Conversation 885-007

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What does Chucks do?

I guess Chucks talk with Deans.

I wonder what Chucks gun Dean has.

Or what Chucks thinks he has.

Well, you know what I mean.

Stuff like that.

Yeah.

You would think that when they were doing all their stuff to mention demonstrations of the right to speak, the right to speak, you know, the option was just to get it out.

But you see, it was done on their behalf, but not in their direction, and they can probably cover it.

When you talk to Henry, don't put it in the name.

I was supposed to say that the guy I mentioned, the guy who beat me, he was raised by my father.

He was raised by my father.

I just want us to be taking it all over.

You'll probably feel that we can't talk.

Is that right?

Of course.

So he told me to take the vacation.

Oh, yeah.

And he said, well, he did.

I said, you know, I've never even...

cross my mind to raise any question with you because it was, he did it in such a way that I, you know, you had said, you had told him, you know, you wanted to, you know, get a vacation, you wanted to get away, and I think he did mention that he had going out to work with you at that point.

How do you know?

Well taken once

There's no question we're gonna be smeared.

There's no question that they're going to keep building the innuendo that it leads into the White House and they'll be able to come to some proof in some, what they'll call proof, or consider proof, on the basis that, well, the line of reasoning they're using now, that Floyd Chapin wouldn't have done anything that I didn't know about, or that wasn't in my orders, and certainly Gordon Stockton.

That's only partly true, but it's a sustainable assumption.

We can live with it.

And I'd be all for that now.

I'd like to go out now and have us go out now and hit, if you take that part of the case and hit mine and admit, say it's absolutely true.

I knew that Chapin was recruiting an old college friend of his to go out and run around doing dick talk stuff, which is absolutely true.

I did know.

I did not know the guy's name.

I did not know the guy.

I did not know what he was going to do.

I did not know what we were going to pay him.

I did know that Chapin was going to authorize some payment to him to cover his expenses and his basic income.

That he was going to work full-time on this and was going to try to recruit other college type guys to do this kind of intelligence work.

Not really intelligence, because that wasn't what was talked about.

See, he wasn't engaged in, at least I don't think he was engaged in espionage.

He was engaged in prayers.

Yeah, I mean, some of the federal...

That's a euphemistic term for him, some of them, because he did get a little far on the tracks.

But they talked about, when they talked about Wayne DeConnett, I said, for Christ's sake, don't fool around with stuff like they would have cut cars, cut tires on press buses, you know, and take keys out of cars and motorcades and that sort of stuff.

And I said, that's ridiculous.

It's childish.

It doesn't do us any good.

So, I don't know, screw all that, but what does do us good is to have a guy standing up with a sign saying, McGovern, what about your legitimate daughter or something, you know, well, we never used that one.

I thought we were ready to give it a good shot.

I just might say it if I get called up somewhere someday.

But, uh, so I knew they were getting a guy.

And Jacob did do it with my concurrence.

And Strachan was a friend of the guy's too.

I knew that.

That I have no problem with saying, and I don't think that hurts you to say I did that.

The problem is, can the truth stop at the truth, which that does, or does the innuendo come then so hard on top of it that you can't turn it off?

It goes to the truth.

It goes to the water gate, or which...

It seems to me we ought to be able to turn off, but the problem is the price of turning it off may hurt the people on the Watergate Center.

At least that's what they tell me.

What bothers me is that I still think I'm being had, in a sense, for being tired in order to protect some other people.

And I think Chapin is being far worse tired in order to protect other people.

The people on the Watergate Center are our friends, and theirs is far more serious.

This one you can say was bad judgment on my part,

to let Chapin do this, or I can say it was bad judgment on Chapin's part to let the guy go as far as he did, or Chapin can say it was bad judgment on Segretti's part to do some of the things he did.

That's probably right, all the way up to maybe bad judgment on my part.

But on Watergate, it isn't a question of bad judgment.

On Watergate, it's a question, and there it goes, and ultimately it seems to me that's what they gotta focus on.

And this, who was it that was telling me that,

They're convinced they're going to go after his, I guess it's Ziegler, Ziegler's theories, based on what the press guys say, is convinced that what they're after is Colson on criminal.

They think he's the highest guy they can get on criminal in the White House, and Mitchell on the outside.

Now there, the worst, the worst you can get to this damn fact there, because if Mitchell was the authority,

As Attorney General of the United States.

Right.

That's pretty goddamn bad.

That's damn near as bad as it is out here.

It really is.

Yeah.

That is a problem.

And there, if you have to protect that, then you have to, then you start working your way back down that chain again.

And maybe you can't turn it off somewhere.

And that's what John D., where he comes out every time we go around the circle.

Yes, sir.

Then you get to the thing of Segretti.

There is a potential criminal violation of Segretti, too.

Okay, but then he was Chapin's agent, so does that make Chapin criminally liable?

Chapin was my employee, so does that all mean criminally liable?

No, it's a misdemeanor.

That's what I mean.

It's a misdemeanor committed without our specific knowledge, so I don't see how we're allowed to listen to campaigns or whatever the campaign is.

I mean, without a disclaimer or anything, you know, all sorts of things.

We have the same thing in 62 in California, and the Democrats are innocent.

No, the committee had preserved the Democratic Party in California.

I think that crazy woman...

