On March 16, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 11:10 am to 12:06 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 881-004 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Julie just called a woman and said, well, John Dean, let's see how she's getting a message from Rose.
And, uh, Steve, uh, and, uh, be sure to send it back the way I say it.
Uh, I go to the dentist tomorrow, and if I see any press men out there, I know the order's been violated.
Is that clear?
Yes, sir.
This is to be handled only with the Secret Service.
Is that clear?
Yes, sir.
Only with the Secret Service.
You do not tell the press officer.
Don't tell them, and then they won't have the law.
This is Secret Service.
I'm going over to the desk.
815, I'll leave.
They bring me back.
All right, sir.
Now, we've worked.
It's worked twice before, but only on that basis.
And I don't think the whole deal is that you've got to tell the military agent, the usher, the Secret Service, the press.
But just get ahead of the Secret Service.
You should have an unmarked card.
Get me over there.
I'm going to go out on my own.
All right, sir.
But don't volunteer anything.
Just don't volunteer anything.
Well, let's do the data here.
There's a question about the kids.
Oh, yeah.
I guess .
I thought I said he wouldn't come unless his children should come.
That's our class.
I didn't break .
And she doesn't have to follow their list.
She knows what the Google is.
I'll talk to her about it.
She's got to go back and hit up on the thing.
should not be serving another name, right?
If they don't come, that's wrong.
She's right about that.
But she doesn't have to do anything about it, if he does submit.
She's the one that's, she's supposed to be running this thing.
She wants to run it.
If anybody interferes with it, she blows your sack.
So, if she's going to run it, she's going to have all kids ready to go back to time and say, it's a race, let's see what the policy is going to change.
I approve.
She says, okay, I made an exception and it ended.
Well, she shouldn't have.
I don't think that's a problem.
People leave for the weekend.
They are here.
The thing is to advise.
I don't manage all the rest of it.
I do need this.
I'm sure we're going to get God in common with the Congress and the Senators.
I think so.
Or, you know, they should know.
But if you do it one time, if we do it right, they aren't at all.
If we have the Congress, if we go back together, if we have the Congress, well, let me tell you, the Congress, it is, and I am not going to have kids, so I'm just going to have to have one.
i mean i'll have the kids alone but this idea that you have you know what we ran into the cat about you were bringing this record along sister mom's nephew's nieces and so forth that's why we had no kid room difference was wrong that's just not part of that okay okay i'm marjorie lincoln coming to school and that's perfectly all right that's not kids coming
First thing, she's probably 80 years old or something.
She is 65.
Yeah.
She always comes home.
I just want to answer on children in the local society.
I didn't care about her.
I was just trying to find out.
I just want to be sure that I know somebody else.
I don't know what you do when you get a thing like Bob Donovan brings his daughter instead of his wife.
That's a daughter-in-law.
But when a guy calls and says, I would like to bring my kids, you just say, I'm sorry, but we've had so many requests.
We can't do that.
And they understand.
You can't blame them for time, because they know that a year ago or two years ago when they were here, they did bring their kids.
So they ask again.
It's great that we don't have to do it again.
Do you agree with my rule about little kids?
Yeah.
No, sure I do.
As long as people want to come.
Unless, I think you can, as you said, you can break the rule on purpose once in a while if you want to.
You can have them where you do invite kids.
But the rule ought to be no kids, and then you change it if you want to.
Just like the rule ought to be no Catholic people unless they're invited.
I'll be coming to apply in a little bit.
No, no, that's, uh, he's been in and out, and I haven't heard from him in the last year.
I just, I'm sure I know.
He's, he's decimating his office.
Getting ready to move out and stuff.
I want you to follow through on that.
Steve, I've got to see him as soon as he's available.
He hasn't been to Vanderbilt.
So wherever he is, I'd like to see him.
I'd also like to see Shields.
We're set unless you have any reason not to to go down on May 24th.
Before we announce it?
Okay.
I would think he'd become pretty clever, he seems to be.
He's a good shaker.
He's a good shaker.
He's on his way home.
He seems to be a fantastic commander.
Has anybody worked on what kind of favors or any new pieces for people like him?
Yeah.
