Conversation 856-004

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I got a list, but the one pressing item I've got is on farm tactics.

We've got the usual every four years option paper on whether we send a legislative package, whether we let our views be known quietly to the committee,

uh you know those kinds of all over let's say what says when you get back here to where people choose upsides you can choose upside butts and a lot of other people all favor a transitional program so-called as a desired substantive result of this year's legislation uh what that

means, in effect, is not a formal bill.

But I could have told it that way, too.

Let me say on the farm issue, that the Farm Bill is all we'll ever do.

You're not gonna get through.

What I mean is, if I get the Farm Bill, I know it's right to do so, but you say, what the hell, you won the election, why don't you do it?

I mean, I just do it in the Congress.

So John, I did it the terror way, the cleaner way, I don't know if you can say put up the Farm Bill and change all these programs and the rest of it, but it's just, it's just pissing in the wind, and we just better not take the Farm Issue out.

Now, what's his idea?

is to go for a four-year phasing to reach the cropland basis, which would, in effect, get us on a sounder basis, remove some of the supports over a period of four years so these guys could plant on it.

And he's willing to go out and fight for that and try and get it.

I think we ought to let him try.

Sure.

Oh sure, that would be an effort to move that one move and drive his way to what I don't think is a formal farm.

I should just say we're consulting with the Congress.

This is one of those areas which is peculiarly, particularly, requires congressional consultation.

That's important.

Rather than, and I'd be quite honest about it, I'd say we have found, as we found before, that the most effective way to work with the Agriculture Committee is to work in partnership with the Congress, rather than choose that.

That's important.

We'll have a bill, but only after consultation.

And then it'll get a committee bill, which we'll support.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

OK. Good.

And we'll publicly state our position at the time we have one.

Sure.

OK. Great.

Well, that's the only thing that immediately.

What about credits?

All right.

If you'd like to get into that.

I think this.

I really don't feel myself.

And I thought about it eight or seven times.

I've had a lot of thinking about it.

I think we had better take a known quantity with weaknesses that we're aware of in this particular area and to try to take somebody else.

Gray is loyal.

I realize he's weak in some ways.

I realize that there's some confirmation problem, but let's look at that for just a moment.

Maybe it's just as well to have Gray get up there and have him beating over the head about Watergate and have him say what the hell he's done.

Well, he's prepared to do that.

I've been over this today with John Dean to see what he says the problems will be.

He says it will be a very long, very tough confirmation, and will be an opportunity for a different set of senators to get into the Watergate than the other group.

It'll be the Tunneys and the Kennedys and the Bias and so on.

But recognizing that, Gray tells a very good story.

He tells, basically, the story that I think of, because, look, the main problem with Watergate are not the facts.

Sure, the facts would be this and that and the other.

The main problem is the cover-up.

Yeah.

Now, then, we just can't have the appearance of cover-up.

And I think we can simply say that, yes, we want them, and let them get up there.

You see, if you don't, if you kick them upstairs to the circuit court, they'll say they were afraid.

There's simply no way they'll get around it.

It does make a difference.

It gets Kennedy and Tony in the rest.

So look after Gray.

Gray, it seems to me, makes a rather good impression.

I don't know.

I haven't seen him on television.

Does he?

Reasonably.

He's very honest.

He's very square corners.

You know, kind of a retired Navy captain.

He's vulnerable, according to John's analysis.

He's vulnerable to two counts.

One is whether or not he handled Watergate adequately.

And John says, I think he'll acquit himself very nicely there.

The other is his stewardship of the Bureau over the period of the last eight months.

There, John says, the established bureaucracy of the Bureau will be feeding all kinds of garbage to the committee, and Gray will be on the defensive.

So he says we're allowed to be in for a few surprises on other cases or the handling of other matters and things of that kind that are incalculable right now.

But he said he doesn't think that he is in serious injury.

And on balance, he thinks Gray is, as you say, a known quantity.

He is a guy that we can tell to do things that he will do.

Now, he's been a little weak on that because of this.

He's been afraid of what he had to face.

at the time of confirmation.

John says, he thinks if, if, but only if, you call Gray over, and you read him chapter and verse, and you say, he says you, now I can do this, but he says you, you would say, Pat, I had an arrangement with J. Edgar Hoover that up until now I have not had with you, and I missed it.

