Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Watergate and White House staff

But with regard to the plan, that's not a word that I would use.
They, they, the atmosphere will not work.
But, uh, I told you to check with Pompey to see if they wanted to meet Montenegro, you know, some place like that, which would be good.
I'd like to get Montenegro out of the way.
So, uh, I don't know.
That would be better than sitting here, actually.
But anyway, so that's what we've been working on.
This is what we've explored with the tank, and that's what we're exploring.
The shuttle wants to come in July, huh?
So, that's a ship.
Well, not necessarily, because...
Well, it was good.
We wanted him to come.
He couldn't come in May, but he would like to come in July.
So you could put the Japanese in the third shot a week earlier, or whatever the case might be.
In other words, we might have parted July.
It was the 15th of July to the 15th of August.
I mean, you've got plenty of time.
I don't mind having things in the summertime here.
It's nice to have people come.
But with the shot, I don't know whether you can have a white card in July.
If you can.
I don't mind if it's every week, one a week.
One a week, I've decided this is a better thought, right?
One day.
Could you remind me?
I talked to Julie, and she didn't raise it.
She said that she was, that apparently they, because we are, because of our stand-up sport, that they check their results, and they don't say they're so busy that they can't really help with the remarks.
Oh, bullshit.
And, uh, and remarks.
Julie's had four events this week.
I know.
And she did.
And I said, well, what about Lee Czar?
She said, well, I talked to Lee Czar, but she said he's working for Ray Price now.
I'm just going to say, I'll have Ray Price do it.
He can do Dewey's remarks.
You know what I mean?
I think that there's no question.
Or is there?
I don't know, but I'll find out.
Dewey didn't complain, because she was asking me what to say to the young Republicans.
I'll think about it, but good God, there are guys who are at the top of a few names.
See, I'm not speaking that much, but the messages are managed.
We've given up on Gannon over there.
We've moved him out.
He is too undisciplined to be a speaker.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
He has a good idea.
We'll use him in ideas.
They're using him at the domestic council.
They'll use him for word development and idea development.
all that but he's in the first place which is kind of interesting and uh he can't he just is unable to he's smart we're doing we're going to be using i like that in the regular sort of thing that sort of thing like that oh he's a button down
uh yeah like that yeah right there all right but anyway let me tell you about as i've often said to you more important than anything they do for me let me tell you you can do your own nine out of ten times you say everything they do but you do realize what you hear is that they don't give me anything i'll come up with something
I can always come up with something.
Because you're in the day-to-day stuff all the time, you know what's going on.
I'll sit there, talk, and an idea will come to me that will be better than anything I've thought of before.
You've got 30 years of life.
I'm a napkin.
But you see, with them, it's not great.
And so they will sweat and work out these things.
long copy papers to me, and they're beautiful jams.
I'm just like, that's for Julie, Pat, and Christian.
And I'll copy them again, because that's supposedly understood, and they
There is no excuse.
There is no validity at all.
I don't want hurt me in that.
Just put somebody over here.
We work with everybody else.
You know, I don't think you do want to hire somebody because they could get isolated and then they lose what you're after.
You want someone who's in the mainstream, who's doing stuff for you.
who knows what's wrong.
Julie is a very interesting point.
She did this Jew group yesterday, and I told her, never again should you do this Jew group.
I said, no, I don't know what this is.
I want you to do this as a partner.
You see, I can't, for some reason, I can't even put a private memorandum.
Let me tell you why.
I'm a Jewish man.
We got that mom for a very monumental reason, it's life's a luxury.
And that was about it.
But we got, we got mom's financial fears about a third.
But that's, basically, they will revert to time.
We'll have our friends.
But to put poor little Julie on there.
Now what they put her to, let me tell you, was the National Council of Jewish Women.
And they had their prospectus on the right to pay daycare, the right to
The right do this and that, and they gave the John F. Kennedy Award to Askew for his job on busing.
And so Julie was there, and I said, Julie, I'll introduce you.
She said, oh, she says it was, it was not, they were not on track, but he said they were not frowning.
It was just very, just polite.
I said, you should never, never, never, these four years, we're not running for office.
She said, but the people at the schedule office said, so maybe we can make it.
Maybe we can gain something by going before such.
So I said, oh, shit.
I didn't put it that way to her.
The first message is never send you to someplace where you're trying to eat something.
You're trying to sell them by what we've got.
Let me tell you.
That's what we're going to do all the way annually.
That's what I'm trying to get at.
Except for all these symbolism.
But let me tell you, with the Jews bothering my name, you can't.
No symbolism.
Take it.
Is that clear?
I have done Jewish groups all my life.
They're sick of me.
They're all bad.
They are bad.
And I'm not going to do the Jewish groups.
I'm not going to do them.
I'll see a matchmaker.
I'll do the rest.
But the Jewish groups are losers for us.
Do them individually.
But don't do them as a group.
Because we always get badly treated.
And that's another thing.
I've been badly treated for years.
Years, believe me.
Way back in Hollywood.
What was the Hollywood Legion there?
It's all been pretty bad.
And I don't resent it, if I had to do it, because I believe that that group was a waste of time.