I saw something that I, that is truly ridiculous, which I don't know if this is the best of intentions, but I guess somebody here thought they ought to get, get a man, get one of those Marriott things with my picture on it.
I said, good God, no, I don't want this situation.
I said, I don't know who chose that.
That's not what they had come up with.
Now, there was a deal with, uh, with, uh, with an inscription.
I didn't want to make a good inscription.
It's terrible.
We have a whole set of ideas and stuff that the one people seem to like that I...
That is a good idea, was to give them their own POW bracelet in a plastic thing or something.
But that doesn't have any kind of hue.
No.
That's how it is.
And I think what you really want to give them is something that has a presidential seal on it.
If I can write from the president, I can help him just give him a copy.
Well, that's pretty much what you need.
And I think that makes more sense than designing something that has everything else on it.
I would suggest this, if we could find the number of children, we might give them a little packet, since they couldn't come, and give them, you know, the little bullpens and so forth, and the bullpens and the tie pins for the kids.
How would that be?
And they all want to bring their kids, you know, and so, well, they want to bring them, it means a lot to the kids that they can bring that back.
I think that's very good.
Yeah.
The only other thing you could think we could... ...shout out the ex-persons.
But these people...
And it's something of a special amount of, you know, other than what they usually get.
The ashtrays, you mentioned that as it's something you have out in your house, maternity coats, all that thing, right?
You can say that's what the pro-tribe gave me at the dinner.
I just think that it's only viable, and the couples are relevant, but I think that the ashtray is a gift they can see.
If there's anything that could be made that was not an ashtray, it would be better.
I don't know what an ashtray is that I wish you could do.
You can do a lot.
Or you can do a base or something.
Or a planter.
Isn't the x-ray pretty good, though?
Yep.
A lot of people don't smoke.
They all put x-ray down.
It could be an ammunition.
Sure.
They're all used.
Yeah, they're used for other things.
let's do that but not get it not go to a specific field of the entire thing well i think you're right now except for this the question i have raised i raised the question is
I told you could put in the work on that.
See, he was there at the dinner and said, what's happening in the citation field?
Maybe that's the only good that I'd like to have.
And they asked.
I think from us, the presidential complex, the bullpen, the little pens, we had at the end.
It would be great.
and also a little package for their kids, so they can take something home for the kids.
That's good.
That, I think, touches their belief in the number of kids in each instance.
Could I also suggest that we're...
I think we're wonderful.
No?
I guess that's why I'm too far as living.
to get the mother and father, and you got the mother and the father.
You really have a problem with that one.
He's turning the research to us a little bit smarter.
You put down one of your best men on this.
That's a good day.
I think that's a good day for it.
Yeah, but it depends on the time.
Some, any, any figureable editorial should not be sent to our house.
I just don't want to accept that.
I know it's easier, but we just can't do that in the client office, for example.
That's what they've done, some of them.
We have, you know, split the note from the client on the basis that, you know, you'd be interested.
Okay.
No water.
No water.
I want that, I think.
And we've caught, and we've caught, I think, I think, frankly, it's fair.
I think there's some given to criticize for, you know, pulling that out from there.
But, uh, but there's a reason why.
Where the volunteers were, if there's any sort of outside, like the coast or something, is there anything outside that we could use for that, like the AI, like what was it?
We've got a supporter.
We can use individuals.
We've got organizations on a subject.
What about basically the American Enterprise people?
Can they do that or something?
They can do whatever.
Yeah.
Now, that's on a different basis.
All right.
What could we have?
Well, you use these committees that we've got for different times that are pushing first.
If it's an editorial, we like to be in front of the office.
Right.
We're willing to push.
Push can do a lot of things.
Well, that might make a difference.
You know, I think it's partisan, but he sent it around.
Well, he says it must be set up so that we do not surge out in front of the White House.
Even something's got to be set up so that we can surge out in Congress without having to come in front of the White House to see who we met.
I mean, the campaign's different.
I've had too much that I respect, literally.
Because it doesn't look like it's just Bush.
I think it's perfectly logical.
But maybe that's the best thing to do, is just say, Bush don't.
Maybe if you use Bush's office, crisis political, whatever, it's easy.
It's there.
They wheel it out.
I think we've done that with a lot of stuff that we've tried.
It's better than someplace else on any given day.