Once you're confirmed, I want it understood, that we go back to a personal relationship, that when I call, you respond, and that we have to have an absolutely tight relationship.

Well, how do we get it so that not only I call, but you call?

Well, then you can delegate that and go from there, as it is now.

John says we made a mistake in the inception in not tying him down tight enough.

But we did it for a number of reasons.

He was contingent and we had this thing hanging up.

And he's tracked reasonably well.

Now he has some guilty knowledge in connection with the Waterdeep that only Dean and I know about that has to do with the hunt.

We turned some stuff over to Greg to get it out of here.

That'll never come out.

He'll never testify to that.

There's no way that he could testify to that.

Well, it just isn't necessary.

There's no way for anybody to know.

And he understands that that set of circumstances never happened.

And it's never appeared, never come out.

I don't know where he's gone, but he's gone.

We felt that we wanted to be in a position to say we had turned everything over to the FBI.

So I called him up to my office one day.

And we said, Pat, here's a big fat envelope.

What is this stuff that Hunt did on that case in California?

Well, no, it's other stuff.

And Dean's never told me what went in the envelope.

I don't know what Hunt dealt with myself.

Well, he must have done a hell of a lot of stuff.

He did some things for Chuck, apparently, that he made record of.

Was that at this envelope?

Yeah.

That Chuck made record of?

No, that Hunt did.

How did you get Hunt stuck?

Well, we opened his safe.

See, Dean took everything out of his safe, and we turned everything over to FBI agents who came for it, except this envelope full of stuff.

And then I called Greg in my office.

Dean came in.

I said, Pat, here's an envelope.

We want it to be in a position to say we've turned everything over to the FBI, so we're giving it to you.

I don't care what you do with it as long as it never appears.

Suppose that they ask him about other activities.

Presumably, since I honestly don't know of any, because maybe he never opened the envelope.

He was smart, he didn't.

I don't want to get into the deck with him.

I understand.

I don't like that.

But I want you to know about it.

The, uh, at some point in time, if you haven't already, Bob or I or Johnny or somebody, I'll give you a rundown of how the certain hearing is going to go.

The kinds of things that are liable to come smoking up so you're not surprised.

But we think there's a reasonably good possibility of coming through it very much like we've come through the trial, with a certain amount of day-to-day flack and even television stuff, but no lasting results.

Well, I suppose that all is dependent.

I talked to Bob a little about it.

I guess there would be some deal.

But I suppose, John, it depends.

See, he didn't feel like he came back dry morning, and I actually didn't either.

The reason, the problem is that one of these guys had cracked.

The one that had cracked had been really hurt from the honking.

Uh, yeah.

Hoffman-Gruder could have been hurt in a different direction.

Hoffman-Gruder, if he cracks, goes to prison?

Yes.

Well, I guess unless he takes the man against him, he would do it.

Possibly.

There are several of these guys that we rely on.

Now, Sloan is not a problem.

He doesn't know anything.

But Magruder is a problem.

Magruder knows a whole lot.

Let's face it, did Magruder hurt him some?

Yep.

Or hit him?

I don't know.

Sure did.

I think he, from what I've heard, he must have.

Sure did.

He said he was not a book.

He didn't have a knowledge.

And he did.

Is that right?

Basically, that's it.

I'm kidding.

Deion and Kruger.

Who the hell else murdered himself?

Mitchell.

I assume so, without knowing.

The thing has a very good chance.

If it's handled right, we can cut our losses here, cut our losses there.

I'm trying to show our power of faith here and there.

Bill Stein fires and so on.

I heard it.

I thought you were...

I'm not going to be taken by surprise by anything.

It's okay.

Well, when I say that, I mean, the only real problems that I see, basically, are whether it, to the extent that it ties into the White House staff.

You know, I'm just thinking it's fortunate all that your service and everything else you've done.

At least I've never met any of these people.

Exactly.

I don't ever, I don't, I've never met one.

I've never talked to them.

And then discuss these things.

Right.

I've not done it once.

Never.

I know something.

I mean, I mean, this is a great operation.

Or, or, uh, or, uh, Colson and areas other than Watergate, but purely political stuff.

Yeah.

Which is perfectly legal.

Yeah.

I'm wrong.

Yep.

I think you did some work on, on, uh, Teddy Kennedy or something.