And that, uh, I mean, after, and, oh, let me tell you, they prepared remarks, you know, she's great with people.
She says the remarks praised the group for their great stance, for their liberal views, and all that sort of thing.
She said it really sucked up to them, and she showed it to David Davis, and that's a great respect, because it praised them for their being with the right to
I know this is one of the big arguments.
And I don't mean that John believes that you can go suck up to everybody, but on the other hand, there are many of our people here who believe that we should constantly appeal to our enemies.
Well, I don't mean we should kick them, but God damn it, I am nice to these people.
I mean, I really am.
You know, I get out there in those press conferences and the rest of it, and I treat them courteously.
I've never, you know what I mean, I've never, you know, I never say I'm just stupid.
or give an iron cross, or there are lots of ways that Eisenhower harassed even Eisenhower.
And we don't get any credit for it.
But my point is, let me tell you, we are not going to get any place by sucking up to our enemies.
That's why, while I will see a young group, I don't believe it makes any sense to speak to the prince and senior class.
from some liberal high school.
If it's our high school, yes.
Otherwise not.
Am I coming across the front of my wall?
Absolutely.
You're absolutely right.
And that was the strategy in the 68 and 72 campaign runs basically.
We played on our crowd all the way, didn't we?
And the point is, our crowd is, on most nights, about two-thirds of the people.
And why the hell worry about the other third?
Who you can't do it with.
I don't want to have you this morning.
I said, you know, this is quite a day.
I think just a year ago for Camp David.
Terrible Easter.
Cold Easter.
a year ago we were finished here we are the last man out of vietnam tomorrow and it's a hell of a government achievement it's a hell of people we have the credit is irrelevant the credit is in the minds and the hearts of people the credit will never be in these press assholes because they all predicted it and they don't want the united states to win so screw them that's my view
And I feel very, very strongly about that.
And I see our own people, I think, whining and bitching straight.
Why aren't they proud of what we've done in Vietnam?
Why aren't the people around here proud of that?
I mean that goddamn Congress, for example.
I was in the Griffins and the Scots, and I read a report on such things that are whining and bitching.
Actually, they are in Vietnam, but then they turn around and whine and bitch on the other side.
But you've got, we're right, it's fascinating.
the stuff now and it's they're doing exactly the same things it's almost like it's they're they're right back out now you're you're now through again and that's what they're trying to do you're in deep trouble because you've totally your biggest problem is you've totally ruined the economy you've failed completely in the fight against inflation and uh so there's going to be you know mass record revolt and all that
and you're cutting back the whole social program and the fabric of American progress and all that.
So you're in terrible trouble there.
You've covered up the Watergate, so you've lost all credibility.
You've blown the FBI.
And, you know, you go through that hole that came the big and the little, and they add it all up and say, you know, it's a terrible thing.
Here he is two months after his inauguration and the biggest landslide in history and all this.
He should be riding high and in steadies.
And Dave Broderick's a cop today on it.
He says, that just makes the point.
Don't count Nixon out.
He says, they're making a big case now, as they did after a year ago.
They did a year before that.
They did in November of 69.
And they said, just remember, things may not be as they seem.
He puts it that you've got a great ability to bounce out at the same time.
Well, what the hell do you know about the three boys and his father's and the press stuff and so forth?
It's not out there with the folks.
You look at the inflation thing, which is the one they're trying to hang the big fuss on.
Kevin Phillips runs his analysis on that and comes out.
No Republicans have ever been hurt by inflation.
Inflation hurts liberal Democrats because people start saying they don't want all that wild spending and all.
And what hurts Republicans is unemployment, depression, slowdown.
But the next syndrome and so forth, we've been through this a lot.
Sure.
It really is.
It's like getting big in the swamp.
It doesn't almost automatically.
We're doing a lot of things right now.
This whole issue in Vietnam.
A lot of those.
There was a hell of amounts on that.
And again, I think, as you said, the economy has played in our hands, as they did earlier on that, when they installed the
First of all, they gave you the rights to look tough, which, particularly after, again, the Cronkites and the Reds were all saying things were going to hell with them.
They went right out on that limb again.
Which they do.
They're so, they are just so charged to get out on that limb that, you know, anything like that, they just shoot out at someone.
Now, my plan this week, let me say, I told Steve, if you want to pray, otherwise, not tomorrow or Thursday.
I will go Thursday night at 9 o'clock.
That's the way I try to tell him.
He does.
Not 18 hours, but he says he's got to see you before you go to California.
What I'm going to do is push him to Friday.
Yeah.
What's he going to do?
If it's about Steve, that's different.
No, he can come in Friday.
I think he needs to come in Friday.
I want him to come in Friday.
He's got the trade bill, economic stabilization.
Right.
A couple, you know, there's some specific decisions he's got to wrap up.
That could all be Friday.
I mean, I want him to put, you get a hold of him and say, I want him.
I'm just going to use one paragraph.
I wanted to prepare a statement on the price range, whatever the damn reason is.
You should get one paragraph or two paragraphs at most.
I'm not going to read it, but I will then ad lib about it in my remarks.
Point out that I am not going to use this for the purpose of making.