I saw a couple of members of the public circulation this morning.
A couple of calls.
Another thing that I suggest very quickly is to use irresponsible senators or congressmen.
Or a private citizen, depending on if you use people outside of the job, like you use an advert.
Yeah.
But if Don Handel's done something, you know, and Hope Lewis has, you get people where you can get them to listen.
Yeah, I agree.
Okay.
I've got the, uh, trying to get the potential to move on.
Well, he's, he's just talking more and more, which is good, more and very good.
The potential is, the potential, the hell with saving this.
It's just, it's far out of the, it's not a card, but, but, but that's a good sense.
I'll say, here is my little kid.
Here is my little kid.
He has, because of the grace of the Lord, he needs advice.
He needs it a lot.
He needs it a lot.
You know, I'm a sailor.
I miss my mother.
I miss our daughter.
Howard Baker is in my country, and he wondered if I had political planning.
Get out and have a conversation.
And then why?
I mean, I'm not saying he didn't tell us that, but he would have expressed it.
He would not have done it.
Nobody would care, so we would consider the possibility of people talking down here.
His idea, of course, was to have a lot of peace behind the body, because he wanted to have a big show for himself, and that would be that.
He's not handling himself well.
He doesn't realize what he's doing.
He's not making himself a hero for a while.
And he will destroy whatever he has chances to about this party.
Forever.
I think that's what happens.
I don't think it does.
It's like old Ralph Binder's.
He was the elevator that would destroy the party.
The Ralph Binder's.
Of course, he was the whole party at that time.
It's finished.
That's just funny.
It's just the way it is.
But if you're a hunter fighter, you've got to carry the ball.
Yeah.
Which we've seen before.
That's too bad.
He's so smart.
Well, he could be a little stronger and gain himself so much more.
That's too bad.
I was reading the Novak columns.
So, I mean, not the column, but I'm reading the new summary.
My, I thought first this was a result of some polling we had done.
But it is not.
They're simply reflecting.
They said I don't want to get into any other issues that they were talking about.
They're simply reflecting what they find in the Congress.
No, well, it's both.
They've also been doing that.
The thing, again, the news summary is out of their newsletter, not out of their column.
And that's based on their Washington reading stuff.
Last week, they've been running some column stuff based on... On their poll?
Yeah, on this thing where they go out and talk to 13 people.
It isn't really polling.
It's sort of an interview.
It's obviously having a lot of money up there.
I'm trying to get some of the sanders and water to get things out of the truck over.
Right.
Yeah.
And it would be, it would be a terrible fault if we just didn't.
Well, that's the thing.
When you backfire, you've got a real problem.
And then you've got the people up there.
The problem comes both ways, too.
You've got friends.
up there, and Francis, you know, the gay, pouty type friends out in the country, that
that if we just clear it up, then everything will be fine.
You're being misguided by your White House staff.
The trouble is, indeed, is that he's exactly that.
And I said, well, he can't make a statement because he's really old.
And I said, well, I just told him the action.
However, he said, well, he can't verify it.
I said, there's only one thing worse than having these such disclosures.
that I've not come up.
And that is to have a cover-up.
I mean, you can't have the president hurt here with a cover-up.
I mean, he died here.
And I said, hey, man, you haven't got any choice, because suddenly someone's going to come up anyway.
And it's kind of great.
So that's why I feel like I could, you know, find ways to try to take the offensive in regard to being a law-abiding civil reform.
You know, every week, all of us
I've done it twice in one time.
One time out west when we took two full pills, and another time all day here.
I thought you were trying to get a paper out.
Well, to go and then just try and keep running it out and still let it go is not an assumption.
It's going to go anyway.
I still think you can do that on the cigarette side of it.
Yeah, I do too.
Probably put the other side of it.
you can do it and you come down.
The very worst, you come down.
But it was better than what we've been reading in the sense that the worst is still only an implication of my level of involvement.
And the implication's stronger now than it would be if the facts happened.
But if you run it out,
It isn't just my lovely involvement there, it's the question of the criminal.
If you start pushing people, you've got people who have got to decide whether they stay with what they've said or change their story, and then they get into a real mess.
That's why this game will take them all away.
I just wonder if it isn't a losing game.
