Conversation 892-014

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Hey, Berger, you want to report me on your visit last night, or do you think you covered it?

Well, I've got a set of notes if you want to look at them.

That's a full exposition.

I've been over them with Garment and sent Garment off to see Dash.

And his reaction is that we ought to be able to negotiate written interrogatories for Deans.

He said, we can do it on the basis of this without prejudice to either side, just as an exercise to see what kind of questions they would ask and whether we could answer without violating the privilege.

So that's what he's up there to maneuver.

If he can get them to take that first step, then we're well along the road to keeping the dean off.

So that's the only development this morning.

Wouldn't hurt.

Now, Mitchell's in town.

Dean's going to see him later today.

No.

I had planned to.

Bob and I were just talking about whether Bob should see him.

Because they have a problem in their respective testimony over who's running the committee while Mitchell was at the Justice Department.

And

this would be a good time to get that ironed out.

And it might lead to Bob being able to say to John, look, maybe you want to think about a more forthcoming statement.

Mitchell would have said flatly he wasn't around until he left.

That's right.

Is that right?

That's right.

Now, that isn't true, is it?

No, and you see, that then dumps it on Bob.

It ought to be, I don't know, but it could be true.

Oh, yes, sure.

So we were just finishing up discussing and just seeing Bob today.

I don't know that you're seeing more until after today would be too profitable, because Mitchell being down here talking to Dean, talking to Bob, will change things quite a bit, I think.

I see.

Or could.

This would be an eye-opener for him.

I think so, and see if he has any reaction then from Mitchell's day in town.

Say, look, boy, we don't ever want to go to hell.

It wouldn't hurt.

It wouldn't hurt at all.

And to indicate to him that he can take guidance from me on scope of privilege if he needs to, that we have confidence in his judgment, and so on and so forth.

He indicates to me this morning

that he thinks they're going to inquire quite a lot into the support of the defendants, the hush money, so-called.

Well, they're going to go into that now, because he thought first they would.

It's a change of signal to that.

Now, whether that's, whether he's just bringing me along in easy stages, or whether that's really a change of signal, I don't know.

But anyway, he says,

How could he answer that, John?

Well, I think it's a question of motive and intent.

He was active.

He was active with Mitchell in this.

And I think the only thing he can say is, look, I felt terribly sorry for those people.

I had no corrupt motive.

I didn't care whether they talked or not.

But I did feel that since they were working for the committee, or apparently were working for the committee through Lydie and Hunt, that we owed them some kind of a... And how do you say, why did you do it in such a surreptitious way, I suppose, is the answer to the question.

Well, he said, I didn't have any do with that.

No, that was given to Mrs. Hunt when she was a jigger.

He'd say, I didn't have any do with the motor and delivery or anything like that.

That's right.

Some of these guys got it from just envelopes in their doorstep or something like that and so on.

And in point of fact, Sir Rick, during this period of time, was trying to find out where they were getting this money.

And nobody was talking.

It was done very secretively.

But if he's asking, he's got to say that he did it as a job.

Say something, sure.

He can't deny it.

I don't see how he doesn't know.

No.

Because it's just the kind of thing that he's going to catch up with one way or the other.

So I suppose that it evolves.

I think it does.

It evolves there and undoubtedly will evolve with Irvin.

Although Irvin is much more hung up on Dean's conduct

with the FBI and the FBI reports, and could it not be taken?

It is possible.

It's possible that it might not get in there, although the hush money story might have been recorded.

McCord will bring it out.

They're going to have to ask about it.

He will bring it out, and then it will be a continuing question of every witness, all through Montoya or somebody.

will say, Mr. McCord, when he was here, said they were paid off.

What do you know about that?

Well, Holloman can say he knows nothing about it.

Now, Holloman can say, even better than that, that what he knows about it was that there was serious concern at the committee, that a couple of approaches were made to him to see if he could help in getting money for these people.

And he said, no, there's nothing I can do.

Mr. Amos, that would be my testimony, if I were.

David Beck, tracking it back down, Goodwin did talk to Neidecker a couple days ago and said he did not want him to contact the White House for a few days.

A few days having passed, Neidecker felt that he had checked back today and he was supposed to deal with Devine, who was the leader of his intermediary, Senator Mike Yellen.

So Nighthacker called Divine.

Divine checked with Goodly, and Goodly now would like to meet with you at any time that's convenient in the near future.

He wants to come in.

He thinks with Divine with him and talk with you for a few minutes.

And then he'd like to have David called into the meeting and continue the meeting with David there and discuss a few things and settle it.

He is totally supportive of the whole venture, and that's what he wants to work out.

question then is whether you want to try and move on today or i don't think so today is a better day today's the best day for you well because basically it's there are so many other things that could come up tomorrow and so forth right i checked with david he's he can he was going up to me so that he can hold up well supposedly would he like to do it earlier he doesn't know i'm using here whatever works out let's try to say four o'clock all right

Oh, Bob, if there's any way that they could, oh, I shouldn't say the House, the House is having a discussion with Goodwin, I can see what he thinks, but I, I think that's settled.

I wouldn't get into it with, maybe Goodwin would get into it, I mean, with David, I don't know.

Well, I think the less,

personal participation you have in this, right at this juncture, the better.