I did some investigating.

Yeah.

The other reason I raise it at this point is because the,

the handling of Greg in other hands, Eastland and his group, could go in an unpredictable direction.

I just don't know.

And so that's the one lingering hazard.

Now, the other prime candidate is Henry Peterson, the criminal deputy, and he's in just as bad shape, you know, and without the ties that Greg has.

He wouldn't care what happened to us.

Uh, Rumpelstiltskin is a possibility.

Uh, there's one other fellow named Vernon Ackrey, who's the head of customs, who's a possibility.

Oh.

But, uh, that's about it.

Well, the great thing about Vernon is our secret plan is to watergate Aaron.

That's right.

We're ready.

We're not.

He told the world he heard it from me.

No, well, he could be, but probably wouldn't be.

So it's sort of a double indemnity.

There's a double loyalty effort.

It really is.

Well, yeah, that's it.

We've combed, you know, as well as we can.

Let me come at it from another side.

We had the idea of

nominating Maury Sands for a confirmable part of the vote.

The thought there is to pull up some of the poison, to air it in another proceeding.

Uh, Maury's pretty clean.

He tells a good story.

Uh, he's righteously indicted.

Uh, so nominate him.

Get him up before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or some other committee.

Let them ask him about campaign financing.

Let him tell his story and be vindicated in, in that process.

Pretty good, pretty good, uh, collateral action.

I'm inclined to think that there's some of that in the gray, in the case to be made, that the gray thing would do the same thing.

You'd have a paper that says, gee, none of these told the whole story.

That was a hell of an investigation.

And the administration really did turn over everything.

Well, for example, they'll ask, did you investigate these newspapers remotely?

Did you?

No.

The Bureau member did.

At least not that I know of.

Did they get one from you?

Oh, they got two from me.

Awesome.

Sure.

Why not?

They just never lived in it.

If they wanted to, he was available.

And that's what he would say?

Yeah.

Sure, but I have no comments.

I think I'd send him up.

I'd simply send him up.

Okay.

You know, we constantly get this story with Peter John, which I think repeats me a little bit.

The Nixon administration's

program of investigating domestic subversive groups, did you know that goddamn thing started, you know what I mean, on this and that and this and the Watergate service?

That thing started, did you know, years ago?

And we used to speak under Bob McKinney.

Oh, the tax and stuff, yeah, sure.

And those became available, huh?

I don't know how they became available.

They didn't.

They didn't, sir.

Yes, sir.

Those were available to you as I recall.

But there was never any connection.

between Dave Young's leak operation.

Oh, that's Dave Young.

Yeah.

See, and then that's where they tied him in.

Now, we had Hunt working for Dave Young for a brief period of time.

Oh, I see.

And what he was doing down there was simply a job of analysis.

He was taking all those leaks and matching them up to see where the commonality among them was to try and determine which documents they came with.

We had to check that.

Oh, of course.

But he never got patent material from anything.

I got some of them.

Bob got a lot of them.

Bob got most of them, I think.

I'm not aware that anybody else ever did.

I would show some outrage.

Why, sure.

We cut them back.

That's right.

Way back.

We cut the Army clear out.

See, they had the Army.

We cut all that out.

The Army had a number of domestic caps that had been cut down to the bare minimum.

We finally took them all off.

We took all of them off except the national security caps.

But they're domestic.

They're done domestically, but they're done, you know, pursuant to that statute.

And the number is way, way down.

I had a client to think that we just better go to Gray.

Because I think at the present time, we have the worst of both worlds.

We can't leave it uncertain.

Now, how do you handle the client each time it's not going to run?

I'll just inform him.

He'll be happy to plan.

Then I've got to see him alone.

Right.

I would not tell client each until after you've talked to Gray.

Should we create one privately tomorrow?

Yeah.

Alright.

Okay.

I'm going to the pentagon at one o'clock and I'll take you back by, let's say, four o'clock.

Four o'clock?

Okay.

Fine.

You and I will see it together.

Alright.

I'm excited.

I think I'll make sure to give you a very brief one later.

Yeah.

Alright.

You can just say that the President will never begin to talk to me about this.

Frankly, Pat, he has, we haven't had the right to talk to you first.

That'll keep him on it.

Okay, I've got other stuff, but I'll tell him all the damn key is going to be true.

