Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 812-008
Date: Friday, November 3, 1972 at 10:46 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/812-008

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:19] I talked to George.
[0:20] He talked to President Johnson again this morning.
[0:23] Johnson had his staff working on files and everything.
[0:27] And last night, Johnson said to George, you know, they've got to deny this this morning.
[0:31] Johnson said, first of all, after reviewing the policy, he's not going to say anything.
[0:35] He wasn't going to deny it.
[0:36] He's not going to.
[0:37] He's just going to slough it off.
[0:40] He then went through the whole series of minutes with the Christians.
[0:43] He said, starting October 17,
[0:54] Through the 30th, reporting approximately an investor gem here and two over there.
[1:00] Uh, sure.
[1:01] That, uh, I mean, we've searched his contacts with that at all.
[1:14] We were in the construction front, this and that, and all was dealing with vacuum.
[1:17] Remember, we had that.
[1:18] Yeah.
[1:18] And that's when he started looking at me.
[1:21] And he said, I had Johnson Cold Dirt.
[1:24] I had no idea what that was writing on.
[1:26] He said, I did call Mixon and go through the problem with him.
[1:31] And we agreed that Dirt was working in an intermediary industry.
[1:34] And Dirt's in that with, yeah, on the Weather 9.
[1:36] And yeah, we went through all that, smoothed it all over.
[1:40] He said, I decided at the time,
[1:46] Johnson said that he decided at the time to interpret this as something foolish that someone did to John Nixon's knowledge and that he and Nixon agreed to do nothing to slow the talks down.
[1:56] And that we should look at the way he handled it in his book.
[1:59] That's his position on it.
[2:00] which wasn't cooperating fully and receiving a few talks and all that stuff.
[2:06] Then he said to Christian, he said, here's the leading line.
[2:08] He said, it is conceivable that somebody here may have asked the FBI to follow up on it.
[2:14] See, last night he said it was absolutely not true.
[2:16] He said, so maybe it's possible that Hoover did tell the president that he was asked to do this.
[2:21] And Christian then said, you better handle things straight.
[2:24] So he said, that is true.
[2:27] Hoover did tell the president that.
[2:30] And you should know that.
[2:32] And he said Johnson wasn't surprised and didn't try to deny that at all.
[2:36] So he said, now it's clear.
[2:37] Johnson knows the position we're in.
[2:38] He knows that you know that Hoover didn't hug you and that we did nothing about it.
[2:43] Johnson was very grateful for that.
[2:46] Appreciate it.
[2:48] And, uh, Christian also added great detail about our concern about the FBI leak, and that our concern is that if we try to move on this story or anything like this, it could be a trap.
[2:57] In other words, the FBI may be prepared to leak some of this.
[2:59] Right, right.
[3:00] Johnson understood that immediately.
[3:04] He didn't have to spell that out at all.
[3:06] True.
[3:06] And Johnson said it briefly.
[3:08] Johnson also thinks he's going to die.
[3:12] He told Christian, for the second, third, fourth,
[3:18] He is very concerned.
[3:21] He didn't know how he handled his voting story.
[3:25] He voted absentee.
[3:35] And he had a friend say today that he had voted, that he and Lady Bird had already voted, that they voted the straight Democratic ticket.
[3:40] And that's all they're saying.
[3:42] They're not saying if they voted for the governor, he will not do anything.
[3:46] They're pushing him unmerc- mercilessly to make an appearance.
[3:48] They're not saying that.
[3:54] This is