Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Watergate and John Dean

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Thank you.

I got people like that, sure.

Don't worry, they like our scientists in the labs working together.

Thank you.

You could have a girl make an anonymous call to a beverage office, talk to a secretary and say, I can't tell you who I'm talking to, but I'm actually telling you that they know about Larry O'Brien and how he used to be a sheriff's secretary and ask him about how he used

No, that's the way it is.

You know, I don't have no letter, no chance of trace or anything like that.

But that thing gets him right on.

Well, that's my point.

If you want to make it right for him, he's got to go to somebody else.

$190,000, what it was to pay, over I think it was a two year period, 500 cubes.

My God.

That's there and the famous Joe Napolitano.

The Bible.

That's huge.

What in the hell is huge about this one?

And Hubert Humphrey's son, that's one of the things.

I'll leave that out.

I'll leave that out if you want to hear it.

But we've got Napalm in it because Napalm is very much tied to Democratic politics and totally tied to Obama.

He runs a political campaign.

He's one of these...

He's the guy that did the dirty commercials.

I think he did the, I think he did the Goldwater commercials with Daisy Richie.

But he's known for his dirty commercials.

That's his specialty.

They've said that this is inevitable.

There's two people around it.

You've got people in that that are against the suit.

They're trying to keep it all followed up.

They've done it.

I'm not saying, considering the explosive nature of what's there, they've done a pretty good job.

Now, the scenario on that, they all seem pretty well agreed on now, is that the only danger is Mabruder, who does have to go before the grand jury.

But Dean has gone over and over with him in Jeopardy.

He's going to stay with his story and stay with it solid.

And they think there's no problem if he does and that he will.

He will not be indicted.

Magruder will.

They will come down with seven indictments.

Five plus one.

And that will be about September 15th.

They'll bring me a guidance.

It'll be a sign.

to a court, and even if it's put on a special, even if we get the worst possible judge, which hopefully we can avoid, it can't, it would be, it would then be put on a special calendar, which it is a case that would deserve special calendar treatment.

If it's not put on a special calendar, it won't come up for over a year.

It will be put on a special calendar.

And a special calendar is essentially clear.

So they could start moving on fairly quickly, but

they'll immediately move to motions, and Hunt has this whole series of motions he's going to in all civil liberties business.

Violation, publicity, pre-trial stuff, and all that sort of stuff.

And they feel that, in the first place, the judge can't force the lawyers to clear their own calendars, and the lawyers involved all have heavy court calendars already running through the end of the year.

And so they'll have to be given some time to clear their own calendars and get prepared.

And so John sees no possibility of the case being brought before the election.

Because the indictment will be.

And we'll have to ride, that'll be a very bad story.

We'll have to ride through the indictment story.

But we've already, Liddy's already tarnished, and Hunt's already tarnished, so there's no great new revelation.

It'll just be a confirmation of previous stuff.

It'll be bad.

It'll hurt us.

But not like the trial would.

And he

does not worry about that, and he also thinks that we're in good shape on holding the civil case until after the criminal.

Judge Ritchie is playing everything exactly right.

The only concern they've got there is that Judge Ritchie is the dumbest judge in the entire business of criminal law.

Fortunately, he's on our side, and his dumbness may help us because he's not encumbered by any intellectual needs to do certain things.

it upon himself to sort of take a fatherly interest in guiding Richie's hand on this.

And Rob clearly sees all the implications.

So they think we're in as good shape as we could hope to be.

We're sitting on a powder keg.

And the kind of thing that came up this morning is all sorts of possibilities of some kind.

Oh, the subpoena stands before the new grand jury.

But we got that quashed, fortunately.

Justice would do this at the end.

And are taking a statement, a sworn statement instead, which will not be harmful, but Stan's appearance would be harmful.

And nobody gets into other things.

And they're worried about Stan.

Stan, they don't think he's stable enough to handle the question.

very well.

He gets indignant and they just think he's not such a good witness.

They don't want him under questioning.

Laguna, they're pretty straight on.

Laguna's scared.

Sure.

He said, what?

He said, might they indict me?

He asked Dean.

He said, might they indict me just to get an indictment for political reasons or whatever?

Dean said, no, the court won't do that.

The jury won't do that.

But Jeff said, well, I just want you to know that if they do, then I'm staying with my story all the way.