I tried to tell it just the other day of August 15th speech, but I'm just going to throw it in.
Are you sure?
Right.
It wouldn't be good if we sit here and read everything about why we're increasing our prices.
You don't need to.
All you need to do is watch the news, the good news, and which of what you want to give is, we're going to increase the food prices.
Everybody else, they're going to get my food prices.
That's true, and it will work and all that, but that you shouldn't get into.
All the ramifications are how many signs the retailer has to post on his front door.
You know what I mean?
Brody's got another point to make.
They say when they talk about Nixon being finished on, they think they used to do it, they used to do it in terms of election.
Now, how do you think about it?
Mr. Kreislinger says, yeah.
Well, that's why they don't care.
What more do they care about getting the job done and perhaps helping the party in 74?
But by God, I worry about this.
They're worried he won't win.
They've been the problem for worry.
Now, listen.
We don't have any pleasure.
It's good to have them all come at one time, actually.
Well, you don't have any problem with that, because they all do.
It's just, you know, every time you stumble, all the vultures come down thinking the body's dead, and then all of a sudden it gets up, off they go again.
It's almost funny.
I mean, somebody, you could do it.
If you could get them to call the nation, it's incredible.
It's incredible.
I remember it.
I just thought about that.
If I were you, it would be Vietnam.
Vietnam.
Oh, Christ.
Cambodia.
Laos.
Cambodia.
November 3rd.
And May.
In other words, there were four times they said Nixon was finished.
It was all because of Vietnam.
Then otherwise, in terms of when Nixon was in trouble, you had the August period before the moon rise.
That was it.
Five different times we were in trouble.
But they expanded on it.
They never let it just be.
They always lead in with all their stuff.
In Cambodia, it wasn't just Cambodia.
It was Nixon's isolated.
He doesn't know what's happening.
He's hidden in the White House.
And in the December bombing, it was an isolation game again.
And they tie in all these other fetishes that they have to explain the thing.
He doesn't know what's happening.
He's taken leave of his senses.
If they give a little glimmer of encouragement on any of that,
You make me think maybe we ought to get to the country a little more.
I never made such a big, but not to Wichita.
That is what I mean, going down to a job course in Wichita.
That's not it.
That's the wrong kind of thing.
You've got to go where there are people, I don't mean other people, but where there are people and where they get to see you.
Trying to figure something out here.
Well, what's the situation today?
Is there anything you want to say?
Do you have a meeting yet?
Or am I... Yeah, but we have some new developments.
And, um, I think Keith's bouncing, but we now have, well, let's see, briefly, there are three new factors.
caused him to question whether he could go exactly where he did.
I have not talked with him this morning.
I was just going to call him.
Is he back?
No.
Because he's still having to get his paper done.
Number one, Liddy spent yesterday at the grand jury, took the Fifth Amendment all day.
Sirica is going to give him immunity to defit it.
And so you have the question of what Liddy will do.
without the protection of the fed.
There's not any greater concern on that than that he will steal a stone wall and take the contempt if he has to on top of the other.
Bittman has now informed, I think, Dean, that Hunt is ready to pull and is now going to pull the plug.
Curiously enough, Bittman
He's now very disturbed about that because he's the guy that gave him the money.
So he's now an accessory in pulling the plug on it.
Whether that's how serious that is remains yet to be evaluated.
The third one is that when Bruder has
sort of crumpled at the seams as the, uh, question, as Dean gets named and the question, the obvious is that Dean's going to be called to the grand jury.
And Magruder's, uh, least assumption and not knowledge that Dean's testimony will not, you know, well, it won't totally jive with this.
Dean won't say anything that will hurt Magruder.
Except it will be in conflict with some of what Maguder has said.
Yeah.
And not at the direct point, did Maguder do anything, but at the peripheral points.
And that's got Maguder's here, to the point where Maguder has apparently told Dean that he's thought this whole thing through, and he's now, but no, he didn't tell Dean, he called in Parkinson and O'Brien, the two many lawyers yesterday, and said he's
here's the situation.
He is now clarifying his memory and figures that he's got to, he's now got to, if they're going to haul everybody out, he's got to clean himself up too.
And then what really happened on the Watergate was that all this planning was going on and Dean was set it up and was involved in getting the planning worked out.
And they had the plan all set, but they were not ready to really start with it.
And then
Strong, Gordon Strong, called him or went to him or something and said, all of them have said that you cannot delay getting this operation started any longer.
The president has ordered you to go ahead immediately and you're not to stall anymore.
You're to get it done.
And that
Magruder has chosen to say he believes to be the actual fact now.
And he told these two lawyers this, and he said, don't discount Magruder as a witness.
He's a hell of a convincing guy, as was evidenced by how he got off on a surrogate trial.
Obama just looked at the actual fact there.
Could that have happened?
No.
Ever?
I don't believe so.
Because that was the words, not the water.
That's what I mean.
I mean, sir, could anything have ever happened about, for example, Strong saying, you said the president, well, he would, but even then, you told him to do anything on that.
See, he can assume when I say something that the president wants to do, but he knows better than that, too.
