Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Political strategy

Thank you.
He was not in the meeting this morning, so I suspect he's not.
It's not yesterday.
Yes.
Well, she's here.
We'll get her in.
Up here?
You may be right.
We'll get her in as soon as...
They didn't swerve yesterday, I don't think, did they?
Or did they?
I don't know.
I think I would like to take and invite John Mitchell to go over there.
There's room in that place to work.
Yes.
Yes.
I think it would be good to get him.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Why don't I ask him if you'd like to take him?
No, I'm going over.
Would he like to go over Friday and spend the night?
He can spend over Friday and have Saturday.
He'll be there.
I think he'll say that he's better if he has to stay here.
Maybe he invited Evelyn.
Yes, Evelyn, I'll stand there and he'll come up with it.
Well, I think I'll invite one other.
If he can't go, I think it might be nice to have a man.
And shh.
How old was he?
He was in California.
He may be...
He was here yesterday.
He wasn't in Edisonian.
Well, I was thinking of one other thing.
I'm having a Sequoia page tonight.
Which is, you know, I've got many more times than I can do this.
I've got to start with this.
How about we go ahead and do this?
Bench.
Wine.
Drink.
Cigarette.
I don't think we need to have, we'd have Harlow again on this one.
So he definitely would be pretty well covered.
Maybe early on that.
Or so close.
Hard way to post and climb or not.
I don't know.
I think he's due back today.
and having to make this start rather than having to handle what I'm seeing.
I don't want to give up your road.
I'm starting to get done.
The time's passed.
And first, it builds her ego.
Second, she knows how to catch people at the right time and doesn't do it with an amaranth.
You know what I mean?
It's a very subtle business to handle all these people.
No fault of people here.
Just the fact that you just got in and called.
Just give up your road.
I don't want this time to work out.
It should work, huh?
It should.
It should work.
It should work.
It should work.
It should work.
Yes, please.
I'll tell you what I want to talk about, and I'll explain it at the football ball game.
I don't know.
I just don't know what I'm going to do.
I want to talk to you about it.
I want you to talk to me about it.
I'm fine.
I'm sitting here.
I'm going to see the archives.
I just want this job.
The thought occurred to me, John, I don't know what's occurred to you, that one of my major projects is to go to Canada.
To go to Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
Canada.
That's right.
That's right.
And he keeps kicking us.
Well, Ford helped the Democrats.
Huh?
Ford helped the Democrats.
Who helped the Democrats?
I don't know who he's helping on the other side now, but he sure helped us.
Who?
Henry Ford.
After we got his cars.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, what's the point of making a job if you didn't trigger something?
We haven't done this one.
Uh, we see it, for example, a veteran called me last night and had a vote in the Senate, which was ridiculous.
I said, imagine what happened to this market.
I said, if you realize that we're in this crap, then we might have won that vote and then we told them there was some progress in the talks.
On the other hand, we told them there was some progress in the talks.
That might have destroyed the talks.
On the other hand, I said, you've got to realize that I'm letting the vote come back to progress.
He said, no, no, this can't be happening.
I really got it that one person is a hater.
He was the one who had that strategy along with others.
That's right.
And that's what everybody could know.
If our softheads are out here, the carbon crisis would be a disaster.
That's right.
Better to have his son's bitch out there and have Bobby, would you agree?
No question, sir.
And that what we did was right.
Absolutely.
Okay, well, I don't know.
I'm sure some of you can start.
Oh, yes, there are.
We don't know.
You know, that's my point.
Now, here's the point.
Two cases of violent abuse of hand.
Two critical vote justifications.
Neither of whom comes up with the issue.
One was a person, one was a client.
Henry Christensen.
Rates probably in a quarter of a million dollars.
I don't know anything else, whatever it was.
I've got nothing on him either.
And as I understood, you know, as he called everyone, so he said, it doesn't make sense that, of course, he's a courthouse politician.
He won't get nothing for it.
Is that even correct or not?
That's absolutely correct.
He called everyone?
Yes, sir.
Good.
Anyway, I'm not so sure about that.
What brings us to my account, John, is something that's much more important than what it has to do with the, what you're getting out of the IRS and everything.
What we're getting out of the other investigative agencies, the government, including the fire department, that's just so cool.
Here's something I think we have to accept for a little bit.
We're really dropping the ball.
I remember about two years ago, I'd been sitting in these lunches, and I said,
They're after us all the time.
