Nixon & Agnew on National Security and Government Secrecy

2:45I don't do any concentrated thought making in there.
2:49You know, I have a farm along the side, sitting in a small room.
3:13I think it's the yellow pad syndrome.
3:19The reason I asked to see you is I've been very much concerned about, not our relations with the press particularly, but this attitude that they are apparently among others in the left.
3:40intellectual community engaged in trying to launch it.
3:45There is a right of the people to know what happens in government that transcends the ordinary and necessary diplomatic qualifications and the secrecy that a president must have if he's going to perform his arms.
4:01And I was thinking about the fact that as these Democratic contenders seize upon this
4:09method of currying favor with that it's going to be a recurrent problem to you and during the year and what could be done about it i came up with an idea i wanted to get your thinking on and advance to you and that is that since the courts have already said that in a couple cases that they are not qualified to judge what would be harmful
4:35to the national interest when they're faced with these problems of adjudicating whether the content of a particular document needed to be secret.
4:46Perhaps we can close off the whole business for ourselves by this strategy.
4:53My idea would be this.
4:54First of all, an approach to the ranking members of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate and House
5:04A. Barron Stennis and Margaret Smith and Meryl Aarons.
5:11To prepare some legislation that would do two things.
5:16Initially, the sweetener, which would be to clamp down heavily on the use of classified terms, which are outrageously abused.
5:24We've been doing some.
5:25I couldn't agree more.
5:28There's too much classification.
5:31Absolutely right.
5:32And second,
5:35and tightening it up to make certain that only those directly authorized by the president could make a document secret.
5:44Maybe we want to confine it just to secret, not to confidential documents.
5:49Now, in doing that, the next process, and this is the important thing, would be to state that it is not a matter for the courts.
6:04to decide whether or not the president properly classified the document as secret.
6:12It would be, if I can use a legal analogy, similar to slander per se.
6:16The only thing the government would have to establish was that the president properly classified the document and that it was improperly used by the violator.
6:27A matter of the content of the document, either as to whether the president was proper
6:34in making it secret in the first place or as to whether the violator thought in his good judgment that it wouldn't be harmful or the courts might think it wouldn't be harmful would be completely extraneous to the issue.
6:46It would be simply a matter of making a properly classified government document used unlawfully subject the violator to being found guilty of the offense without being able to use the content of the document in any way as a defense.
7:04And I think that constitutionally it'll stand up if we tighten up the procedures of classification.
7:10I think the courts would welcome it because they've already said they can't judge.
7:15One piece of information revealed by Jack Anderson, seemingly innocuous to 99% of the population, might provide to a foreign intelligence agent that one piece of a puzzle
7:32to blow the cover of an important operative or to reveal a plan that we are trying to conceal.
7:39And I think that with the kind of people we have on those committees, they're good, solid people and they understand these things.
7:48If we could get through a law of that type, there would be no more of this because all of the speculation about
7:57did the public have a right to know this particular bit of information, would become immediately irrelevant to the issue.
8:04The issue would be, did the president decide that it should be a secret document?
8:10And was it improperly and unlawfully used?
8:13And that would be just as in the libel laws, if you use certain terminology, damage doesn't have to be shown.
8:22It's a first day in time.
8:25If we could get that through, all of this problem for you and the future and for your successes would be removed.
8:31Now the question is, how would you proceed on this?
8:36What I would like to do would be very
8:53especially to discuss it possibly with, individually with these people.
8:59This is an idea I had that I might want to bring to you if they thought it might be,
9:06We have had, interestingly enough, the guy that was handling it has now moved to the Supreme Court.
9:15Grant was the charge of a massive declassification procedure, and we just declassified millions and millions of documents.
9:27Did you know about that operation?
9:29I knew it was...
9:29I don't know how much of it is gone.
9:31I imagine that's now over with Dean.
9:35Under Dean, probably.
9:37I think John Dean, as the Deputy Counsel, is probably following up on it.
9:43And there's a fellow by the name of David Young, who has done the investigative work on the Anderson Papers.
9:52We, of course, know who did it.
9:55We can't, for reasons that I won't even discuss.
9:57I mean, nobody had a high level of emotion, but it involves other things.
10:07We can't say anything about it.
10:11Just Linwood.
10:13Yeah, as far as prosecution.
10:15Prosecution is a tough one.