But on this one, the only thing that I had pressure on him on that Strong undoubtedly did,
was getting coverage of the Democratic candidates.
That's right.
Public statements.
And that's where he's confused now.
Guter has asked, asked on Saturday, on Saturday, he asked that Mitchell and I meet with him.
He felt it was important that the three of us get together and understand exactly what the problem is that we face.
He thought then that I should agree to the meeting to keep him on balance, but not thrust right into heaven.
I don't know what he thinks now.
He gave this all away last night.
He has come up now.
Why is this?
Go ahead.
But the whole new approach, I mean, John's concern now is, he says, what's happening here?
This is exactly what I've been worrying about, is this whole .
Well, and the dumb thing, that one guy goes and everybody starts to .
A lot of all his stuff out.
Bruder's going to change his story and try to sell them on some other line.
And you don't know what .
That's right.
And Bruder throws it to the White House rather than to Mitchell.
That's right.
He tries Mitchell then, too.
He also, he also pranked Mitchell.
Mitchell was, was, had approved the plan.
And Magruder's trying to say that he did approve the plan, that he did have a part of it.
He's trying to tell him that he'll have to kill his bed to purge it, kind of thing.
And how did he get out of that?
I don't know.
Maybe he is a candidate.
But if Magruder went, he's smart enough to figure this out, I think.
If he went to Sarika now, who believes that he told the truth, and Sarika said so publicly and privately to Magruder, so Sarika looks a little foolish on it, too.
Magruder goes to Sarika and says, if you'll give me immunity, I can nail the big boys, right?
I think Sarika would give it to him, right?
But the thing that's really, to me, very hard to understand about this is how McGridder would do that to maybe you, the president.
Because Frank, first, it's hard for him to do that.
The main point is, I can't believe that it's true.
It is.
I can't believe that it's true.
He says it's not.
You know damn well that we have
They thought it was a shot.
I said, we heard about the goddamn thing.
Absolutely.
Now, he's got, and it's understandable that he could now, for his own purposes, confuse that, because he's got what was done mixed with other things.
If he actually believes this.
Now, there's, he may not actually believe it either.
He may just have decided, and he didn't intend to do anything on this except fire a shot across our bow.
But?
And that, well, either by, you know, or just a, you know, he's sitting out there and nobody, he's afraid that they're paying enough attention to him, that this will at least get him to look up.
Somebody's got to talk to him.
Who?
Who would be informed about this?
Nobody, well, Hurley.
How about Mitchell?
I have not talked to Mitchell.
Well, I think Mitchell probably better come down.
I think we might know what the guy really is up to.
That's right.
Now see, Mitchell, I mean, Magruder talked to Dean earlier yesterday before he met with the lawyers.
At that time, he was taking a totally different line, which convinces Dean that Magruder's a little psycho or something.
playing a strange game, at least, because he said that he, geez, John, that's a shame that that son of a bitch from Florida followed you into this, because, you know, you and I both know you had absolutely nothing to do with it.
And I'm a ruler, so I'm thinking of lawyers he ties Dean in.
And strong.
And he's strong.
You and the president.
That's right.
That's correct.
So...
Totally untrue, which it is.
But this is the thing Dean has warned about, you know, he said, you just gotta face the fact that untrue charges are gonna, legally, you may be able to defend yourself, but in the public eye, you may not.
And his example was, what if one goes out and says, I had a two hour conversation with all of them the day before the Watergate break, and worked out all the details with them, and went over precisely what the... How do we know, how do we know about the hunt practice?
Who calls in their mind?
I don't know.
I think Dean.
That's interesting.
I'm not sure.
It's interesting, you don't have Colson in this conversation, do you?
Not the same one, no.
Dean's view on this is he still has some trouble with his point of the grand jury.
Right.
In other words, we plan privilege for him.
That's the way to keep him out of that.
Yeah.
That's tough when he's named.
I just don't see that you can't blame privilege on his own criminal actions.
You can sure as hell blame privilege on anything he did with the boy.
If he had a trouble, then I don't know.
If he had a trouble, then I don't know.
How's your boy doing?
I don't think he can.
That's the argument I keep making to Dean is just, John, I don't understand why you're even arguing it.
It's only when and under what circumstances.
Well, here's what he's come up with, which he's talked to Laura about last night, and which I quickly sketched out to John, and I only have a sketch of it because he hasn't really thought it through prior.
But he now feels that we've reached a point
or you have a situation where the Justice Department is discredited, the FBI is discredited, in a sense the court is discredited because you've got this whole thing wallowing around the judge playing games with the sentences and all that sort of thing.
The grand jury has some problems for the same reason.
The Senate hearing, if it isn't discredited, it ought to be because here you've got their counsel running around listening to hearsay and having press conferences before they even meant to establish their own procedures.
And, of course, the White House discredited by charges that are very difficult to defend without getting into more problems and all that.
And what's needed now is not the mandates of sending John Dean to a grand jury, which he might have to go to anyway, and it's going to really make much difference.
And you need something that gets beyond all of the things that are squirting out,
Hunt over here, and Bruder over here, and who knows, Mitchell or Liddy or, yeah, Hugh Sloan.