When we were out, the sons of bitches, they were bringing cases, they were bringing SEC things, so they were killing us.
Here we are, we're in power.
The only story, the only story that I have seen in the last six months has been one where our agencies are investigating our people, not theirs, or by being unkind to them.
I don't think so.
And it was interesting to note that the other day, this was the water game, it was a different kind of arena.
I thought about the token headline on that, where they said Nixon is gone.
Yeah, yeah.
Nixon is gone.
Well, it's...
What are we doing about the financial contributors?
Now those lists are made there.
Are we looking over our government's financial contributors?
Are we looking over the financial contributors of the Democratic National Committee?
Are we running our income tax returns?
Are suggestions department checking to see whether or not there's any high-cost suits?
Do we have anything going on any of these things?
We better forget about that campaign right this minute, not one of them now.
That's what concerns me.
We have all this power.
We aren't using it.
I want the crisis matter.
In other words, what I'm really saying is this, I think we've got to get it out.
I'm just thinking about, for example, if there's information on Larry O'Brien, if there is, I would wait.
I'd worry the sons of bitches now because after they select somebody else, we just get around, even though he's still in the campaign.
It's much more relevant now that then they drop him because
What can you get out of it?
I don't know.
We've got the facts.
They checked the other side of the facts.
What is being done?
Who is doing this full-time?
That's what I'd like to know.
Who's running the IRS?
Who's running over the Justice Department?
So what I meant is, with all the agencies in government, what in the name of God are we doing about the government tributes?
I think the answer to your question is nothing.
And we are.
Boy, they're doing it to us.
No question.
No question.
And it's never happened that way before.
Johnson screwed everybody in Canada.
And when we were out in 52, the German people were kicking the hell out of me.
Sure.
In 62, they kicked the hell out of me.
In 1960, bureaucracy bleached up on my visit with Khrushchev.
Our bureaucracy.
They didn't revise our bureaucracy.
I think part of the problem is the democracy.
Part of the problem is our own goddamn fault.
There must be something that we can do.
I don't disagree with that.
Now, where is he now?
Is he around?
Can we enlist him or anybody to do this kind of work?
I think the trouble is we've got too many nice guys around who just want to do the right thing.
Well, it's very interesting.
We've tried to do it and failed, really, isn't it?
We've got a guy who's a true perfect fashion.
He's a loyalist.
He's a fanatic loyalist in the IRS.
And, uh...
He's our guy.
One treasury secretary after another, starting with Kennedy, Connolly, now Schultz, has said, oh, Jesus, can't you get this guy out of there?
Can't you just take him out of there?
He's making all kinds of trouble for us.
He's too partisan.
He's too... Now, one thing about Schultz is that Schultz is not long for this life.
Because he's not being political.
I don't care how nice a guy he is.
I don't care how good an economist he is.
We can't have this bullshit.
Well, the interesting thing is, as political a guy as Connolly played the same tune.
I know.
Connolly was sitting on top of it, not knowing the bureaucracy.
Well, Connolly knew the bureaucracy.
At one side and down the other, Connolly wouldn't play it.
And he played it off as the problem with the IRS commissioner and all that.
That wasn't.
He had to read on it.
And Connolly was playing.
I'll tell you, I bet you Connolly's got plenty of RIR spots.
Yeah, because he spent a lot of time studying the sensitive reports.
Probably, probably, probably.
He has a lot of friends in the suit.
What if we don't want a Democratic candidate?
If you have, for example, on a run, we've got anything further on that.
Not to my knowledge.
The problem we've had, as I understand it, going back to the 70 and 71 period, when there were efforts made to do this, if we get caught, they come back with the thing of we can't pull a file because there's got to be a reason to pull a file.
We did pull files anyway.
But that gets flagged at the district office or something like that.
Well, he runs out and tells them.
Is there any other agency in the government?
Can we investigate people?
Is there anything we can do?
Yes.
And it's kind of interesting the problem that you have.
I sent to the Department of Defense for my government service jacket.
Because I was curious about what his bombing experience was and that kind of stuff.
And I got it.
But Jesus, the grief I took in getting it is unbelievable.
Carl Wallace called me from Laird's office and finally the way I got it was that Dave Young went over there and he had some contacts as a result of the Ellsberg case and some other cases.
And he went in and got it for me and brought it over here.
But
Guys like Laird, like Schultz, like Kleindienst, are just touchy as hell about cooperating with us.
They're scared of their asses, is what they say.
