Conversation 593-006

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We know that, right?

I agree with that.

I'm 100% with you on that.

Being asked, Mrs. Dahl, how many have heard of workable mistakes, and she's all caught up.

Well, she's pretty darn smart because she doesn't waste time on these things.

How do you mean?

Well, when they have this type of workload, a lot of these judges will sit down and write their 30-page opinion.

You don't need that.

What you need to do is dispose of the case, and that's what she's done, basically.

There are some areas with some issues where she has written.

more mature opinions on the subject matter, where they needed it.

But the idea is to get the word.

Right.

Most, if we remember, justice must be swift and, according to Holmes' rule, it also must be predictable for recent justice.

That's another thing about, that's the great, that's the terrible thing about the law, according to me, it's not predictable for the House of Presidents anymore.

Right now, you can't advise the House of Presidents

I know.

I'm sorry about that.

He's going to have to do it.

He won't do it until 72.

What his plan was, Mr. President, as of yesterday when he walked in, was to deliver to you a resignation that became effective September 18, 1972.

The reason for that is that, of course, you can't go through this term without it.

Chief Justice.

And, of course, September would be the period before the new term of the court.

You see, the reason I had the point was that he then has resigned only because of one reason, because he's forthright.

And not this woman, but because she's a woman.

Uh, yes.

Does he have a qualified one?

No.

That's my point.

His letter of Wednesday says that, but there haven't been enough of them exposed to the judicial process long enough to obtain this statute.

The mutation has to take place, aren't you?

As long as he has.

More?

And the point is that he says, he bases his argument on qualification, but basically it is the woman who gets it.

And he goes into the argument, well, you should have a Jew and a black and a Chinaman and a Burmese.

He thought that?

Well, this is the argument as to why you shouldn't select a woman.

Oh, then you'd have to go to all psychos.

He's gone through all of this on the woman.

I'm sure you're very sure that that is the present purpose of it.

I assure him of that, and the track record proves it.

He's perfectly willing to accept the geographical requirement of the South.

But it still goes back to that woman.

That's the... We'd be better off having him resign now than September 72nd.

But in court, it would just fall apart.

The best thing for him to do is to take this at this point and then withhold his judgment until later.

And then he may decide that he has a chance to think about it.

This is why also, particularly this thing I love more, we understand it.

And you will know it until later, but don't you put yourself or this court in a position

Well, in addition to that, I pointed out to him that if he had these foibles and strong feelings, he would be in a hell of a light if he submitted the resignation as an alma mater, that he'd be a hell of a lot stronger not to do it, and to look at the situation, he can always resign if that's his problem.

Do you have any other questions, sir?

Greg, got any problems with that?

I never had any.

At least we got an actual study of it.

I think that was great.

I believe it's on Clinton's desk today.

If it isn't, well, we're just going to announce it anyway.

What he was hanging up with his wife without a chance.

He wanted her back before he did it.

She's back.

Is there a time to flip it out and do the other thing?

What's he going to base it on?

Basically, all of this...

newspaper business and so forth made it impossible for him to be effective as the head of the criminal division.

It has.

Well, it would if it continued to be an erosion.

The main thing is to get it out before they drive it off.

Don't let it get driven off.

No, we have a very able fellow who is a deputy over there, which we would appoint as acting and look at it and say,

This is a pretty hard area to get people in confidence.

Wilson was first class.

God, he traveled and pushed those strike forces in the organized crime field.

Isn't that a shame?

Deloach, do you have any good advice?

Deloach's advice, if you want, this is about Hoover.

Very simple and direct.

that the only way you're going to get rid of Hoover is to call him in and tell him that he's through and give him his prerogative, prerequisites, you know, the car and the consultants and this, that, and the next.

He says that Hoover, there's nobody, not Dick Berlin or anybody else that can get to Hoover.

He's been in the ivory tower.

What's his name?

Deloge?

Yeah, he thinks that Hoover ought to get out of there.

Why does he think so?

Because of what's coming.

He thinks it's that bad?

Yes.

And he talks to Hoover all the time about different things.

Hoover, of course, treats him as a junior partner, so to speak.

He'll call him up and go over everything and try and justify his own position.

Nobody ever has.

Thomas called me yesterday to say that, uh, one of the news magazines is going with an alert case of the FBI and espionage.

Time.

Time magazine.

And, uh, espionage, yeah.

That, uh, the Bureau is... Well, so the background of this is that Sullivan went to a couple of admirals around here.

and complained that Hoover wasn't doing the proper thing and that they, of course, put it in Novak's column as the basis of the Smith article in the Times, and now Time has picked this up and the new society is the one that's been after Helms and so forth.

That's the problem.

We just can't lose that way.

If we can't win, they drive us out, which they might.

You know what I mean?

It's out in the fire.

It pulls people down.

