Nixon, Mitchell & Haldeman on National Security Council

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Okay, good.

Looks like you got a little fun.

I didn't get much, you know.

Yeah, it's exciting.

I think so.

They're being received well here.

Puts the rest of us a lot of work.

We're going to run out of water.

He's pretty much a Catholic.

Yes.

A lot of work.

I really can't stand to see it.

I can't wait about this time.

Oh, it's fine.

I'm sorry to interrupt you at this time, but I did.

Oh, my, thank you for your help.

I appreciate it.

Well, you know, I'm seeing two guys tomorrow.

So, uh, I'd rather let them do this one.

You can go ahead and do it.

I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

I'm going to let you do it.

I'm wishing you the best of luck.

I don't know what it is.

All right.

11 or 1135.

I see that the carriers have stolen them from me.

Because I train them all in the field.

I served in the ADC.

I've been working as a president, I'm not about to run out of ideas.

I don't know.

No, please.

That's all.

So we, I think we're good now.

I wanted to see, uh, what other findings that you saw.

Well, we have a tale of an incident we're doing, and, uh, we have a funny balance.

Good.

Uh, I mean, I'm glad you found out.

You found out something?

Yes.

We found out more than we thought we would.

Good.

Jack Ramsey ran copies.

Actually, four days now, including today.

Well, I'll get, uh, excerpts of the top secret documents from all that now.

Uh, and, uh, they're all from CIA tax channels.

What is the CIA tax channel?

Uh, what's it mean?

Yeah.

Well, liberal votes from Western meetings and so on and so forth.

Uh, first...

Our, we were aware that we got frozen young this year.

And through Dave Young, who's being married right now, and he's not working for us on these same projects.

He's done a really good job.

His wife is against food refrigeration.

He's quite mature for a young fella.

And he's quite mature for a young fella.

That's a great place to train.

It's important to understand how they found these documents.

They took the documents and they were able to pinpoint that there was really only one place in the whole fire department where all of those documents were available.

And that was here in the Joint Chiefs of Staff's office in the National Security Council.

And there are only two men in that office, one's a hacker and one's the owner.

So they began interviewing both of them.

And they photographed both of them.

And the owner, obviously, was the guy who knew Jack Anderson.

And there was Jack Anderson previous Sunday.

His wife and Jack Anderson's wife worked with Marvin and friends and were doing things together and so on and so forth.

He had been staying in India for two years.

He knows strongly about India, Pakistan and things.

So there was always an opportunity and access.

And I ask in the name of God, do we have a yoke and a nexus of God?

Well, he's the key man.

He is the fellow that types all the mentons and the random conversations.

Everybody in the case travels with Henry.

He traveled with me.

He didn't go to China.

No, but he went to Indonesia with Irving, Vietnam with Hay, and did all of those things.

So he's been right after them.

He's been right at the crux of the scene.

Now, he works for the Staten Old Law.

You'll see some people stand by some of them.

Before him, there was a Captain, a Navy Captain named Elvis.

This fellow, while being a polygraph, was asked, among other things, if he knew that any polygraph was going to go into his feet.

And he has refused to admit it.

But, in the course of the chronograph, he was asked whether or not he had ever spoken with the doctor.

And the goal is to get them out of the way.

But the question was, as if they were saying that he was going to have a big blip on the program.

So then they got it back.

And what the technique is now is that I'm very curious to see how you probably see it.

Well, you get immersed in the subject matter.

No.

He went up to the investigator and said, you know, you've got a lawyer here.

The whole line is going to be done in about seven minutes.

I've got to say something to the lawyers while you're on the counter in front of the road.

The interrogator then doubles back.

He says, now, you have bad reading on the hologram.

What other documents?

And the guy goes down the track.

And then he says, I can't answer that question without the permission of that gentleman.

Well...

So Dave came on the phone, and he called me up.

And he's got me to talk to this fellow, and I want you to tell him everything he knows.