They don't want to read their names in the paper.
And that's the whole name of this game.
Now, Abe Portis played this game.
Abe Portis played this game.
And before he left...
his service with Johnson, he saw a lot of bright young guys into IRS, into the Justice Department, and into the Treasury.
And there are still Fortis guys in there that are sealed in.
And this is part of our problem, because the minute you go near one of these five cabinets, Lyndon Johnson knows that we found that out.
Yep.
Let me say one thing.
That's what you have denied.
People don't think I've had it.
Mallory has got to have, or his successor has got to have that.
That's a terrible statement.
It's on the bench.
Did we appoint Hughes?
No.
No, that's the general accounting office.
We let Hughes go.
Sam Hughes?
We let him go.
That's the budget bureau.
The guy that's doing this fund business?
Yeah.
We fired him out of the Bureau of the Budget.
He's the guy that used to be the budget bureau guy.
We let go.
He retired.
We treated him very nicely on his retirement thing so that he would get his proper retirement pay or something.
And now he's come back into the service.
Well, now, we still have a guy in IRS.
Can I say one thing, John, that I reversed on?
Okay.
I don't think, again, this is a prejudice for a lot of us now, except for all of you.
I am totally against the education establishment.
Totally.
1,000% if I may quote somebody else.
that thing who has anything to do with the NDA.
Nothing.
The NDA is against us.
And Coleman, I think, is an NDA man.
He's an establishment educationalist.
Now, I don't care how we'll put him.
We'll put him in the goddamn chimpanzee from UCLA, if necessary.
I am not gonna put, I'm gonna put a man in there who's a bad establishment and just leave it open.
I'm just talking.
This has got to shake up.
We are not going to put somebody in education.
Who's going to turn around?
Call my life as an individual.
I think it's a distinguished educator.
When are we going to start learning to quit appointing distinguished people who kick us in the ass?
This is a good start, isn't it?
You see my point?
So I want to checkmate if he's an establishment education man.
If he gets along with the NEA, screw him.
I'm not for him.
And find somebody who isn't.
I don't know.
Well, we had a guy, and then he turned out to be
This guy in Colorado, he turned out to be dead set against us on civil rights.
So we eliminated him at great expense to the management.
And so we'll find a guy.
We'll see if we can get one.
Sure.
And I'm in that critical position.
Sure.
Are they here?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Well, I understand.
Hold on.
Well, except that I do not know about me.
Do you think academic education needs to be enhanced?
Oh, no question.
We're looking for a practice.
Very unconventional.
I'll put armor on him.
How about armor?
Well, armor would be a damn good.
He's been fired from arms.
Just put him in.
Wait, you got it?
He's a UCLA.
He's a UCLA.
Pick him up.
That's it.
All right.
Put him in.
I don't understand.
That would be a hollow signal.
Yeah.
And then you kick him outside.
Under the bus.
Yeah.
The I.R.S.
The I.R.S.
is not complete.
Well, we better do that thing.
This Durant just got barred right down George's throat when he made George take it.
Number one.
You bring it in here, I'll order George to do it.
Well, I'm not sure I'll be necessary, but what do you see here?
Hi, how are you?
How are you?
Good to see you.
I've seen you mostly on TV.
I've never seen you, but I'll tell you, you're an old Californian.
I'll work for a little while.
Mr. President, this is my son, Bruce.
This is Bruce, right.
How old are you now?
Well, this is my wife.
This is my wife, Mary.
And that's Barbara.
Barbara, you're the daughter?
She's the daughter, yes.
Here's the whole thing, huh?
Have you ever seen it?
Oh, I know that from my first occasion.
I took the tour.
I enjoyed it.
And the one thing that stuck out in my mind quite vividly was when we were coming down the street there, we had 200 people.
And you had to wait, you know, and not be in a condition ever to run away.
Right.
But let's go over here.
We usually like to get a picture or all that.
You know, one thing, I didn't realize you were so good at your pictures.
We got this.
Listen, I didn't know I had it.
This has been on my desk since 1969.
It's the Pro Bowl Ball.
Oh, I see.
There you go.
It's a great ball.
There you go.
There you go.
All right, sit down.
Oh, this is not hard, did you see it?
Go ahead, go ahead.
Tommy, what is your, who was the best flank?
Who was the guy that, who was the kind of defense he had?
Oh, well, Gino Marchetti, you know.
Yeah.
He was also, at the same time.
I think Gino was a terrific defense.