We've got us a tip.

We know the answer.

Yeah.

Yeah, you see, the point is that it isn't just Bob and Dave's place up here, or where we're going here.

It is a question of...

I think it's...

I think the big fish is already mentioned.

Colson, I think, is going to be hired in the crew.

I don't see...

I think...

Unless Colson's lying, Steve, I'm being special.

Dee does not believe that Colson, that they had gotten Colson.

I don't believe him.

And as I've told you, I've been convinced all along that Colson was, did not know about this, about the lawyer game.

I don't think he did.

Yep.

I don't think he did either.

I heard it was my neighbor who did it.

I mean, of course, it's true.

It's very, very, very true.

Mitchell, as you know, was very much involved in the demonstration in San Diego.

Remember, Mitchell came in

very concerned about changing the convention site because he was afraid of the inability to control San Diego.

Oh, yeah.

Well, we have a lot of bad breaks, right?

Yeah.

We have bad breaks.

Monumental bad breaks and a string of one leading to another.

Time Magazine this week started off with a thing.

That one lousy part-time night guard at the Watergate who happened to notice the tape on the locks on the doors.

If he hadn't seen them, the thing probably would have never busted.

If you hadn't had Watergate, you wouldn't have had Segretti, you wouldn't have had any of this stuff.

They had all the stuff on the contributors.

All the people that are yelling at us about it are basically the old establishment.

I don't see, you know, the one niche that they, I don't think they see here where they're going to get, but they see there's still an opportunity and they're going to grind away until they're either exhausted or get to something.

It makes sense that there was a way to get there.

It's over in a hurry.

That's it.

There is

later had, which, of course, I rejected, but it was, get, get, get all of them, get them, get us all of them, everybody, have them all over there, and have them all testify.

And he said, you killed the goddamn thing for a week.

And after that, people reported that.

Well, that makes sense, but why?

It doesn't go anywhere.

What provided you the greatest commandment?

Well, there could be, I don't know, a lot of times, but I should buy a smart goddamn lawyer.

So my view of this problem is that it would be better if I was to stick to it.

The guy that most wants to stick to it is Colson, obviously, and he wants to be questioned.

And I can see why, because of other involved in this program, too.

So therefore, he's the only one who doesn't want to be.

The other thing is to fight for executive privilege.

Say no, we're not going to allow it, mainly because we just can't, we can't allow that sort of thing.

Then, what you have to do is to, you've got to fight it through, you've got to name courts, you've got to name law, you've got to keep it open for a long time.

And the story of cover is what's involved.

Yeah, right.

And that's bad.

That's really worse than the...

It isn't really worse.

It isn't worse than John Mitchell going to jail for either perjury or complicity.

If that's really where it goes, and I guess it is.

I'm not sure.

That's the only thing that I would, that's what I think.

They must have heard it.

I think it's as possible that it was.

Well, Dunn is specific on his own within a broad authority that he misinterpreted.

In other words, Mitchell was clearly aware and fully aware of the intelligence operation.

He has made up a specific act.

And it would be perfectly reasonable to work in the act.

Well, he says he wasn't in court.

Now you can even go to that step and buy it, which is that Lilly was doing it on, under a broad authority.

But then he can handle, will Lilly take the heat?

Well, let me say this, but coming back to the business about crowning everybody up there and all the rest, we've got to remember to love it, but to be involved.

Let's see.

Let's see all of you going up.

It's important to pay attention to all of you.

It would have been me.

And I don't think it has to be Doit.

Doit, I think, may have to recant some of the scores or explain them.

Well, that's it.

Well, I can't answer this.

Let's see.

Well, I mean, I appreciate it's delicious, but our real concern is make sure...

But John, at least the last I got into it in any detail, John Dean didn't think so.

See John Dean's whole approach is, I understand that this, when we went through it out in California for two full days, where it came out is that his whole premise, his basic approach to this is one of containment.

Keep it in this box.

And he thinks he can.

And that box goes on the theory that Liddy did it without authority from above.

And Liddy's been convicted of doing it.

Liddy was the responsible guy at the campaign organization.

He's the highest side they've got.

The other people were employees of Liddy's.

Huh?

That's the way the case stands at the moment.

Liddy apparently is a little bit nuts and a masochist and apparently wants to...

He looks to the martyrdom of doing this and kind of wants it.

That's true.

Maybe that's where it was said.

That's Dean's, that's his hope.

That's what he's just randomly trying to keep, not randomly, persistently trying to keep all these little strings in.

On the front line, he pleaded guilty.

That's the all-time guilty.

He was appealed.

Now, Liddy and McCord didn't plead guilty.

Liddy's appealing, yeah.

Liddy's appealing, but Liddy's not appealing on the merits.

He's appealing on the errors.

Liddy's going for errors.

There you go.

Another problem.

Liddy's a lawyer who thinks he's smarter than the judge and the court and the prosecutor.

Which every lawyer seems to have to convince himself of.

But Liddy's game is purely, as I understand it, is a field game.

It's purely on errors.

And he's apparently got some, at least, some possibilities.

There's some areas of potential challenge on errors.

is the coming free of the White House people.

That doesn't impair that other piece at all.

The containment theory works, and I don't see what the issue is in our going on, because we don't have anything to say.