So then it all came out.

He has, under the express directions of Captain Browns, and under the implied approval of his successor, the FBI, he has systematically stolen documents of Henry's briefcase, Hayden's briefcase, people's desks, any place and every place in the NFC apparatus he can lay his hands on, and has duplicated them and turned them over to the Chiefs through his boss.

This has been going on now for about 13 months.

Apparently so.

I don't know.

I suspect they may be working on a nine-channel basis because after this came out and it was reduced to writing by the interrogator,

Young was advised by the interrogator that he was going to be in some trouble with his experience, and that he was going to have to exit his report to leave that material out.

We got to know who was Young.

R.R.

Young.

R.R.

Young, hold on.

The steward, the interrogator, the investigator, kind of went, we don't have any material.

And we have an unaccompanied version of the report, so we do have a blank point signed by me right here.

But you ask me if Hayden knows, I don't know if Hayden knows.

But if this thing runs through the farm, I'm glad to believe his radar is seeing this up by now.

But this guy is necessitating and duplicating and turning over his own people's lives on that.

Not only the, well, I'm going to have to read you the list of what it says, but it's Henry Snow's Inside the Political Dome.

I'm going to go ahead and cut you off.

Well, anything and everything that might be in the possession of the state, maybe 80 months of those, maybe up to 800, and 13 months.

13 months.

Convinciency plans, political agreements, group movements, behind the scenes politics, security conferences going on between our government and foreign governments, etc.

Now, immediately that week was covered in this.

What does that mean?

It would have been Thursday or Friday.

I think this came out Friday.

Well, this is Tuesday.

Oh, I'm sorry.

You were working.

Oh, we were working all last week.

Go ahead.

Now, as soon as John advised me of this, I stopped.

the defense department interrogated him and sent him over to talk with John.

And he and I talked today.

It was his feeling that you ought to know about this before we did anything further in this case at all.

We ended up working on this with the eyes of perhaps getting into play with him, Jack Andrews.

that was hidden in our original film.

Then it developed, of course, that this guy is this sailor that prepares the storehouse of information of all kinds, that he reads and retains everything that comes through.

He testified that he knew about Henry's secret negotiations with the North.

It made sense.

And it came up in the road and he responded to the question.

And now this guy, I don't know if he's court-martialed or if he's given the community a witness against him or something of the kind.

We don't know what he'll do.

He's been a terrific friend.

He put in for a transfer right there, which was denied because he was a human being.

Now, keep the room.

Keep this.

I'll get you out of here.

He didn't give these lines.

He said he did not give the subject.

Oh, yes.

Oh, he did.

Oh, yes.

That's right.

You talk to the cops about this.

You talk to them about it.

I don't bring that up.

I just think, man, there's a couple of things.

I'm sure about it.

I don't know.

And, you know, he turned his head over to me.

And it's a word that comes up to today's topic.

Yes.

And there's going to be a next call coming up.

No, no.

Now, I certainly am proud of him.

It's the fourth he's left to go to.

I'm very proud of him.

You may have heard about him, but he is the, there's a whole thing about the 74th.

Well, you know, this may be, if you did speak to him, this may explain some of the way in which that happened.

I don't have any doubt.

It's a lot of things were compromised.

I told him that we thought we knew.

This is the only city in the West Indies.

No, it didn't happen because you've got to get a city in the West Indies.

They keep debating those, what everybody says.

Literally, it is all written up.

And they don't have all the access to it.

And he has access to everything.

St. Antigon, NFC, everything.

And he had some Xerox sensors over there, if there's any questions now.

As I said, we started off on an Anderson trail.

We were slowed down by the fact that this guy was obviously very hot.

Then we got this dumb chief's angle, and so we shut the whole thing down.

And the guy is obviously talking.

We had him standing by at home for further interrogation.

We had him, I think we had him tapped.

Do we have him tapped?

No, you don't.

We don't have him tapped.

Can you put him up or something?