Gene Carino.
Gene Carino?
Oh, yes, thank you.
What a wonderful man, really.
I remember getting an award in the Registrar's Conference.
Then he went out to California.
He was a great California guy.
Was he good though?
Gene Carino was a hard guy to get around.
Well, you know, I played against him in college.
He was Loyola, LA, San Francisco.
Of course you did.
You played against him?
Yes, he was.
He's always been that guy.
You know, in all the years, he was a defensive end.
He didn't do the anti-miss, because you know that this fellow, Gene Breida, was the first to occur on the stage.
I'm not too sure.
But in all the years, he was one of the toughest defensive ends in the whole football.
And all the time, he played.
Where are you living now?
In Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles.
But you're, you like it there using LLA and first being the San Francisco guy.
It's, it's, it's trying.
Well, we Californians, we always, we have a few little arguments.
There's a, for the amendment, we always hear the presidential comments.
Let me show you what it is.
This is the seal of the presidency.
And why there isn't a comment.
I'll show you how this works.
See, here is the seal in the floor.
This rug is new.
They make a new one every three or four years.
But always, they burp.
You're going to weave this into it.
There you get some things.
So that's the mark.
And then you go to the top.
It's a little business.
It's a little bit of a mess, but it's everything.
It takes a lot of tradition.
You're a business owner.
You're going to be sure to get a tour.
That's right.
We had a tour.
We got a tour, yeah.
Getting ready to go out and get born.
Right.
At Los Angeles High School.
At Los Angeles High School.
Oh, my gosh.
You know, I remember the days when there were only four high schools in Los Angeles, L.A., Mantle, and the... Pauline, L.A., Pauline.
And then Fremont.
Fremont, right.
Yeah.
Well, we congratulate you on the Hall of Fame, and also love you, Bill, these young guys.
Well, I appreciate it.
Well, we appreciate it.
Also, I would particularly...
Are you a California girl?
Yes, I am.
And we have two other folks, two over two.
We're going to go back for one girl and a boy.
Give the girl a vote and the boy a vote.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Good luck now.
Bye.
Now that we're doing one or two, three, maybe a week, just get a picture of how it feels.
You've got to get it.
I don't know if you have a score, but it's a good picture.
Well, you know, Black Press makes a big story.
It's amazing.
Scott, he was one of the greatest guys.
All he mentioned.
No running back better than he was.
Scott, what?
Well, this fellow Scott, we're sorry, but it was Black Press that had him.
just develops rings and stuff.
I don't know if it does any good, but at least...
It doesn't even harm.
It does not get any better.
You compare it to 60.
We were never in the black press except when I went there.
Well, I guess perhaps there's nothing we can do about this problem.
I agree.
But it just serves as a goddamn frustration to think they screwed us.
All these people are just kicking us around and we don't have anything going.
I think part of the problem is maybe we don't have... What is it, Bob?
They just...
The cabin officers are great at it.
Yeah, and you get this playback that word's going to get out that we're doing it and all that.
I, John, saying we've got to move now, that's one where I would be more concerned about the potential for bad than the potential for good.
I really question whether now...
It's worth trying to get the McGovern people.
In the first place, you can't move anything fast enough to do anything anyway.
I would think that we can get some people with some guts on the second term when we don't care about repercussions.
We don't have a second term.
Doing this is going to get you a second term.
I just wonder what you can do that has... You can make them nervous.
You could put out...
to Rizal or somebody in the Larry O'Brien, Howard Hughes, lab.
Better to make them nervous.
Why don't you put it out now?
Jack Anderson couldn't play it anymore.
No back.
Well, I don't know how you put it out.
I don't either.
Maybe that's when Crossman could pedal someplace.
Well, we're going to get caught peddling that stuff.
And in the position we're in, we don't have the factors that work with us to do that kind of harassment that they do.
We don't have the bureaucracy with us, and we don't have the press with us.
They do.
And when they put out a story that Billy Graham's called the tax dodges of bureaucracy, it's different to them, and so is the press.
I have a different view of the world.
I totally agree with it.
The day of the nomination.
I think the danger on that score has been very, very substantial.
The day of the nomination, the president's response to that was a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the same command was undergone.
Now, the press does not have a knee-jerk reaction to the same extent.
It is still there among many.
But at the present time, when a guy is under attack like this, in other words, for evil and unseemly, but here we go together, he is open.
He has shown that he is mortal, that he might even have feet of clay, and
He is a non-sympathetic character at the moment, under the circumstances, kicking around the people that are around him.
