do.
And then he's going to come back to Dallas and have further meetings with him there and see if there's any way that the federal government can get involved in that thing in a decent way.
Now, Austin, he feels that they've opened a very good...
They've got a good relationship now with the office of people, and they're hopeful we can settle it on a decent basis.
Good.
So I'll talk to him again.
That's not our case.
That's not our case, but on the other hand, if you get a non-busting plan, I was able to say the other day that the president has given directions.
I asked him about the bureaucracy thing.
I said that he has specifically directed everybody into bureaucracy.
that the laws should be compliant with, but that the law does not require busing, and that under those circumstances, that they are to search for ways to comply with the laws without busing.
I put it right that way, and that's the way it's going to be.
Well, now, some of our school districts in South Carolina have had a bus.
Now, they've granted Elliot Richardson's letter to Carl Allen, which says the federal government doesn't require busing, in effect.
And they're saying, well, gee, that's great.
If the federal government doesn't require it, why not?
We'll lay our plans aside now, and let's start over again.
So the Citizens Committee down there is all in a tizzy, and they're calling George and so on, and so we're going to have to get on top of that.
But I think we'll go through a phase here now where things will come unglued.
Did you get any questions this morning on the busing?
That's why I'm here.
I've got a number of questions on the busing, and I'm
made it very clear that the President is opposed to Russia as it is used in terms of desegregation.
I said that this policy is well-known within the bureaucracy, and I used the term bureaucracy.
And I said those individuals within the bureaucracy who do not follow the President's policy as directed by the President
will find themselves very likely approaching other assignments, and quite possibly outside of government, which got a big laugh.
But you see what they try and do on busing.
They try and draw you in.
Well, give us this.
What do you think will work in us?
Look, what we're talking about here is the law of the land, and many years this country has been going through a process to eliminate segregation, to eliminate the dual system.
What we are saying is that as plans are developed in districts, it's the President's view, it is the administration's policy,
that massive busing should not be the technique used to eliminate the toll system.
Well, it is one of the parts that it can be used.
It is not required.
And the plan should be developed wherever possible that do not require busing.
That's what I said.
That's all.
Yes, sir.
And that's what I mean.
Then they said, well, what if the court comes up or a district comes up with a plan that does have some busing?
I said, every district develops their own plan.
Many districts on their own use a degree of busing.
But I said, what the president is saying, that when bussy is used, would she be used?
to the minimum, the fairest minimum, because he doesn't think that you should put in buses and driven long hours across town going to school.
So I went through all of that, but I thought it would relate to what you're talking about here.
You may get some inquiries.
Morgan is in Texas, and he's going from Austin to Dallas to Corpus Christi and around.
Now, I said, too, that the president had sent out a directive
Yeah.
I'm what?
I'm stating his policy.
Well, you put out that statement the other day.
No, but I mean, I said that the president is senator.
No, Al.
Forget it.
I did.
I told Mitchell and...
to Richardson for their faces for an hour.
That's the rest of the two of us.
Well, I implied that there was a Rick Richardson.
The President has re-emphasized his policy greatly and verbally.
And they said, well, there was a commission report that Richardson was upset.
I said, I welcome the opportunity to answer that.
He was not.
I said, the Secretary knew the President's view on dossier.
You're going to get inquiries on Richardson's letter to the Speaker, Robert Brown.
So he came out the same side, came out the same side, makes the flat assertion that this administration is not in the business of imposing busing to achieve racial balance.
And that's now deemed.
Mark Hughes, that's good.
I said, are you on record to be on our side?
He's on record.
I used, I said, opposed to busing to achieve racial balance, opposed to mass busing to eliminate student system, opposed to accomplishing justice and desegregation.
Then they try to get into, you know, the moral issue.
I said, look, for many years, this country has been going through a process of eliminating segregation.
I said, which is the way the society perceives, not only legally but morally.
As the president has said in his statements, extensive statements, we're addressing this.
I said, when we talk about busing, you guys tend to overlap the issues.
Because the President doesn't approve us.
Then you attempt to draw the conclusion that he is against the elimination of segregation.
Well, it's the progress we've made.
It's what I refer to.
We've made great progress.
And that could have come down on private income.
It was not a vindictive reason at all.
I didn't comment directly on the Walworth State.
I said I won't comment directly on the Walworth State.
I said no comment.
And they asked me about a meeting.
I said, no comment.
And then they later on, after the busing thing, Jim Rotten asked me, he said, does the president still hold the view that the Republican Party should have a broad range of thought?