The people you're protecting by executive privilege, let's face it, I don't know about our own.

John knows a hell of a lot.

He knows a hell of a lot, but I

You don't go to them and stuff about, you know, well, can they expand to that?

They can.

What does he do?

I said, sure they can.

There's no rules of evidence out there.

By charters, they cover all campaign activity.

They were campaign activities.

But I, but I can't.

Elsewhere, it's that campaign.

No.

Teddy Kennedy.

I don't know.

That's going to be on the market, too.

Now, I don't think we can go...

I don't think we can shift our ground and cave on that idea of privilege.

But I think we have to find a way to make the statements.

They will not accept statements until they've reduced me.

That's the theory I've worked on up until now.

And Dean and Moore are trying to see what can they say in relation to the President.

And then, of course, everything they say would raise additional questions.

Well, it's better if they have a favor.

All right.

We've agreed to answer written interrogation, right?

I'm, for instance, I have to do that.

Jacob has to do that.

Everybody.

We've all agreed to do that.

Okay.

Well, why the hell can't we do our part?

If they submit it, why don't we sit down and do our statement right now?

Why doesn't Dean ask me the questions that the committee will ask me?

Why don't I write my answers out?

Why doesn't Jacob write it?

And why don't we give those to the Washington Star and let them print the goddamn things in tow tomorrow morning?

What's wrong?

Really?

Bob?

Well, then why don't we make them a city?

I mean, without putting it out, why don't we take the step of doing it?

We're going to have to apparently anyway.

And so he says we're going to open too many doors, so I think we're going to open them.

We've already agreed to do that anyway.

You see, his point is, well, anyway, let's try it.

I don't mind if we're trying.

But his point is that we don't, that they will never take the statements.

So it's never going to happen.

He said, actually, of course, that's the problem.

They're never going to get rid of segments.

And they won't accept them at all.

They all know.

But that's all right.

You see, my point is, the way you end up is that if we refuse to go up, then they will have a, they will say we will not accept that.

And under the law, they will try to subpoena.

And it will be quashed.

And we'll have court tests.

All right, that's what it's like.

So you have to fight that out in the courts.

And I'm trying to make the case with the other witnesses.

Now, the other way to do it is to, so that, that, that moves out.

I do have that most statements of all.

Now, the problem with that, and it comes to me with it, is that it appears that I am covering up the whiteness of people.

I won't let that state.

So what, that's why I have a being in the past.

I said, why don't you make up my history?

Of course, I said make it as general as possible, but just so somebody can say that the President, that a statement has been made to the President, upon which he has placed his statement, to the effect that he has confidence in his staff.

You see, I mean, I, it looks like I'm just doing that to, you know, to screw off.

You see, I don't accept that everybody seems to accept the fact that there is a deemed report to the President on the basis in which the President said that.

And we've now established, as I understand it, that even though I guess we haven't, but we can, that it was an oral report, not a written report.

Yeah.

That means, you see, by having a statement prepared, statement or statements prepared, which are delivered to the determination,

Preferably, I'd like to have a clear eye on what I will be making on.

That's what we're working on now.

We're getting to the very, the east of it.

The east of it.

And the purpose is to answer all, at least the charges, the most recent charges.

Not everything, but the deep charges.

And I'd say there's about that race.

If you have any questions, good questions.

So, uh, then John heard and says, well, those questions are actually based anyway.

Yeah.

That's my point.

And maybe I know you raised anything.

I don't understand what Ron means, but maybe he's right.

I don't think, I don't think, I've spent more time on this than I've seen anybody, really, and I don't know any questions that aren't already out.

But they, I don't know how far you can go.

That's my point.

I don't know what the hell other questions are.

Well, I think, I think if Ron says he'll raise new questions, the burden of proof is on him.

What are they?

I'm not so sure.

Well, I don't understand why we can't run that one out.

I personally think that she's got it.

She's got it.

It's a great achievement.

The guy who knows the next most after that is strong, is protected.

The guy who knows the next most after that is compact, who's not protected.

And the guy who knows the next most is me, who's protected.

And that's the aim of this egregious crime, I think.

Yep.

Put it out.

Okay.

The point there is that the guy who knows the most is egregious.

He's not protected.

So he's going to get questioned.

Now, I've heard Segreg's, Dean has a two-hour tape where he interrogated Segreg and went through the whole damn thing.

And maybe I'm stupid, but I've listened to the whole tape, and for my dough, I'd just as soon play that on the radio tonight on CBS and let the world hear it.

Because what it says to me is not nearly as bad as what I would venture 90% of the people in this country think happens.

Now, it does confirm that Dwight Chapin recruited him, and it gives him the details.

He had him to dinner at his house, and he had, Gordon Strong was there.

But what the hell?

He went to school with Dwight Chapin.

All right, well, he is a cop.

That's already been put out anyway.

That's right.

That's already been put out.

That's right.

What the hell did he do with that?

I disagree.

Now, Ron's worried because that, that made, because we denied, we didn't deny him, Ron.

Ron has covered that.

Who denied him?

I thought, the president, the, the Ron.

See, we denied the Chapin story in the Post, but we denied it on the basis that it was based on hearsay and was fundamentally incorrect.

And it was.

We didn't deny any specifics in it.

That, of course, I think is one issue, sir.