10:18You know, on Ellsberg,
10:20It's impossible.
10:21There are many that believe that, oh, they're going to fail in Ellsberg, because the real question they're going to tell me now is probably, in the early minutes of talking about this, he's been following God, because he got into it early.
10:36As a lawyer, I'm not going to answer that question.
10:41I'll be damned if, in the case of Ellsberg,
10:45The real culprit of this is all the machines of the New York Times.
10:48He and his wife.
10:50And they, there's another set of these documents apparently of the Ellsberg papers in one of those Harvard think tanks.
10:58And they went in, broke a window open, stole the whole goddamn thing.
11:04We can't at this point go back.
11:06In other words, we can't be in the business of prosecuting the press in the New York Times prior to the election.
11:13I condemn, I'll assure you, though, that if we survive, it will be done.
11:18We cannot have it.
11:21Now, coming to this...
11:24This is a way to close it off without... Coming to this, yes, for the future.
11:27And I guess the future is what we're concerned about.
11:33I see nothing to be, no question about the fact that you could do it in a confidential basis so that some distorted view that's found.
11:42What I, when we were talking on the phone, that I wanted you to know that I don't want you to, you know, you had to get bloodied up some Sunday and the great boys, and I don't want you, even though you're perfectly willing to do so, to go out and let
12:00and just frankly be the guy that's kicking the ass off of the press, they could have their ass kicked off and the rest.
12:08But what I meant is, they will take almost anything that touches them as being an attack by anyone, not in a decent way.
12:18I think on the other hand, if you could approach it in terms of a fellow like John Stennis, Les Aaron, Eddie Hebert,
12:26That, of course, is on the one side.
12:27The foreign relations side, you've got some questions like that.
12:32Yeah, I think it might be worth discussing.
12:37I would like to suggest that on this, I'd like to have either Dean or whoever is working with this
12:47if you could just keep that impulsion as to what you find out.
12:51And even though Rehnquist was on the court, there's no reason you can't talk to him.
12:58Let me suggest that on that, that you might go to Rehnquist and say, look, if you can say that I can't ask you to, you're concerned about this.
13:10What is his opinion?
13:12That would be a very good judgment, because you know Rehnquist for the eight, ten months before he was put in that court, this is what he's working on.
13:19Good, I...
13:19He was head of the Interregnum.
13:20Did you know Rehnquist?
13:21Yes.
13:22I don't know him personally.
13:23Well, he's a first-class brain, a level-headed guy, and Rehnquist may have some standing good ideas.
13:31And I'd like to... Gene, I'll do it, that way.
13:33I want to be sure, too, that we keep in touch with...
13:36I'd like the idea of first declassifying a hell of a lot of stuff.
13:49We classify it too much.
13:53Second, have a new classification that is just considered to be sacrosanct.
13:59That's what we've got to have.
14:01I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't believe I'm in any administration.
14:05Well, I've been proven wrong for some of the classifications or in his case, because of his old stuff.
14:10But I don't want to break codes.
14:13I mean, I don't want to think anybody wants to.
14:16And I don't want to classify things for political purposes.
14:18You see, classification should be used for the political security of the administration or for the national security of this country.
14:27The latter is the end of it.
14:29a farmer is totally independent, and that is what we have in mind.
14:35Well, I think, as I was going to say, though, the Indian-Pakistan dialogue is just as hard.
14:41The difficulty with the Indian-Pakistan dialogue, of course, is it didn't disclose the gruesome coverage.
14:49It also did something else.
14:52It makes it extremely difficult to have a National Security Council, for example, or a Washington Special Action Group, the so-called WESA,
15:01or the president sitting on any group of people, any information, any confidential discussions.
15:06There's a veteran who walked out of this office.
15:09In other words, I say things, I throw them out.
15:12Every president does it.
15:13I can argue to say, how did he manage that?
15:17You know, because he was always a guy, just to see what would happen.
15:20Throw it up in front of him, see what would happen, what he could do.
15:24Captain.
15:25And, and, uh, uh,
15:30And the only son of a bitch who ever broke it on him was Emma Hughes, who wrote a horrible book, doing Eisenhower.
15:37He didn't do him in so much, but he wanted to piss on Bellos and me and a few other people.
15:42But Eisenhower would never have talked in current views had he thought that those conversations would get out.