I'd better not talk to Dean, frankly.

It isn't necessary.

He knows what I care about.

Well, and we're in touch with him.

He's not abandoned by any means.

But on the business of the money, I think he's got to be the gift, and he's got to talk to Mitchell about it.

They're going to get the bottom of this.

That's underway.

He will talk to Mitchell about that today.

He's going to say what?

That he and Mitchell worked it out?

He's going to say that he and Mitchell worked it out.

That's not right.

Yeah.

This money was contributed by whom?

Well, I'm not going to answer that.

I have an idea.

I think some of Combox's contributors came through with most of it.

I suspect that, what's his name, LaRue, Peter,

put up some of it or got somebody to put up some of it.

What would Dean answer?

He'd probably say he doesn't know.

And I don't think he does.

What is Mitchell's answer?

Mitchell knows.

He may not know where Kambach got his.

This was money, in other words, it was raised.

They went around the contributors after the election, in effect.

As far as I know.

That's right.

Yep.

That's right.

I think they can keep away from the corrupt intent thing.

That's right.

Well, Dean says that his lawyer advises that there are problems with that, that you can get away with that insofar as the attorneys are concerned, the fellow's expenses ensue.

But not for living expenses for the family for a period of four years or something of that kind.

And that...

So then they'll say, what are they living on now?

Yeah, what assurances have they had?

How are you buying their continued silence and that kind of thing?

And he said, there are problems in there now.

So what does he say to them?

Well, there are no assurances.

I think Dean is probably in a position to say, I don't know anything about assurances.

I didn't give it.

Nobody ever asked me for it.

I never had any personal conversations with these people.

Dean, in this respect, then, would he have to testify to any law?

I think so.

He would.

He would, wouldn't he?

before the committee?

Could be.

Yep.

That's the only development this morning.

Would you like for me to

It wouldn't hurt.

Now, Mitchell's in town.

Dean's going to see him later today.

No, I hadn't planned to.

Bob and I were just talking about whether Bob should see him.

Because they have a problem in their respective testimony over who's running the committee while Mitchell was at the Justice Department.

And this would be a good time to get that ironed out.

And it might lead to Bob being able to say to John, look, maybe you want to think about a more forthcoming statement.

Mitchell would have said flatly he wasn't around until he left, I suppose.

That's right.

Is that right?

That's right.

Now, that isn't true, is it?

No.

And you see, that then dumps it on Bob.

It ought to be, I don't know.

But it can be true.

Oh, yes.

Sure.

They apparently have a good diary.

That's right.

So we were just finishing up discussing Mitchell seeing Bob today.

I don't know that you're seeing more until after today would be too profitable, because Mitchell being down here talking to Dean, talking to Bob, will change things quite a bit, I think.

I see.

Or could, to see who's the problem.

Is that it?

This would be an eye-opener for him.

We want to see what—you would prefer for me to wait to see Mortimer tomorrow?

I think so, and see if he has any reaction then from Mitchell's day in town.

Do you want me to have any—to see John Dean?

Say, look, boy, we know you're going through hell.

Good luck.

Would it hurt?

Would it hurt at all?

and to indicate to him that he can take guidance from me on scope of privilege if he needs to, that we have confidence in his judgment, and so on and so forth.

He indicates to me this morning that he thinks they're going to inquire quite a lot into

the support of the defendants, the hush money, so-called.

Well, they're going to go into that now, because he thought first they would.

This is a change of signal today.

Now, whether that's, whether he's just bringing me along in easy stages, or whether that's really a change of signal, I don't know.

But anyway, he says that's... How can he answer that?

Well, I think it's a question of— No, I mean, I didn't—I frankly didn't know that he was doing all that, frankly.

No, and it's a question of motive and intent.

He was—he was active.

He was active with Mitchell in this.

And I think the only thing he can say is, look, I—I felt terribly sorry for those people.

I had no corrupt motive.

I didn't care whether they talked or not.

But I did feel that since they were working for the committee, or apparently were working for the committee through Lydie and Hunt, that we owed them some kind of a... And how do you say, why did you do it in such a surreptitious way, I suppose, is the answer to the question.

Well, because I didn't have any do with it.

No, that was given to Mrs. Hunt.

She was the jigger.

He'd say, I didn't have any do with the motor delivery or anything.

Of course.

Jackal got his directly from Mrs. Hunt.

That's right.

Some of these guys got it from just envelopes in their doorstep or something like that and so on.

And in point of fact, Sirica, during this period of time, was trying to find out where they were getting this money, and nobody was talking.

So it was done very secretively.

But if he's asking, he's got to say that he did it.

Doesn't he have to say something?

Sure.

He can't deny it.

I don't see how he doesn't know.

No.

Because it's just the kind of thing that he's going to catch up with one way or the other.

So I suppose that evolves.

I think it does.

It evolves there and undoubtedly will evolve with Irvin.

Although Irvin is much more hung up on Dean's conduct

with the FBI and the FBI reports.

It is possible.

It's possible that it might not get in there, although the hush money story might get it.

McCord will bring it out.

He will bring it out, and then it will be a continuing question of every witness all through our country.

What in the name of God are they going to say about the money then?

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

And that's the reason why Dean, this Dean Mitchell meeting is important today.

I think you just lie low and...

