Conversation 893-010

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That's right.

He wanted the whole boat.

Oh, yes.

I talked to him about every point.

Sure.

me talk to him.

And I did.

And I said, now, as Secretary, are you content on this?

He said, yes, if I can get this, then I can go along with the rest of that.

And so we made the trade with him.

He won on most of it.

He won on the big things.

Well, you know, he felt it.

He felt it, frankly.

They'll never get that.

They ought to.

They'll never get that.

They ought to.

Well, and Erlenborn played kind of a cute game up there.

Dent, you know, slammed the secretary, and Erlenborn then to the press said that he didn't know what the administration was going to propose ahead of time.

Well, he was covering his tracks with Dent, who was expressing surprise at the chairman.

Actually, Erlenborn knew every jot and tittle of the jury.

So, uh, there were, there were some other games, but be sure, right?

All right.

just called.

And Strauss has now secured the approval of Mansfield, Albert, and Urban for this settlement.

Mitchell, talk to Sands.

Sands would like Larry O'Brien to crawl on his hands and knees down Pennsylvania Avenue as a determined condition of the Senate and also issue letters of apology and, you know, all that.

Mitchell says that Sands is now in a position to agree, provided he knows you want him to.

I'm not going to tell him.

Well, you don't have to tell him.

The point is that Mitchell wanted to talk to me as far as Mitchell's out there.

He thinks we ought to settle quickly.

All right.

Why?

Well, because they continue to take depositions that catch people in a crossfire.

Okay.

But you've still got a common cause.

Yes, sir.

No, that could be mooted.

Maury would then move.

You've got the name.

Yeah.

But he won't.

I can understand that.

I don't think we ever want to ask Maury to do that because that would be asking Maury to pray people.

So, I'll call Mitchell back and I will tell him whatever he thinks.

It's his decision and I approve.

Okay, fine.

Garment had a three hour meeting with the committee staff last night.

Played New Boy and just pretty much listened.

They don't want to be in here until June sometime.

They're being crowded by the Sirica 90-day delay of the sentencing of McCord.

They don't like that.

They don't like McCord.

They find him incredible.

They must put McCord on.

Then what they would like to do is take the time and build a lot of cooperation.

I can't believe it.

made his first appearance before the committee on August the 3rd and named his.

His wired the committee and put it out in the press.

I demand the opportunity to come and respond.

We called him on August the 5th.

Two days later.

And he responded.

Now that's the precedent here.

That's what you've got to say.

Anybody in the committee that's irresponsible, you've got to take with urban that that's totally wrong.

I mean, and frankly, timers are not.

They don't have

the way they're going to play, then we're going to jump up and down.

Because if you move in this direction, John, don't play this pissy-ass game with her.

This whole part is trying to screw us.

I think he's starting to go along.

Don't worry about Len.

He's all right.

He's fine.

Len is tracking beautifully, and he is not making a move without prior counsel.

I don't want him to play it on me.

Well, he knows.

He knows.

He's on top of this, really.

I promise you.

Good.

So what is your line?

Well, my line is to go in with the New York Daily News today, in which there's another meeting out of the committee staff.

What's it on?

Who's it on?

McCord.

But it says the committee staff has a corroborating witness who establishes that McCord's testimony with regard to the prior knowledge of Mitchell and Dean and so on and so on and so on is true.

Now, Mitchell just tells me that what they have is some secretary over at the committee who says that there was a meeting shown in Jeff McGruder's date book which took place.

There was.

Then that's all.

But no corroboration of prior knowledge or anything else.

It's just a fact to me.

But this gives me a club to beat Irvin over the head with.

Because here again, these guys have been slandered by a leak out of the committee, and we're just not going to tolerate it.

Well, I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

I'm not going to be that precise about this thing.

Here's another example of the kind of thing that's been going on all last week.

And we're not going to hear McCord on national television and then have a three-week hiatus.

I think you should use the...

Within 48 hours after Chambers justified it, the committee called his so that he could deny it.

And that is a precedent that has to be held.

You're not there for the purpose of making the case and convicting somebody.

They're there for the purpose of getting the truth in, sir.

And that's the whole purpose here.

Well, we have a 593.3.

The data finding committee made.

signed on to this committee they saw this as a great canvas in which they were going to portray the political corruption of america you know both parties and they were going to do this by starting out with all kinds of foundational stuff back in 70 and then working their way forward and watergate was just going to be a vignette and segretti was going to be a vignette these demonstrations

And then they're going very heavy on campaign financing.

Well, then all of a sudden, here comes McCord.

Both sides.

Well, I always say both sides.

And Lance is, you know, he's skeptical because Degner's guy is kind of a yes man for Dash.

But here comes McCord, and he focuses down on the burglary.

