Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on George D. Webster and White House reorganization

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out before the press tomorrow, so you should, I think what we'll do, running at 11 o'clock, just leave this out, we're going to mark it at 11, so we can go out and read the press tomorrow.

Or we can do it at 10.45, but you don't need to say more than two minutes, really, before you read the press.

I don't need you on a cold day.

Get it out of here, here.

Your mother

about all that kind of thing, and I bet it's written down in your family Bible or something.

It's probably written in a verse or something.

I trust they do show it.

Well, in L.A. County, I think they do.

I was born in Orange County.

And on the record, keeping up until the last, now, I mean, with our kids, it's a very methodical thing, but when I was born in L.A., it was not very orderly.

It was a strange process.

My mom

I talked to Chuck about the Webster thing.

That was the only thing.

And he totally agreed that if he had been doing that, it was something.

He didn't open it.

No.

He said he was a little surprised that Webster had not told him.

There'd be no problem in telling him.

He was not the least bit concerned about it.

He said Webster had called him as a matter of fact yesterday and said he hadn't heard on the FBI report.

He said, if you guys have got any problem on me on this, for heaven's sake, don't put it through.

I don't want to get into any increased trouble.

I didn't ask for the job.

I'm not seeking it.

So don't feel if you have any problem on changing him.

I would want to stop.

How would he change his mind?

And Chuck, no problem.

He hasn't been announced.

Oh, I see.

Now, word has leaked out, but he's never been announced.

He can just say, well, I guess, you know, they have raised the question, but I... Oh, thank God.

I thought we already said that.

Oh, no, we're not going to soup on it.

No, sir.

Oh, because there's no problem.

Because my views aren't going to solve the rule.

And Chuck said he was surprised.

He said, there may be some.

And he said, even if there is, I think it rules him out.

But he said, the only thing I can imagine is that in some lean years in his law office, he might have done that for a few months to ride himself over.

Because there's a hell of a problem in mustering that much cash when you're not taking the money out of your firm to pay your tax in April.

And you ride through.

And the penalty provides for that.

And if you do that under an unusual situation and elect to take the penalty, there's nothing illegal about it.

And probably nothing wrong with doing it once or twice under...

It's a general practice.

Chuck said if it was a general practice, if he did it more than one year, and if he did it in substantial amounts for substantial periods of time, or at a time when he was making substantial money, then there is absolutely no justification.

It was clearly done as a way to...

The Webster will know how much he got it.

He said, no, let me just ask George, because then we'll go back if we have time.

For God's sake, so do we have any other candidates?

I'm not going to do orders from that job.

No, no, we have one that I want to have Chuck Bennett now take a look at.

It's a totally independent guy.

We came in from outside.

It looks damn good.

We'll see.

I checked with him on, well, you asked me to check on the Dragon Lee question.

And I just asked Mitchell, because he's the guy that knows most about that.

And he said she is very close to him and is the only one he knows in this country who is.

He said, however, if he were going to use her in any way, it would be important right now to do it in such a way as not to have her deal through Diem, who was the one she dealt with.

She dealt with Diem last time.

Diem then later supposedly at least fell out of favor with you.

Now, Diem is, of course, the one that's back here.

If you wanted to use her, it would have to be understood that she'd go directly to you.

The answer, anyway, is she is very close and she can go direct.

If you were going to use her, she'd be told to go direct rather than taking any chance of going through DM, especially while he's here on this mission.

On the other thing, he said that the information came directly from Hoover.

Yes.

And he said that Deloach was involved, and he's trying to reach Deloach now to get them.

kind of refurbish his own mind on the circumstances with some Deloach.

He'll get back to me.

Who was Deloach supposed to have told?

I thought Deloach was supposed to have told somebody.

Hoover told Mitchell O'Connell.

I said, did the information come from Deloach or from Hoover?

He said, no, it came directly from Hoover.

I thought Hoover told you.

I have, but I can't say anything about it.

You see what I mean?

You gotta have somebody out there that'll say something, and it's gotta be somebody other than Mitchell.

That's why the Loach is so key to this thing.

And whether a guy like that'll speak up, I just don't know.

Otherwise, Mitchell, it looks like a self-serving statement goes in and says that if your Hoover said that, then so what's Johnson gonna say?

He may try to lie to you, but he's got a problem because he knows he's lying.

It's a mess he lives in.

Not only does Johnson know he's lying, but George Christian and John Connolly and a few others know he's lying.

It's Connolly.

Well, you told Connolly.

They confirmed it.

I think you've got to get Mitchell into the show.

And Andrews has got to talk to Hubert and say, no, this is a situation.

He wants to kill us.

Well, it would hurt Hubert, too.

Every person in his right mind is going to let Hubert do it, too.

This works.

Nobody will believe it.

What the hell?

Johnson's for Hitler.

And it's for Hitler.

I didn't just say anything the way it's got to be played.

So if you'll follow through.

I knew meeting would oppose him, and that is a problem.

And he's got, I went through the grounds and he said, well, that's worse than I thought it was because I knew he was, he thought he had gone right to work.

We can get around that, and right to work is, a lot of people went for right to work.

As an IRS commissioner, that is a problem.

But if he was after getting rid of union tax exemptions, that is a problem.

Well, it's been one that the guys, part of what he, what pluses here also is my, it's a lot of goals for that.