But if Dean could, Dean could stay out of it.

That's what it is.

To me, the main attraction of Dean going with the grandchildren, frankly, was that they were going to stay out of it.

They were going to hold it free as far as the stuff afterwards.

Now they are not going to do that.

Is that correct?

That's what he told me a little while ago.

So.

I remember I had real skepticism about this whole sucking in business.

And I think he has been sucked in for him.

Hasn't been there yet.

So I'll

That's what I'm going to do.

Let's reexamine that.

Maybe he does lead to self-incrimination.

I'm sure that's a fact.

Where does this counsel place this amendment?

I don't know.

I guess it's better

The urban immunity community.

You will?

You might guess.

That committee all the way around the grand jury room?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

See, well, the way that works is the committee chairman calls the attorney general, and he says, I want to give this man immunity.

Now, the attorney general can stop him from doing that.

but only if the Attorney General is going forward with the criminal process.

All right.

Let's look at Dean before the grand jury.

What incentive now does he have to go to the grand jury?

Well, I think he thinks, and I can't vouch for any of this, I think he thinks that if he goes to the grand jury and is open with them, that they will not go after him

Remember, we get into this business about equitable entity and so forth.

If he still makes a bet, there will be an agreement of non-prosecution.

Agreement of non-prosecution.

I had just the briefest telephone conversation with him a while ago.

Even though he goes in, because of the conversation he had earlier, that gives him some sort of immunity.

Or that they will actually sit down and formally grant that to him ahead of time.

The U.S. Attorney will.

I see.

That's his expectation.

Then all he does is go in and grant him 90% of the money also.

says, uh, we did this, and Mitchell was involved, LaRue was involved, and so on, whatever he'd done.

So what will Mitchell say?

Mitchell will tell him he doesn't have to get into that.

He just don't want to fight him, I guess.

Well, the problem is, in fact, why, Mitchell?

Is it that, that Kambach is there or something?

What's he going to say?

You've got to get a hold of him.

That's it.

Mitchell has got to have everybody in concert on this thing or he hasn't got anything.

And instead of working on all those people to get them lined up, as McGruder is trying to do with his people, but Mitchell is sitting up in New York pulling the covers over his head.

Without any fire in some places, huh?

Yeah.

I just don't see how you can pull it off.

There's just way too many loose ends.

Dr. Jr., you know, I don't know.

I don't know about the money that you did it.

I guess Christine was there.

Mitchell had to know.

LaRue and Kopp said the story.

Well, as far as I know, I don't know if I know this.

I just don't have, I don't have any way of knowing.

Then you better find out.

I'm not sure I want to know.

The only way I could find out would be to ask Dean.

You're not sure you want to ask?

I'm just not sure I want to know at this point.

As of right now, if I'm asked, I can say that the committee sent me a message through Dean

that they needed help in raising money for these poor souls.

Yeah.

And I sent word back through Dean that I just didn't know how they'd go about it.

But he's in search of us.

Yeah.

He heads up in the hall.

Yeah.

And he said, I don't know how.

He said, I don't know how either.

So then they sent a message to Kambach from Dean.

Whether that'll ever come out, I don't know.

I don't know if Dean will mention Kambach.

I think Dean and Herb have perhaps agreed that that just never needs to come up.

The cash funds, which Strong had in return for them.

That's right.

I don't know how they did that.

I have many idea how they did that.

They may have borrowed campaign funds and paid it back with a 350 or some Mickey Mouse deal.

I just don't know.

But I have a strong suspicion that the reason that people are so tender about this 350,000 is because that was used for that purpose or some of it was.

Turned it back intact.

And he had a perfect right hand, don't you think?

No.

No, that scans very well.

We've been over that ground.

That's right.

He had a single left over 70-gallon, which he used.

Yeah, I think he did turn out really good at some polls.

He said $20,000 or $25,000 of advertising came out.

Right, of advertising.

Yeah.

That's right.

That was all.

Yeah.

No, that holds together very well.

In fact, the fact is he'd forgotten that the money was there.

Strong came to him after they went.

I said, what do we do with this money now?

Bob said, I'll send it back for you.

And do you think some of that was used for?

That's my suspicion.

I don't know that.

But that money had to be raised during this period.

Now, the interesting thing is that they didn't come to Bob to tap that fire during the campaign.

So they must have raised the money.

They must have had it from somewhere else.

Or he had it in his safe and they borrowed it or some bad thing.

You know, there's no telling what they did.

Somebody, John, has gotten the confirmation from, I don't know who the hell it is.

It's not you.

Now it's Bob.

That's what we're hearing him to do.

Now he's going to talk to him about several things.

One is the whole Dean Testimony thing, and the other is the problem of this damn deposition that John gave, where he says he didn't have anything to do with this campaign until after he resigned.

Well, I'll let you talk to him in terms of the fact that what is still a problem is that I understand that the diary business has got to kill Mitch, and I think he must know him, too, about that.

Well, I'm sure he's not blind in the functional sense.

He's blind in the emotional sense.

He's turned this off, I suspect, or else he's decided his best posture is to just stonewall all of us.

No, thanks.

Well, that's what I did for breakfast.

Well, the... Coming back to our basic strategy, McCart goes on first, and then Bob goes on.

That's the day right after Easter.

be McCord for several days, they think.