This is a little bit like trying to catch a shark, and then you can get some line.

The Joint Chiefs, the liaison office, is over here at EOB, and it's right in the NSC complex.

It's pretty obvious that this kind of problems, who Dave got to tell me on the first day Dave came to work, said, Dave, I'm really, you're going to be here as a Pentagon.

You can trust me entirely.

My job is to get you all the information out of the Pentagon.

Turns out that he is in fact a reverse agent working for the Pentagon inside here.

Now, that office is equal to me.

It's not just equal to Claire Prestain as it is to the sub-secretaries, mighty citizens of the NSC.

John has suggestions on how to proceed in this that I think are very sound, and I agree with this one.

Well, Mr. President, I'd like to point out that this thing goes right into the 26th section.

Undoubtedly, they've noticed that one of the participants was just a real gunman.

So the first thing here, and we'll cross the line.

All right, we'll keep going.

I agree with you, but let's take it from there as to what this would lead to if you pursued this by way of prosecution.

or even a public confrontation, you would have the Joint Chiefs aligned on that side directly against you.

What has been done has been done, and I think the important thing is to paper this thing over.

This way, first of all, get that liaison office the hell out of NSC and put it back in the Pentagon.

Secondly, to get a security officer into the NSC.

Well, I think that whoever goes in there is going to have to ride not only on the rest of the staff, but on Henry.

It turns out that one of these most important memorandums here that Henry had was lost, and somebody just handed him another copy that shouldn't even be handed to the company.

It just came out of the paper.

Now, with respect to

the Joint Chiefs, you have to get, in my opinion, this guy and the weather the hell out of there by way of a signal.

They can transfer him to Coca-Cola or India or wherever they want to transfer him along first with this government.

And I think the best thing to do is for me, and we'll leave Laird aside for a moment, but for me to sit down with Tom Moore and point out what this game is that's been going on

And it's the end of the road.

The liaison's going back to the Pentagon.

If they want to, they can call them over here.

And there's a security quotient going into the MSC, and this law game's over with.

This would, I think it's necessary to discipline this admiral who's been involved in this.

I don't know what to do about Robinson, if anything.

Where is he off?

You see that thing he said there?

He said, go back and read this all, and you can't go anywhere.

I mean, you've got to reach the end or something.

You know, the military, you know, and there you get the money.

I mean, all these colonies, they can't get by without a problem.

And, you know, it's like saying, you know, we live in, we think, you know, something.

I don't think that the actual thing, the animal, or Robbins knew he was doing this to him, but it's not about that.

Who?

Both Robbins and Waters knew that he had a social relationship with Jack and me.

That's what I know.

I don't think you've got to go with Victor's office.

No, certainly not.

They wouldn't be suggesting he put out the whole story of the fleet that went into the Straits of Malacca at the end of the day.

This guy is panicked.

This young man served in India.

He married his wife.

He did.

Well, in addition to that, it was something that Anderson would obviously know what he was doing and how he was working and just push things until he got it.

I mean, that's the first thing Anderson showed me.

Yes, that's the only possession of these stocks.

You can prosecute enough of the publication, but for the possession, I don't even know if we need to buy that.

But if you start opening up on Anderson, assuming you did make the case, turn this guy, get him on the Indian soap line, then the Lord knows where this is going to lead you.

Yes.

Because he's going to come out with a story where I gave it, or I didn't give it, or I didn't do well with it.

And he's had all of this, and the Joint Chiefs, and all the rest of it.

We're going to blow the Joint Chiefs right up to the Pentagon.

You're rooting for the Pentagon, right?

It's like a rupture in your relationship.

And there's some...

I'm afraid they didn't listen to him.

about this operation.

I'm not sure if he would have known the operating scene until I entered the room.

I'm not sure of that.

You see, Hank took this guy and he did not want him.

And he was the close confidant.

And I think they really hate him.