It's the same kind of guy.

A guy that plays that hard is going to play toward the edge.

to work with him on it.

Absolutely, and we should.

We've just got our, you see, so many people that are, who won't play all out, aren't with the band.

Our people are that way, a lot of them, aren't they?

You know what I mean?

Either that or they're stupid.

But you know what I mean, once it, that's, there's, so now you need the combination of going all out and being smart enough to, you know,

We'll get you through that.

Oh, we have all these suns.

Lots of them tomorrow.

They don't appear on a busy day, which is good.

Yeah, they'll just bug you down here all the time.

Nah, at least they won't be seen anyway.

It's a good idea.

I've got a few of those.

I mean, I'll just clean up some of the sun.

They say it's a good idea to spend a little time abroad.

Partly because he's under attack, but also because that is the real reason.

The reason is he's going to be a hell of a good man.

He's not going to push.

He's going to be easier for you to work with than Schultz by a wide margin, I think.

He's a little pompous.

I'm surprised because I was worried.

I told you I didn't know.

He is pompous.

Yeah, he is in his own way.

Yeah, well, he's verbose.

He's not pompous.

He just goes on and on, and he has those sort of clichés that he...

spots but uh he's smart he is smart and he's the amazing thing to me is for a guy with all that dough and all all of you know what he's accomplished the record he's made but there's not a trace that i can find of ego or phony you know needing needing all these other reasons

He made it all himself.

He doesn't give a shit.

Totally sure.

Exactly.

And part of the other is part of our other problem is a lot of people that are basically are insecure.

Still fighting to go up in all the ranks.

Now this guy doesn't give one damn.

And it's just strange that you say that even a Conway has, he's still fighting.

Isn't that it?

Still fighting for something because

He just wants to get the job done.

He'd be concerned if something gets screwed up.

Charles' problem is basically, Charles is great.

The point is that Charles is just one of those fellows that has to come in over and over again.

But he's a hell of a workman.

He works in Congress like a, yeah, yes, he does.

And he's a

charger in the one sense, but he is, he's solid, absolutely solid.

He's got great tenacity.

That's right.

Art Schultz keeps working on things, and that's why Whaley gets it done.

And when it's done, nobody is ever mad at him, which is an asset that most of the rest of us don't have.

We get a lot of people here that get things done, but they don't do it as nicely as George does.

I think he and Art Schultz

He doesn't want that.

I'm good.

And he's going to go to Sinatra.

But I think you should tell that.

I decided that she should have the responsibility there.

It has to be somebody who's here.

Sinatra, incidentally, is going to emcee the American Music Concert.

And then he'll do one song or something.

Well, I hope he does a song on line there.

Oh, he will.

And I think you ought to... We've got an Italian for your...

Yeah.

Well, I thought you had told her.

No.

Yeah, I did.

I wrote a memo summarizing everything that we had covered.

But I thought you had already gone over it.

No, I didn't tell her.

She wanted me to cancel it.

And I said, no.

Let me think about it a bit.

Oh, okay.

So I said, I think you just let me go to the government.

Just to be sure that she knows that it's...

I covered it.

I spelled it out in detail so we had

Do we have a problem?

I was just thinking, and it's not a real problem.

No, but you had said go to, like, the service secretaries.

I don't think we should because we're going to change them, and we don't have the new ones yet.

And that same thing applies to the assistant secretaries.

We haven't appointed the new ones yet.

You don't need to have 300 people.

But let me say, don't go to any party people.

It must be administration people, right?

I don't think you can have, for example, even a greater.

No, you shouldn't.

It shouldn't be the campaign people.

It's an official service.

It's official.

You go by, you know, kind of rank type thing on the line.

I have a car study.

And we can go to some assistance and some agency heads, or we may change just a few things.

We can pull together a thing that will work pretty well.

But on the routing thing, I still believe that it should be limited.

like my brothers, Pat's brothers.

You're having them in the afternoon, yeah.

And they're not official.

Keep this official and then there's no question.

But I am having children.

Oh, of course.

Absolutely.

And they should be part of it.

Right.

But I don't think you should go to brothers and all that.

I don't think you need to, though.

I have enough.

And I'll be coming...

Because I'm really relieved about Webster.

That leaves an OE meeting spot open.

I'm going to find a man for that one.

Well, you always, if you need somebody to fill it, and it's certainly an easy way out of the factory, if you have a problem with the factory.

Unless you want to do it in Vermont, but...

It's better to try this other route.

I think Bob can do a good thing from time to time.

I would think it would be.

I think we could.

I mean, and for us, too.

He'd be a good ambassador.

Yeah.

But Bob, he's got to leave the building.

I don't think he's got to stop, frankly.

Mitchell had me today, and he now thinks he should stay.

Why?

He says, he says, you've got to come up with a better alternative.

He says, I think I should run those homes.

No, I didn't, because I didn't know where I was going to go.

I thought you'd left it there.

I should raise it.

All right, John raised it, but tell him to raise it tomorrow.

He may not have thought about it.

Tell him to raise the ploy at the end of the bond.

You need a variance to base it in place right now.

He agreed with that.

I said, you know, this is the problem with that, just kind of being too tired.

He said, I understand that.

The question is, do you have a better candidate?

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on George D. Webster and White House reorganization

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on January 8, 1973

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