Then, in quick succession, he gets the money.

Well, if Herb came up with any, he didn't come up with a whole lot.

And they had some other principal source of money.

I suspect, without knowing, that that was the cash fund which Strong had in return to them.

$300,000 to return back to the election.

Well, Mr. President.

That's right.

How did they pay them then during the summer?

I don't know how they did that.

I have no idea how they did that.

They may have borrowed campaign funds and paid it back with a $350,000 or some Mickey Mouse deal.

I just don't know.

But I have a strong suspicion that the reason that people are so tender about this $350,000 is because that was used for that purpose or some of it was.

With no knowledge of John Boswell?

Bob turned it back intact.

And he had a perfect right hand, don't you think?

No.

That scans very well.

We've been over that ground.

That's right.

He had a single left over 70-gallon, which he used.

Yeah, I think he did turn out really good at some polls.

He said $20,000 or $25,000 of advertising came out.

Right.

Of advertising.

Yeah.

That's right.

That was all.

Yeah.

No, that holds together very well.

In fact, the fact is he'd forgotten that the money was there.

Strong came to the election.

Haldeman, Colson.

shape them.

They would like to get Dean in there.

And that's all they want for now.

Well, now, that's all they want for now, and they want more later.

I have no doubt that they'll eventually, when, when Holloman gets finished, they'll want Strong, because there'll be some questions that they'll ask Bob, and he'll say, you'll have to ask Strong then.

Surely they're not quite ready, just...

They're only asking for those because they don't think there are others.

Well, their theory, which would not be my approach, is that they will only call witnesses who have been accused by their witnesses.

Witnesses from the White House?

Yeah.

All those who have been accused, Colson?

That whole thing faded out.

That was that Baldwin story.

Well, now it's kind of interesting now.

They said Dent demanded to be heard.

And Harry Dent thought McCord had named him.

He demanded to come.

They retracted.

And Baker says, actually, he has not been named, and he's been so advised.

And so they don't intend to call him.

Colson made an interesting mistake in his lie detector thing.

Urban passionately despises the technique of polygraphs and lie detectors.

and has a bill in the Congress which he's sponsored to outlaw them.

I see.

Well, anyway, that's it.

Colson's made it.

He's just forgetting different now.

He's made his point.

But Urban won't forget it.

Urban has his mind asking him about it, and he sees this as an opportunity to prove that lie detectors are no good.

Proved that Coles was lying.

Either that or that it was contrived or that it was the product of a careful trimming or something of this kind.

He went out of his way last night to get into this, wasn't he?

I think Coles will hand himself over as a witness.

I think he will, too.

He's a, you know, he's a competent, smart fellow.

He's not going to be, I think Bob will hand himself over as a witness.

We're going to have to work with Bob.

He tends to be very intellectual in his answers.

If you know what I mean.

And he misses opportunities to sell.

He makes a precise answer.

But by being a little less precise and a little less brief, you would have an opportunity to pick up some selling points and marshal them.

And

get his point across more effectively.

So we've been working on subjects and talking about how to kind of approach them.

I think Garmin will be a very good point.

And Len and I will spend Saturday with him.

Well, you see, we're talking you've got some time here.

Yeah, we've got three weeks.

Basically, the three.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

A quarter to three.

That's right.

A quarter to be on Monday and Tuesday and maybe Wednesday.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, we have to decide what order and whether they – the way Ervin was playing me, it was – he was being a little cute about it last night.

And he wouldn't commit as to how much interval there would be between McCord and the first White House person.

Oh, boy.

And so this is something I have marked to be sure and specify tomorrow.

And you want Bob called the next day, don't you?

Oh, sure.

Right on the heels of the court, because you can't have the charge made and lie there.

Now, I don't know whether Bob's our best lead-off witness or whether maybe Colson is.

But we can take a look and see.

We'll go see how he coordinates himself.

Yeah.

Who he nails the most.

I suspect he will nail Colson much harder than Bob.

It's the way the leagues have been coming out.

He's hardly even mentioned a lot, McCord personally, but he has mentioned Colson.

And he mentions him on the basis of conversations which McCord's supposed to have had with Hunt.

So it might be that I mentioned Colson as being aware of the break-ins prior to their

occurrence and uh it sort of occurred to me that he might here you're taking you're taking taking this fall according to his fall on the basis of somebody told him sure that sure jesus christ entirely and some of the things you think are really made up yeah no question about it no question about it yes sir

You think he can't be?

He's told all.

That's something that's not true.

I heard that.

Yeah.

That one thing.

Yeah, Parkinson.

Yeah.

Well, then who the hell's going to cross-examine him?

Baker?

Baker's going to.

Gurney's going to.

They're both ready, willing, and able.

Baker swears by this minority council of his.

Yeah.

This fellow Thompson.

And says he's tough.

Says he's good and tough and a lot of experience and so forth.

One of the things I ask Len to do is size the guy up.

What he talks about.

None of us has, and hasn't shown any.

But McCord is almost entirely hearsay.

And every time, the question, that's why the question has to be sold by the, our people have got to be, after he finishes it, now let me ask him to say, is that anything you know of your own own?

And that's his hearsay.

Or do you agree?

Yeah.

last night about hearsay.

He said, no, no.