Fundamentally incorrect.

Well, let's go back and make the case on that.

say that the post story said this, this, this, and this, and I think that's the way you want to handle that.

For example, the post story said this and this.

This was incorrect.

This is incorrect.

Wow.

Now, what is correct is this, this, this, and this.

That's the way you want to handle that.

It's supposed to get us off of that.

The press secretary did not lie.

Well, my feeling is

The point of my view is that if the facts are going to come out on us pretty soon, I would rather have us get them out to the extent that we can.

I'm worried about you waiting so that you don't say, I don't know.

I don't know.

I know another thing.

I've forgotten that it leads to, because he's afraid of the slum.

He's afraid that, you know, he gets blown up that he's got to say something because there's another fact that's never come out.

It never tracked down that it could.

But, and again, it appears terrible, but it isn't at all.

And the facts on it are, are, work out fine.

But there was $350,000 in cash transferred out of the campaign fund.

over to a separate holder, and it was under Strong's control.

It was, in a sense, transferred to me.

What that was supposed to have been, if you'll recall, was $2 million, which we, way back until Stance, it was that leftover cash that we wanted to set aside before reporting all that, just so it was there as a reserve fund.

Well, it got boiled down because of reporting problems and everything else to where we only moved $350,000.

350,000 cash was used for polls.

The purpose of that was to be for polls and everything else.

It was not used for polls or anything else.

It wasn't used.

And that has been transferred back to the re-election committee.

It was transferred after the election and cash was moved back over to Martin, not Martin, LaRue, Fred LaRue.

And it's back there.

So the money was not spent

call it that.

You can look at the yellow journals, and a secret one that all of them controlled, you could say, which I guess I did.

The question of who controlled it never arose because it was never used.

Physically strong, not actually strong, that some other guy did.

I don't even know who had it.

Some guy I don't even know put this up in a box in a safe out in Virginia somewhere, I understand, and that's where it was held.

Well, they built it all in their boxes.

Yeah.

The time we received, that one is never worried me, and I, and maybe there's more to it than I can say something to it, but I don't care.

That's why I'm worried about this.

Sure.

When you started to leave, I don't know, I suppose none of us really thought much of you because of it.

I leave to each of us filing a statement now that's as complete as we can make it.

That's right.

I'm sorry.

But it's not a statement under, uh, duress.

I mean, under questioning that, that, uh,

says there is nothing else to say.

I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say that this is the whole thing.

I would say, in relation to the charges, I've been ready.

There have been certain charges, and I'll be glad to answer any other questions.

I would say, if there are any other, I think you've got to put that in the disclaimer, and if there are other questions to raise, I'll be glad to answer them.

See what I mean, sir?

Now, that way, I don't see how this, they raise the other questions, and you answer them.

I would be concerned about putting out a statement that purported to be

Thank you.

I just don't think John wants you to meet with them because they're finishing their report and you owe them the courtesy.

I argue against it on the basis that you've already given Schaefer publicity on it and that they're going to, they are for legalization of marijuana and all your doing is publicizing unless you want to publicize it the other way, which is to meet with them and then have Schaefer publicize it.

I thought, as I said, I didn't know why it happened to Son of a Big Shaper before.

That was the purpose.

I thought it happened.

You did.

Now, they've done another report.

I mean, this is their final report.

You met with them on their phase one report.

They haven't done anything wrong in the second phase.

They're still there.

As I told you, Steve was not the one.

I don't want to be used to the schedule, so I want the picture.

That's what they want.

To accept the final report of the National Commission.

Is there going to be a picture without a press?

Is that clear?

Pictureless.

Is there going to be an out-of-case or an active?

Active.

They've come in to present the report, which is traditional, but I'm not going to discuss it at this time.

In my final study.

And on Thursday, if you want to step in, there's another one.

Secretary Shultz has requested that we draw up his recommendation on meeting with the Labor Magistrate Advisory Board this week for two principal reasons.

Number one, the bottom is up close to the CPI.

The other is that you're generating more negatives than you originally envisioned.

And also, trade members are unable to extend the contract.

In fact, it's over right now.

All right.

What does he want to move?

How about the next one?

Do you want to do the general plan on Thursday?

I've got to keep the evidence clear.

So I guess what you could do is to...

There's a good time...

I'd like to have Mr. Bruce Bedford as just a two-minute thing, Mr. President.

I understand, but we just can't have him in at that time.

Yeah, no reason.

I think, uh... 10 o'clock.

Why not have him?

Would he just come Friday?

Sure, he can come.

Oh, he can come next week, right?

If he didn't Thursday, I was going to hold up on that.

All right, fine.

That's it.

That's doing Thursday.

Good in the morning, tidy nuts in the afternoon.

Uh...

Thursday at 10 o'clock.

Move Santa Maria, if I don't want to.

Well, you've got something else in there.

Imagine Thursday at 9 o'clock.

And another day at 9 o'clock.

In case I want to talk longer.

The reading today is that he will probably go very shortly after he gets back.

He wants to get this trip done in a minute.

Kind of an intriguing idea you might want to try out on your family at some point.

Terri Decker now doesn't want to go to New York.

She wants to stay here.

She, as you know, wants to get out of the... She wanted to work at Lucy's job.

No, she couldn't do Lucy's job.