He's not going to have all that bad effect that he once had.
And the other point is that when you've got a fellow, you've got a fellow who's under attack like this, I mean, who has fallen on his ass a few times, what you do is to kick him again.
I mean, it's like Dempsey going for the kill with Virgo.
I mean, you have to keep our carpet here and the rest, you have to keep whacking and whacking and whacking.
Well, I buy that completely.
That's why I say, well, O'Brien, just use him as a sample.
If you could hurry up O'Brien now, I think he might be a lot better than he was later in a time.
And I'm just saying, gentlemen, you know, I'm not so sure I'm writing that I believe what I just said on that.
The other is because you can sure put some fear into them.
That's right.
And they're on my side.
It worries them.
It worries them.
We know it does.
We know that they have.
We worry about them.
Sure.
And we worry about that silly business of the ID&T, which is pure goddamn money.
But we worry about it.
But you have half a dozen people putting full time on it for months.
For months.
So I, that's what I mean.
Frankly, people are going to end up, you know, they will end up, but you don't read it.
So Xavier finally says, no, these are routine investigations.
Their numbers came up and that they would press them a little bit.
I'm stressed.
Governor, his numbers came up.
They probably, we don't claim, we don't think it was, it was just intentional, but his number came up.
So they investigated.
Did we complain?
No.
But they went after him.
The advantage there was nobody said anything else.
The advantage here is, I guarantee you, what will happen is somebody at Internal Revenue will say, you know, we had a call from Chuck Colson, and he said to pull the tax file on the guy.
He wasn't right, or it didn't come out of him.
And it tilts the non-political cuts those ways.
Because if we do this, the press is going to be unwilling to blame him for it.
If we can cause him to do it.
Well, why don't I have a chat?
Well, is there a way to cause him to do it externally so that it isn't his initiative?
In other words, can't we get a complaint for it?
Can't we get an external tip that gives him a rationale for doing it?
That he then says...
He orders the investigation because this information has come to his hands.
Well, take the O'Brien thing.
Yeah, O'Brien got that thing.
That one, we've got it.
It's in an IRS report, in a sensitive report.
He's got every reason.
We've got it.
Our little guy in the woodwork over there feeds this stuff to us.
If it's a sensitive report, the reason it's sensitive is because it involves you and Humphrey and Donnie.
Well, you because of Don, and Humphrey because Humphrey is directly involved.
But inadvertently, in the midst of a fourth-page report, there's one little paragraph that says, Hughes Tool Company in 1970 and 71 paid $190,000 to Larry O'Brien and $163,000 to Joe Napoli.
Reason for payment is not indicated.
What is the situation regarding Larry O'Brien's account?
Well, it seems to me this thing gives you the basis for saying, oh, I have to check Larry O'Brien's income tax return.
And I'm under enormous pressure on this.
The problem is this payment was not to Larry O'Brien.
It was to Larry O'Brien Associates.
So you've got to go to a corporate return.
I'm sure it was a corporation, wasn't it?
Yeah.
He was a corporate.
He was Democratic National Chairman at the time, but he also was an MP.
Well, I don't know whether it was a corporation or an individual.
It was a very important point.
It was a partnership that kicked the hell out of him.
He's got a report of his individual income as a partnership.
Well, more than that, the college was supposed to be a conduit for him.
That's right.
And you'd want to see, if the college got this money, whether O'Brien got any of it, whether he paid tax on it.
Okay, well I'll turn, so you've got there $250,000, which is a lot of money.
A quarter of a million.
That came in and was paid, and the used tool records show the payments to these two people.
That's late.
That is 15 years ago.
That's just within a week.
No, no, the payments were made like two years ago.
Yeah, but the information came in just within a week.
But it's not an old story.
That's right.
Okay, well, let me take that on.
And you've got Hubert Humphrey, and we want to lay off the Humphrey, I think.
Well, let's see.
Well, I think so.
I think you do, because I think a lot of the people that are involved with him are people that are... Well, then you start getting into Dwayne Andrews and... What else do you have, man?
Well, we've got a file of footsteps on Henry Kimmelman.
And this is over in the Department of Interior, where we have fewer problems.
And I do have some work going on that.
Scary the shit out of him.
Scary the shit out of him.
Now, there's some Jews with a map here.
You can look it up on his phone, too.
Well, that's...
One, they're filing up the file.
That's not, that's IRF.