Well, it might be.
I mean, it has been.
I don't know what the problem is, I guess, but it's a little complicated.
But you see, like I said, if you're going to have it anyway, you better have a better door down.
That's always been my theory.
It's a lot better now.
It's a lot better all out now.
But his argument the other way is that you don't know how far they're going to get.
And he thinks we can succeed the way they can succeed in keeping up and getting much farther than they already are.
Colson, that's the theory now.
This whole gray raw data model and all that is huge to us.
Because, he said, it's now, you've turned off the whole line.
All the FBI files are out that they've already got.
So you say, stuff's all there.
There's nothing more to cover.
Also, that anybody, he said, you've got a perfect position now for anybody to refuse to talk to the FBI, because obviously you don't, there's no confidentiality or
protection of sources, the Bureau is unable to control itself.
Leaks.
And even now the Director is providing the information.
My hunch is still right.
I'm not very smart.
It's not very smart.
He sure hasn't been a pest, but he's following a long tradition.
I don't know if he's a cougar, I mean, Mitchell and Clanky's.
Yeah.
The cougar was smart as hell.
He played it so skillfully.
He kept himself on a signal all along.
I just wanted to ask you about this idea of
I'm a captain of, uh, this is my recommendation, I'm a captain of the SUCU record series, which is all about aircrafts.
Uh, if he did not decide to go to the Olympics, then we have to get that to the radio, and then we have to have a formal message with him.
Alternately, unless it's aggravated in the radio talk, or on set, but it's not going to help.
He would have been calling the role of the structure of government.
That was an assignment given them.
That was supposed to be the wrap-up thing.
They never thought there was anything to it.
Right.
But it was a decision to make a series of State of the United States Addresses on one final point on foreign policy.
Everyone, including the United States, needs to agree that the State of the United States and the United States should not include foreign policy.
The State of the world is ultimately going to kill foreign policy, which is probably not going to be very easy, so that anything now that we do here... Now that is, that's Henry's accession to the State of the world, which didn't go any longer than ever this year.
to see what they would do two years to your office.
Just talk about just putting up the elastic side of that.
That will not work.
That will not work.
It will not work for that Congress.
Are they already advocating the Congress yet?
Maybe they don't need them.
Emotions are always the best.
They are the perfect stuff.
No, it is the old side.
I saw it.
Well, he thinks that's good.
He's still looking for quality in it.
I don't know what the situation is.
I don't know what the situation is.
I did the report on it and I said less than a dozen.
I noticed our report said only three and I wondered who really was only three.
I don't know whether it's the Rogers or the Berge.
Now, there is a curious desire in part of the participants, and I couldn't
to now destroy, I mean, I agree, the chances were, I really wanted to destroy the chances we had.
But it sure sounds solid, don't it?
But, um,
Well, at least we got a one-page one with the juice in it.
He's over at the static press coverage.
Well, he's got public coverage.
He's got damn, damn heavy public press and television coverage.
They had to go with three or four major stories out of it.
They did.
You know, you're so right.
I'm getting the hell out of this office, out of their apartment, and all the other reasons.
You've got to get it before the cameras.
You must not do anything there.
If we had no friendly person who would ever report anything good that we'd be proud of, I'm sure of it.
When I say no, nobody that matters, that's everybody that listens, everybody that reaches in.
But we've got to be out there.
It's always got to be in front of the cameras.
It's always that.
It's true.
Maybe we've got to find ways to get in front of the cameras tomorrow.
You have to get both sides.
But they don't see them all the time.
That's, you know, when you're out, just on the evening news.
The survey that was in there is interesting.
And I'm sure it's right.
If you look at the statistics, it really almost has to be right, which is that 56% of the people never look at the evening television news.
That's a hell of a lot of people.
And only, what was it, 20% or something look at the television news on a given evening.
Which means, so you were on last night.
You dominated all three television newscasts last night.
And your maximum audience was 20% of the people.
Right.
And that's the difference.
That's why I keep talking about the difference between news and a three-member thing.
A three-member prime time.
Because when you go on that, you reach 90 million people.
When you go on this way, you reach everyone.
Very.
Absolutely.
Very, very sensitive.
Absolutely.
You can't go every month.