And you know, I said, the president, since he's very, since the time he started in government, has always said that we welcome a broad range of views.
Okay, I'll let you go.
Sorry.
Did he go to the... Did he go to the tall rock parlor?
He's in, I'll tell you the truth, Jim, he's in the... On Puerto Rico?
No, he's somewhere else.
Uh, Puerto Rico.
I think Puerto Rico.
Venezuela?
He's got a ranch in Venezuela.
He's got ranches all over.
Well, anyway, bye.
Well, yeah.
He knows the game, and they're developing new leads all the time.
They discovered that Ellsberg had some Beacons van and storage bins out in California, and he's got the FBI in there, and so on.
Well, the locksmiths are going to have to be called before a grand jury in order to break them down, and they'll be proceeding with that Boston grand jury after Ellsberg is arraigned out in California.
But the California grand jury is going to hear more witnesses this week.
Oh, they're still cranking.
We've got probably 40 investigators in the Department of Defense and probably now 120 in the FBI.
The FBI, it turned out, was not treating this as a special case.
And we had some real problems with Hoover in this.
He scared the death of this case from the standpoint of notoriety and criticism and so on.
And I talked to Mitchell about this on Friday, gave him a copy of Coach Mann's report, because we've got a way of getting him into the Bureau.
Sir?
Yes, he is a little bit, but he's now convinced that this would be a good time for Hoover to go or to announce his retirement.
And he wanted me to talk with you about it.
Maybe he's talked to you in the meantime.
Well, this was last Thursday that we talked.
That's right.
Well, Mitchell's feeling is that there's only one good, clean, surgical way to do this, and this is for you to talk with him.
that if Mitchell talks to him, Hoover will perhaps try and in-run him or protect his record or do some damn thing.
But he has such a sense of the presidency and such respect for you that if you say to him, okay, you're riding high now, the Bureau's hitting on all cylinders, you've got nothing to apologize for, you beat Boggs, you beat all these people, and now is the time to announce that next January you're going to sit down.
And then within a few days from now... How about the man?
The main thing is he'll have to choose his successor.
Mitchell is satisfied that it should be Pat Gray.
Well, I don't know.
He might.
He might.
He may have, although he has alienated almost all of the people in the top echelon of the FBI now.
He's... Brennan and Sullivan and all those people are on the outs with him.
and he's got a very bad morale situation in the top.
I don't know.
Mitchell seemed to think that Greg could go in for six months as a deputy and then move right up.
Well, I mean, between now and January.
He's using January as the hypothetical date of retirement.
That's right.
He talked to him the way I did when he first came up to me.
I said, now look, I'm not here to ask for a resignation.
I want to know what your plans are and what you think we ought to do.
I mean, you're all talking about this thing.
We've got another, of course, whatever I do that we don't, you know what I mean?
He's out.
Maybe you're going to be out.
I mean, I certainly don't want to run the risk of having to get driven out.
I said, that's my risk.
On the other hand,
Well, there's a rhythm in this thing.
Well, they may be after him before that.
You see, he'll become a campaign issue.
But he'll be a campaign issue.
And so as the primaries begin to heat up, you'll be hearing more and more attacks on him.
And then it'll become impossible from January on for him to go out with any saving of face.
It'll look like he's being thrown overboard at that point.
I would hesitate on this move until the new term, except for the fact that he's really kind of hamstringing the operation, because he's so sensitive of his press relations and his reputation.
So, uh, there's that.
Now...
Right.
I got your message on the discretionary money on the public service jobs.
And we'll send some of that to Illinois and New Jersey as well as California and Toronto.
And I've got, I think, I think, I think it would be worth looking at it in terms of total discretion, at least.
Most of us do.
I mean, a huge chunk of it will go to California anyway because it's being a major problem for other people.
It'll go there on the formula, say, with the 80%.
Quite a lot of it is going to California because of the incentives.
So the discretionary money should go according to the formula.
Most of it is California whenever we can.
That's all.
I'm going to have the boys in this afternoon to go over the numbers.
The Marty Anderson thing, I guess Bob has covered with him.
It looks like the best formula we can would be to make him a special consultant outside of the domestic council apparatus.
I think so.
And let him operate from that.
Let him operate.
Don't, as I told Bobby, shouldn't build too big a staff.
I don't want a huge goddamn staff.
He's like all bureaucrats.
He builds staffs.
But he can move around in that area.
He can, you know, talk to the budget people.
He can talk to the congressional relations people.
And I think his, his...