But I suspect that since this father had tested him, probably he's been back now to say, we've got a problem.

And even if that's not what I was in mind, but I don't know that.

But I don't know that.

I'm just surprised.

Because there's all kinds of people, you know, fighting each other.

Fighting each other.

There's a Mormon, as you know, and so is Jack Anderson.

And it's parents.

He wouldn't do it if he'd gone.

You can, but I'll break myself, because when the pressure gets on him, he's going to go right up through the channels.

I have lost more sleep than most on what to do with this guy.

And I have finally come to the conclusion that you can't touch me.

And how we can't fight it because of the current changes, right?

The current changes, the military has done a lot of work already.

We cannot have it.

And also, we can't have it because we're still out there, so we're not scared of them.

We don't know what they're going to do.

And I want to thank them for it.

We can't do the job.

the right content, do his I.T.

He doesn't do anything for us, because I've never done anything for him at all.

Bob and Ray have always said, we need to do something.

He's always been saying, they need something.

They might be able to do something, but they don't need to do something.

They don't need to start a propaganda group.

But the secret is that we'll become legalists.

We have to all come together.

I don't know what the relationship there was long after he came down.

What transfer did he put in for?

Undetermined.

Was this because of his marital situation or he wanted out?

He's been moonlighting.

He's $6,000 in debt.

And he's been working in the car nights, evenings.

He's got $200 in the bank.

And this is a very slick guy.

This is his house.

He said he's got a sandwich.

I have a soup.

Like you have to have something.

Now, I don't know what to do with this bird.

But, uh, my inclination is to recommend that you not do anything of a pain in the nature to make it for a favor.

It's a lawful law.

I agree.

My inclination is this.

I give back to, uh,

I don't understand either of the two.

I would agree with that.

Oh,

What about Larry?

Larry knows about me.

He gets to call me and say that he needs to start a new plan.

So I can see him trying to get a new plan.

He doesn't know me.

that any cooperation we require with the county that we would have, there are also layers of other things that we have to do.

You know that county, the person who goes to that person, the general person they go to, he's a layer of his range, he's a layer of his own.

It may be that the fellow's own blind spell is in him, but it's truly that he's got to remain a student for the time being, so he can do that.

But it might be that he put out a spell that ended something, and you're taking him on other than him.

That's right.

You don't know.

He certainly didn't answer.

He didn't answer.

I have to prepare.

Now, I don't know what Don is doing, but Don's the only guy who might get turned.

Find out how much they've written down.

Don, you need to find out right now.

So, you know, I mean, my two people, so sorry we're back on with the military agent and all that shit.

And he just doesn't, he just doesn't, he just doesn't.

Then I would think, oh, we're going to have to do you wrong.

We're going to have to belong to the club.

We're going to have to lie quietly and wait for something to stop.

And I would lie quietly, but...

Now, Zumwalt was involved.

Zumwalt was involved.

You don't agree?

No, because this will be a confrontation that I don't think you need.

Well, all right.

But I don't want to confront it upon myself.

You know what I mean?

It's the God that did this.

He's the one who did it.

He did it.

That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

They were aware of the fact that if anyone had questions, all they could not be able to say is, wait a minute, we have a man here.

And the minute they saw that he was getting stuff from his students' briefcase, then they said, we just can't be like that now.

We're getting him under crisis.

He's reading somebody else's mail.

I guess I'm coming out of your briefcase.

I came off of mine.

It didn't happen that way, of course.

The other thing that happened is that

The subject stated that this practice began with Admiral Robinson, who instructed him to keep his eyes open, flipping him through this theme, and he should first, Admiral Robinson, whatever information might be of value to support the liaison function of the onlooker.

But as his main eyes opened over at the EEOC on his limb, Admiral Robinson insisted he did this practice under the supervision of Admiral Wilder.

He stated that Admiral Wilder never directly instructed him to take the documents, but he had accepted them whenever they were provided by the subject.