I mean, there are all sorts of weed breeds that haven't been heard from yet that you get around.
So the way you do it is you go the Warren Commission route.
You say, now, all three branches are screwed up in this thing.
It's become an impossible situation for anybody to be properly heard.
or properly judged, because it's all being done in this crossfire, that innocent people are being charged in the public press with no proper defense, that guilty people may be being protected with no proper recourse to getting out, that the basic institutions of the three branches of the government are all screwed up in the process, and that we can't tolerate a situation like that.
for the fundamental basis of our system.
Well, there's some possibilities there.
Well, he had some ideas.
I talked to Erland about it this morning.
He, of course, went right to that point.
And you come up with an interesting thing.
You need to get everybody or enough people to agree this is the right thing to do.
You can't just have a president go out and say everybody, all the branches of government screwed up, so I'm taking it over.
It's got to be something that rises even above the presidency in terms of what it is.
Well, in the first place, you could put Sam Ervin on it, which would buy off Sam Ervin, maybe.
Maybe you can also put Howard Baker on as the minority banker.
Or maybe you go to an alumnus of the Senate like John Williams, who's on a sale.
You go, maybe you have to put Earl Warren on.
And then Tom Clark.
as another justice.
And then you come into the executive branch and take a couple, maybe former attorneys general or something, of course Tom Clark is a former attorney general, and you put her Brownell on.
Brownell?
Graham C. Clark.
He's a former attorney general.
Yeah, pretty bad.
Well, but you go for that, you set up that thing with
types, two judicial branch types, two legislative branch types.
And you give them some power.
You give them the power to give immunity.
And they conduct their hearings, of course, in secret.
And you, of course, waive executive privilege for all people except, of course, the communication with the president.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe you have these people all granted national security licenses and let them hear the security stuff.
But where John comes down is that the only way you're going to get out of this now is by a dramatic move.
You're not going to get out of it by piecemeal moves.
And then you need to move to some substantial drama.
And the president is the only man in America who now can do that.
All the others have their own grubby,
And, of course, in a sense, the President does, too, that they're crying out, really, for the President to try to do something, people on our side and on our side.
If you do, you at least answer that cry.
I tried to get it, and, frankly, it can't be much worse than what you're going to do with everybody that's in the air.
Well, this kind of a commission is clearly better than the Senate on publicly televised.
And they met yesterday and confirmed they would have a publicly televised hearing.
It's clearly better than that.
It's probably better than a grand jury that's irresponsible people and with leaks through the justice and prosecutors and...
It would happen to whoever would go to the Watergate.
That's what I would happen, all right.
Yep.
Now, that wouldn't stop Irvin, I suppose, from going to the other thing, but maybe it would preclude him from going into Watergate.
All right.
Then he'd have to wallow around in looking at other things.
Nathan's right.
You've got to fight the...fight the thing.
But I don't know how much time we've got, but he doesn't think we have the right launch.
How do we get the people to get it?
Whether a warrant is served, we don't know the question.
We could go to the people.
I guess we had to anticipate that this was a, you know, Dean has been right all along, that this development could occur like this, Bob.
I mean, it ain't, it's sort of, it's a, and, and, you know, we, you always know that McGregor was sort of weak, and then Hunt had a problem.
McCord was a surprise to us, I think.
But basically, but Dean has been all along suspicious of McCord.
He said there's something phony there.
The way the guy got his bail was phony.
The way he didn't
accept any help.
See, they offered him.
Also, the court offered him immunity.
Or, no, not the court, the Justice Department.
They said they'd drop the charges on him if he'd come.
And he would have done them.
Why is he doing this this way?
I don't know.
Maybe he's getting paid with somebody on the wall that may relate to this guy that put up this bail, this new lawyer he's got.
Which Mitchell thinks is the jump-and-falling in there.
And that's easily understandable.
There's a hell of a lot at stake here.
They can tear stuff down this way.
Some of the...
It could be a pure communist operation.
There's a hell of an interest in the communists, the true believer type, because just what I described, they are shaking some of the basic system under Benz, which is exactly what they'd like to do.
Yeah.
But Benz says it comes as I go in.
I'm not sure.
I've got to get back to Dean and get some specifics on all this stuff.
But then you've got...
I really want to raise the point, if you do this, that at the same time, you should take some specific steps yourself.
You should suspend John Dean because he's been named.
Simply say that obviously he is with no implication of guilt.
I'm asking to take a leave of absence.
You should suspend Pat Gray again.
Tying that into the tragedy of how this all has been distorted, this was not only a suspending finding, it was a suspending finding.
You tie that into it, though.
Now, Rogers will argue, you also ought to get rid of language in that process.
Well, I think so.
He's logged that one in a couple times.
What about the province of Justice?
You've got a question of my needs there.
My needs ties to Mitchell and so on.
So you have that.
And then you should be prepared if anybody else is named that you'll fire.
In other words, if Magruder comes out and says, I ordered the thing started, you should ask me to take the lead.
Yeah.
I want us to prove that everybody was correct.
Yeah.
And the other way I can say Dean's duties are directly related to this, and he obviously can't carry those out.
And then she has to take a leave.
I don't know.