I don't think that the story can fight too big, John, because they got what he wanted to do.

We don't want to call him out.

We have to wait for more bills.

He is invited.

You know how he is.

You've got to go based on the rumors and so forth.

Well, this is going to get progressively worse, in my opinion, because they've got that report of that ad hoc committee up there, and you've got Sullivan out now who has credibility, although he shouldn't have.

And you've got people in that agency that worked under Sullivan that are going to be leaking this stuff.

I think it'll continue to escalate.

I think he should retire.

Plus the fact that he's getting paranoid, you know, about these things.

You probably notice he's writing letters to the editors and all the rest of it.

And he is getting senile.

You know, when you sit down and talk to him, he repeats himself and goes back into the past.

He's always up on that, but now he just doesn't, without knowing it, he's just

which is just too bad.

One time I... Is he 77?

He is.

One time I had him in my office, and he started to talk, and I looked at my watch.

He talked for 16 minutes and went all over Kelsey's barn without... 16 minutes.

16 minutes without an interrupt.

You were lucky.

I've been over there and had him model for half an hour.

without my doing anyone's work.

And then I went back and got the same thing.

He has a whole kind of groove that he gets.

The thing that concerns me about it, of course, is the internal operations bureau in our building to get stuff out there.

I've been through some of that material that Marty sent over here yesterday.

It's very interesting to see.

You know what happened over there yesterday?

They found that Sullivan had taken all of the materials of the whole Bureau where he, Sullivan, had ever been reprimanded or overwritten, overruled, and so forth.

And he had it all in a file.

They found it.

So Hoover went immediately to all of the supervisors and top people and made them sign affidavits that they had never taken any such material out of the file, but all of that material was still in the file.

Just an idiotic approach.

I feel very strongly about it, Mr. President.

But John says the Bureau is not performing in some areas properly.

What excuse do I have for... No, I didn't have my...

I tried to do it the other way when I had it at breakfast.

I didn't have the opportunity to do it the second time.

What do you say now?

What has changed?

Well, there's the Sullivan thing for one thing.

That hasn't happened.

Oh, that hasn't happened.

That's worrying, isn't it?

It doesn't... Well, I don't know what else...

It's got to worry.

It's got to worry to some extent.

What's really happened, I think, since, is a very overt deterioration of the internal discipline of that bureau.

He would never believe that.

He won't buy it.

He would have to put it on the basis that you become persuaded of it, and you're sure he won't agree with it.

Deloach has a very strong feeling to the point where he will put his ears on it.

that if Hoover has told that now is the time, and that if he gets his prerequisites, in other words, keeps an office, keeps a car, and chauffeur, and a secretary, and so forth, that he is so insecure about never having done anything in his life for himself, that these people can continue to nurse him along and so forth, and he can relate as a consultant to the FBI that Hoover will know

readily, because of his great fondness and relationship with you, that he would never puck something like that.

This is Deloach's heart convinced on that.

The best thing would be for the two of us to walk out before he's gone.

Well, perhaps the both of us can talk to him about it.

I don't know whether that'll embarrass him or not.

That's the only thing.

You know, he feels that he's on that level with you.

Yeah, of course.

Well, he's always paid great attention to me.

He's never fucked me, and he's done what I wanted him to, but he still feels that he's on that friendship level, and that's a great part of his life.

What sort of real nasty stories or busts or something like that?

Something like you said.

One of us, do you have this very high medal for civilians?

Not the Hoover, I understand.

Oh, I'm sure you do.

No, Delos tells me that he has never received that.

Well, it might be put into the pot alongside of all the rest of it.

I'm not sure that's the best way, Mr. President.

No, no, I'm not certain that his behind is the way you want to approach it.

I would think that the best way is to come down hard that it is a political fact of life that he is going to be a detriment to you in your re-election.

and that this, this, and this is going to happen.

It will tear him down, which he shouldn't be torn down.

He ought to resign while he's on the top of the heap.

And his continuity as a consultant and all the rest of it, rather than saying, here's your old boy and your...

internal security division is screwed up.

That isn't going to work.

He wants to go out as the big bureaucrat.

If you were to try and specify to him, that's just the base he doesn't want to go out on.

He wants to go out and do everything.

I don't think they're going to launch a hell of a jackpot.

I think it's going to be a, I think it's going to hurt you, and I think it could be a political life.

Well, sure, you can pick up that Time story, the Evans and Novak column, the Time magazine thing that's coming out there.

Yeah, so they can move on to what else?

Let's get a little of that, and sort of look at all those things.

I'll just sort of try all of them again.

I suspect that probably what you're going to have to do is say, look, this is a judgmental thing.

I've had to make the judgment.

I've made it.

You may disagree with me.

The Attorney General may not agree with me, but it's something that I've just had to... You must remember that Edgar Hoover has talked to the President and myself back last spring when he was under the heat to say that he would get out if it became an embarrassment or a liability to the President in his re-elections.