But I must say, the reason we want to make sure it's all under a prime time, and the reason we go to a Congress meeting, it's got to be a prime time then.
So I try to...
That's why you get the bounce back that you do, though, from things like that.
And in Congress, when you came back from Russia and things like that, you could have just had a hell of a lot of people say to order, like, the peace announcement.
Of course, the socials would have done that anyway.
Could have done that on a radio event.
On the other hand, we have found a very effective way to use the press conference.
without having to, you see, without having to have a three, four hundred people there, three hundred people that's, you know, sticking right here in this room, really on a snap basis where they can't be delayed, like, they're bad enough to lose.
And I just, uh, daily, daily, I have a press conference and he said, you know, it's the best thing the president does, but it's not right.
The president of the United States
He should go on a prepared basis.
I know he's prepared for it.
I know he's familiar with the subject.
But the president of the United States should not take questions he's not expecting and answer it.
He said that .
They call that irresponsible.
That's what I said.
I said, well, you know, he said that what you should do is you should set up a system whereby
The questions are submitted a week in advance.
I've heard that.
And they have a book for all of us.
That's a nice way to do that.
You know exactly what the press would do with that.
Well, also, if I read the answers, it loses all spontaneity.
No, but he needed me.
He should read the answers.
He should have the opportunity to be on page.
They may say something on the answers that morning.
The number of times I get a question that I'm not expecting is virtually nil.
But the other side of that is that you have to be prepared for .
He was making that up.
He said it's like, he said on a very small scale, but I have the same problem.
I have to go before a stockholder meeting.
That's true.
He said, I go through a briefing .
Because I'm going to be ready for about 500 questions at stockholders .
.
.
.
.
do this or that or something.
One thing to do is to have press conference .
I wonder if we can't do that.
This advantage of that is that if you do it, then you've got to have another one that's just on domestic policy or economic policy.
You don't want that.
I'll give you that.
You can do that out here.
I don't think you can do anything about it realistically.
a lot of work but you see we've been through so many and the issues are all so major that I don't have to do as much learning and preparing as I used to do.
I used to just have to go through it.
And also the staff inspector had a better job.
He did three-fourths of a hundred cents in, or about half of it.
I mean, that's what I'm sure of.
And it comes out.
And people out there never answer the questions.
You know?
That helps me a lot, too.
You know, I don't have to go through so much.
It's hard to get your mind ripped up to answer every damn internet question.
Get a few figures in mind.
Well, if you have all of your stuff on, what are you going to say about what it did mean?
You know, what had happened?
What did it mean?
What would it mean?
And she lost.
She lost.
Yeah, two big-headed slur boys.
What did it mean?
She lost.
But if he was going to name my head, well, could we, everybody, if that was up, if that name, if I didn't do the person's name correctly, I wouldn't understand the Vietnam.
But who would name his other, on the other hand, I did have to be prepared to get some jackass good match.
You know, I heard that our big hearts always used to hang out.
They won't work.
They just won't work.
You can't tell them that they're not studying their questions.
They're right.
That is the responsible way to do it.
But it isn't right to pay the next visit.
I know you're going to get the wrong answer.
No, it's right.
It's right.
In other sense, you shouldn't work prices are goddamn hard.
Because it takes for a, you know, let's face it, it takes a couple days or, you know, time or hard work to get this together.
But how better to spend two days?
You see, taking this, we got across an awful lot of fights in that administration, in terms of the China thing, and the Vietnam War, and the Chinese got to cross for a reason.
It's up to the state to rule, and beyond that, a lot of water gets a loser, at least in this court, across the point.
They didn't very much in papers, from what I understand, did get treated somewhat in that way.
If we were forthcoming, that's the point.
I'm confident that they're doing it all again.
I'm talking about how we're doing more than anybody else has ever done.
You understand what I mean?
Yeah, because if that isn't done, then eventually you've got to decide.
That's not a constitutional test.
Fine, let's do it.
It's the right thing to do.
Let's go to the court.
But if the court's decided, then we'll take one hell of a long charge.
Make sure it won't go to the bathroom, I just want to see.
The weakest one, the one I think they would probably pick would be Jim.
That actually needs to be coached.
Now, Jacob, before we get as close, as close as at the time of the special counsel, you got to play along your name a little bit better, too.