He says, I've never, I've never, in all my years, I've never relied on hearsay.

He says, I think it's a very unfortunate thing when we would have to resort to it.

I said, bear in mind, this is a committee hearing and not a court of law.

And not all my colleagues share my view.

And so on and so forth.

I said, well, we'd like to see a rule of exclusivity.

And he said, well, we could have had an absolute rule of exclusion, or we wouldn't have had any hearings.

But some of these fellows refused to testify.

So he said, I'd be in favor of a rule of exclusion where first-party evidence was available.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You know what I mean?

Ervin said an interesting thing.

Ervin says, we have no demagogues on the Democrat side of my committee, and only one on the Republican side.

Yeah.

Baker felt good about everything.

Baker feels pretty good.

He very much wants us to feed him the kind of material that he can use.

And he's hopeful that we can make the case cutting out of the direction at least enough to money the water.

Well, I told Bob today that one thing, that he ought to pass on to Colson.

That Colson is supposed to have done a lot of work regarding that other thing.

I want to see where the hell it is now.

All right.

Yeah, maybe you can, Bob, if this is worth it.

All right.

Somebody, either that or you better sign somebody there.

All right.

Look, it is a dig.

Unfortunately, we don't have any.

investigators going after them.

They're going after... Well, I'd like to, I'd like to, uh, uh, Senator Baker looking at this fellow Thompson, and he's got 50 people on your staff.

Uh, we'll give you some leads.

We'll give you some dates and so on.

I don't know what leads we've got.

I'd like to get some leads, particularly on the finance side.

We can't allow that district to investigate any financing.

They, they are going to, for example, that, uh, Polensky and people of that kind, or Provelsky, or whatever his name is, I don't know.

Anybody, they're supposed to have checked John.

I've told him once to check every major Democratic contributor to see what kind of people they are.

You've got that, that thing, the teacher union, you know, they've received a check and they made a statement.

Yep.

What convention or anything there was there.

If they bring up the milk producers, that's got to be done.

You know what I mean?

Of course, that, you have that going on now in a separate case.

You know, you have that, that whole

How is that going?

Did Mitchell settle the other case yet or not?

I don't believe so.

They can, but he hasn't done it yet.

Well, what we, I guess John, we just got, the real key to this thing now is Mitchell.

Mitchell's got an assignment because he, I don't think he's going to get all these guys to stand up.

They're lying.

That's what it gets down to.

Possibly pull it all together.

Maybe he could say, well, the place that breaks down, for instance, the committee staff has been to see Marty and the secretary.

Marty and the secretary is now married.

I forget where she's working.

She's working for the Treasury Department.

She called Ed Martin, the committee staff.

She said, well, I didn't.

And so that's where it begins to break down.

Kind of marching.

There's always something going on in that yard.

The one reason we can't pull the plug on Colson is, huh?

Yeah.

But I don't think ever would.

Because of the person.

Yeah.

I don't think he pulled the plug on his earlier ventures for us to use.

He would have done it by now, but he was going to do it.

Well, there's nothing in it.

That's right.

Plus the campaign.

That's right.

And one thing, that's clearly beyond the scope of the committee investigation.

The only place that could have happened was at the grand jury.

That's right.

So all but Hunt, what does Hunt then do?

What does he say?

which is his so-called February home, you know.

Well, let's cross that.

Yeah, we just don't know.

And I've asked Clint East again yesterday when I signed to get me a reading on what's happening at the Grand Jury, which he promised to do.

And he's been wrapped up in this testifying.

As soon as he gets out of that, why don't we get another reading out of that?

Your beauty, John, if you're going to be able to get this deal with Irving patched by the end of the week tomorrow, I'm going to, what I'm going to do is take a text and sit down with him and talk about it.

In a specific language?

Yes, sir.

Yep.

And just sit down with specific language and say, all right, how about this?

See, if we just get the deal at this point to be deemed with written interrogatories, then in a later time, beat him up that way.

That saves life, as I sure understand, because we'll say, well, he's named, sir.

Well, we'll say your position in any case, because I won't agree to anything.

For Dean.

That's right.

Even if Dick agrees that if it's, there's nothing there.

He hasn't been accused of any criminal activities anyway, has he?

What is criminal?

Uh, wrongdoing in his case.

Wrongdoing in his case?

Yeah, right.

That's the only thing they gave him.

But he, he swears that he didn't.

I know.

But their point is, he's been accused.

And so I said, look, I'll get you an affidavit, and he didn't do it.

And Irvin said, well, you know, we had an old boy down home that said so-and-so-and-so-and-so-and, and the point of the story was that the fellow and I didn't write a cross-examination.

I told Drummond he ought to collect about 80 Jewish stories so that when Irvin gives him one of these old boy down home stories, he can top it every time.

He's a real actor.

Irving?

Yeah.

Sure, he's a part of Irving.

He's a great dad and son.

Oh, yeah.

My word.

And has he ever caught up in it?

That's my reputation on my committee.

Oh, I...

It would be very good if the grand jury would go over and pull a march on him.

Frankly, I think somebody really would.

For example, Grutter is a guy that...

I don't think Grutter should appear before him.

absolutely not take the fifth yeah sure they wouldn't dare grand community that's what my reader has to do absolutely it's scheduled to come before the grand jury again i don't know that i don't know that

I don't believe so.