I said to John, you know, when you start down this leap route, you committed to something.
You had a tough time, you know.
I said that.
He said, well, then the president has to decide whether he wants to do that.
And I said, well, you know, not only is he going to want to, but he may not have any choice.
And that could be playing into their hands, just like gargling up to the Senate could be.
It has sort of the same kinds of things.
The president will go to the control of the administration.
It's strong through corruption.
You don't have any problem with closing because he's not here.
You'd have to suspend Mabuder on your son, which you raised anyway.
He's right.
Mabuder may be.
Well, let's see where we can cut it off.
We can cut it off on you and early on on the ground.
Those are charts that are made, but they're not...
Well, we don't know.
These are charges at this point.
Your point is, how far does it go?
I think the idea that we waive executive regulation for all of them is the better thing.
And Dean, I wouldn't suspend Dean.
I think that's fair.
He will take a leave of absence.
He has requested a leave of absence.
He has requested a leave of absence so that he clears his own position on this.
Uh, Liddy.
You don't know about Liddy?
We think he'll hang tight, but you don't know that.
Now, Lydia, you see, goes to a lot of other things besides Watergate, too.
What kind of things?
The stuff over here.
He was working in the plumbing on the bridge.
That's fine.
I'm not going to be a guy that's going to publicize the plumbing on the bridge.
He'll take leave of you.
Well, Erland said he went back through his records on that to see what problems he had, and he doesn't have any.
And what his records have is a ton of memos from Colson on what we have to do to nail Ellsberg.
And Broek has got memos to other people.
Colson was an Ellsberg.
How the hell did Colson get an Ellsberg?
I don't know.
I didn't even know he was...
I thought they had it all heard at this time.
I haven't talked to Colson about it.
I think Colson was pushing on it just, you know, because it was a name that was going through the throat, yeah.
I saw an opportunity.
I'm not going to be one that's going to sit here and second guess.
One thing I want to tell you, we've got a lot to do.
Parents, everybody, whether it's Mitchell, Chuck, you,
we all know the people who didn't what they thought was right and frankly uh whatever it is absolutely uh innocent accomplice in the whole thing
He gave good advice.
He said, don't do it.
And after it was done, he was just holding pieces together because they thought that was his job.
So he said it might be a higher harm done by coming apart.
I would say this, however, too.
I would rather get it done.
I just feel
Thank you.
He will feel very bad.
Sorry.
Sorry, but I think you can't read it today.
Well, I understand Bob.
I understand the whole thing.
I just feel for everybody.
What the hell are we going to do?
Well, he suggested, let me just say one other thing, though, where, let's be honest, is there anything, is there anything where Colston, you, or anybody else, there must be no doubt on this, or, I mean, you can't just, just because it's the president, I mean, well, yes, sir, you can't do it.
But let's clearly understand, there's nothing to indicate that the president don't let anybody go out and do anything.
God damn, can't be.
No, sir.
On anything.
No.
on absolutely anything, you know what I mean?
We'd be granted, we'd be said to get the information on the counter-attack from the rest of them.
This is, that's the point that Colson, you, and Herth, and Paul, and all of the others have got to say, that is a totally ridiculous story, and so on and so on.
Which is true.
Or does anybody have any knowledge on that score?
I don't think so.
I certainly don't.
I don't.
I don't.
And John doesn't.
And Chuck says he has none.
Well, I don't think he has said nothing.
And Chuck also says that he never uses the president once as a way to get things done.
I'm not so sure about that.
You never know.
Chuck may be smarter.
In that area, I would think he's right.
I don't think he did.
Because Chuck is the one who was involved.
Chuck, in the Indians' area, would not use it.
In the area of taking on a nation, he would.
That's right.
Why is that?
Chuck might, on the other hand, do it here.
And I know Magruder did that.
I mean, I've got... Magruder is a name.
Magruder did it in space.
Magruder was constantly saying, all of it says to do this.
I've found that in a lot of things.
Magruder.
Well, it was his way of getting things done.
Magruder, on the other hand, you realize I never saw him once.
Except the day I went over to that campaign.
I mean, the day I went through the...
I visited the office, and he was never in the office, never sat with me.
And that day was long after Watergate.
Yeah, but you remember what I was.
Yeah, but McGregor couldn't be through.
Yeah, but I didn't see McGregor.
McGregor just saw you in the group Saturday.
I think he said, I stood and gave a roll.
But he isn't claiming that he had any communication with you.
Well, you wouldn't deny it, but that would have to be stronger than me.
I've never said that to you.
I've said it most of the time.
Well, one thing these folks are all doing, of course, they're running for lower sentences, but they certainly have to show you this.
They're running out of any opportunities for .
You already said that.
And frankly, it isn't fair to let McCord and others get off and let the Cougars rot in jail.
And if that's the way it works out, we're going to have to have that in mind too, you understand?
Yep.
If the Cougars and the ladies and the other guys go out and have that word of all of mine, we'll be able to play a rich brothers and all of that.
Mr. Sage, it's not unfair.
Yeah.
These men will do whatever they may.
Well,
I think now, I've got to, A, I've got to talk to Dean, because I've got to get updated on all this stuff.