He would be a good fellow to just give the other point of view, you know.
Right.
He's just rather good to have.
Now that's a, that's basically a negative point of view.
And in all of this, we keep ending up with the unanswered question, what are we for?
Yeah.
And so I've got to, if we get some time, I've got some things I'd like to go through with you, either today or at another time, that...
that goes into the question of what we're for right now, what a posture is, what these bills really do contain.
And I think in terms of revenue sharing and the welfare reform and some of the stuff that's up there, I think it's important that you have a thumbnail sketch of what H.R.
1 really does contain now.
Because I don't think we've ever really gone into that so that you have a feel for what the elements of it are.
And if you have a half hour sometime, I've got a very quick
presentation that I'd like to make to you on that.
That's right.
Well, I've got an OEO strategy here that I'd like to go into space.
Maybe we're too far down the road.
Well, that's part of what I'd like to get into with you when you have time.
Let me just hit a couple of odds and ends that are sort of hung over.
You had a letter from a man a while back saying that he was taking training in San Diego and that there weren't any jobs for the fellows coming out of that training.
We followed through on that and there is, they are.
But those little things like that really are not coming in an awful lot.
You see, there must be, we probably get hundreds around.
Sure.
We have to pick it out of the file.
Well, it's a good one.
I just sort of thought that there ought to be a procedure provided when you come in that we do appear to care about.
But we, we have.
contacted these guys and would line them up with jobs and then it's done in your name and i think it's a it's a good situation i'm not sure you do i'm not sure you do but what you got is about a hundred sort of sort of upper middle technician type guys in san diego who think you're great at this point and and that'll get around that'll get around that community but it won't get any television and i don't think we want any um
Saturday night specials, these pistols.
Did you know that I spoke to the head of the National Rifle Association?
In the line over here, right.
And... Well, they're for it.
And I said, you've got to be for it, and I hit him off hard.
Yeah, well, Crow followed up, and they will support this Saturday night legislation, so he's moving on that.
And that's covered.
We're going to do it.
Yeah.
Incidentally, let me ask you, coming back to work, I've got a Dr. Chaffer's thing.
Don't you believe that this is a good thing to go on on, say, speaking of something that will, well, you don't have to overwrite, you can't say either.
There's a bottom end of it, you can't say that's what it's with.
Oh, that stale stuff.
I mean, and it's done.
Yeah, frankly, the two senators, two liberal senators, were probably six months off.
We could have done this for them.
I don't think it's all that important.
No, I don't think that...
The Pentagon paper thing, I just have a feeling that's a gun issue to be hit right now.
We've waited a decent interval.
Now, crack these people and crack them very hard.
I think it'll make my story.
Yeah, it will.
What day?
It might be better around Thursday or Friday.
As I said, Friday would not be a good day.
We'd get very... Thursday... Let me check, see what else is going on around here on Thursday.
All right, you do it again.
I'll get with your scheduled fellows here and speak very briefly with Henry.
Don't take his word for it because he's tied up with a lot of other things.
He'll say let's go grab a rock and roll.
No, he's been pretty good on this.
He's been on this leak business.
I mean, hold on to one job, but I mean.
This is what I would have said at a press conference, and I would like to get that story out tomorrow.
You're not going to have a press conference this week?
No.
Okay.
Good.
It's an actual monetary thing.
I don't want to talk to you about that.
Right.
Because I don't want to trap somebody, and I don't want to do something else.
Yeah.
Being in this intelligence business a little bit in connection with this Ellsberg thing and others, I'm beginning to get stuff flowing to me.
Good.
The CIA bootlegged to me a memo that they had written a while back on the subject of the compromise of intelligence by government officials.
And it has to do largely with Laird's statements about SS9s and with Rogers' statements and so on.
They wrote you a very...
kind of impassioned plea that something be done about this because our intelligence gathering capability was being compromised every time we indicated that we knew this and that about the Russians or the Chinese and so on and so forth.
We've gone back to them because they sent us five or six pages of leaks itemized by David.
We've gone back and asked them to catalog every leak
because obviously they've been keeping track.
Every league that they can identify, since we got here, and we're going to try and trace some patterns in this thing, if we can, because they can indicate by date who in the government put this out or put that out or put the other thing out.
And it may be that we can construct some patterns and some identifiable patterns
sources from some of these newspapers by the people that are putting them out.
But you should know, if you don't, that Helms is very, very concerned by the tendency of some of our, not just cabinet, but sub-cabinet people
to compromise his intelligence, and he felt that you were not getting his message.