We should go beyond anywhere on that.
No, it's not IRF.
It's justice.
And the campaign thing.
McGovern's incorporated his campaign organization.
Several of the incorporators have some unpleasant affiliations.
But what they're trying to do there is they're afraid to let any word get out until...
It's done something, the corporation hasn't taken any money and yet they want to get it and act.
They don't want to signal the fact that we're on to it until it's done something that we can hang it on.
Deep somehow.
Do we have any members of the cabinet that are artists?
Yeah, but you don't have any with very many guts when it comes to, you know, is something going to bounce back on me?
And with a very good justification because of this jackass operation at the Watergate...
They are more sensitive than they would have been before, and they would have been very sensitive before.
But we do have a knack for doing this stuff ineptly.
And the last thing we need now, that's what bothers me, is if we can't do it ineptly, then I think we better do it in the benefits of doing it.
But we can perfectly legitimate investigation.
We can do things that are
within legitimate parameters, and I think creates a fear.
I don't think we'll get any diamonds, we won't stir anybody up or anything of that kind, but we can create some fear.
Well, we'll bring some of that afterwards.
Oh, well, we ought to move with some vengeance to destroy the stuff.
Damn right.
We should have done it three years ago.
We partly didn't know how.
Partly when we tried, we got...
Certainly, we sure as hell didn't in 70.
Yeah, with all the Douglas stuff.
Yeah.
My God, Mr. Justin's Douglas.
Wow, what kind of gut stuff.
They just got a hell of a lot more snakes than we did.
And their snakes are a hell of a lot tougher than ours.
I'm going to be talking to Berger this week, and I would be inclined to indicate to him that it is to your advantage not to have the Ellsberg case trial until after the election.
Unless you have any serious objection, I'm going to give him that signal.
Sure.
He has it literally within his control.
In this case, if I put it, if I said that it really would raise hell...
President Johnson, a lot of other things.
It would be very embarrassing to work for a policy and it's just not a good thing right now with the delicate negotiations on Vietnam.
Put it on the basis that we have some other reason.
All right.
All right.
Do you have a message?
They've got a chance to really rub it.
Mr. Justice Douglas is no example.
reversing him and making the case go to trial.
So they'll have to pass that lovely opportunity.
A temptation to screw Douglas, but that's a pure victory.
Who the hell cares what he screwed Douglas?
Nobody will bother Douglas.
And that was, by the most dishonest opinion I've ever read in that case, and granted that to say.
Well, there's a break for us in the opportunity not to have a trial.
Now, in a result, Middlesbrough are going free in double jeopardy, because they've already sworn the jury.
I think that's a small price to pay and a kind of a nice album.
There's no way, our legal view is that we're going to lose the case.
There's no way.
Well, I understand that.
One thing about this, there's no way that we should be in jail.
I think that's going to get taken care of all by itself.
I mean, he was in some land deals around here.
Well, he's a bad actor.
I don't know why in the hell I'm stupid, but who's that ambassador?
Why didn't you follow him?
Shipley was his lawyer for years.
Shipley's up in damn close to Colson, too, so be careful not to argue around the lines out.
That's right.
He's worked with him on a lot of lines.
Well, Eddie is clean.
But it's an interesting case in point.
That investigation started down in the staff of the SEC and was permitted to grow to the point where there wasn't anything Casey could do about it.
There's a similar situation that we caught in the antitrust division that would have just raised hell.
It was developed by a little unit of staff guys.
And fortunately, there was a leak out of them.
And we found out about it, and we were able to scotch it.
But these things burgeon all the time, and they checkmate the chairman, or they checkmate the guy on charge.
I get it.
Too far gone.
That's why, as I said, every lawyer who is appointed, and I hope a lot of them are not appointed, they can be transferred.
I mean, they're going to get the worst out of them.
That's all I should say.
Does everybody agree on that?
Absolutely.
If anybody has any other views...
Well, I don't know.
I guess it's... Well, it is.
I just wanted to be sure.
But I think there are... And I agree it'd be smart, and that's why I don't want to raise it outside of the EU to put it down to the coast of the U.S. because they're too hand-handed.
That's the scary thing.
You've never gotten caught in any of that.
I've never done anything.
I'm like Larry.
You know, which raises another question.
With that, on the purely political terms, forget about the government or anything else, but this dumb son of a bitch is really got, I think, got us in a terrible bind.
I heard.
Yeah, so.
Ain't that 250?