Good.
B, I think we probably should, unless Dean sees a reason not to, we should set up the Mitchell-Haldeman-Mooder meeting.
Right.
That probably today, John can come down.
John's coming down.
And, um, in fact, I'm going to talk to Dean, and then talk to Mitchell.
And, uh, yeah, I'm going to try.
Third?
C?
Third, while Dean and Moore are pursuing this commission idea, I've talked to Earl about it.
I think we ought to get Earl working with us now on this area, too.
Well, you're talking to Dean and the rest of them.
I talked to Earl about the commission.
Now, Dean's idea on the commission is that the way you have to do it is that you have to go on television
And then you have to say, you know, just a quick summary of terms.
Here's what happened.
Here's what I was doing.
Why nobody here is involved.
Why do I go?
Not necessarily.
I just go out on the road.
Except I do go for that 730 time.
Yeah.
I'd like to be there tomorrow evening.
That's what he said to him.
I don't think you can.
Bob, I've got you to review an army offer.
I told him I was interested in the commission idea.
I wasn't at all convinced the president should go on television.
His argument is there's only one man in America who can make the case to the American people of what the problem is.
And that it's got to be done not through the press.
Because they won't read the statement.
Well, they'll cover it, cover it, cover it.
My view would be to do it, cover it.
My view would be to do it, frankly, on television on Friday after doing the gig on Thursday.
Friday, don't.
Just go out there.
Do it in person.
They all cover it.
I've called you on that.
If you do it, if you do it on television.
I don't believe it should be out there.
I mean, it's in the public mind, but I do not believe that I would go on television before 80 million or 60 million people would say, let's make hope of it.
If you get it short enough, if you do a less than five minute thing at a minute, they'd run the entirety of it on the news.
And they'd run the whole thing on radio.
And that probably is enough.
That's what I think is enough.
I think that'll do it.
And I think it would be a less than five minute thing.
I don't think you want to do very much.
No, the various charges have been made, and medicine people and so forth that I met.
It's a, it's a matter of... John's first reaction was, it's too late.
John Earp?
Yeah.
In other words, from a... We should have done it earlier.
Well, but that's, you know, that's the only thing to say, but, you know, but the question is, is it, is it, maybe we should have done it earlier, but we didn't.
The question is now, is it too late to do it now?
It's later, maybe, in a scenario.
But the argument on the too-late thing is that you had, of course, a thing.
I was waiting for the judicial process.
It was a process that followed, of course.
You had had a very strongly stated, if I can put it that way, total cooperation.
They must get to the bottom of this.
The problem now is that it's unraveling in these various directions.
The judicial process has come proper to an extent, as have others due to various circumstances.
So time has come to pull it out of me.
Now, if we were to do this, we'd have to get some people sold on it first.
You'd have to get the members of the commission to agree to serve them, you see.
And you need the kind of commission he's talking about, the one where the names of the people on it would override the integrity.
That would go on, I mean.
The rest of them, they want their own show, I'm sorry.
So I think you couldn't get any comments.
You'd have to do it.
Keep going.
See, our problem is who talks to them.
That's our problem.
I haven't got anybody here, Rob, that now can go talk to such people.
That's, that's the real problem right now, is you can say, Dave, you can't.
And we all, evidence can, early in the day.
What about your colleague, Bill Monderson, to talk to?
Well, he's the Secretary of State.
He's the former Attorney General of the United States.
He clearly has no involvement in this at all.
That would be fantastic.
That would be my next thing.
I'd like to get all the facts and then come back and have a quick review and then I ask Bill, maybe you want to ask Bill to come over.
Right.
We ought to go through it with him.
You go through it with him and I'll trip.
The President apparently felt that it would be all right to bring Aichi in, and indicated that he would arrange for him.
Now this is prior to his receiving word from you that there is no way that you can see me.
And he had to have me as long as he was receiving the kiss.
And as he just said that, Aichi, I want to see you both.
I can't get him in here and get him to go along with the conversation.
He says he's just done a brain check.
That's all he said.
All right, you get a hold of him.
I think, you know, it's too tight up that I will be on my way.
I'll stop him for a minute.
Just shake his hand, please.
But I cannot see him now.
He said come back.
I'll wait and I won't.
He just constantly works in these people.
Fuck, but that's not, you know, unfair.
He knows what he has to do today.
Okay, Bob.
I hate it.
It's too late to do it.
We should just let it unravel.
Well, that's my point.
Instead of worrying about whether it's too late or too early, let's look at where we are right now and whether that's better to do than anything else we can do.
That's what we've got to consider.
I'm sure maybe there's a little bit of a PR problem in it.
Why didn't we do it earlier?
I'm not so sure there is.
I don't think anybody's going to say that at this point.
Most people just want you to do something.
I'm sure the president is like senior's wife.
He's out of the commission.
He's got to get money for it.
He's fat, so let him be friends.
I mean, I don't know how much money these things are.
Well, we've got our emergency funders.
Yeah, we've got the special parties fund, we've got the emergency fund.
We don't use the emergency fund now.
It's a sure as hell emergency.
What basis do you play in?