Yes, and Bob told me a minute ago that Magruder had been to Strong and delivered to Strong some things that he wanted Strong to volunteer, which would corroborate some things that Magruder had previously said.

And Strong said, but Jeff, he's not sold.

And Magruder then tried to influence him to

Give the corroboration.

Jesus Christ, they can't do this.

They can't do this.

And we can't be a party.

Oh, Lord.

I said to Bob, what did you tell Strong?

And he said, I told him to tell the truth.

Exactly right.

Precisely.

And look, I'm in that kind of ticklish spot with Dean.

When Dean calls me, I say to John every time, look, don't ask me to tell you to do anything but what you should do.

Because I won't do it.

Yeah.

He's got to tell the truth.

The only thing he can do other than tell the truth is that we can claim courage for him.

Sure.

Which we will do.

Sure.

Right.

In the right place.

Okay, fine.

That's right.

If he gets before Dr. Andrews, he's got to tell the truth.

Or at least tell the truth.

Let us suppose the President's lawyer doesn't get to tell the truth.

Are there worse things?

Yeah.

Well, of course, he was going to say himself, but maybe not.

And after the election, he said, what do we do with this money now?

And he thinks some of that was used for... That's my suspicion.

I don't know that.

But that money had to be raised during this period.

Now, the interesting thing is that they didn't come to Bob

to tap that fund during the campaign.

So they must have raised the money.

They must have had it from somewhere else.

Or he had it in his safe and they borrowed it or some bad thing.

There's no telling what they did.

If I'm a U.S. attorney and I get a dean in there and I say to him,

What do you know about the aftermath of this thing?

He takes a fifth amendment.

I say to myself, wow.

I really got something going here.

I haven't heard it anymore.

Whitney North Seymour has a

in the U.S. Attorney's Office up there.

And, uh, uh, I have not talked to anyone else about it except D.D.

Uh...

D.D.?

Yeah.

D.D.?

Well, let me think.

Wait a minute.

Oh, Henry.

Henry was, wasn't he?

Yeah.

Henry was somebody out in San Clemente.

And, uh, I guess you had mentioned it to Henry, so he could talk about it.

And, uh,

That's the only conversation I've had about it since I talked to you.

I had it arranged that if there were any calls into the White House about it, they'd be afraid that the grand jury had strayed.

They haven't had anything.

They haven't called me.

I told them they were finding me.

Oh, that's safe.

Now they can find me.

I think they will, after they had Chapin and Strong this week, by segregating the acts.

By segregating?

That doesn't help at all.

There you go.

No, but see, the names have been in the paper, and they're now going through the clippings.

Is that what they were actually doing?

I think the U.S. attorney is covering his scourge here.

He said, look, we called everybody.

Everybody.

I just don't see them call Bob and June.

Yeah, but they won't.

Right.

Because they haven't done anything.

There's no evidence, whatever, that it will stop.

So Silver has passed the word plenty.

He says that there's just no way to test it yet.

In fact, he says beyond Dean and Jacob and Strong, he doesn't have any blackouts.

No, I suppose.

No.

If that is the case, we know that the U.S. Attorney is going to want to be proved wrong by the Committee of Congress.

The Committee of Congress is going to have a hell of a time defending these people.

The Committee of Congress, one of the legs of their investigation will be whether or not there was White House interference in the scope of the inquiry.

That's right.

And Silbert knows that.

Correct.

And so he and Henry Peterson have a vested interest in showing that it was a very full, complete, thorough investigation.

And they'll be up there defending their conduct of the case.

When he fell on the road, I suppose you were able to see your John and stuff.

The case against Bob would be made in terms of the Percy Weicker hearing.

Yeah.

New or must it now?

Well, it really wasn't, but like with Segretti, it's going to be tied into that.

Yeah.

That was a terrible thing.

It wasn't terrible at all.

I don't know if it was intelligent, but nevertheless, by and large, a guy like that shouldn't be the assistant to the president.

Oh, sure.

That's the whole... How would you respond to that?

Well, it's very tough to respond to.

The problem with it is that it's intangible.

There's nothing to get your fingernails into at all.

But don't you feel you have to say, as we were saying at the same time, that you just dig in and fight like hell in that position?

Sure do.

Now, there's a question.

The question I asked Ervin, where does this all end?

Does anybody get it clear?

And he said, well, we're going to write a report to the Senate.

And we're going to say, this guy did this, and this guy did that, and this fellow did the other thing.

And I said, when do you suppose that'll all happen?

Oh, he says, it'll be probably well into 1974 before we get to that.

So he's got the timing of this thing down from a political standpoint pretty expertly.

I think we still have to consider the desirability

of you appointing Lucius Clay, Tom Clark-type, you know, I mean, you know, a detached public figure type, to advise you, after reviewing the evidence, after the hearings are either over or are well along,

to come in and look at the FBI or look at the heroes.

We have something other than the committee to judge them.

Exactly.

And then you have your independent man tap it by saying, I don't find the convoy did anything wrong.

I don't find that all of them did anything wrong, Mr. President.

These people around you that you want to continue to rely on, I give them a clean bill of health.

That's what I wouldn't mind, right?

He's having a special counsel now.

Oh, yes.