Well, the jackass is gone.
The 250 doesn't make any difference.
Well, maybe it does.
On the merits, it's probably a problem, too.
I don't know about that.
But what bothers me is... All right.
But what bothers me is that at a time...
But we've got McGovern on the ropes because he can't run his own goddamn staff, and our whole, as we generally agree, our basic issue against him is incompetence.
Here we have the Secretary of Defense, the second-ranking member in the president's cabinet, is out saying that the president is stupid.
That's, in effect, what he said, and that I don't give a damn what his policy is.
I'm against it.
And that's a lousy spot for us to be.
He's loose-poking.
Henry.
Twice.
Twice.
Well, Laird does what he always does.
He says to Henry, Henry, I'm not against the president.
I'm not against the spending suit.
Say anything you want over there.
I'm for the spending suit.
But meantime, in a very effective way, he's cutting us up with the press and the Congress.
Well, it doesn't.
It essentially doesn't affect defense.
As a matter of fact, I went on the Today Show, and I got a specific question on that.
And I talked about battleships, and I defended his damn defense budget.
Up one side and down the other.
Yeah, and the other thing that he said is it wasn't consulted, which is a damn lie.
He was consulted specifically by a cab, and then he was here for the breakfast of the cabbie's meeting before the thing ever was finalized in the mouse.
John Lasseter, Mr. President.
I'll let John say it.
I think it has a person in it.
And this is a money collector.
It's a key.
This is not happening.
Okay.
The... Oh, of course he was there.
Yep.
He heard the same thing.
That's correct.
ever raise his damn voice?
Well, I think so.
Because at the same time, within a day, he comes out with his nominee, the secretary of defense in the second term.
He cuts Rush out.
Well, in another list where Rush didn't even appear, and the press noticed that.
And, uh, uh,
There are no merits.
Well, there are no substantive merits to the spending ceiling.
The spending ceiling is a political gimmick, and it has quite a lot of magic in it in terms of higher taxes, in terms of holding their people alive.
Yeah.
It's always been abandoned.
So we're just putting some of it as a leader.
You can't abandon a Russian like that.
You can't abandon anybody when they're trying to bomb people.
I don't know about that.
Oh yes you can.
You're right about it.
He's a stupid ass cat from a political standpoint.
Yeah, but Laird is not a stupid ass from a political standpoint.
He's just a damn shrewd guy from a political standpoint.
Whatever he's doing, he knows exactly what he's doing.
He knows exactly what his effect will be and he doesn't make mistakes.
I may have to break it off in your other favorite cabinet officer, Mr. Romney, today.
The crisis matter, but we're going to keep him now.
We're going to keep him, but he demands a personal audience with you to discuss it.
Discuss keeping him?
Yeah.
And...
I'm going to meet any other captain.
I'm going to keep him.
I say I may have to break it off.
I'm sorry, but if you think I have to see him, I'll see him.
Well, I don't think you have to see him.
All right, I won't.
I think this can be done by message.
I think I can tell him what your view is.
And I deliberately want to make it fuzzy.
I don't want him to be in a position to cross-examine you and pin you down.
Tie your hands on him.
Well, that's what I say.
That's what it may come to.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, he won't take it from me.
That's the point.
And I'm going to be in a position of saying, look,
The president does want to talk to you face-to-face about this.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Hudson came over and gave me a big Hamlet act the same way on his future.
No, he's going to stay on, and he's going to cut the crew, and he doesn't expect to stay the second turn.
But he's questioning what's going to happen, and everybody's wondering, and there are a lot of rumors.
Perhaps we should develop a line.
Should the line be that the entire cabinet will be changed?
Well, and it also loses you some things that you might otherwise get.
You're going to go into neighborhoods where you say, John Volpe's been my good right hand.
And everybody says, that's all right, you know.
No, I can just say that.
No, just kidding.
I was saying, we're wondering what's going to happen.
You can sit and suggest it in the Oval Office who wonders too.
There's a decision going to be made on November 7th.
And it's a mutual matter.
It's a mutual matter that will be discussed with each cabinet officer.
With each cabinet officer.
After the election.
But after the election.
There's not going to be any discussion with the cabinet before the election.
I think that's the point.
Because each one, if someone leaves...
This is a matter to be discussed after the election.
These are matters to be discussed after the election.
I would regard that you tell George, or you would tell him, you would tell him the concept, for example.
I will.
And we've gone over this with him.