She wants to do, you know, a servant administrative or assistant type job.

What about putting her in as Julie's executive assistant?

Good.

I would think she would just be...

Damn good.

And I think Julie would be smart to put her own gown in there, rather than going in with the staff that's, that's left there.

There are a couple of gowns in there that I think she's going to want to get rid of anyway.

And I think somebody has to get rid of them for her.

Absolutely.

I think that's great that she can talk to Terri, and Terri knows the West Wing, and Terri can talk to, because she knows all the scheduling stuff, and she can talk to Steve, and all that.

That's right.

But it's something more, and she, you know, Carrie knows you and how to work with the family and all that, but she'd be good too.

Do you want to bring it to her?

I'd be glad to.

I don't know if you would want to.

I wouldn't be saved.

Okay.

Well, I would tell her this.

yeah in other words it's the

Supposed to be mine, but it was the one that I said that might be stuck in here.

The point that I'm saying, to be honest, is not like this is a loyal cabinet.

This might have a Romney, Bowlby, and others in there, you know, or Peterson, you know, a bunch of showboats.

These are loyal people that won't mind that.

And so, and I said, why not have the councillor meetings that way?

I, as I told you, for me, a meeting with one person is really, really valuable.

And sometimes it's on a specific subject like economics, a small meeting with a

For me to sit down with four councillors and motion it is not particularly useful because they, I mean I just assumed the whole group was awful because I had to put on the show anyway.

Well then they thought I had to put them on the floor just like I did.

So what the hell, what is the policy there?

The policy there is that me with the three councillors is no more intelligent than me with the county because the three councillors have no connection with each other really.

My view is to have the counselors, they're there and all that sort of thing, and I know that they're trying to maintain this thing, but from an actual standpoint, from an actual standpoint, John will work with them, Cole will work with them on a counselor basis, and maybe on occasion I might see one of them alone by himself.

When you get a specific thing to take, rather than generally speaking, I personally think that rather than meeting with the counselors, I'd just rather have them know that when we talk about meetings, Bob, the point is that unless the meeting is going to serve a very special useful purpose, the thing to do is just check everybody.

That's the way I get more and more of that feeling.

Okay?

Getting back to your argument about Kirwan and having all the goddamn carpentry at one time.

So I shouldn't have all that shake your hands and that goodbye.

Thank you very much.

Have a jolly time, kids.

So, I did with the cabinet.

The leaders, you're right, every time you construct some RV, you're going to put in stuff without a hammer and get the mileage out of it, maximum mileage with as many people as you can get.

Likely, leaders have less of our staff in there and more of the leaders.

We don't need the staff in there.

You're really helpful.

I mean, like, we got overboard on that.

Everybody had to sit there, sat by our price, and read everybody's names, and our prices.

I had one do that.

I had Carl Lewis do it, right?

But beyond that, fill up the name, meeting with congressmen, senators.

What did you read?

I read this.

So anyway, we started kind of full circle, and I don't mean by that that I grew up having a meeting.

I mean, you know, the idea, should we have a staff meeting sometime?

I think a meeting with you and John, depending on the subject, might be useful at times.

I think a meeting with you and John and, well, who else?

Sigrid.

But I don't think you need to schedule that.

I do.

But the main point is schedule the others so that everybody gets a chance to get it.

And John can arrange the therapy.

Beyond us, like the cabinet, when he has butts in for his daughter's only show, he can have a lot of agriculture department.

show up in front of them with the whole cabinet there, and the whole cast of people having this, and this is not for us, this is not our natural resources, or whatever the case might be.

See what I mean?

Yeah.

I think that's pretty good.

Let's solve two problems.

One, it gives you something to do at a cabinet meeting.

And two, it gives you a reason for the...

for the counselor being less the guy who works on his stuff, and less the other people see it in action, and see you in action, and the counselor in all that.

The counselor is up there as a counselor, and that does it.

You see, the only one in the valley that I do think I should try to get in, who would serve useful purposes, maybe that's what I'm trying to get at,

I think that there, that any, and you and John, the three, rather than any John, you will, I think any, be very useful.

If you just need to have a viewpoint like that sometimes.

There's nobody else on the White House staff really that has to do it, to just kind of tackle it once in a while.

There's nobody else on the White House staff that really has the, you know, the balance and sort of way to do it.

But there's, we've got to conduct useful conversations.

Now, you see, when you move it over, you say, like, the five assistants to the president.

I don't know who the hell they are.

Who are they?

You are John H. Williams.

Ash?

Shelton.

Shelton, yes, sir.

That's a loser.

It really is.

There isn't a damn reason for me to sit down with those guys.

I can sit down with each of them individually.

That's what he said.

There's never a reason, Bob, for that group together.

They don't have anything in common.

They've got that little bit of common interest.

I mean, on the very subtle common issue.

But, you know, what you're really getting down to is this.

You're getting down to whether or not it's useful at times to have a group of people trying to make it, to get a consensus developed on an opinion, on a decision.

Now, sometimes we should.

Like, we're deciding, you know, how long or something.

I talk to quite a few people.

And if you have a real position, it really matters.

I would argue that's the last time you want to get a group in because you don't want to put anybody in a position of telling you not to do something that you end up doing or to do something you end up not doing in front of other people.

You ought to tell you directly.