Somebody, John, has gotten the confirmation from, I don't know who the hell it is.

It's not you.

Now it's Bob.

That's what we're gearing up to do.

What's he going to talk to him about?

Well, he's going to talk to him about several things.

One is the whole Dean testimony.

That's entirely different.

That's an entirely different question.

If he could find the man...

Well, it might be a senior judge that might be somebody like this, you know, either a retired Supreme Court judge or find a good retired circuit court judge or take a circuit court judge off the bench someplace that you have confidence in.

Bringing in somebody that, yeah, is beholden to you in any way and turning loose on this thing.

Yeah, our story, yeah.

And that then becomes the executive branch report, so to speak, on this whole thing.

And he could criticize the committee.

He could say the committee took a lot of hearsay, and I didn't accept any of that.

And I don't think that anybody has a right

to draw any conclusions about the reputation of an individual based on third-hand hearsay.

It was particularly egregious in the case of Mr. Haldeman, where the only accusations before the committee were by this fellow McCord, who was a convicted felon, and so on and so on.

Uh, it's worth noting that the grand jury didn't even consider it important to call Mr. Hogan.

In my view, the grand jury thing is going to look pretty good.

Yep.

I had more of a feeling about that than you have.

For all the people say, well, the grand jury has looked into the goddamn thing.

They've acted, and they've called everybody, and then they found one of these people guilty.

Yep.

That's a very important thing, and that would be really like hell if all of our people got out to the grand jury.

The other is that the

problem of this damn deposition that John gave, where he says he didn't have anything to do with this campaign until after he resigned.

Well, Bob, you talked to him in terms of the fact that what is still the problem is that I understand that you have the battery.

This has got to go into that.

I think we must know what the crisis is going to be.

Well, they're going to have to just move the grain through.

The eyes make quite a shift here.

Well, that's a possibility.

Yeah.

Finding a name.

Well, we'll find you something.

Well, he's pretty alert, actually.

I don't know if he's acceptable, but...

He'd be acceptable.

He'd be acceptable as far as I'm concerned.

He would do it.

I don't know.

Well, I'm sure he's not blind in the functional sense.

He's blind in the emotional sense.

He's turned this off, I suspect, or else he's decided...

I'll tell you who does is George Bolton.

that we probably had on the pay board.

They're fast friends.

Run way back, that's the best posture that just stung all of us.

And probably the way to well it then, I'll tell you somebody else who does it, Bill Rogers.

Bill, do it.

One advantage to Clark is that he has a staff

Well, you're on the square, and he's in place.

It would not be the logistical ability.

But the idea, you know, I thought, well, I didn't think well of it, and that I, you know, that even if I saw it, it would get quiet, and I had no idea that it would get quiet, and I had no idea that it would get quiet.

I had no idea that somebody else, somebody that we didn't get quiet.

If you come down to the real election, if you're coming down to it with me today, and Bob and his conversation with Mitchell, and Mitchell's got his side, and who the hell is going to handle everybody?

It's a lie.

They aren't going to do it, John.

They aren't going to do it.

He's got to get caught.

Dean will never go there again.

That's right.

That's the problem.

And Mitchell knows that, and that's been the problem between them for some time.

And that's, I have...

They're good or they'll go and lie.

Well, Dean doesn't bite Magruder.

He bites Mitchell when he goes down there.

His testimony with regard to Magruder is really not...

Oh, the pre-meeting.

Yeah, sure he was.

Sure he was.

But you see, Dean is going to testify that his impression was that it was turned off.

Yeah, which will get Mitchell at least to go down.

Yeah.

But not Grutter.

That's right.

Grutter said it was never discussed.

That has to be developed by some other witness.

You see, all that has to come in another way.

Grutter, the postman, it isn't Grutter.

That's Mitchell.

And really, the only thing I've been trying to do is force Mitchell to come to grips with the Dean testimony problem.

Coming back to our basic strategy, McCord goes on first, and then Bob goes on, as I understand it, to be your strategy.

That's the day right after Easter.

Be McCord for several days.

they think.

Then, in quick succession, Haldeman, Colson, Chapin.

They would like to get Dean in there.

And that's all they want for now.

Well, no.

That's all they want for now, and they want more later.

I have no doubt that they'll eventually, when Haldeman gets finished, they'll want Strong, because there'll be some questions that they'll ask Bob, and he'll say, you'll have to ask Strong then.

Surely they're not quite ready to get into the White House.

They're only asking for those because they don't think there are others.

Well, their theory, which would not be my approach, is that they will only call witnesses who have been accused by other witnesses.

Witnesses from the White House?

Yeah.

Paul has been accused.

Colson has been accused.

Why did they call him?

And, and I get signals back that Mitchell's very unhappy with me for doing this.

From second hand.

Well, you've got to be sure more today before you give me some additional information.

I'm trying to, God damn it, there's, we're just trying to, really, we've got this problem that they just don't know what the hell to do with it.

I don't see how the grand jury is going to get into what happened afterwards.

Yes.

He thought the grand jury was zero.

And that while the US attorney would ask him perfunctory questions about the post,

that the grand jury would not get into that.

Now, this grand jury seems to read the newspapers, and so it may be that all this stuff out of the courts leaks.

But the U.S. attorney might, even with all that, he might not agree on it.