And he was actually identified by the person when he had stolen the flashlight and turned it all the way around.

And he said, you know, you can see more around, so I picked this up slowly, and it just fell.

That's how it went.

Right.

That's what Cassie knew.

That's what they all had.

Well, I think that there are a lot more subjects to study now.

At least, I mean, several subjects, but I'm afraid a lot of subjects are already gone.

He says that he is only taking stuff home.

How did that come out?

On a polygram.

It came out all right on the polygram.

I think you can understand that if he had any stuff, he doesn't possess it now.

Because he's smart enough to know that with an interrogation going on, he's got all this stuff up there.

And he doesn't know what he's got.

He knows all this stuff in his mind.

He's that smart?

Yes.

He's very bright and very precise.

I handled his interrogation from what I hear.

I haven't read the transcripts, but he handled it just the way a convict would.

I took a right-footed point.

Very cool.

Well, this is all circumstantial.

No, I didn't do it.

I'm here to answer your question.

I'm still here.

Of course, he's been under interrogation for three days straight.

Well, he thought it was real.

It was involving the other people in this, but he didn't realize it until he opened up the door to the school.

And no longer was asked about this.

He refused to respond to the interrogated questions, saying that he had a personal and confidential relationship with Emmett E. Stewart and General Tate, including responding to those kind of questions.

They must be told that my house is open.

We must be told to enhance that.

Don't let them get off the hook.

Either one.

But God, let them think.

Let them think and decide whether they can put it out without the other people too.

Let them.

And I'm not just trying to be a defectioner.

The rest, the leaders are there and blaming the wrong people.

I would grind it right in.

And I don't want to have a race that's being played around.

You understand?

And John has got a candidate for the security officer in the United States.

Yeah.

No, I'm trying to sign it.

who set up our security operation when we first came here.

He's in Colonel's Air Force.

He's been doing totally well.

I'm glad that we can identify him and get him up and put him to work.

Then we can get him to Secretary of Defense.

That's the whole point.

And his secretary had any qualms about turning the Pentagon inside out.

He had told me right then he wanted to work and he got the goods from this guy for the Germany.

And we got rid of him.

And he just ran and rushed out of there and made the vote about the assistant secretary.

So I think he would give us a call.

It's all bothering other people.

Why don't you hear me?

Well, he was running after him.

Oh, I mean, oh, his tongue.

It's like there is an Air Force officer.

who was here in the White House when we came in as the president's men to look at all the intelligence overall and see who was doing what.

And he came in, wasn't he?

Certified too by Don.

Yeah, he was hiding.

He was hiding.

The guy was gone, right?

Yeah, he was out here.

He was out here.

Why not?

We can do that.

I would do that.

But I would, uh... No.

He virtually can find help, because it's a two-hour call.

So he won't be borrowing.

Well, we can go up to H-1.

He's smart enough to determine that he would be a CD.

He would know that he'd be counting.

He'd know that he'd be counting.

But why do you talk to Mrs. Henderson on the phone?

And you may have incoming calls to indicate that we're interested in the problem.

I definitely might just get over it.

They're very smart.

Why can't you be dumb enough to make a call?

That's exactly what I'm saying.

There are a few things.

I don't know.

We need to find out.

I just want to get this work on.

I've got to see what bubbles up.

You don't have to think of it.

I think that Weller and Roberts are the ones that have action taken against them so that the word gets out.

and the more it would be charged with doing that.

It should be done, but I mean, how do you do that?

Well, the minute you do that, the ball game's over, and then you go to the security of the NFC, and that's the end of it.

We'll see what I've got at all in the future.

I mean, it's not a good security risk.

A lot of good security there is the way you run things off.

Well, we're all kind of lost monsters in this thing now.

There's a glee man who takes us in this place.

There he is again on the four of us.

And one of the questions they asked me was whether or not he knew jackass.

No.

Do you know anybody who doesn't know jackass?

No.