There's another way to go on this, and that would be in the NSC to talk through the use of intelligence information for political purposes.
obviously in manipulating the congress and so on you have to indicate some things but that there should be some clearance procedures so that if laird is going to tell scoop jackson something that it's logged in in some way and that a failure to do this would somehow or another be a breach of your of your instructions and and subject to some kind of some kind of uh admonition
Jackson, it turns out, was one of the major sources for this Beecher story.
And Beecher is a regular caller up there with Jackson.
Now, I talked to Laird about this briefly, and he said, as a matter of fact, Jackson sometimes knows more than, not more than Laird does, but Laird gets up to give Jackson a line on something and discovers that Jackson is on top of it and knows more about what's going on in Salt, for instance.
then he opted.
This is the kind of thing that's really helpful.
Somebody in state, somebody in defense.
He has his own sources, and they're very good to him.
So anyway, I just wanted to identify that.
I say something in the NSC about it.
It may be that you should.
And it may be something you would want to talk to Henry about as a, as an NSC activity.
Well, why don't you do that?
You talk to him.
All right.
About the talking point and a directive.
I think we ought to get an S amount on this.
That there be an intelligence clearance procedure.
And that's to go right down the line.
Incidentally, be sure to follow up that little plaque that many of the friends of us tell them out here.
We're going to say that we are deep.
They know that we're deep-classifying, and they are working on the system.
Oh, yes.
Classifying less.
Opposition.
And also...
And just as far as the presidential prosecution, they ask you what it is, I'm not going to discuss it.
How does he do it?
I'm not going to discuss it.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
There is a need-to-know basis.
Uh-huh.
Which is the damn truth.
We just don't pass any papers around.
But you said there's two rules he follows.
One, no debriefing.
Talks only to principals who need to know with them.
And there's no debriefing.
And second, no censoring.
I think that's a nice little touch.
That's the way the system works.
Only the principals would need to know.
He talks only the principals would need to know.
On our property review board, Mrs. Nixon is going off to give land away.
Arnold Weber is leaving.
He's been chairman of this property review board.
We have to designate a new chairman.
I don't know what your plans are for Rumstead, but he's on that board, and he would be a logical, he would be, I think, the most logical of the bunch if that fits with your other plans for it.
Well, we want him to be here.
If my plans are, he's willing to stay where he is.
It's a roving assignment.
Oh, that would be a good one, then.
All right, fine.
You'll know.
Ben, as far as OEO is concerned, uh, we're trying to work out, uh, a strategy on OEO that will preclude the necessity of your vetoing anything.
I see.
And, uh, if we can, if we can pull it off.
That makes the issue.
Uh, makes the issue.
I'm not interested in getting rid of it so much as I am interested in having the people know.
I understand.
Okay.
Well, that's, that's the direction.
I don't care what the hell happens.
What we would do is Continue to spin off these operating programs change the name of it and We will do this by legislation Which we would introduce?
And that would make the issue.
And there would be a fight on the floor.
We could come out, take a position in support of this thing.
Now, Cui is being a little bit reticent about this whole thing.
Well, he doesn't make it quite fit in.
He was one of the ones that fought to renew OLEO the last time around and so on and so forth.
And he is, on the liberal, he's left the center as far as...
Those fellows are concerned.
So if we can't get him to do it, we may have to get somebody like Divine to do it.
But we'll get the... That's it.
Okay.
Then we've got a Mexican deputy over there, Mexican-American, who I'm having checked right now.
And if he hasn't stolen anything lately, we may suggest him as director of his site.
And...
See how we get along.
It's terrible.
It's terrible.
I was in Denver yesterday, and I did a little press, and I also spoke to the federal people, the federal executive board and the federal council.
Who?
Yeah.
He's in place and got a lot of mileage.
Western.
It's good.
Great.
Just great.
The trouble is he's given the star away.
He meets with Love and these guys that comes out and says, I'm going to back Colorado in their fight for more federal appropriations and this kind of stuff.
But the idea of having a department headquartered in that town is just, boy, that's really great.
You don't have to think of anything else to do that.
See, that's the way you see.
We need all those mountain states.
And it's like our stuff that we're doing in the agriculture.
Well, why don't we move hard to Kansas or to Nebraska or someplace to set up the Department of Agriculture for a month?
And I don't think it would have to be in the summertime.
In fact, I think there might be some advantage to it not being in the summertime.
Well, should it not be in Congress?
Yeah, yeah.