I'll go down with it.

And there's no question about that.

And Dean said, the one thing I'm worried about with you, I know you'll do that, the thing I'm worried about with you is that after you do that, if you don't get indicted, that you'll start running up, blabbing about how you pulled yourself out of that.

And let me explain to you that there's a five-year statute of limitations on this case.

and that you're subject to being hauled in any time in the next five years, and you keep your goddamn mouth shut, come talk to your wife or your mother or your kids or anybody else.

If you get out of this one, just remember you've got this crowd hanging over you for five years.

And you're not out until that's over, so don't have a celebration when the indictments come through and you're not on.

You should be able to not indict people.

They've not made a case against Magruder.

A lot of lines lead to him, but they don't tie.

I don't know.

There's some complication.

He's going to impeach Sloan.

Sloan is the only one that leads validly to Magruder, and Sloan's testimony did, although Sloan did fine.

But inevitably, some of what he had to say leads to Magruder.

But...

Magruder's going to say, and honestly believes that Sloan pocketed some of the money.

There's some discrepancy in how much money went where.

And Magruder's going to say that Sloan pocketed it.

You don't think he did?

No.

But Magruder does.

Fortunately.

And we're just going to leave it at that.

Let him go ahead and think.

Because there's no possible way he can harm Sloan.

Sloan will never know what Magruder says.

And they can't if Sloan's not culpable at all.

under this case.

Now, they've laid some groundwork in a grand jury record for another case, but apparently they can't use it.

And they gave some immunity on the other case, on anything beyond this case.

It's too early to say, but it would appear that in given a very difficult situation and no cooperation from justice,

either FBI or that our guys had done that.

And these two luggers in the committee center had done a superb job of keeping this thing closed.

So what is this?

I'm not that worried about it.

It's worth a lot of work

But if it blows, we'll survive it.

It isn't something that they're all, that Mitchell's gone.

And we've all wiped out, and nobody in the higher level is involved.

The White House might be involved and all that stuff.

The Cuban crap in there.

The Cubans are completely not going to do it.

I don't know.

But everybody's satisfied.

They're all out of jail.

They've all been taken care of.

They've done a lot of discreet checks to be sure there's no discreten in the ranks, and there isn't any.

They have their own.

Oh, I don't know.

I'm just happy.

Considerable cost, I guess.

Yes.

It's very expensive.

It's a costly sort of minus four exercise, but that's better spent than that.

Well, they could be all the rest, man.

They'd have to be made.

That's all the rest of that.

They'd have to be made.

Oh, I must say that, and I know I'm kind of second-guessing whoever made the decision, but it was about a student of mine, glad I ever heard of him.

The deliverer had suffered for his sin.

Oh, bloody, never blame him.

I can't think of anybody in the heart, in that organization, a recruiter wouldn't think I'm such a damn thing.

He goes, I can't consume video.

I think it's Liddy.

Liddy apparently is a guy that just, you know, he's a, well, lives on this kind of stuff.

He loves, he resigned a long time, no, he was fired.

As far as not cooperating with the FBI, a long time ago.

Right.

That's already been credited.

That's not.

And Hunt, it's been credited that he used to, he sure used to talk to him.

I don't know where Hunt stands.

I don't think he's not here.

They might just be so silly to be putting Brian on there, putting him on just to make this case.

He's about to moderate and so forth.

He's not worried about it.

It's not that much.

I know I'll never discount the kind of crap in the press and put it to us on thing like this.

But it does not.

We have stayed completely away from it.

I've stayed completely away from it.

We will, McGregor, of course, will take a, as he said, a whole year from now, I will name that.

Right?

Yeah.

And we've got Colson, which is, yeah, good one.

He was knowing everybody.

And we can hold up this civil claim, and they won't get to see it.

They've served every lesson.

on a discovery deal.

The motion will be made on the civil suit to suspend all activity on that, depending on the outcome of the criminal act.

We are still trying our way to doing our best to be sure that the various groups

until after the election.

On the other side, I mean, that veterans group down there in Florida and others, you know, where the... Yeah, that's right.

You've got to have anybody, you've got to pardon everybody.

Yeah.

What we're trying to do is get some more, send some other actions on the other side, so we've got some...

Pardon my... Well, not my service.