So, at the end of that, he came back over here, he went in to have a walker, and said, Sir, I think it's my duty to report to you that the woman on the jacket is my mother.

I was his lawyer, leader of the service, so you can expect that from some of them that are close to his house.

Well, not until you're ready to move against Wellander and whoever else.

I think that's it.

because the important thing in my way of thinking is to stop those Joint Chiefs of Staff operations and to buck up the security over here.

And if Laura has to order Wellinger off to Kokomoa or wherever it is, what to do with Robinson, I don't know, then they have taken recognition of this.

In fact, they're admitting to this operation.

That's great.

I'll be at the Fiesta Bowl then.

No, I'm inclined to think that there may be, uh...

That's why he fucked it up.

Well, Robinson and Wellender, these are the two culprits involved.

When you go back to the way the scenario reads, where this yeoman was told to keep his eyes open and get whatever he could, they are the ones who are responsible for this.

And the question is, two questions are, number one,

Where do you put Laird in this?

Do you consult with Laird and tell him what you're going to do, or how do you handle Laird?

Or do you just go to Mora on your behalf?

Go to Mora on my behalf.

He has to direct me to Mora.

I'll tell Laird, Laird, I'll screw around with him one way, and he'll blow.

I'm going to go right directly with that.

And I will consult him as to what we do, and I'll talk to him.

He's going to have a little talk about it.

Now, what do you want done with Willinger?

What do you want done with Wellinger other than kick him out of the EOD?

You want him transferred out?

I agree.

Those are the only other hard things to be transferred out of Washington to the Arctic.

The main thing is that it can be done for the reason that

He has to know that he's got his son, his sisters, and his babies.

That is wrong.

I mean, I just think that's wrong.

Do you agree?

No question about it.

But the whole concept of having Ms. Yeoman get into this, their instructions to get this stuff back to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is just like coming in and robbing your desk.

The thing that this trial is saying about this is that they'll do that.

What else do they do?

Military drivers and military people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We all do this all the time.

Well, this isn't this, but everybody's done enough.

If you, if you call on a reason, that's what it is.

If you mess with it, that's what it's all about.

They said now, you're gonna tell us everything you hear, and we're gonna mess with it.

And they had a tradition, you know, they'd find people back in the Jets, and they'd say, well, what do you mean?

And that's all they've done.

They've walked you guys over, and you're trying to fall straight for it all the time.

I don't think they'll fall for it anymore, but they say they will now.

Now, don't they lose it?

But it's just taking the confidence in all apparatus.

Why don't you want me to start on this?

Isn't that conflicted?

I think it might be interesting to see what happens.

You just say there is a criminal offense of the highest order here, and you have reported it to the President.

The President says you can't discuss it.

And the Attorney General is happy to hear it.

You don't worry.

I don't think that's indicative.

What about telling Henry that Woldenberg refused to cooperate on the grounds of his first relationship with Henry and that Henry is to call Woldenberg and dissolve that relationship and free Woldenberg to testify?

That's right, exactly.

Why don't you tell Henry that?

Tell Henry to adjust that much directly.

Now?

Well, I'm not in the position of your investigating system to block any investigation this time.

I don't want Henry to know.

John, what about the

We don't know what the hell that security officer over there is doing over at the Knife Clash on the record.

Why not have Martin come over and go over and interrogate Weller?

All right, good.

So when you get through, let's go back to the Yoma.

The best of my recollection, I do not remember.

I think this Weller thing is good because it's going to get it right into the middle of the junk juice and say it.

There's nothing in our relationship that precludes you from answering anybody's questions.

Well, let's let this sit a while and then we'll take a look.

I'll get it up early tomorrow.

Good.

And that will put a bomb in the church.

I don't know if that's how to put it, I think.

I wish I could sit there by myself.

Okay.

Good luck.

Thank you, Michael.

Well, you're really good at things.

That's right.

Nixon, Mitchell & Haldeman on National Security Council

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 21, 1971

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