Nixon, Gray & White House photographer on J. Edgar Hoover and FBI

Transcript (AI-generated)

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Names and numbers are often wrong; speakers are not identified. Do not cite it as authoritative — verify against the audio and the finding aid.

Download transcript (.txt) · JSON data

Click a timestamp to play from that point; the page address then links to that moment (e.g. #t=125).

It was.

You haven't seen this young lady in a long time, huh?

No.

Thank you.

That made my day.

It really was magnificent.

I think it's very important that

I think, you know, on the right.

Oh, yes.

I think the press has as well, and I think the gesture this morning on your part to bring it there was, I think the thing is, you play at this point, obviously, the key question is, what are you going to be the nominee later?

And you can say, well, you're one, and then, you know, the president is going to select the best man for the job, and

are not going to comment on that at this point.

But if you all know, that could well be what we want to do.

But we don't want to make you a target at this point.

And so therefore, you've got to give the impression that we're going to stand up.

That's what I did this morning.

I didn't.

Yeah.

But I just want you to understand that I said I was one of the 17 guys that was under consideration.

And the president, if you could say whether it was a number under consideration, then you're one.

And if you know that you're one, then you're one.

Whatever.

Mr. Hoover's conference room.

They were all seated and I stood and I spoke to them about 20 minutes.

And I spoke in sensibilities tone and impact tone, right?

What kind of individual I was and how I intended to operate and build upon and enrich the legacy of Mr. Hoover and respect for him.

They reacted very well.

In fact, Mark Chubb called me this morning.

He said that was a hell of a session yesterday, going back into some job you did.

I said some of the fellows I thought were going to retire said, well, this kind of guy we can serve.

Of course, they may be some of the fellows that should have got one of those jobs.

No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that.

Some of these people, you know, this is an area in which I'd like to ask you to give me just some guidance.

Like one of the newspaper reporters this morning was pressing on the aspect of my political connections with you and my personal friendships with you, and I said, I said, my relationship with you is one of my closest friends.

You could say that I, I'd like you to say, I guess that I'm,

I have always been a friend of the President, just as Edgar Hoover was.

That's a good line.

When I told him that, I said, I have respected and admired the President since he was a freshman congressman and I was a freshman law student.

And I said, if you mean a bi-personal friend, an intimate of the President, no.

But if you mean a close professional friend, working with the President and admiring him and respecting him, yes, Bernie Sanders is the answer.

You can fight out an issue.

I worked with a man, whatever, Radford's a man too.

I don't want to presume a personal friendship because my love, in fact, if you put it on a personal basis, they'll tell us.

And so I think that's just the way to do it.

It is common knowledge that Director Hoover was a very close personal friend of the President and his family, which is true.

I've been to his house a dozen times, and he's been, you know, to the White House and to great numbers of occasions.

But also during the years out of office, I'd see him in California, and I'd say, my relationship with the President is not like that.

It is not that.

It is on that personal basis.

professional basis that I've seen work within the National Security Council and the, you know, of course, since I've come to the Justice Department, I have great respect for it.

But it's not the personal relationship that Director Hoover had.

You see, that's the way, that's the very subtle way.

Well, the point is, your personal relationship, of course, there are things you don't want to do.

But the way you get ahead of it, I think, is a neat

If you don't get my point.

That's a good comparison.

Yeah.

And I'll make that as some of the books that come to see me this afternoon.

And I think I just put it that way, that the president told you he might say that he thought of all the people he knew in public life that public life, that Edgar Hoover was his closest personal friend, which is true.

I mean, I know nobody else in public life that I have seen more of on social media than you who are in a private way.

We were out of office.

I mean, he's the guy that stuck with you in there, aren't you?

I know.

And I've seen him.

I've seen him in California and Florida.

We've all been down there for years, going through that for 25 years.

My closest personal friend of all the people I've known.

Much closer, for example, than I, or any member of the camp.

But I didn't know that that was true.

So he was basically a personal friend in a very close and intimate sense.

Whereas, you could say that relationship is not one that you had.

I mean, it's because of the way that things have evolved.

I mean, anyway.

And then you can say, OK, man, professionally, you've had to respect him for many years.

That comes easy.

And you can also get at it this way.