And I think that this is the thing that he's already on record on, something that he can understand.

He's got to go out and feel it, that he's still part of the team.

He's part of the team, and he's done it in your interest.

But the important thing, Delote says, this fellow is absolutely helpless, that we have to keep this staff over there.

And that's easy.

Yes, sir.

Deloach said that he has the worst pension in the world.

He's worth over two million dollars, but he still has the recreation association by his medicine and all of these things like that.

He is a fascinating individual.

One of the most complex characters.

How he's been able to survive.

But he's got a public sense of public relations.

That's the truth.

That's all he works on.

He's the greatest publicist in the world.

Well, listen, we couldn't leave you here doing the thing, Mr. President.

What?

Going to North Carolina with a million grand?

Yeah, that'll be heard around the world.

Yeah, now I've got to find a thing what the hell to say about it.

I won't say hell.

You got any ideas?

to tell him that he is the man who has been the advisor to all of the presidents.

You certainly would appreciate his advice, particularly the, uh, communication that he gives you from upstairs.

Yeah, I'll say that I've heard.

So, divine intervention.

You know, those are very hard things to talk about.

At least, we might have to do that.

I had to do it here, and it was mental, not mental, but, uh,

on the picture group.

Do you remember the conversation we had with Billy Graham on the Sequoia, where he is now attracting the young folks?

He says so, yes, and this is something I think the young kids, the Jesus groups and so on and so on, but he's brought our attention.

They're coming out for the thousands.

That's correct.

That's hard for me to believe, but they definitely do.

Well, this is a good subject matter at this time with this individual.

They are coming back.

It's illustrated by the fact that he's brought them back.

It's the one bridge across the gap.

young kids, young people can be saved.

You know, you have to realize this whole fundamentalist to Protestant religious saying that there's always an enormous appeal to young people in America.

They'd like to feel that they've changed their lives.

That's what Billy Graham's whole approach is.

They haven't changed their lives.

Particularly out in the country where the church is a focal point of the social life.

I don't get to thank you.

I don't know.

Uh, anything else before I start getting to the ground?

So, did Reese tell George that I'd left him?

Or does he still want me to look at him?

There's still work in the background.

He hasn't come back.

I don't want to be held up waiting for my signature.

It's kind of what they have to do.

It's terrible.

Did you sign the executive order?

No, I didn't sign that.

Now, from now on, as I said, on things that are routine, just use the automatic pen.

It saves me a whole lot of time, and also means a lot of my life.

See, I've worked out a scheme now that I've directed.

I say to you, I'm going to blow this up.

I'm going to blow this up.

I declare such and such to be national sclerosis.

the automatic engine to be useful.

So here's my signature.

Okay.

And that'll really burn a lot of these things up.

Well, Jesus said, come down.

And, uh, we decided to go to Camp David tonight and maybe have a convent and hold a meeting at the helicopter or at the other place tomorrow when we feel like it.

That sounds safe.

Yeah.

As we haven't stayed overnight here, I'm used to it.

I don't want to try to do it now.

And when we do call her, tell her that I had Henry Shaw word up and view of our conversation, work on some material regarding Sylvia's son that will be available.

She'll see if we can get her to have a shot of Gator Parade.

I'm so concerned about getting distinguished people on the court that can use my design.

I thought I'd do that in September if we didn't complain.

But I feel like I have to share a week's time.

But it's easy.

And I said, what about who?

What is his name?

And he said, oh, yes.

I said, at least his name was on the lunches Friday.

And I said, that's right.

And he said, yes.

And I said, what about him?

He said, no, I don't understand.

I said, all right.

And I said, he's got to be a man that says that no woman is qualified to be in the Supreme Court.

Just this one.

But no woman.

I can't believe he came to the main planet, but I don't know what's going to play that game around here.

We've got too many assholes around here in the staff.

You know, we would leave and we would come in and say, he's going to quit.

Yeah, Bob Brown will quit, or this one will quit, or the other one will quit.

God damn it, I'm going to quit.

We cannot have that kind of business that is, a person says he's gonna quit, he should quit.

Nobody's gonna walk into this office and say, well, unless I go to China, I'll quit.

Now, the Moss Factor thing, I just think maybe we better let Buzz quit.

What do you think?

I think so.

I think what's happening, I think Buzz has a social function.

And it's just too goddamn bad.

Buzz shouldn't do that, though.

See, Henry, if you get a Jewish guy, and he'll hang you for him forever, and that's it.

But I don't think we need to.

Plus, it's very helpful to Henry in his Washington social life.

And that's where the tie is, the parties here.

keeping up with all that.

But I don't know.

Maybe if he needed, I don't know.

What the hell would it be for if he didn't achieve the protocol?