And so their beautiful, abstract, scholarly, political canvas is now the Watergate Burger Room.

And they really don't like that.

And they're going to try, the first time we give them an opportunity, they're going to try and get off that.

And get into other things.

So, I think we have to keep bringing them down to this.

Because it's our strong ground, in a way.

Well, the White House is.

Sure, sure.

Len and I have

It came from here.

Well, let me go back.

At the beginning of the campaign, at the beginning of the campaign, Stan sent $350,000 to Strong.

It was put in the safety deposit box.

Yeah.

And that just sat there for the whole campaign.

There was money that was raised long before.

Sure.

From the 17 years.

It was cash.

Right.

At the end of the campaign, Strong said to Hogan, hey, we've got all this money.

Maybe we want to use $25,000 of it for an advertising campaign.

anyway the money then was wholesaled back to sands in cash and larue took 70 000 without africa back over there well this is

the story of the paper was two days after the burglary.

No, no, no, no.

At least that's my, that's what I'm given understanding by Dean.

That's what this is all about.

The Dean, though, that's what it's for.

True.

No, no.

But Len and I had a talk with Moore along the line.

He suggested this morning.

What?

Well, about the necessity of Mitchell waking up on all of this.

What, of course?

Yes, that he knew that.

He was well aware.

He talked to Dean about it.

He had begun to talk to Mitchell about it, that he'd been unsuccessful in getting Mitchell to focus on it the last time that he would try again.

I think he'll sue all of you if he didn't.

Well, he did before we had the meeting.

I didn't.

What I meant is I didn't ask him, but I gave him every opportunity.

You know what he'll say?

He'll say what?

He'll say, Mr. President, I don't think that's anything he and I ever talked about.

That's exactly what he did.

He said, I don't have to see you unless you want to.

He didn't want to see you.

I think, in a sense, John is being decent on that.

He doesn't want me to know about your account.

But he also knows that you're kind of the ultimate weapon around here.

And that, you know... Sure, sure.

Let me change the subject with you just a minute.

How would you like another seat on the Supreme Court?

Who's going to die?

Nobody.

White would like to be director of the FBI.

Jesus Christ, would he change?

Yeah, apparently.

I've had messages from two different people.

He has so much more prestige than the other one.

You can put another one in the courtroom.

You do that?

An Irish Catholic bachelor?

Yeah, an Irish Catholic, sir.

And a bachelor at 42 years of age, you know?

And conservative.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know about how conservative he is.

I don't know.

A law and order.

Oh, very.

A law and order.

I know.

So conservative, I guess.

I don't worry.

It's on race and all that.

Well, race.

I don't know.

I just don't know.

Well, I want to try it on you first.

I don't know.

I've got two different people that he's spoken to.

The other message that I've gotten from two Supreme Court justices, one from Stewart and one from Powell, is that your Mrs. LaFontaine is doing a hell of a fine job.

Well, somebody told me you told me she did.

That's what Kleine told me.

She's argued two cases up there and done very well.

We got her anyway, but that's for the black seat.

I understand.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe the thing for me to do is just go talk to White and say, I've had this in a couple of different directions.

I don't want to get anybody else involved in this.

What are you talking about?

idea about this and I don't think it's going to work or even do it.

The guy is going to be our

Yeah, I know that.

I know that.

I'll tell you, ironically, Abe Fortas would be more critical.

But I wouldn't give him the gun and stick it in your head.

But it's between the two.

And I'm thinking here about the median price.

There's no hurry about that one.

No.

The other thing you've got to get is dragging on.

We just can't have this thing dragged out.

I mean, there's a lot of important work to do for this country.

And the committee should make that point with him.

What does he say?

He says we will go well into the spring.

No, I hit this very hard all summer.

He agreed in principle that he ought to get our guys on and off.

I hate it from the standpoint that we cut our staff around here, that everybody's working long days.

I mean, we just can't send a bunch of guys down there sitting in the hall day after day after day.

That's right.

We're not going to do it either.

Kleine's really smacked a little musky between the eyes yesterday on that Jessica Privilege thing.

It's some great television.

I guess, of course, we're... Oh, I don't know.

We're stuck with that goddamn thing.

It happens to be correct, but it's not right.

That's right.

But you're so concerned.

I'll do my best.

Dan Urban has said some things publicly in the last overnight that are tough to take.

What's he say?

He says that he predicts that the president will back down on executive privilege.

Well, back down, I'm sure.

Okay.

What I mean is rank.

It is on the floor.

The point is that the president is being for the coming.

God damn it, that's what we're trying to do.

I understand the son of a bitch.

You mean I beat the ass and played the back.

They're going to be strong down there today.

Strong, Chapin, and Segretti are there.