It's quite evident that Edgar Hoover, of course, and the president were on a first-name basis.

I mean, everybody knew that, which is true.

I mean, it was one of the few who was.

And there's not a personal case of very many people who do the same or not.

Well, no, I think these little subtle points had a great impact.

Sure, they did.

They picked them up.

You've got to remember, they're all enemies.

They all have one or two exceptions, but generally speaking, whatever, they may say they're enemies of the Bureau, they're enemies of law and order, they're enemies of the administration.

They were enemies of Hoover's, blood enemies, and they know it.

They know it.

They probably practically heard when I made that eulogy today and also when I made the statement out there that he died.

Nevertheless, just consider it as the enemy.

But don't let them know you're considering them that way.

Uber was a master at it.

He hated the press.

Hated them, except for a few that he only had a few people hurt particularly, and others he got along with.

But his favorite words are, they're skunks.

Skunks.

Exactly.

And he always said, that's skunk.

And so you should do the same thing.

Never, never figure that anyone is your friend.

I just don't want to go there.

I mean, that doesn't mean.

thing that you're afraid of, that you're being taken.

But never, never, never do that.

That's the best advice I can give on that.

Some of our boys around here are going to learn it the hard way.

They'll say, well, we can change it.

We know.

You see, they grow up.

Just read on.

He's right.

And he said that, played it clever.

Hoover hated him, and yet he had very good press relations.

He ran seriously because they had an enormous respect for the old man.

And he was clever as a dickens with his enemies.

You know, with all of it, he would, in private, he'd talk very boldly, publicly, except for the last when he did fall off a bit and he lost his judgment.

you do the same thing.

Play at it.

You've got to be a good spirit.

You've got to be totally ruthless.

You've got to appear to be a nice guy.

But underneath, you've got to be steely and tough.

Now, that, believe me, is the way to run that bureau.

And I must say, I put the kind of house in the Senate.

I sat around and said, well, right, so I love everybody.

And, you know, all the right answers.

I mean, you know,

It's horrible.

The Bureau's always been against it.

You know, Mr. Hoover was against it.

Communism, well, that begins.

I haven't had to do that.

I haven't been doing it.

Now you're going to be right in the vortex.

But about everything else, a little of your effects is there.

I would suggest one thing.

If you might do, if you can, if you could have the senior man, it can't be Tolson, obviously.

No, he's, I've already had his resignation.

He volunteered, I didn't have to ask for it.

Was he able to walk around the building?

Apparently not, because I wanted to talk with him yesterday.

He wants to, he does resign, he might do it.

He has resigned.

I mean, if he has, he ought to come in.

Now, what I would do there is to, another thing I would do, I would immediately call the meeting of all the offices and the settings, bring them in here.

Huh?

The settings?

Yeah.

and break them in.

And as a matter of fact, if they all come in, I might pop over.

I was going to try to set that up next week.

I've got to check with Dwight and Steve to sort of get something else.

Here he is.

We're bashing .

This was not a one-man thing.

But I think if you were to get one of the fellows, one of those guys,

I just go around shaking.

I shake my hands.

You can't cover them all.

It's a big outfit.

But just so that that building says, well, this guy's going to fall.

I get that done quickly.

It's very important for you immediately to establish.

I don't mean familiarity.

I know what I mean to do with the staff.

But you get around and shake their hands and say, you might even say that you can say that you're talking to the president.

He said that he believed that Mr. Hoover had always said that what we made the Bureau of Men and Women, and he wanted to come around and thank them for their work and tell them that you looked forward to working with them.

That would go like wild.

Just touching you, just touching that.

I'm sorry.

I'll do that tomorrow morning.

I didn't schedule anything for today.

No, no, not today.

I'm sorry.

one of the black police officers stopped the car and reached in the car and shook my hand, and he said, we're all very proud of you, and all over the department.

And this thing, let me just have the idea that you're as mean as you are.

Let's hope you are.

He is.

I am, God.

I am.

But you know, I have to cover for that little facade every now and then.

I am.

I mean, I'll say I am, too.

Well, basically, yeah.

Put on this.

We all go out and put on the veneer.

I'd like the press.

I can't hardly stand them.

I know that basically they're not disloyal in the sense of loyalty to anything else like communism.