But particularly if they were to adjourn the 15th of October, we could take the position we're going to wait until after harvest
and move them out there and give some visibility to our concern about farmers.
Let Pombie and those guys go to Rotary Club.
We could get a new manager for agriculture.
That would be a way for him to start.
But other than the interior, agriculture is the one that lends itself best to...
Beyond Marlboro.
Regional.
Regional approval.
Anyway, it's a good gimmick, and they're well set up out there.
They've got a good schedule.
He's going to be all over the place.
He is a good choice.
Yeah.
Well, basically.
That's true.
That's true.
But Roger's got some of the same qualities as Bill.
Yeah.
And he kind of enjoys, you know, he stands around out there and talks to those guys.
going to little bitty towns and Indian ceremonies and stuff like that.
It really covers the territory.
It's physical presence.
Yeah, yeah.
Even on television tonight, I was out there, and it looked very good.
Well, I've got this other stuff, and you've probably got a lot to say.
I've got to talk to your shoulders a little.
And on this stuff, what...
you why would you like to go over what do we do well no i i've covered oeo enough for now i think here's what i've got is just a a rundown of the space program and the near-term decisions that you've got to make there and the considerations the whole business of revenue sharing where we are where we go and where we go from here welfare reform its present status the pluses and minuses and decisions that we need to make over period the next few months
And finally, this whole business of pollution and how we find some easy issues and how we capitalize on those, how we duck the tough issues and get some political mileage out of them.
I don't think that that's even an upfront issue.
How about the whole field of education system?
Well, there again, there just isn't that.
These are the ones that we see as being immediately in practice.
I'll see you later today.
It doesn't have to be today.
I'm honored to put this all in the context of the big play that we may have to make.
Well, it seemed to me that in order to make some of those decisions in the spirit that you were talking about last night,
that you have to have a little feel of what not only the cost, but also what the political costs will be.
And that, I think, we can get a little feel in here.
And it's important for you to, I think, be able to weigh what happens if we say we're going to have to put revenue sharing on the shelf.
for a year, or what happens if you say, look, we've been thinking about welfare reform, and we think maybe that we were on the wrong track.
We ought to do it this way instead of that.
Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you how I played it in this Q&A yesterday.
I got a question on welfare reform, and I said, well, you never know what the Senate Finance Committee might do.
And my guess is that the way this all may come out in the wash is that there might be a compromise to be worked out where something like the House bill is tried across the country on an experimental basis for a while.
And then if it proves out...
And the Doubting Thomases in the Senate could be satisfied.
Then we might see it coming in in a nationwide application.
Here's what we've heard from him again.
It's like the, uh, you're not moving the federal pay raise from the market.
Oh, yeah, that came up yesterday, too.
And that is something that shows us its responsibility.
Yes.
Well, for example, that's also part of the package.
That's right.
And the federal, and what we do there is say, well, I'm going to postpone all that.
I've got a lot of
on advancing, you know, this restraining of pay, the increase in grade.
And I said, well, it's just a question of a shortage of money, gentlemen.
It's just too long and short as that.
And a tendency on our part to pretend that these salaries are not paid with real dollars.
So that, you know, until he's been there, she's a good old secretary.
Mark, let's suppose you had, let's suppose you had this, I discussed this with the council, this idea of a wage price-free business response.
I think you'd have one hell of a case to postpone.
Cut everything.
And go on the television and make a blood, sweat, and tears speech.
Say we're not going to ask the wage earner or the small businessman
to take any kind of a freeze that we aren't willing to impose on government.
And so we're going to freeze social programs.
We're going to tighten up all across the board.
We're going to freeze salaries.
And let's see if we can keep this country on an even keel.
In six months, we'll give ourselves that chance.
Hey, Mike.
No.
I have a personal goal.
Sure.
I have a right to consider it.
I'll write it in three months.
But that's if you were to do it.
I'll chat around and see what's going on in Percy.
And I have a feeling that it would be a very good time to start a crack at you tonight.
And you're the least wild, sir.
You know, regarding this thing, I have a feeling, too.
I think the press is going to see what's going on.
I think the fact that they
The only thing they see now is Ellsberg personally.
That's right.
My point is, the press isn't saying, well, the administration made a great error in this case, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and why did they try to suppress it, et cetera.
They're goosey about it.
Yep.
Now they're goosey about it.
And I think this is the time.
Dan Ellsberg is going to be the keynote speaker at the National Students' Congress in Denver next month.
And McGovern and Bayh are both on the program.
So I read it and it must be on.
I don't think after this certain experience that he was killed.