Jacob had no legal, or at least he had no policy position.
Jacob, in all, would be a very good witness.
I'm afraid he doesn't know how to do that.
He knows all about the Socratic movement and nothing else.
He knows absolutely nothing about anything else.
That's fine.
Nobody knows about Socratic, no harm.
No harm compared to what the people said.
And, well, that's why I stood with him.
He's got to consider the function of going out.
You know, we've seen our clients, and I know this is a problem.
I know Detroit News.
Goddamn, they haven't had our presence.
I guess it is.
And they've all been convicted, seven people.
They're not satisfied with that.
Yeah, that's understandable.
Now the question is whether it's going to be directed at Trump.
Well, you've got basically the chain.
Of course, you can clarify it here, because I think that is terribly difficult.
I mean, the problem.
The problem they had with you, and the problem with you, is that they would say, well, you, of course, as a herder, is what you're a man.
So therefore, you're not willing to die.
That's what you never said.
That's what he never said.
The other guy, he got Colson, and Colson, of course, was abandoned, and Colson was hunted.
They figured he'd know.
That's not it.
Control anything is not a problem.
Okay.
We can clearly establish that you have any concern about it, which is true, but Buddha was not like that.
He was here.
He went over to the committee.
He reported to John Mitchell, and I didn't see McCluter twice in 10 years.
What I meant is I'm speaking to a certain actual white man.
Oh, sure.
It's just my opinion.
It's just my opinion.
It's not Chapin's.
No question.
But you see, they said Chapin.
The whole white lot, I think Chapin hired Chapin, or he recommended Chapin.
That's quite good.
That's, that's, it's all, and the same with Hunt, the same with Coulson and Hunt.
Coulson did not, Coulson denies that he had anything to do with this party.
So they say, with their price stakes, Hunt is his friend, and he hired Sidney.
That's, that's the kind of evidence that they would come up with.
Yeah, probably he got it all back, but that's the whole thing.
I just put it there, he's, he's a strong man.
He, you know, almost
I bet you it was another problem.
He won't even talk to you about it.
Mitchell's kind of, you know, he must be out of your mind.
Straight on.
Straight on, he says.
Off your butt.
But she does pretty well.
Well, where there are hostile questions, but I think your timing on that was beautiful because the question
And all the questions to you were on, and it went on to the areas you wanted to be questioned, which is the principle of executive privilege and testimony, rather than the specifics of, did you know that George Y. Chapin hired a guy to spy, or, you know, things like that.
All right.
And I doubt that you're in the issue right now.
The burning issue is not that, but the issue is executive privilege and are you going to go up the hill?
which is a bad word regarding the Democratic government.
It does work, but we can't put it away in the toilet.
The president's constitutional responsibility.
The rest of them have the president sit there on his own hand on the Constitution.
But that's what's the notion of responsibility.
It's everything she has to do.
which is an anecdote of a much better post-character to have a constitution with response codes and better personal self-reliance and poverty.
Everybody in December has actually read about the privilege.
It's a bad word.
Very bad.
It means that if you've done something, they don't have the privilege.
You have the privilege of you and all that kind of stuff, and that you don't want.
It's got to be right.
It's the executive right or responsibility.
Well, executive's a bad word, too.
Yeah, a bad word.
Separating powers.
It's just hard to explain.
I mean, except for the lawyers.
But if the president has a right to have confidence in the commission, the party, John Welk, then they think, ah, the president was all about Watergate.
But that's confidence.
See, that's the point.
That's why that's the president.
Of course, that's not what we're talking about.
You lose the audience awful fast when you start to say one of those things.
What if they question somebody about something else?
You can't break it down at all.
What if the presidential assistant has got to have a relationship with the president?
What if someone was saying to the president, oh, the guy had to put his feet up on the desk and tell dirty jokes about congressmen if they wanted to?
I'm figuring it's going to be put out someday.
That's right.
I should visit him and do some great thing, but without him.
I don't want anything done.
I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a lawyer, and he could have a free ride.
But I'm more interested in the questions, whether or not we should say something, you know, at that point, I think we should, we should kind of be, yeah, we can get a, I checked out that week, so there's nothing to do with that.