Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Watergate and L. Patrick Gray confirmation

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Yeah, or not even.

Thank you.

If you think so, we'd better go.

I think at least with the keys, we'd get something together.

Well, the other thing, who are we calculating it to?

The other thing, Steve's coordinating it.

We're dependent on the show.

Keith is doing the Irving Berlin.

Right.

And Davis is doing his own.

Yeah.

Sinatra will do his own.

What else can we do?

Well, what do you think?

Do you think it was clean enough?

Yeah, I think it could, clean enough, I guess.

Could they bring music with them?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, it's better to have a show than to have something that is not going to, that will block, you know what I mean?

The carpenters may not have the thing to go over this crowd.

That's what I'm a little concerned about.

They're good, but they're a little low-key and they're a little different.

They need something louder, frankly.

Although they can play plenty louder.

It's that rock kind of loud.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think, you better get somebody on it from here.

That's why I say, just really get them.

Why would I tell somebody appointed to do evenings at the White House?

Now, the way we do it now is that we leave it with your wife.

We leave it basically with Steve.

Okay.

On the coordination side.

But he has absolutely no qualification for you, sir.

No.

But the other gentleman's going to work with you.

But how does he know who the hell to work with?

That's not a point.

Calabaro is on the outside.

Knows who to work with.

The other thing is Garmin.

No.

My brother's good, but he's not.

I'm not about to shoot him right now, which is why we're not getting him.

Yeah.

I'll get that untangled with him.

That's me.

But let's just get me somebody around.

There's somebody in this town.

I don't know who's that, sir.

Let's put him in charge of it.

Do you have a big arm?

No, he's not.

No, he's working about it, but he's not having fun.

I was thinking that you better check on the skull.

He'll be fairly fast, right?

I have an impression that he could go out and scream at the fact that he was fired.

He just blew the whistle on them.

He didn't say anything.

He didn't say anything at all.

He didn't tell them he was working on it, but he did.

I'll be watching for her.

I'm very close to her.

I don't want to have that sort of thing happen to Roy.

I hate to complain.

Have you not heard about this?

Not until he came in yesterday.

We aren't interested in whether he tried or wrong about it.

Whether he should have come in.

But we better find out if that really is his whole theory, as we blew the whistle on that.

And, as I said, Richardson and Warner, those two great guys, rocked like snakes and stood up on the goddamn thing.

And they wanted to kick him, but were overruled.

That's what he told me.

Which, of course, is also disturbing to several standpoints.

I think we better get at it.

Were you able to get water to take the Mexican friend over there?

That was good.

He's good.

This Mexican fellow, I guess, is not all that smart.

He's a decent fellow.

Appreciate it.

He doesn't want to go to AID because he says, I want to stay here because I can do more home office.

But, frankly, it's a separate question.

Thank you.

But it all is.

I don't think there's a waiver.

I'll see you.

You know, I was thinking that we, I don't know, Roger's moves, you could find some justification on it, that he might have wanted to get the leaders included in, you know, getting support, aid.

I'm just guessing, and I'm sure that he'll have a very solid line.

I'll just second-guess once things are done.

But I was just trying to go around and see my own mind, so I'll tell you a recent one.

Well, this will turn out probably to be interesting.

Well, if that's not intended, of course, I didn't plan to do this thing with that in mind.

But the overriding thing of the...

What's your judgment?

I don't know.

He's letting too much out.

Great.

The greatest line is that this is all a tactic that he's doing on purpose.

For instance, he's offered to let them look at the raw files.

He's doing it because he's convinced that Ervin won't allow that to happen, and that this is all a clever thing, and he turns it all off on Tuesday.

And Ervin...

hang tight, and if they've got the votes, then that's where they are.

There's two sides to the argument.

The gray side, and it's a question of congressional tactics, really.

The gray side is that he's playing a, you know, sort of a throw-it-out-there, wonder-of-the-statute back game that will close the whole thing off on Tuesday and put it to a vote, and that Eastland is sure he's got the votes, and...

The opposition concern, the non-opposition in analyzing the concern of that tactic is that Byrd is taking such a strong anti-aggression position that one has to consider the possibility that Byrd may not at least get votes and they aren't going to get it out.

And Eastland's advice to us on tactics has been almost as wrong as Mitchell's.

