Nixon & Dean on Watergate and L. Patrick Gray

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I don't know what's happened yet this morning.

I talked to Pat, oh, maybe four or five times since he was up there last.

He said that his policy had been one to cooperate all the way with the committee up to this point.

He's turned over for the record everything that was requested, including the things that hit the paper this morning, which I think he should have deferred on.

He's told me that he isn't touching base with him, despite his efforts to get him to touch base on timing on when he turns things over to him.

Well, his theory was to cooperate right down the line to this point.

Today, when he goes up, draw the line.

He'll talk about, you know, he's going to encourage upon the rights of individuals.

He's going to open sensitive files that have not been sort of groomed for public consumption if they're going to be put in a public forum and they'll harm innocent people.

And it really closed the door down today.

That's what he's supposed to do.

Now, he was reminded when he mentioned it to me.

He said, I know.

My nomination would be withdrawn.

What?

Gray said to me when I talked to him on, I guess this was on Friday.

He said, John, I said, I appreciate the fact that my nomination would be withdrawn at any point in time if you all see what I'm doing as improper.

He said, Pat, I haven't seen it yet.

Yes, sir.

I'm planning to talk to Eastman this morning.

I asked him to do that.

Eastman says he sees things going well right now, that they have the votes, that Hart and Bayh and Kennedy and Tunney have indicated they don't plan to prolong the hearings, particularly until the urban hearings are completed or something like that on the Watergate, to hold up Gray.

Now, Urban gave an interview this morning with WTOP, a local station out here, saying that he would support the request of Tunney that I appear before they proceed with Gray.

And he didn't say he would hang in there all the way, but he used the analogy of Flanagan was sort of the hostage of Urban's executive privilege principle for the Kleine series.

and was intimating that Dean might be the hostage for Gray.

But, of course, the things they're raising about Dean are totally irrelevant to Pat Gray.

Totally irrelevant.

Oh, just put it to sleep.

Well, you know, it's good in a way things sometimes get held up another day.

I'll tell you what occurred to me last night, and I just mentioned it to Ehrlichman.

That's right.

But one thing we conspicuously asked from that statement that just occurred to me is we have never treated the subject of former White House staff who have departed who still enjoy the privilege for those times when they were here.

And I think we ought to – I have a good memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel on that point, and I think we ought to add possibly one more paragraph to deal with that situation that takes care of the Chapins, the Colsons, the Swans.

Who are these people that are settling here?

I was thinking that the idea was given basically a memorandum.

The FBI's memorandum never works far from precision.

But the memorandum indicating that they have talked to members of the committee who asked me who the hell are they.

Well, there was a... That's correct.

Oh, I know exactly who it is.

It was a girl by the name of Penny Gleason.

who is the daughter of this fellow Gleason out here in Montgomery County, who is some sort of Republican honcho out there in the county government.

He was a county supervisor.

So what happened?

Well, she worked for McCord.

And heard she wanted to talk.

She wanted to talk.

She didn't know anything.

But she wanted to talk, and it was hearsay.

Her statements were her own impressions.

Why didn't that go out with him?

Why didn't Gray have that in his statement?

Well, because, you know, it's one of these damn raw FBI statements.

I know.

These agents will write it up.

Why else would they build a big story on it?

Well, it makes you wonder whether we were right or something created on us.

What do you think?

It gives pause, but I think we're right in the long run, and I think today will be the test.

The way he performs up there today, and if there's continued...

you know, sort of abandoned for everybody else, except for Pat Gray, then I think we really have to reassess.

He's got to determine whether he's going to play it or not.

We haven't forgotten that.

I mean, he's the director of the FBI.

There's plenty of men in the FBI that are going to play it on politically.

That's right.

But Gray, we're not even asking him to be political.

He's asking him to give us a fair rate.

But he's opposed the store.

Oh, we should not get up there, you know.

You say, well, I've got to be firm at the expense of everybody here.

Oh, no, that can't be done.

Well, I, without getting terribly specific, I said, Pat, I've got to be very candid with you.