Well, you may find some more.

They're going to be doing something.

And they can catch on with some bad drivers.

You know what I mean?

Like what?

Where they appear to be doing something.

They get some pretty good chances at the Republican convention.

Oh, you mean in Spartan Island?

That's right.

And in the wilds.

Yep.

They will hang on to that for a while and let them all go.

You say don't walk away from the Justice Department.

I understand the end beyond.

Well, I don't know.

It's very hard.

It's hard.

Peterson has been reasonably good.

I hope they have.

In fact, pretty, I guess, darn good.

In fact, they scared the hell out of him.

The problem is, that client, he just totally washed his hands now.

He's come back in early in the holiday yesterday and said, you know, this has gotten ridiculous.

Now you've got everything you need.

Now for Christ's sake, turn it off.

Bring in your diamonds.

I don't seem to see the light.

There's no way to speed it up.

Yes, it could be speeded up, but then it would hit right about the Republican convention time.

It possibly could be speeded up, I'm not certain.

But it's not bad.

What's the concern?

That you're better off than a Catholic?

Well, just a great respect.

He's a decent fellow.

Not that they have a car, but I mean, they're very...

They're sort of awesome to me.

He makes a lot of money.

You can't understand where it all went.

There's something confusing in it, apparently, as yet.

How much was it?

A couple hundred thousand.

Two or three hundred thousand.

Well, it wasn't just for this operation.

It was for other stuff.

Oh, I see.

Got a whole lot of money.

we're continuing to get information from other sources accessible to some uh some that was a very bad place to have involved to have that sort of opportunity in the committee to serve except this was something john was after apparently that's why i can have the finance thing yeah the idea of getting that contributed so he had some wild

on who it was or where it was coming from or something.

He thought he had something.

It probably is something.

He had money.

Money sources, business or something.

Yeah.

Do you know...

I did, of course, raise it this morning.

John told me, I'll do anything you want, just tell me what to do.

But he sent in the transcript of this conversation with my name, so he had no job.

It was very upsetting.

He said the only thing he was worried about was my name.

He's like Wally Hickle.

You know, we went through all the confirmation by Wally Hickle.

And ever since then, Hickle was trying to prove that he was a liberal.

You know, correcting himself out from under his attorney.

I don't think Bob can play anything on Gray in the sense that he is in a very difficult position.

He doesn't have any control.

He doesn't know how to do it.

He's in a very difficult position.

He cannot.

He just can't do it.

He can't.

I don't believe, I don't believe that we ought to have Gray in the job after himself.

I don't think it's the right thing.

I mean, I think it's too close to us.

I think if you can get a belt, and he's a good man, they're watching him, I guess.

I just wish a fellow like him to grow into the job.

You know, where, because it just isn't right to have him in the barrel.

If you put him in, he'll be your man.

It would hurt a little bit.

Unbelievable.

How would we, what would be your views on how this crack should be used?

Maybe that's an issue.

If you say, well, I'm a lawyer, you put $190,000 on it, I think it should be used.

Huh?

I think it should be used.

No, I'm asking how.

Why can't it be used?

I said, I don't know how it is.

They sure found ways to use Hugh's association with Hugh, though, with the name.

We ought to be able to find ways to use his association with O'Brien.

Which is essentially more direct.

Well, one interesting thing is whether O'Brien declared the income.

Well, he did.

I don't know.

I thought you got it from the other house.

Yeah, but it's from the other side.

They got it from the pavement.

They don't have it from there.

They don't, I don't know.

I raised that question earlier and we didn't know the answer, but in a better way, they didn't go right into it.

That's what we need to do.

And we got the basis for it on this other thing.

It has undue blood and a little bit of some dangerous thing came into it.

We'll look into it.

What other income sources?

Napoleon.

Oh, Brian and Napoleon.

If you could catch a Brian, I'd do very good.

Boy, they had to drop him.

Oh, they would.

If you had to drop the second guy, then you might, you know, you might have to kind of show your shoulders and say, forget the whole thing.

The administration can't be totally free from it.

The government's so big, the business is so big, people are so little, that you can't be completely free from problems like the water game thing.

We've been very free, but there's no serving of money on the table in our administration.

You know what?

That's right.

And that's good.