15:47Now, that did involve an actual security, but it does involve a conflict of government.
15:53You cannot conduct government unless people in government can have confidential discussions with their staffs and say, look here, fellas, this is for you only, and you're not going to go out and battle about it.
16:04Well, your whole method of operating and asking for a broad spectrum of options
16:09You know this will be tough, even if you can't see stuff really perfectly.
16:27I recall that in 1948, one million people were butchered in the India-Pakistan partition war.
16:35I knew that the three or four hundred Americans that were in Dakar and Haiti and so forth, that there could be a goddamn bloodbath.
16:42I had to have the helicopter shipped there, so we sent the carrier home.
16:46It was all right for me to do it.
16:49Also, we didn't have a treaty with Pakistan.
16:52There was nothing we could do about it.
16:54So I said, well, you've got to explore and see whether or not other countries can help.
16:59We explored it.
17:00We didn't do it.
17:01But those were options, options that we rejected.
17:04And presidents and other leaders are held responsible not for the options they rejected, but for those that they approved.
17:11But they make the option, the extreme option, seem like it's something that's very heavily under consideration.
17:20Well, that's why I think this approach doesn't, it'll get you in the future out of any substance.
17:26Because you said we can't beat Ellsberg.
17:30I don't think in a country that won't convict Huey Newton, any cause that becomes a far-left cause celebrant
17:39can result in a jury conviction anymore.
17:41I think that it's spinning your wheels trying to convict people who are here quietly.
17:48Start a survey and say, look, on the basis of throwing it up there as an idea that you have in mind.
17:57See what they think of it.
17:59They must be troubled by it.
18:03If you could say that I simply said, well, I just don't know.
18:05We can't do it unless the Congress on a bipartisan basis would like to go on with it.
18:11Congress, you're exploring it on your own.
18:14Before you submit it to me, then you're going to submit it to me.
18:19First, I'll talk to Rehnquist.
18:22I haven't talked with Rehnquist.
18:23And may I suggest, too, that he might have a...
18:29I talked with Ehrman and Dean to see what, if anything, they have on the ground.
18:34I don't think they have nothing on the legislative side.
18:38But they have been particularly interested in sitting on the Randolph's meeting side.
18:43But I think having a talk with Randolph is a good idea.
18:46Now, when you talk to him, remember, he's a new judge in the court and so forth.
18:51But judges in the court don't take the veil in terms of being able to discuss matters, provided it isn't a matter that's going to come before them.
18:58You can say not the oath.
18:59You can say the president says your legacy here.
19:03And one of your legacies is you're long studying on this.
19:07What in the hell do you think we ought to do and tell them that we want to know?
19:11I want to make a note that to have rapid-frightening and random life, you should.
19:17You should.
19:18You should.
19:18You should in the court.
19:21Let me tell you something else I'd like to do if you think it's a good idea.
19:50We've gotten, well, I'm based on this issue, columns and Anderson on television every day and whatnot.
19:59I'd like to, I talked to you before about doing a speech, and I said, no, that's not a good thing.
20:06The speech bothers me.
20:08It bothers me, too.
20:09For the reason that I, they'll take anything, I'll say anything that impacts the price.
20:14I don't want that to be the lead.
20:16If it was on the issue, I wouldn't.
20:18What I'd like to do is...
20:20Get somebody like Catlow, for example, or some... And have a one-on-one interview just on this subject.
20:31Not saying anything about these proposals at this moment, but just about the illogic of trying to conduct...
20:40in a very reasonable, in a very quiet way, and say, look, we've got all this about the press, and maybe we're both at fault.
20:48But then go on and say, the thing that I'm concerned about, and you're all concerned, and I know the press is concerned, is about this country and how we operate, and so forth and so on.
20:59I think that would be a way to put it out non-abrasively.
21:03in a very recent way that you'd just like to discuss it, but be sure that you do it, that he doesn't cease the moment for the purpose of trying to make the thing, and to have these relations with the press.
21:19I'm telling you, you want to say your issue.
21:22This is simply on the one issue.
21:23It's on the one issue.
21:25That's what we prescribe it.
21:26Exactly.
21:28Exactly.
21:29All right.
21:30That's fine.
21:32Let me ask, they suggested one other thing I think that you should now, if you can, start doing.
21:37I think you have been doing some, but I can't.