But I don't think you want the record to show what happened.

I don't see why that would be a big thing.

You know, we've got an expression problem.

Yeah.

I think I was trying to stay stuck away from it.

I could have decided that it would be possible tomorrow or the next day, but I didn't do it.

We are going to get in the car.

I don't believe that that decision anyway is that nice.

It may do some good.

Not anything wrong here.

It's not going to be here soon.

It's not going to be here.

I don't think the reaction in this country is going to be as good as it was in Montana, one way or another.

You see, the reason for that is that, in which I did it quite deliberately, I'm not going to get beat.

You've got to press off on the wrong trail.

They think we're thinking about bombs and arms again.

Of course, there ain't mine.

I'm always, this is what we've got to catch in mind.

It's the wrong program.

Nobody can give that much of a damn about hitting the trail.

Well, that's a good term.

The only thing is, Lance might have done better than that.

He might screw up a few of them.

That's the... Henry doesn't think that matters.

Oh, boy.

You mean just if it screws up, he has to be a man?

Well, you know how he does.

He's as well as...

It's a risk, but not a great... My own view is that if there is any risk, it's worse you're not going to be on that one.

Provided we can live it.

Unless you're so close now.

You're only down to about five or six days.

That's my wife.

His arguments, if you do it now, while they're still there, that will be it.

My answer there is that I'm not sure that I'm going to go to the water anyway, because once we have our two brothers and our people back, some people need to have them.

The real question I guess I have in my mind is whether it's worth any risk.

We might not be better advised to wait.

If I didn't hit the trail backwards.

Not the north of the trail.

You see, we had responded to do it now because

Pretty clever, right?

Oh, sure, I can see the NARS leverage on that.

Not only that, but for exactly the reason that it has the leverage is that the other side of it, you have one hell of a thing here.

The emotions cranked the way they are, unless all these POWs would leap up and say, hooray for you for doing it.

And I don't know whether they would.

They might say, well, they're all the rash asses and everybody's a good job.

Yeah, that's the other side of it.

Especially the shaky ones, the strong ones would stay with you, I'm sure, but you don't really know how many of them are strong and how many of them aren't.

You might give him a call and raise these questions.

We just want to realize that if there is any risk, you better not take it.

You better do it later.

He'll rumble around.

Is this a place that he's on vacation with him or something?

He's probably riding the road or whatever.

It's a vacation.

Yeah, this is, as I understand it, I thought that was, you know, he never talked to me about it.

Really?

Oh, I don't know.

That's incredible.

He just, he just told me that every time I go to Mexico, he never mentioned it at all.

I didn't know anything about it.

I thought he was going to go, I thought he was going to take a vacation in California, and then, after you left, you know, because you know, I wouldn't be here.

I thought, I thought this was something you and he had worked out, because he's never made any bones about it.

I mean, he's talked about it.

He was leaving, he's, for weeks, he was leaving on the 16th.

There, he just didn't mention it.

Well, it's amazing.

I think he probably...

No, there isn't, and that's, that's why I gave him credit.

The problem with that, this was purely vacation.

This wasn't the work of the book.

He's talking about staying out after two leaves in California to finish the state of the world thing.

I don't, yeah, I don't think he's decided where he wanted to go last week.

He was talking about it.

He's having his whole state of the world crew go out.

Which works well.

It's a good place for them.

I mean, it's good for them.

They work better if they get away and work on that apparently.

I really don't, but you never know.

Well, he never had anything.

But she could have leaked it in and he could have moved it to someone else.

I suppose.

Which is what he would probably do because it was so obvious.

I don't think he ever really did out there.

I think the scallywag was going the other way.

I don't think he was, I think he was using her to plan.

So, I mean, anyway, she did not.

But he was getting stuff from her.

Well, anyway, yeah, she was giving us some pretty interesting stuff.

You know, she cited spots, yeah.

Things that were coming up and telling what stuff they had.

He also had some anti-Henry stuff, because he knew when Henry was talking to people.

Well, he did.

You asked about Teddy White's, the last day, May 1st is the last day he could do anything with the memo.

Well, you could even extend that to me.

No, no, no.

No problem.

I'll get it done before I make the trial or something.

It won't be long.

It'll be a little bit.

It'll basically be for the last chapter.

It'd be hard for you to go back and do the deal.

Okay.

If it's in that area.

The shop can't come before June 20th.

So we ought to put him on to fall.

You don't want to get him in July.

His ought to be a big gallon, white tie and all that.

Right, right.

But it's good for the fall sale in the fall, October.

And, uh... We still... Oh, one thing I want to check with you.

The vice president thinks that you and Andrade and Sinatra and he have a golf game on the April 18th.

And that's not the case.

We ought to get that obtained.

You don't want to play golf with the person that drafted you.

You know, I'll, I, I, uh, just tell them I thought that I could, but you can't get me, get me out of it on any, any kind of basis that you want to get.

We ought to do it now so they don't, uh, yeah.

I didn't know where I'd rather play golf.

I knew that I'd play with him sometime.

But I, I'm not ready, but...

Why don't we not leave?

We can put you down.

Give it to you.

We'll work it out.

No, we don't.

Good.

And it's a shot.

No, I'm done.

I'd rather play in California.

Done.

They now understand.

Put this.