That the leader, that this is a matter that the president considers a personal matter with each one.
And we'll have to see that some of the chapters.
I'll just say it honestly, George, I can't do it for you.
I don't agree with you.
I don't think we should keep him one day after January 3rd.
Do you agree with me?
No, I see no reason to keep him.
The line I took with Hodgson was that nothing would be decided that you're going to keep all your options open until after the election.
Obviously, there were strong negatives to making any kind of a decision with regard to any cabinet officer before the election, and I cited the Volpe example.
I said, as far as the White House is concerned, we're all going to tender our resignations to the president as a matter of form, as a matter of custom.
And I assume that the cabinet and the subcabinet will want to do the same thing.
And then I left it at that.
He says, I agree with that procedure.
I think that's very sound.
He says, I don't plan to be here in the second term.
And he said, I'm making my plans accordingly.
It's a hard thing to replace.
Even that is disadvantageous because if these guys start making their plans, word starts getting out that so-and-so is going to be president of such-and-such a college, so-and-so is going to be chairman of the board of such-and-such a company.
Let me say it's inevitable.
Let me say also, I wouldn't encourage it, but let me say I don't think it's, I don't, I think it should be the best you can.
It's best versus fighting through November, Korea, and then make an announcement.
But I think that a lot of this is in-house stuff.
We are more concerned about keeping water.
I am concerned with malaria.
Malaria then affects, a major offensive to the administration of the county's spending system.
Malaria, you and the, you and the cabinet, and, uh, Henry.
Henry, I said you ought to come and say, look, let's not stop this kind of action.
And we've got to stop it today.
Do you agree?
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
It's very debilitating.
On Romney, if you want me to see him, I'm saying I'm always ready.
I'll let you know.
I don't think so, because I don't want to be in a position where he says to me, well, no, I'd like to stay.
That's the problem.
See, then you're in a position of breaking it off, and I don't think we ought to put you in that position.
What do you want to tell him?
Well, I'm going to tell him just this, that all these questions of the future of the cabinet are intentionally being deferred.
And that obviously the President will take into consideration the personal problems of each member of the cabinet.
Is that something that some don't want to say, some want to stay a little while, others want to leave?
We'll look into all those things afterwards.
And then afterwards, we will be God damn pleased.
That's the way to go and just make the decision, I think, to go to the country to confront society.
This is what I'd like to say.
Let's say it was so depressing.
I'd like to say we'll find out in November 7th what the situation is.
You can't evaluate it until after that.
It would be very bad to have a story that so-and-so is going to stay or that so-and-so is going to die.
That's true.
If somebody's going to stay, then everybody else is going to die.
No more than that.
If you were to say Romney's going to stay, that's a negative to a certain element.
Sure, sure.
And just as no candidate for the presidency would announce his cabinet ahead of time, no president is going to announce his second cabinet.
Let me say, you as your governor, do you think going after these assholes isn't the right thing to do?
We do it very discreetly.
We do it like this.
Johnson.
I didn't find him.
I'm just saying, let's take a look at this car, unless you want me to.
Can you come here any better?
He knows the stuff better than you do.
I think so.
All right.
All right.
All right.
We've got that.
Did you find him?
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I don't see him.
I wouldn't think so with that group, and I don't think you ought to go without Greg.
This group, you can have without Greg.
Now, do you want, how about her as your son?
Round it out.
I just, I have a problem.
I was, I was giving a, having a group of the youth for next, people who are sinners now, which you don't have to know.
But, uh, I can change to another night if you want.
Well, is there anybody else in that group?
No.
Think about it.
I'll call you later.
It's a nice way to take care of somebody.
You don't want Brownell in this situation?
No.
You don't want Mitchell?
I'd get Mitchell with Brownell in contact.
You will call Mitchell about the Friday thing.
He's available.
I'll check that out.
If Pete can't go, I'll invite somebody else.
I want four people to visit.
I think it'd be nice if we could, all right?
Do you think I'd be better off to go to Florida?
I could go to Florida.
It's a lot easier for me.
I don't know.
No, I don't know.
The advantage of this is that the weather's better.
You don't want to go to Camp David and escape if you get to Florida.
You're stuck there.
I also kind of don't think it looks too good for you to go down to Florida.
The match is about to start.
I was thinking, if I can do it without discussing about it, whether or not I can do it next.
I ought to, in this period, maybe a couple of pops on the call.

Nixon, Haldeman & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Political strategy

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on August 3, 1972

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