All three?

Yes, sir.

Combach has been subpoenaed by the committee, and I'm going to pass the word to Baker, and I've arranged for it.

records because back there in those records is all that 1970 congressional money and there are going to be some senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle that really would like to open that whole can of worms up besides this beyond the scope of the committee well you get into the Kennedy investigation for one thing the pre-70s Kennedy investigation

And I think it could be argued that it's pretty much in Kennedy's interest not to have that investigator call him as a witness.

And then of course Weicker on the Republican side, and I don't know who else.

And then I guess there's some Alabama money in there.

I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of that.

That's correct.

They have every reason not to.

That's being on the committee.

That's right.

But see, the subpoena that was served on her goes clear back to January 1970.

Well, they asked him for all of that.

That's right.

Why didn't he just decline the ring?

Well, I talked to his lawyer this morning.

His lawyer sort of asserted that objection.

He's here.

He's going up to see his staff and say this is too broad.

Well, Baker could do that.

I'm not so sure.

Everyone would want to take that responsibility.

I'd be surprised if he did.

If we got into this whole business of scoping here.

And he said, no, just 72.

He says, I don't want to get into any other elections.

And just presidential elections.

Well, he moved a lot of money to Sam.

Yeah.

And he'll make an accounting of that.

Well, for polling.

Bob wanted enough money for six national polls available for you in case you wanted to.

Now, he didn't use it.

He didn't use it for some ads.

Well, apparently, one of these non-attributed ads that some citizens

put it back.

Yes, sir.

We found we did not need the money at all to pull in the ads and everything.

You've got to, if you're going to go down the line on Bob's thing, you've got to realize, John, that we're not going to let them pick up these coins.

We've got to just say, God damn it.

This is part of the preparation that's got to take place.

I hear economic things.

assigned to this paper, rather than I have another one of these interminable meetings, I've asked that each of the Troika plus Ash write their recommendation about our departure.

Well, I thought I would call Harper separately, not give him the paper.

No, no, no.

I'd call him separately.

And so what I'll have to do is... You tell Harper.

He's been burbling around wanting to see me.

I know.

And you've got to push him off and say, Arthur, the President wants to see me.

He wants to...

He's studying me, you know what I mean, so that he'll know what the hell he's talking about.

And he does see me.

He's not going to make it with his mind until he does see me.

You know, a little bit.

That's right.

Peter, go ahead.

long talk with him, of course, and I'll have a paper from him today to add to this.

And then you'll have laid out before you what everybody thinks and recommends.

And Stein does a good, clear job of laying out what all the options are.

But that isn't too hard to figure out.

That direction, that direction, and then you box the compass going around.

I'm not sure what the best thing to do is to let it go.

Well, the Congress is about to do that.

These two votes are not acceptable.

But on the economic state of inflation, what is the situation?

I don't know that you can control the inflation.

Well, you know, Stein argues that this is a little bit like a boat.

That it's going to come back to equilibrium almost in spite of it.

And that you're going to be right, so to speak, regardless of what happens.

So it doesn't much matter what you do.

He says the upward momentum of the economy is now very strong.

And he argues that it's healthy and so on and so forth.

When you look, for example, today, for whatever it's worth, I don't follow the market.

With all the burping around and bitching around here, why the hell does the market go up 40-50 once in the last three, four days?

I know why.

I know.

Well, my answer is because apparently the market, the juice in there, the space of the juice in the ones that make it terrible.

I bet you the PR red price paper will be different today than it was yesterday.

Because he is almost, he just likes to touch in on the market.

Yeah.

But the market, now why the market?

Why do the markets move?

Because they can't let the retail sales figures jump.

We're in the middle of a hell of a boom.

Right.

And it's also, let's face it, everybody bitches about the inflation and all that sort of thing.

Yeah.

The always funny reasons are just this lack of confidence.

Virtuous can't believe it.

No, it's a valid development.

This is all a pledge.

Those are all excuses.

But when the economy is moving up, and there is inflation, that's the time to invest in the goddamn markets.

Of course it is.

Of course.

Why don't you invest in inflation?

If I had any money in it, I'd put it in that market, wouldn't you?

You can't get it right enough?

Sure.

The other thing that adds to this, though, are these two veto votes.

Because I think everybody was sure.

Everybody was skeptical.

that you could control federal spending.

And they all knew, at least vaguely, that there's some connection between federal spending and inflation.

And recognition here that you can wheel a Congress is a big plus.

I've got some people waiting.

Jesus Henry, he is a pistol.

This guy, I think, would take me at least 40, 50 minutes to talk to him.

State our combating agreement with Spain's country, and we should receive proper recognition last year.

I'm running for mayor.

Mayor, who is in here?