21:41I think, I recall that in my own experience in 1956, that basically, I did the job on Stevenson.
21:49I cut him on good.
21:52I did it in a decent way, but sometimes I gave him a pretty tough jab, too.
21:59Stevenson made me
22:01state of answering me.
22:03So as a result, I started floating above the whole damn thing near students in an higher area.
24:46Okay, I think that's good for Lincoln Day.
24:49I'm going to do some campuses.
24:59Dean Rusk asked me to come down to the University of Georgia and do the law school, so I'm going to go down there.
25:05I've got a Joe Collins program.
25:11And then I'm going to do a Negro college, Florida Memorial.
25:17And I'm going to do a fundraiser for
25:41It's a fundraiser for him.
25:43Great.
25:44Great.
25:44Great.
25:45Let me suggest this.
25:47Do some Q&As in college.
25:49That's what I'm going to do.
25:49About five minutes of remarks and then maybe an hour of Q&As.
25:53That's right.
25:53That's the way to do it.
25:55Put it on and let them take after you.
25:59And then I'm moving to the Midwest.
26:04I think you could probably pick up a couple in there.
26:08The colleges are cooler now.
26:09Always will be rough.
26:10There'll be the nuts out there.
26:12But you and the Q&A thing can show the coolness that Muskie never... Muskie now, as you've said, is greatly overrated.
26:20He's not behind that damn handsome face.
26:23Terribly overrated.
26:23What do you think?
26:25Did you see in the television when he blew down in Florida just the other day?
26:31I read it in the paper and it sounded like he handled it beautifully, but those who saw it on television said he just flew sky high and sputtered and stammered, couldn't handle it at all.
26:47Well, we write the tunes and a couple of other things briefly.
26:53Of course, we're going to have another group that will call on us tomorrow.
27:00We'll announce 70,000 for the next three months.
27:0469,000 by the 1st of May.
27:07I thought this Laos thing was tough.
27:10Laos just maybe can't be saved.
27:13I can't believe that it's been on the train, but it's not hard.
27:15You know what I mean?
27:17The South Vietnamese camp is where it's going.
27:19I won't let them.
27:20I don't know if it's South Vietnam.
27:23They're going to get a little bang.
27:25And they'll handle it.
27:27Cambodia's tough also.
27:28But the main thing is that we have saved South Vietnam.
27:33And I think that's a hell of an achievement for Brussels, to build up while things are bad and lousy.
27:39I don't think the average person is one damn good at that.
27:43We went in lousy, you know, the question of your trades, not for the purpose of saving costs, we went in there for the purpose of assuring our withdrawal.
27:50Then we had, you know, we used to have to think, that is just a $400,000 out.
27:56In other words, you realize then we only had half a million men who had been drawn to the First Amendment.
28:03Will you think South Vietnam can hang on?
28:04Can they hang on?
28:06South Vietnam, they're going to make it.
28:09No reason why they can't make it.
28:13Good God, they've got an Air Force.
28:14They have a Navy.
28:15North Vietnam doesn't have an Air Force or a Navy.
28:18And South Vietnam has as big an army as North Vietnam.
28:21Now the question is if they can't make it.
28:22No, they're never going to make it.
28:24Well, they'll lose their territory.
28:26They'll gain some.
28:27But they're going pretty damn well.
28:29How much of a...
28:31How much of an abortive chance are they going to take trying to create a real crisis before November?
28:38They can't.
28:39Unfortunately, the weather helps us then.
28:42You see, if you recall, the wet season is in that area.
28:46They're going to make the crisis now before the China crisis.
28:51I'm sorry.
28:52There's two, Corey.
28:52Replace it.
28:53I'll be in there.
28:55I'll be in there.
28:57And the rest of them live up and so forth, and so on.
28:58It's obvious that he's old.
28:59And it's also pretty well that he made the team up.
29:08All right.
29:08Well, thank you.
29:09And I'll go along on that basis.
29:11But I think I really feel that this way you can't be choosing.
29:14You could touch base, if I could say, first with Rick, and then you could get Irvin and Dean over, and the two of them, and you could tell John that we, I'll discuss with you, and that I'll speak briefly, so that he'll expect the call, and then say, this is some thoughts that you have, and then

Nixon & Agnew on National Security and Government Secrecy

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Also recorded on January 12, 1972

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