That's correct.

And I think that's still lurking in Dean's mind.

But that's a reassurance

Well, our moves at the present time are going to be less than what I mentioned at the time.

All of them brought up this morning, as I was with you, some of you were chatting about Bruce Moore, and you were talking about the fact that maybe you still ought to go for his opening statement.

Well, yeah, Moore and Ziegler have been talking about how to PR this.

Yes.

It's kind of an interesting thought that Haldeman's opening statement gets lost in the testimony.

Yes.

That they ought to put it out in a different news cycle.

ahead of time.

Right.

Well, who was it that knocked the hell out of that when he presented it to Tom?

Was that Tom or somebody who reviewed it where he said, don't give them something up there that they can trust?

Yeah.

Well, but we had, we, it was a different kind of statement.

I think that the opening statement that he's going to deliver to the committee is obviously that they're going to shoot that anyway.

You know, all you do is give them 24 hours

but presumably they'll be prepared anyway, so you're not really spending very much.

And it is an intriguing idea.

I went on that and said to Bob, well, how about doing a one-minute for television?

Let's take an excerpt out of it so that you write the previous day, untroubled by the cross question.

Well, I guess the way this would be done is that

The moment that McCord, the way I would do it, the moment that McCord, before they heard us, I would wait.

I'd wait until they heard us again, and then I would shut them off.

Well.

Or we do it before they heard us again.

We do it in a different, on a previous day.

Before her body goes up.

Right.

Well, what I'm getting at, she didn't even do, oh, you would give them only 24 hours to understand it.

But the basis for it, for the committee, is to simply say, I've been supplanted here, and I'm going to answer immediately.

Right?

And so I would think you could even do it, let's suppose some cards aren't for four days.

Let's suppose the first day, I mean, the second day mentions Bob.

Bob goes on the third day.

Dominates that.

Or it's the committee that asks more questions.

And releases the statement that he intends to give the committee.

Ends it up.

So here's my opening statement to the committee.

I don't think it matters.

It's a public statement, public hearing.

Makes sense.

It's a way to get Bob's story out.

Yep.

Right.

Get it out.

Sure.

And it focuses on his day there in a way that is even greater than it would be otherwise.

people read that and say, yeah, I wonder what they're going to ask you.

Newsweek says that the networks are going to lose a lot of revenue if they go live.

So they're going to probably go tape.

That's not good.

They'll run it at the cheap times, 1130 at night or something like that.

I think they'll go live with our guys.

Well, they might, yes.

And they might run a half hour special, you know, in some dead time or something.

Yeah.

There is, let's say, McCarter or May, I'll guess he has sensational charges then.

But once Bob and Colson

unless they get a whole new charge

You'll have a cycle of witnesses that will be Segretti, his friend Young, a couple of people that Segretti recruited, Kalmbach, somebody at the committee maybe who

was involved in that, I don't know, a distilled grill that was hired, maybe must be chilled, to try to feed this impression.

And then he knew about Segretti's operation starting, and he approved that in advance and went on.

But here was another operation that was equally important, perhaps more important, more vital, more adventuresome, more risky, but he didn't know about that.

Now, why is it that he knows about everything else that happens?

Oh, sure.

Sure.

And he set it into motion, and the intent is presumed because it was inevitable.

Once this fellow was put in motion,

Now, there's where the counterattack has got to come back.

Well.

With regard to the violence and so forth.

I think Len and I have got to— Len has got to get back in his head.

We've got—well, and then he and I have got to work with Bob on how you take advantage of these opportunities of questioning.

Mr. Sagan, here is the—

We disapprove of this, just as the, just as we disapprove of that, uh, just as our, our opponents should have the help early on.

I don't think they did.

A violent, an 88 violent demonstration.

Yeah.

We disapprove of this.

There are events that happen in campaigns.

There are campaigns that people really miss.

Yeah.

He's got a zinger for a white girl in there.

Evidently, and I didn't know this, uh, from that 1970 money,

which was the source of the Segretti funds, Weicker got $65,000 in cash.

I don't think he ever reported it.

That's kind of delicious.

But I don't know how he can say that.

Oh, well, where did this money come from?

For Segretti?

Well, Mr. Chairman, back in 1970, under the President's Fund, the French put together a pool of money to help to elect

Senator's house.

Matter of fact, Senator White, for we'll remember, he was the recipient of $65,000 for that money.

Does that answer your question?

How did he shoot you?

Yes.

When he was delivering cash in a suitcase.

Delivering cash in a suitcase.

Maybe the senator would want to... Just let that lie there.

Just let it lie there.

It's going to be all over his life.

Fire him.

I'd like to see that he had received the money and not reported it.

Weicker obtained funds from, cash from Segretti.

Well, anyway, the thing to do is to look down the road and get our hands up.

Let me say that I'm not Paul Hanisch, but I do believe that if you run those first, you run those first.

Yeah, well, people can get a little tired of these kind of things.

I mean, let's get a car here.

There.

Oh, yeah.

Not bad.

Let's see what it is here.

What are you doing?

Oh, I have a pretty big reception tomorrow.

Are we carrying them all out?

What's the end of the day?

Thursday.

So here's a little one.

That's good, too.

Thursday.

With the 31st, 36th century.

That's church.