But Jesus, I mean, in your world, Eisenhower just practically died a bunch of times.

that was literally stuff.

But it killed them.

It just practically killed Eisenhower.

You think of Johnson and Bobby Baker, Jesus Christ.

And on the personal side of it, it's very, yeah, Walter Jackson's children with Harry Vaughn at DR with his kids.

Yeah.

But it wasn't for real.

I mean, even there, there was nobody made a nickel out of that.

But I mean, it was stupid to handle it.

Sure it was.

And it's also stupid.

But again, nobody made anything out of it.

It's stupidity.

But not

Not personal renality or anything.

There's no, nobody's done anything for his own gain.

They have a good job at Sloan.

I don't know where it's not happening.

His wife is still here.

I guess she is.

Everett Sloan, I see her.

Sloan, I see her.

He's not going to be indicted.

I think she's expecting him and she's not going to pay him.

No.

He's not going to be indicted.

No.

He's completely clear and he has no problem.

Should they turn the money over?

Yeah, but he did it under orders.

He had no authority.

He had no discretion.

He was only a, you know, like a bank teller.

He held the money and gave it to him.

He was told to give it to him.

You've had any requests from a Chief Justice, or a Chief Justice?

No.

I recently had John talk to me about the question of whether to... Yeah, we could, if you want to bring it in just for an office appointment.

Yeah, good problem.

Oh, no.

No, they don't want to do it.

It turns out.

All right, well, he's... That's fine.

I don't care about it.

He had mentioned it to me, and I would like to...

He's a bad guy or something.

There's some problem with that.

Is it Joe?

No.

I'm not sure.

But anyway, it turns out you shouldn't do anything.

Chief Justice said the only thing would be if you should do anything public.

The only thing would be if you thought you wanted to, the Chief Justice is having a dinner party for him Saturday night that you can go to.

John told him that you have a table to go to.

The other thing is that it may come up that the Soviet Minister of Health is here.

There's problems with the virus, you see, because of the political president.

I think it's fine.

But, you know, I'm glad to make it.

No.

Just politically.

Just to see some Irish people.

Do you want me to get that much of a ride in?

This is next to Tennessee.

I think she should see it.

I'm not sure.

They're looking into a Wilkes-Barre type thing, but in the meantime, there's a possibility, well, we have legislation

Catholic in Wyoming Cemetery, which is not that I sound like a denomination.

It's kind of an odd thing.

It seems to me if we go out, getting over there, it's better for you.

Go over and do it.

I don't know if I'm right or not, but I am sure that, not with us, there was a problem.

He had, when I called him to California, he just came back.

He said he had come back because of his wife and son.

But I just had a little feeling that something was wrong with him.

Not about the campaign, I'm just saying.

It's something personal.

And he's come back to California.

Well, there was something wrong with him, because he was fine in St. California.

And I was really looking forward to it, because I talked to him when he first got out there.

Well, he's been out there now.

I just wanted to be sure if you would maybe if you would call in maybe tomorrow.

I will.

We just hired this, not hired, but they've incorporated this guy in full time.

I talked to him tomorrow last night, and he said, we've done this.

And also, I told him, his advice about what to do with Ryan.

And tell him about that we will do something on the other waters thing.

Make a point, Bob, and be sure that he's confident about this.

I do.

So good.

Wait, wait.

I have a feeling that something's going on here.

I don't know what it is.

There must be something in his back.

Is there something on the water?

I don't know.

He never has said anything to me about it.

personal stuff at all.

And he always...

I didn't gather that from anything except that I could just kind of pick it up in the voice.

Well, I'll call it.

And then just say, I'm surprised he's in.

It may be him.

Maybe there's something wrong with him.

No, he said it was really great.

It can never go better.

One day when he gets off the cowboy, he said he went by the place he appreciated it.

And would you be sure you'd go out and see if you could use the little compressive type of oil?

Yeah, I was there.

I wanted to use that oil.

I told him.

And every time I talked to him, I said, right, be sure you get over there and play golf.

Well, they did.

Sorry.

I just want to say to you what I .

I would say that we can't drop .

We should not be with him.

Unless you want to help people.

No, let's let it go.

We've done a lot.

Say, would you get the barber?

I'll bring you water.

I'm waiting for the driver.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ziegler on Watergate and John Dean

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 1, 1972

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