Put it this way.

I do not want to start the business of playing with the government.

That would have made it impressive not to play ball.

That's not been true.

I just don't get it.

It really would be.

And then you won't play with Tenaka or something?

No.

It's the NSC's understanding that you have committed to a meeting with Butoh in July.

Yeah, that's if he's supposed to visit us.

Right.

Okay, so we, we do a dinner, right?

Okay.

I don't know that we want a dinner.

We might not do it.

Wait, let's hold up and see.

Right.

You may, by then you may want a dinner.

We'll see.

Then we get to Tanaka the end of July.

Henry is putting a strong appeal in on the turn down on Tolbert.

Well, goddamn, who the hell does he want to, do you want him to vote?

I think he argues that if it's,

If it has to be either that he take Tolbert instead of Ivory Coast because of the Mrs. Nixon thing, that's probably why he's clearly in relations.

This one is Henry rather than State, apparently.

I'll tell you, they had Tolbert at the time in the prayer records.

He's a great prayer man.

February next year.

They're concerned about that.

The other thing he's raising is, rather than a state visit, receiving him for an office call in June when he comes for a, would come for a graduation, he's been about to go where the other commencement is.

Tolbert.

Tolbert has, yeah.

Oh, sure, I'll receive him for an office call.

And he said San Francisco State and Grandland College are both invited to do commencements, all right?

So you can come on a private visit if you take an office call, but then Henry will push you for a dinner, I'll tell you right now.

So you better figure you gotta give a dinner if you're gonna do it.

Now, that's not all bad, isn't it, Jim?

Give a dinner.

Because you've got fresh stuff to do.

That's the only one we have.

We could do it a different week.

All right.

Okay.

Give a dinner.

That's what I said.

Not a, just an office call.

And no second date.

And Drotty, does he get a second day?

And the other one, Rogers, is pushing hard on reconsideration on his strategy.

And Henry's concurring.

Whose strategy?

Lebanon.

The president.

Oh, I'm in crisis, Rogers.

I've got to do that.

That's a state visit.

The Soviets wanted him.

He wants to come to see you first.

He's turned out to be a good leader.

Well, his fallback position is that we indicate you want to invite him during 74.

It seems to me we ought to go beyond that one.

Wouldn't it be easier just to say you do want to invite him rather than you hope to invite him?

No, as I would.

Just say you would like him to come in 74.

Yeah.

If you're filled with that, say that we'll work on a date.

I understand.

I will make a commitment to have him, yes.

I have to have him, sure.

But he's filled up with that.

Why are they, why are they urgent for him?

Well, he hopes for 73.

We'll put it late and say the Soviet Union is inviting him to 73.

We'll put it late and put the 71st in line.

But then Bill says if you don't feel this is possible, I already authorized you to say you hope the United States is invading 74.

It's going to be loaded in the fall, so you don't, I don't think you want to have it.

You've got the Shaw and the Japanese.

The Japanese, well, can you have the potential of Thailand in the fall?

Well, that's all right.

You can do one every two weeks.

Do you want to do Frenchie in the fall?

Every two weeks, you know, we're not started on it.

First of December, that's all.

Um, yeah.

Oh, wait, it's still moving.

October.

October, get in here, man.

On the way down is the best thing.

Thank God we're not going to have a problem with the troops.

Okay.

That, uh, I, I didn't, I, are you definitely, you don't want to consider that, uh, to be the thing, you know, the way it's not going to work, right?

It'd be a pretty small.

You build a good crowd.

It's only seven miles from the Air Force base, only seven miles from Topeka.

I know what it is, just that the skill center thing is a pretty, there's only about 50 to graduate.

There'll only be about 500 in the audience.

I'll just, I'll put it, I'll put it, no.

It's a little bit too, it's too reheating, you know.

While I'm trying to figure out the perfect amount of strategy, I should be honest.

The water being buried in the sea may have much longer.

But at least it's not a real problem here.

John's pretty much out of touch as I am now.

I'm going to kind of stay away from him.

He hasn't been touched enough.

He hasn't been a person of mine, too.

The trouble is, well, that's the key.

If we just do even more, or if you can't find any way to have any kind of a statement made, then it doesn't look like we have a problem.

Of course, we're very concerned about what will happen in the next sentence.

It's going to be a problem.

I don't know.

Sentencing is set this week.

Right.

That's the thing, there's just so goddamn many factors in other people.

And that's what he recorded in my book, J. Lee's Worst Son.

He said, it's recorded next to his jail sentence.

And it fails to stand his name.

He decided to talk.

I said, what tells you?

Of course.

He would have a lot of mentions, don't he?

For information.

I guess Mitchell had a call around the time when we missed her right here during the call.

Why didn't we have any of us in check, but it would be nice to see more clients.

You know the next time you hear him, you want to give him that taste and so forth.

Mind you, he's always a talker, so it's very important, you know, to be this kind of man.

He sure has, he has measured you very, very strong.

And he's a strong man.

He knows you very well.

That's kind of ironic when that comes back to him on his own.

U.S. Attorney comes back about it.

Yeah.

I told John one thing, which I am convinced of.

We've got to get something that's got to be said to the captain when I'm out there.

That's all that's got to be said to him.

They've got to have a story.

You can't just bomb it and sit in that thing and get everybody down here shutting up.