And Mitchell's has, of course, always been based on Eastland.

Got it.

And those are both been wrong.

Clindy's is wrong, too.

Absolutely.

I heard.

It's Clindy's, Mitchell's, and Eastland's, the three of them, that work together.

But Clindy's tactics were all based on what Eastland told them was fine.

But when it gets to a crunch, Eastland talks to it.

Yeah.

But when they get down to grinding, he follows the senatorial courtesy unless the thing goes on.

And if he does that on Tuesday, Greg's got him up a lot on a plate that it would be better not to have on a plate.

If on the other hand, they close it down Tuesday, we're...

You may think on Tuesday they'll have a vote, because they're going to have a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

Well, they don't have a vote scheduled, but they're going to.

Gray says that Eastland's plan is to write to a vote, because he says Berman will never let them get into individual senators' pursuing files, which is, that's about all they've got left now to start for that movie.

I don't know.

I don't think that's much of an analyst of Hill's strategy.

I think those guys over there all tend to worship the Eastland Shrine, and Eastland doesn't come through.

But I mean, you know, Dean has been hit in the arm, and Quindy has too.

Quindy's disagreed with him, as I understand it, being, oh, Quindy's supposed to eat that.

He doesn't think he should.

He thinks he's going to be too outgoing on some of this stuff.

Well, he says, for example, he says, a lot of people, they're over-stirred.

They couldn't get to the bottom of the water.

Yeah, I understand that.

I'm crazy.

Is that true?

Yeah.

You know, we might have been better to follow the first time you put the variables in that name.

Sure.

We should call the rest and say, well, we didn't get it.

We didn't get it.

We couldn't get a good, honest copy.

Pardon me.

Thank you.

You have a feeling that in the light of this thing, the caper is, uh, standing, stands up there probably to give it any good idea.

Standing like Gray in one sense, he's totally confident.

And, uh, not very, not overly smart.

But, and also, like Gray,

more interested in his own script than in making sure everybody else also comes out okay.

That's a good point.

And Stan has more reason to be, in a sense.

I mean, he is, he's on all this wonderful stuff.

He's clean and would love to prove it.

But in the process of proving it, he just might leave some spots around him that wouldn't be helpful.

Yes, it is interesting to get him clean.

I'm not sure if it's to honor that he's clean.

Maybe it's better to keep him associated with the people who maybe aren't so proud of him rather than just protecting him.

Yeah.

I just think to have a running store, that's a good one.

Plus, as I said yesterday, I'm not at all sure how clean he is when they start into the... That blobs a little best of me, which is amazing.

Yeah, they'd have to get into that.

New wicked, and they'd get into that, and he may be clean, he may not.

I think he's clean legally, but it's out of questionable practice, and it's one that doesn't serve us any purpose.

You know, getting back to the use of the press conference, it's occurred to me this morning, even despite that other story, the tactic of going out there and doing those clips,

It's just even better than insurance, and they all use something.

Well, the other interesting thing is, just in a matter of tone, I noticed in a written story on it, it doesn't say impromptu press conference.

They don't talk even in Washington Post.

It's in the Times.

Oh, did they?

It's in the Times conference, the first one.

Oh, did they?

That's Apple conference.

Okay, well, the Post, in both the Post stories, it said the president in a news conference yesterday said...

where usually they say in an impromptu news conference or an informal news, uh, surprise or some hastily news conference or something.

When you go in there, it has an air of formality that's different than when you call them in here.

Calling them in here is a step above, but it's sort of the same context as Johnson running around in the Longwood, right?

The formality is right.

That's right.

Here it's sort of an informant.

It's really a news conference.

And there it is a news conference.

That's right.

But I was thinking, too, though, that there are major advantages.

They can get the TV.

They get me saved rather than.

Just them saying it.

And getting you on there talking about amnesty is, for instance, a hell of a lot better for us than having them say the president once again blasted the amnesty issuers on the island.

That's right.

And POWs keep cranking on you.

See the one this morning?

That's it.

Some guy, well, I can't remember his name.

They now have a guy who says that the POWs, virtually all of them had agreed that they would not leave if they were freed by the peacemakers.

Oh!

...Manda operation, that their position was that they wanted to leave prison with honor, and that they would not leave, they would have to be forced out if their release was obtained by the anti-war types, that they were waiting for it to be done properly.