Yeah, you've got to do that.

You can bring it in in the morning if you want.

I know, I have nothing to do.

Thank you for coming this morning.

Thank you.

Well, I'll get it into MRAC and we won't put it on your schedule.

This other stuff can wait.

I see Rosie Wood has written you about Pat Kitt.

Have you seen that?

Well, you get a memo from her.

I got that, I think, under reasonable control.

If you have no objection, we're going to give her action.

What's Rose?

She's sending a memo in that's supposedly a conversation she had with Bob Finch about how her job report passed and so on.

You know what?

Bob Finch suggested her run for the Senate.

Wow.

What the hell politics does to men, I don't know.

He spent an hour just persuading me that the best thing he could do is run for governor, I think.

Did you convince him to do this?

No.

God, no.

You did it the other way.

Sure.

Bob did it the other way, I guess.

I tried.

But he just, uh, he talked to my old men about that.

And it made no sense at all.

He's thinking so much about he could do so much more as governor.

He's thinking of the delegation.

That isn't true.

That isn't true, and he knows this.

I said, let's show you Senator Hill.

He said, you're rationalizing.

I said, you're scared of Cranston.

No, no.

He said, I'm not scared of Cranston, but I could build a party, and I'm a party man.

Look, do me a favor.

And, uh, I, uh, there's a memo from Rose Compiap.

Uh, she sent me a copy of it.

I assume it's in the readings.

I want you to go see her.

All right.

Say the president is, is, is, Rosie already raised this with me, put it that way.

At first, there's that she's not doing a job that I've ever moved completely on top of.

I just make her really ashamed.

I'd like to say to Rose, if you'd only raised this with me, I could have told you.

Well, I raised this two weeks ago.

Because, Pat, we've had to reorganize this department.

We don't reorganize this when we move with all the rest.

And I go on to say, we thought, he mentioned the labor department was being opened.

Now, actions have a piece for it all.

That's right.

She'll run it right into the ground.

Why?

Well, just because she's not a gung-ho, aggressive administrator.

It'll be a potential thing we ask her to do.

It's kind of a kiss of death for action.

Now, what if it should be run into the ground?

What if we still have a business?

No, no, no.

Grandparents program.

There's five or six of them.

They're good.

Yeah.

And well, too, Vista is no good.

Peace Corps is no good.

But the others are perfectly well-sponsored.

Can I say something?

Sure.

I love Peace Corps and Vista.

And I would put, but rather than cutting the money, I'd put it all on the neighbors.

Why'd you do that?

That's what I've talked to her about.

That you don't like either of those two.

That we feel they're not cost-effective.

And that she should come to us with some constructive suggestions of what else Action could do instead.

Either what else it could do, or get approved programs.

And double the money for it, yeah.

All right.

Why not?

All right.

Double the money for it.

Or find another new one.

All right.

I'm all for it.

Is she willing to take it?

She's amenable to that.

Is she willing to take it?

Yeah, Victoria, if she wants it that way.

What the hell is Rosa in the memorandum?

Because she thinks that the dirty old White House staff is

taking advantage of Arnelle, and she won't get the job.

Well, you talk about raising it.

Well, and then you, that we, that you recommend an action.

And I said, why?

And you've been talking to her about it.

I said, well, okay.

So then she gets her own agency.

See, I, as you well know, of course, I just think she's a great gal.

Well, we don't want another Blatchford over there who's going to be trying to expand that empire.

But keep where it is.

I'd like to see action right at the same level of funding, John.

Don't cut the money out there.

I'm sorry.

put the piece of art on any interest of mine.

Let's put it in foster care.

Did you see this program?

It works.

Put it in something where youth can participate.

Of course, you gotta write something for youth, not something that's, okay, you can write, and I'm telling you what to do.

Maybe she can write something better, but not a moon dog.

There's a pretty, pretty good guy over there as deputy who'll run it and make sure all the bills get paid and all that stuff.

You know, the, uh, I want to talk to you about tomorrow about another subject.

I think that, uh, Bob is getting a bad rap.

And Taylor is helping him so well.

I don't know how the hell that will happen.

Apparently, you know, uh, Rose raised that point with somebody.

But that's got to stop.

Because when I say boss, he's better.

But I think there are a couple of things that he might do.