I suspect the way this is going to go is that the grand jury eventually is going to swing from Segre and begin to focus on this money thing.

And that they'll have to go down there and testify, and that that'll be the moment of truth.

And they'll get through that before they ever have to go to the committee.

The main thing, John, is this.

uh...

You see and

Apparently not.

We don't have good reliable information.

They're trying to tie it to Hunt.

They know that Segretti had some contacts with Hunt.

Did he?

Oh, yes.

Did you ever hear that story?

That's a bizarre story.

Don't tell me.

Well, no, it's kind of interesting, and it isn't, but Hunt had some guys out working, and Segretti was out working, and they bumped into each other.

It was very, it was very chaotic.

Then eventually Segretti was turned over to Hunt.

Obviously, mismanaged this thing.

The other thing is, it turns out that Moore told me...

Which one's responsible?

Moore told me this morning that Lydia... And she's got a spell when she types memos and reports and all this kind of thing.

So, she's going to... Who's she going to?

Well, I assume Mitchell and McGregor.

All of them?

I don't know.

I don't have any reason to think that, but it could be.

Well, let's find out.

God damn it.

Is that what it means?

We'll find out what she says after she says it.

No, I know it.

Well, it'd be the moral of the case to find out that she does find more of my pointers.

Well, I don't have any good way of finding out.

My understanding is that the truth, according to Dean, is, God damn it, because that's just basic of what we say here, that the truth is that Liddy said he made two reports.

Who do we hear this from?

One to Magruder, one for the White House, right?

And that I don't know.

Dean may have told you that.

He's never told me that.

But the real thing that we would have to have in mind is that

Type of number C, perhaps.

But it's certainly something you all would have to meet head on.

Sir, sir, sir.

Yes.

I don't think so.

I would think so.

I just don't know.

Not to Lydia.

He'd more likely write to Jim.

Mr. Secretary, you should give someone the lead.

have worse yes so we've got to find this out now john oh i just have to find out what this stand that we can and then we'll have to look at the goddamn whole card you know what i mean right and because the worst thing we can do about leaving out the administration is for him to go up to the committee get over extended and i'm saying so

We don't see that kind of attractive out there.

We fight all the way down the line.

But if we see that coming, then we have got to have a goddamn hard talk.

Yeah.

Okay.

You've got to face it.

All right.

Those circumstances are your only option if you're about to get out and soothe some people for life.

It's interesting to see Garmin slide on this because he's been out of this completely.

He comes into it in sort of total immersion.

And he said, my God, what they're going to do is just paint everybody.

Well, he says you fight it not in their form.

He says we can't win that in their form.

We've got to win it in other ways.

He says the president's got to be more American than apple pie.

He's got to be doing all kinds of things that are the antithesis of that kind of charge.

How Gannon, as I mentioned to you the other day, has written a piece of being a reader.

Yeah.

about how to be more American than apple pie.

You mean going out in the country?

Out in the country, but not more than going out and physically being in the country.

It's the kinds of things that are picked for you to do, the kinds of decisions that are made about what you should be doing.

There's some things like international activities that we now take as commonplace.

Maybe you see the Foreign Minister of Spain.

To us, you know, that's a drag.

There may be a PR aspect to that that is wholesome and presidential in the antithesis of a corrupt mindset.

Now, your picture out here in the garden with Lee Kuan Yew is good.

That's a big plus.

I mean, he's just a – he's, to the average American, some little guy from some little country somewhere.

But there you are in an international setting conducting foreign policy

in a human kind of way that's attractive.

It isn't just, you know, a stuffed figure sitting in front of the fireplace.

Well, every little bit helps.

And it's, that's sort of Gannon's point.

That there's no...

I understand.

And it helps.

Well, you've got something in the bank.

You notice that everybody, including Weicker, is saying, now the president doesn't have, they're still scared of you.

In the sense that they're not attacking you.

Sure.

That's right.

And you simply got to replenish every day a little bit that bank account.

That's kind of a piano version.

But he's got some specifics in that.

Well, I suspect that it's paying off.

It won't pay off in the sense of anybody coming

Well, you ought to do as much of that as you can, bearing in mind that it is one way to meet the attack.

And not to try and meet them in their own form.

That day will come, and we can do it in subtle ways.

Well, I... You can.

I don't know.

Don't you see the importance of that, sir?

I do.

But who the hell is developing the case?

Baker says, give me some questions.

Who's going to develop it?

Who's going to be looking at the next 34 million?

They spent 34 million.

There's got to be a whole lot of investigation there.

And all this, I mean, all of it's got to be... Well, anyway...

yeah and basically remembering more than anything else is just getting stories up well that's right that's right and that's what we can do on this committee you know we can we can work on them through