But they have a loyalty to the country.

Although they want to have you lose.

That's right.

They're a bad, bad bunch.

I got her.

I'm going to lose.

No.

But, you know, what I said the other day, I feel like she is true.

And, you know, I pointed that out for me.

Yeah.

The little message that you had in there, I thought it was beautifully done.

You know, Ron called me yesterday.

I was all over.

He had Rather in his office, and Rather was on my speech on it.

in Orange County, and he wanted to know why didn't they make that speech, and who wrote it.

I was tagging the press, and I told them the words.

I said, one, I wrote it, and two, you believe it, I believed it, and I felt it, and I held it in long enough.

Well, I had a factual, a lawyer's factual presentation, and they found it very difficult to quarrel.

Sure, as I pointed out, I said, son of a bitch, don't ever see him.

I said, don't ever, ever, ever see him.

I can assure you, because he will cut you up.

All you do is build him up and he gets 60 bucks for every shoot he gets somebody on.

I would not see him at all cut him up totally.

Recognize that.

Hoover hated to see this with an utter edge.

You hear him.

Well, Chancellor, too, now you get to know him.

I know, I know, but Chancellor, you get boxed up.

Chancellor is so dumb.

but not a smarty, not an over-funny, but he's clever, have nothing to do with CBS, I can assure you, nobody.

There we go.

They are out to get America.

ABC, Howard Spinn, people like that, they're close, but they're decent.

Some of them, some of them, not all of them.

But rather than that much, don't see the news.

I don't know, I have to suggest something.

I wouldn't be in the news much.

I don't think, I wouldn't go, now they'll watch,

Don't go on that.

I don't think.

I don't think it's worth it.

I mean, you better chin around.

But I will stay away.

I will just very quietly do your job, particularly when you're coming at this point.

And we'll see later.

There may be a time when you better get out and show yourself.

But I would do it more with formal speeches if they can't misinterpret.

That's the way I would approach it.

I'm sorry, I'm so tied into the job, I can't do it.

Don't have press conference.

I don't have any press conference at all.

None.

Unless you know it's indicated that Ron or somebody or John or Ron should say you've got to do it on this particular subject in this area.

I wouldn't do that at all.

There's one thing for the matter that you don't do anything to those sons, but you should see the guys.

They hate it.

They malign it.

Another group, Timeline.

Never see anybody from Timeline.

Never, never, never.

You may have them in your afternoon group, but remember, they're real, real outcasts.

Now, this is worse.

Timeline, I just, I generally feel that maybe you could do something with them, like citing that.

No, no.

They have a total, total hater of the Bureau.

Or, you know, New York Times.

in the office.

Anybody that got the Pulitzer Prize would accept it.

They must not be in that office.

They have nothing to do with it.

But I think your best advice is not to do anything after you do this thing today.

You've got to do something so that they don't think you're hiding.

But then I'd be here.

After that, I'd say, well, now, fellas, I'm too busy running the barrel, and I just can't do it.

Do I have to talk to that time woman?

She's all right.

Bonnie Angelo is a nice little girl.

It won't come out the way you expect.

But on this re-election, the president takes no right for me to go over and volunteer or anything like that.

But I understand.

But I haven't been over there to do anything yet.

I'd stay out of it.

Fine.

I wanted you to say yes or no.

You should get out of it.

I mean, it's perfectly fine for you to.

But don't ever give them targets.

Don't ever give them targets.

That's what I was going to say.

And you could say that the, I think that you might say to him, you're a great supporter of the president.

And he asked you about it and you said, no, you shouldn't be in it.

The Bureau is going to stay out of politics.

Good, good.

That'd be very good.

In fact, the word will get all around the school, anywhere.

That's right.

You can say, well, for example, you're in San Diego.

You ask to do monitor volunteers.

You have one right there.

I said, get out of here.

I said, take her over.

One of his strengths, he's never been a part of politics.

I want the Bureau totally out of it, so stay out of it.

Right.

Fair enough.

Nixon, Gray & White House photographer on J. Edgar Hoover and FBI

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on May 4, 1972

Cite this conversation

Nixon, Gray & White House photographer on J. Edgar Hoover and FBI

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on May 4, 1972

Related conversations

Cite this conversation