Look, I don't even give one damn.

He's got a thick skin.

First, from a personal standpoint, he doesn't deserve it to be wrapped.

And second, he could be more effective and frankly defuse some of these things with a couple of gestures by, on top of him, by the car.

But you probably aren't surprised.

I have.

And I just don't think it's good for Bob to get the sermon that Adam's in.

You're right.

And it's shaping up that way.

You're right.

Well, there are some things that he could do to soften that.

Well, I look forward to that, because I... Maybe you need to put your mind to it, too, all right?

I'm not referring just to running around talking to people.

Things that you can do, basically, to be, frankly put, and using the word, since I do all the kind of calls, yes, that are, frankly, kind and do support themselves.

I want to point out, I'll start with, I tried to get at a subject with him, and he didn't bite me for it.

And don't talk to him about it until I talk to him.

But I suggested he have a deputy, like you have a deputy, Cole.

And, well, he can't be a deputy.

I did it because I thought he could take a deputy and sort of have the, you know,

Even I said it.

And indeed, you want to see how I said it.

Now, one of his major problems, and I mean, there's no problem with me, that's why I never said it, but I said it, is a... What's his name, the second Christian?

David?

Yeah.

Now, John has got a place of that, that he's enormously confident, but...

Totally misliked throughout the place.

Didn't keep that in mind.

Bob, Bob, I'm saying he called.

Bob has people go over his interests.

And an individual very close to him, Bob, he's a bull rather than a devil.

He seemed like a devil.

I agree.

I see that.

I know it's a question of confidence, but you can watch it.

It's all very bare to the bone.

It's kind of, it's kind of, hey, he comes in.

He's a, it's a, there's a foundation on the grocer.

And I understand, I understand, but I want you to think about that.

All right?

And to Bob's good, he just has to, he's got to put some money around him.

He's got to soften it up because he's a bright, bright-ish guy.

No nonsense.

Give an order.

You don't do it that way.

You do it like bull.

It's all shit.

Bull stuff.

I guess it does.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Okay.

I think that is fine.

Without sanctions.

Take the tailor to the right side.

I have the slightest idea of what that is.

I don't give a damn who's standing in the detail.

I couldn't care less.

What I thought was that Taylor should stay on her.

I don't.

Basically because it's a health problem, not good.

You know what I'm saying?

You know, Bob Taylor came to me six months ago.

He said he wanted to leave.

And asked me if I could help him get a job outside.

You can't get a... Why did I ask Taylor to come in?

I don't know that he is.

Who is?

I don't know.

I think the guy's in the service arm.

That would be my guess.

Why would they be talking about him?

Because they think he's been jogged.

Because Taylor hasn't told anybody that he's been out looking.

He's been very...

In fact, he has struck anybody with a needle on him.

I told Ziegler about this today so that he could start to move now.

You did, John.

Good God.

I think Dunn is the man who really had the secret service.

But I can't put it there again.

Yeah.

And so he's the other fellow.

In fact, he's the man who had the details for our tires.

Perfect.

But I understand that he can't, that he had to jump to the DPL, so he wanted to leave.

Well, I'm very sensitive about it.

I know.

I know, right?

It's a mess.

Damn thing's a mess.

just because these guys are so sensitive of each other.

You know, it's a very, very tight-loved family.

But I say it's a bum rap, and I know it is because I know what I'm on.

And about the letting down of barriers for us, it's kind of a joke around here.

That incident happened, but it didn't happen in Providence, and it didn't happen to Bob.

That happened between Taylor and Chapin.

And it happened in New York, and I was a witness to it.

But Bob was never involved in that.

So it's a bonus in practice.

He and Taylor squared off on this.

Taylor said, if you guys do that, I'm going to have you put in jail, which is the way that the story ran.

Yeah, well, Taylor started it, so he lost that.

Yeah, but that was, you see, weeks before the providence.

That's what I'm saying, weeks before Taylor was let go.

It's going to be a lot of problems.

We've got to keep it all in perspective, let me tell you.

Well, the over, the over, you know what people are talking about, they're not talking about the message on the environment, the secret service, they're talking about people in the dinner, you know, talking about people and others.

Yeah, but I tell you, you're softening things, you're softening things nicely, but some of these things you're doing to the family, they're a little bit helpless in that direction.

It's a good thing.