There's a certain degree of disappointment in the way you've performed thus far over here, and I think you can understand why.

He said, John, I know, I know, but let me tell you what the strategy's been all along.

And that was up until today when now I don't respond with any point of order at all.

I'm trying to get the temple to scare the motion.

Those other things I spoke to you about.

Yes, that's been in the works as well as the report you asked me for on some of the past activities.

I had another long session with Sullivan and told him to go home on his own typewriter.

And I said this is for my use only and no one else's because I'm going to treat Sullivan at arm's length.

I'm not sure about him yet.

I said, I want to know everything you know that's been done to that bureau the whole time you were there.

He said, well, I got some humdingers, and he gave me a couple more.

He said, for example, when John Chancellor was having a full field done for USIA, he said some very bad garage came up in his full field.

Lyndon Johnson got ahold of that and said, I want that file changed.

Sent it back.

And it was just an impossible task for him to try to change it, but yet they did.

But he has countless examples of...

of this sort of thing.

And what happens to that report?

Well, I guess there's nothing we can do.

Well, there is a good idea.

You can sort of get an idea as to what the whole water is going to be.

There'll be this wheeling and streaming around.

But I think now, with regard to our position, the White House and Irving's,

Do you know whether or not Irvin and Baker have yet talked to Kleine?

They have not.

And I suggested to Kleine, again, this was yesterday, I suggested, it seems to me you've got to monitor when it becomes appropriate for you to return the call, although the ball is in their court, to get the channel open.

And he said, John, I will.

Well, the one I'm concerned about is not Irvin.

I'm concerned about Baker.

What the hell is he going to do?

Well, Baker, he's been making public pronouncements of the effect of it.

Well, I was on a Chicago trip yesterday that said bugging inquiry will be pursued to the top, things like that.

Do you understand that?

I think the most important thing for our hand in this hearing is, one, any witnesses that go up

are well prepared.

You know, I've got to re-read your speech on the disc case again.

It showed how effective investigators can be if one witness doesn't know what the other witness is saying, or there's a dichotomy between witnesses.

And that's one thing that can't, you know, whatever they say over there, they've got to hum the same tune, and they're ready to do it.

They've done it thus far.

Otherwise, they just create problems that are not necessary.

Yeah.

Well, you know,

I mean, it can't be much bigger.

I think with Irvin, I think you're going to feel a little bit that they're going to find that they're going to purchase them.

They're speaking about an executive privilege.

And the point we have to do is to hammer home the fact that we will furnish information.

That is not the issue.

The issue is the formal appearances of work committees, and that's what we're looking at.

Actually, the forum we're in couldn't be better.

The Gray hearings, I guess, are just an excellent place for, particularly myself, the council, who has sort of a double privilege, in a sense.

the attorney-client relation, it always lurks back there.

How it decontaminated the ethics of our profession to...

Your answer was, the tone of your answer particularly was great, like, how could you even ask this question?

It was so absurd.

And then Mollenhoff blustering in with this hypothetical, and I've been dealing with Clark on this...

It's Gerald Gates.

I said, Clark, I said, for Christ's sake, don't make me your hypotheticals.

Don't make me individually your hypotheticals.

Well, I'll get one of those.

I don't think.

God, I'm very smart.

I'm just not sure if I will get this.

Well, we'll have to test it.

I don't know.

If you ever go back and read, I don't think there's only one copy of it left of the whole of heroes in his case.

This is what he did.

The examination of his own manner in Chambers.

We recognize there are two very good men in Chambers and his.

The only difference was Chambers was not curious.

He was lying.

That's why we killed him.

Now, the point is that you couldn't be more right.

The witnesses have got to be prepared because any clever person

Well, murder has really consistently been the way to go right away.

And my problem with Baker, I don't think he'll work hard enough to become a good cross-examiner.

A good cross-examiner has got to know more about the testimony than just the point.

Nixon & Dean on Watergate and L. Patrick Gray

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 6, 1973

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