Well, we get the, should we say, third of the year compensation or anything support.
in your conversation with Bengals to get him down here.
Bengals should be informed that you've all been standing up.
He should have come down.
He's been disgusting.
Then after that, you'll come over and see me, right?
Give me the report.
Try to make it to me.
Try to accomplish as much as you can.
In other words, let's move along.
I can do that in, you know, 15 minutes.
Right.
And then, and then, because you ought to see the group.
I mean, I can go all the way to this and see what the hell he's up to, but my computer's got to get through this.
Yeah, isn't it good?
Do you think his attorneys are coming?
No, because it's the attorneys he talked to were Parkinson and O'Brien, who are our committees' attorneys.
And they were, according to Dean, they were quite shocked because they're not sure what to believe is true now.
They think maybe what we were showing was not the truth.
And that really helped them.
Of course, Dean said, you're dealing with a guy who is not rational.
You may have a thing where you want to bring Earthman in on that part of it to talk to the looter in that if I talk to him it looks like I'm trying to save my skin.
Early on, they talked to him on the basis that he can't get into stuff like this with, you know, time all of a sudden, because of the present, because of what?
The first place, he knows it isn't true.
But he's apparently capable of dealing with things he knows isn't true and making them appear to be true.
You may say, well, he did try, you know, but strong.
He's basically strong toward him to get it done.
And then Haldeman told Strachan, the president.
Strachan told him that Haldeman said the president said, get off your ass and you're going to the city hall and something like that.
But you've been telling him a long time.
It's time to get it done.
That's why we got that.
It simply is not true.
But where he can tie it into what, in his memory, can get confused with it, which I'm sure it is true.
Although I don't have any specific memory of this, but I have a general
feeling that I know I was riding him on getting those goddamn tape recordings and what the guys were saying.
And I was riding him hard because I was pissed off because he wasn't getting it done.
And that strong, I'm sure, had a follow-up list and probably hit him every three days saying, where the hell is the tape recordings from a group, from a government?
Well, that's what you say.
That those were tape recordings to be made in open media.
No, it's not.
It's part of it.
It's part of it.
He said that as far as his youth went on and so forth, he got a lot of memorandums from Colson, but early on he was not concerned about his own role.
He said he did not order, was not aware of what they were doing until after his death.
A probe to go?
Probably.
So he's not under security?
No.
A probe?
His thing ain't totally on national security.
What he was doing was purely on checking leaks on national security documents.
There's no question about that.
But I mean, that would be very... What did he just say about this?
It was on national security matters and so forth.
Well, time's wasted.
Let me ask you this.
You still think that I should do my television on Thursday?
Absolutely.
I just can't allow this whole thing to go out.
That's as important as this is.
All for it.
And we've got another big, big thing that's never going to turn into a big thing.
And that is both a problem and an opportunity.
which is this whole wounded knee that, which has been sort of a joke up to now, but it's no longer going to, might have to be able to stay that way.
Well, the Indians shot a U.S.
Marshal, probably, he'll probably die.
And they're getting down to a crunch point where nobody exactly, it's sort of a dilemma point.
They've been there seven weeks now, and we've got to order people in.
We've got to get people in or people out or do something.
I mean, we just can't.
As Christopher was in the staff meeting this morning, he made the point that if you let them accomplish what they're after this way, what you're setting yourself up for this summer is a hell of a lot of occupations in central cities by blacks and, you know, foots and stuff of the Fetty types, underground types and all that, where they, it began as a challenge to the system.
And John's
has just finished a meeting on the Indian thing, so he's going to go through that too.
Why don't you do that?
In a way, it seems funny, but I guess it really isn't funny.
It's fairly fundamental now, because you're down through a damn tough bunch as to what we did with tear gas.
They can't tear gas, because they're out on open prairies with a heavy wind blowing.
It's not as...
That's what they looked at logistically.
I had suggested a thing that may be pretty interesting, which is to bring massive troops in.
Schultz argued this, too.
He said, every one of these confrontation times on the campuses, in the cities, everywhere else, we've seen that the way to deal with it is how it works, with force that is about 10 to 1 more than you need.
in order to accomplish your problem.
That is, don't leave any doubt about your ability to provide more than enough... Tanks, I don't know.
Tanks and a whole shot.
And then he said, mask the force, and then use the device we used in Hanoi during the Sante raid.
Well, we went into Sante, which there was nobody there.
But other than that, it was a highly successful operation.
And he was saying, if you put the military to it, there are some things they can do.
The problem is the military are just super determined not to get into the Wounded Knee.
Because, of course, the reason Indians pick Wounded Knee is because of the battle, the massacre there.
Because that's really what they're after, is a massacre.
I guess, because we do, we cannot move on the matter of the commission and all that sort of thing.
I don't think we should move on the basis of this evidence that we have here.
I know the evidence is going to come out.
But let some of the more of it come out and then move.
I mean, you see what I mean?
A court is what I think that is.
I don't think we do.
I mean, what is the move on the basis?
You were closing in on the grand jury that day.
you would stop all these other processes so that you get everything under control.
All right.

Nixon, Haldeman & Bull on Watergate and White House staff

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 27, 1973

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