I'm afraid to come on.

That's the precedent.

I'm afraid.

I think that's true.

I think a lot of our cabinet people are terribly sensitive about the goddamn thing.

I really wish that most of them would.

I don't think that increases the question.

That's one of the reasons why I like to see you find something

Oh, there he is.

That's all there is.

You know what I mean.

You tell your little people, you've got to know that you've got to answer your people.

You've got to know what to say to the lady over the line.

Just detailed, you can't do that even to our own people.

Well, yeah, you can, because then if they go out and say that's all there is, and then one more thing comes, then you're even worse off.

Well, I'm not so sure.

At least that's what's worried John all along.

How do you get, you know, that's what worries him more.

I'm not so sure about being good.

They made a horrible statement to the captain.

Horrible statement.

Said, look, I can't report on the last few things to rest.

I didn't do this.

I didn't do that.

That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that.

All of them didn't do this early.

They didn't do that.

Colson didn't do that.

You know.

See?

That's why everything needs to be, uh, they need to hear it from somebody.

Basically, that's what, they've got to know that I have been told that.

That's really what it gets down to.

Rather than feeling the uneasy fear that some have that maybe the White House has, keeping things from being idle and all that, you know, or something.

We're afraid to have the people talk about it.

Well, it isn't that, really.

Well, it is, too.

We don't want to talk about it up there.

We don't want to have that.

We like it.

We're afraid of facts.

We certainly are afraid of it.

Listen.

Well, if you don't do that, I see.

Why not go up?

Well, yeah.

Go back to that.

I guess we have.

And it would be pretty bad because of the weight.

I don't know.

Everybody wants to go.

When that decision was made, you know, I raised great questions about it, and everybody said that they wanted me to go down there.

They were very close, as much as anybody could say.

David's friend, who was in Calvary, came and suppressed me.

But you can have that David Spector book.

I think you are.

The point is, it makes it bigger, but we've got a big fish up there.

Yeah.

I said, that's what made me cry to hear it.

And you never know what any of the big fish will do when they get up there.

I mean, we all say we want to go up and all that, but if they lob one in, we're not expecting it.

You don't know what, how good a witness it would be.

It's a tough, god-damned thing to do.

And when you get, you know, the guy with his own ass on the rock, you don't know.

I'm concerned about the oil lands, about what anybody would reveal, dispersion.

I don't want that.

You go up there, and they're gonna come down, and you're gonna question how it's logged out or something, or they know something.

Well, you see, the thing is, it's a perjury thing.

I know it's not a crime.

Yeah, but see, they're who are protecting their own people.

I'm angry.

Because I think the people who are gonna go for perjury already have, and will do it again, and they're gonna be up there anyway.

Well, not at the time of the incident.

That's right.

So it doesn't count.

That's right.

No, he wasn't.

He was over at the committee then, but he was with the White House at one point, but obviously he can't exercise early.

He should run after he leaves.

But he does exercise after he leaves.

So, I'm going to say this while he was here.

I'm going to say this while he was here.

So, that would cover Jacob, but it would not cover Luther.

It would cover Colson, but it would not cover Howard Hunt.

well the other uh we'll cover strong i know they're concerned about strong

You see, you wonder whether it's just as well... whether... whether he would or...

The problem with Strachan, they're worried about Strachan getting into the White House.

I don't think that's a problem because Strachan has no, as I understand it, no criminal.

Because he wasn't directing, he was simply aware of what was going on.

But if he doesn't perjure himself, then he has to answer on awareness.

And he can't take the bit, because he doesn't have any incrimination.

He does have a problem.

Because I think he knows what happened over there.

And that's where he gets into trouble.

But it has to be already questioned.

The other guy told me he answered, he forgot, and Strachan, from what Dean told me, Strachan said he just didn't know, and he wasn't very well-questioned, he's only been questioned by the FBI, and they, they only question him on, he said, ready?

I wonder why the Russians ever got him on that.

Oh, there was a time, well, I've never heard from him, I don't think, and I'm not sure it ever would.

I must have accidentally asked him a question.

I'm not sure how much he knows about Watergate anyway, but from what he tells me, I think he knew a fair amount.

Because I think he knew... See, Stratton's job was to know, was to keep on top of everything that was going on.

Yeah.

And Magruder knows that.

Magruder would tell Stratton that that's what I mean.

Magruder might tell Stratton that, yeah.

But only that he knew, not that...

He had no authority and no...

participation, he was an observer.

The danger you got there is that he probably, and I possibly, got reports from some of that stuff.

And if I did, I didn't know.

But Strachan did know, because he gave me, you know, stuff that thick, and I never looked at it.

And I find all campaigns, budgets,

I don't think he'll go that way.

What's wrong though is he may go on contempt, but not perjury.

Attempt on refusal to remember.

He goes on inability to remember.

But he doesn't privilege.

Unless they charge him with a crime.

Then he has to figure out.

Anybody charged with a crime, he has to sit down.

Unless he has to figure out who's present.

Well, if that's the case, why the hell wouldn't they charge everybody with a crime on complicity or something?

Yeah.

Almost like a...

The charge is not enough.

I think it has to be.

God, it's ridiculous.

Really, the irony and the sort of stupidity of that whole thing is...

Really?