You know, they're... Why?

It's just almost beyond belief the guy would be so good.

Yeah.

And that didn't matter.

I wonder if we could... Have you seen it yet?

No.

Because I wonder if I'd like to use it, and I would think Denton would want to.

Denton, he's quite a religious guy.

What I was thinking I might do is write a response and ask him if we could do it.

Okay, of course, his letter is a response to you immediately.

Okay.

I don't think he's got it.

I don't think he might want to because he said, I want to spend my time now trying to bring people's attention to this.

He's got the word of God business in there a little bit.

Maybe a little bit kooky, I don't know.

It doesn't make any difference.

He's got to have a word of God in his little careers.

That kind of kooky.

Well, it doesn't seem to be kooky word of God.

I mean, he's a saint.

He wants people to understand that

The message should get across, and I think we should, why don't you have Scowcroft call in?

Yes.

And say that the president was enormously impressed with his letter.

He's received a number.

He's not, you know, in the office.

Incidentally, I remember one of the others.

I read that he came.

I mean, he was a fellow that they saw him, you know, and all this time wanted letters.

I think, I think, yeah, probably, that's a letter that's written.

Yeah, and said that the president, he has an objection, would like to put it up, you know, to share it with other people.

I guess.

Okay.

The insult to their intelligence that they could have been brainwashed in three hours.

You know, I know that everybody here ruled him out, you know, for hate and all that sort of thing, but... Well, for me, sometimes it's... Well, it's a waste of time.

A waste, I suppose.

Well, what it is, he's good for other things.

No, sir.

He's got brains and...

In other words, you think of many others down in our cabin for the thought of staying up late.

You've never seen our speed track, so this suggests that to me.

i don't know i have to make as a goddamn incisive clutter into the common job and get it across now there's no question about changing that is a question where you use i don't care but that's a hell of a contest

The guy, this guy that was talking about they wouldn't leave made this point that, sure, what we said sounded similar when we got up because we...

who were a very close-knit and highly disciplined unit we had to be to survive.

And in the process of that, we talked a lot.

We had nothing else to do.

What you get is the point that they had a common view.

That's why they came out sounding the same.

Because they think the same.

They think the same because they share the same ordeal and came up with the same conclusion after a while.

But they did study me.

that they did agree that their camp commanders would determine what was to be said.

And they're working on that.

And that, I think, may be a point where we've got to be careful in how we push individuals to be sure we're getting some of the people.

Because some of them, after the discipline is on until all the POWs are out, they're all scared to death of what may happen to the last guy.

Once the last gun is out, some of them may decide to blow some whistle somewhere.

And apparently the argument was on some of the rapid things, yeah.

Sorry, too.

Yeah, right.

Sorry.

I think that's good.

That'll glue the story together.

Yeah.

I don't hear you.

You got this fashion on CBS is going to carry a lot.

We'll see if it's 5 a.m. but they're definitely might see it in the West Coast 3 to 5.

That'd be worse.

Well, some of them.

So I mean, they're not in the West Coast.

They won't carry here.

The West Coast, they're going to carry it here.

People stay in the West Coast.

But the fact that they carry it live means they've got to take coverage of it.

They'll play it all day tomorrow on the Sunday television.

You'll see it on the specials and news stuff.

So that guy's not doing it.

I don't want to be running.

I don't want to be this.

Go out there in that building.

Is there a quiet area in this college?

Well, I must say, though, that the use of the neutral for the conference, we've now found the way to do something we don't want to do nationally, probably, is just to be held in the back of your feet.

It's a thing.

And very old.

And Kerry, you make good points.

It's nothing better than our idea of attempting to get a county in here and try to...

I don't care if it wouldn't work.

You got to know where anything's bad and everything else is fine here.

And that's a perfect gun.

It's easy for you, just as easy for you to get a swing in here, isn't it?

No, I'm not concerned.

They look at me while I'm in the camera, so I don't pay any attention to them.

Keep it pop, boy, then.

I think we can call this one February 1, the March.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Keep it a little off-balance.

I'm sure.

Thank you.

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Watergate and L. Patrick Gray confirmation

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NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 3, 1973

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Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Watergate and L. Patrick Gray confirmation

AI Summary

Audio

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Transcript (AI-generated)

Also recorded on March 3, 1973

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