Nixon & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Jeb Stuart Magruder

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Oh, I'm sorry.

All right.

Well, I don't think it's a big deal.

Yeah.

I was supposed to know this.

I was supposed to know this because he has a tape.

What does it say?

Saying that both Colson and Haldeman encouraged him to cause electronic eavesdropping.

And that, and Colson may have trimmed this a bit, that Haldeman knew of the plan to bug the Watergate in advance.

And

Well, that's about as far as he went with me.

He said that, uh, uh, Magruder has... Oh, good thing.

And then most importantly, he was asked, well, did John Mitchell know about this?

And he said, uh, John Mitchell really didn't control the committee.

Oh, boy.

But, uh, Chuck said, when you listen to the whole tape,

It's pretty evident what he's trying to do.

Turning it from Mitchell.

Turning it from Mitchell to the White House.

And he said he really doesn't turn it from Mitchell.

When you take the thing out of its four corners, he hangs Mitchell, too.

Now, Chuck's going to write up a scenario.

But he feels strongly that you ought to have paid counsel, that Dean ought to leave.

He thinks Dean ought to be fired.

But that's why I'm fired.

Because he thinks Dean will be seriously implicated in the obstruction of justice act, which he sees as probably the most serious exposure right now.

Provided he moved quickly on the Watergate and get a special counsel in, had he moved vigorously against Mitchell and McGrew, that will damp off

the obstruction of justice thing.

I don't know why he thinks that, but he says he has reason to think that that would satisfy the U.S. attorney.

And that he thinks that Mitchell has contrived these off-the-record sessions to expiate the whole thing by serving a fault upon a fish.

And he, Mitchell, would get by if, in fact, the Senate had all of them and could nail these things.

These stories, presumably, are timed to come out just ahead of the urban thing.

Does he know what the border is?

Yeah, apparently he knows.

He didn't tell me, but he knows.

He says the obstruction of justice thing is running fast, that they will attempt to prove a conspiracy to obstruct justice, which will involve a lot of people who are not direct actors.

And he says that will lead to the very door of the Oval Office.

So he said, it's very important to move on this other front in order to try and .

I can't imagine what he means.

I don't know.

I asked him to call him, and he said, well, I know that, speaking to me, he said, I know you and Bob were both talking to Dean about this.

But he said, I think I was your only fault.

He's obviously got his own fish to fry, and he's decided that Mitchell ought to be sunk, kind of on the same theory.

I think Chuck has some exposure on the obstruction of justice side, and he's still on the hard line in the Urban Committee, that no witnesses should be sent to the Urban Committee, except those who are the subject of criminal charges, and then only an executive session.

but under no circumstances anyone told it.

Parenthetically, I talked to Howard Baker a while ago, and I said to him that neither George or Phil Brock had really carried the day.

He said, no, I could see they weren't going to.

Well, he said, I still am as firm on this as I ever was, but he said, I won't beat you over the head with it.

And I said, well, I think our position ought to be executive in session.

And I spelled out the reasons for that.

And he said, well, I think you better talk to Senator Urban about that direct.

I said, I wouldn't have my heart on that.

And so why don't you just contact him directly on that?

And I said, well, you know, I'm feeling the need for another meeting maybe on Monday to talk out some of these differences.

He said, that would be fine with him.

Let's see where we stand.

Where does McGruder get out of this immunity?

No, I don't think so.

He's a cooperative witness.

That helps with a sentence, I suppose.

Helps what?

With a sentence, with whatever it's called.

I think he must be a little bit, a little bit cuckoo.

I think that's dangerous.

I think the better way to do it, maybe, if we can get him, if we can know he's got somebody named Birnbaum as his lawyer, who probably would be just terrified if he knew McGregor were out talking to the press.

One of the reasons I wanted to see Dean was to pass the word back to Birnbaum.

I think McGirder is talking to him, perhaps.

But the... Oh, if we get a special counsel, I think the first guy he ought to talk to is McGirder.

He ought to say, well, I'm talking to some people here in the White House who say that you have readily admitted to them your implication in this thing, and I just want to verify it.

So he's then in a position to say to the US attorney, I've talked to Magruder.

Magruder told me that he was implicated.

That'll help.

That'll help you out.

Well, if you decide you want to go down that track, turning in Magruder, what this thing is leading to, I mean, if you take Colson, if Colson is out sowing the seeds of Magruder and Mitchell's destruction, he'll know how to do it very effectively.

And I think that he's obviously not under control.

Colson is.

I see.

It's just a matter of time before he flushes in.

That would be my guess.

And that's sort of the, I think, the sort of hidden message in all this.

Colson?

Yeah.

The reason being that he wants to keep it over there in the committee.

His whole strategy is to keep it all in the committee.

Coulson minority we already know about.

Coulson says that he has a source in the much term who reports on Mitchell's frame of mind and so on.

And that John is doing a lot of daytime drinking now, which doesn't surprise me particularly.

Which might account for a certain amount of his sense of detachment from all of this.

Well, we have to face this fact, I mean, uh, that this Magruder around here is, you know, the only savior of the loose cannon.

Yep.

Does NISMA argue against the Hollywood statement?

Yeah, I think it does.

I think it does.

I would think if this kind of thing is going to come out, that there ought to be no Hollywood statement in advance of it.

That's right.

We know that the bullet's actually been fired.

Now, one way to do this that occurred to me, since Bob and Chuck are the two victims of this thing, would be for Bob to call Chuck, tell him that I had told him about the tape.

Ask him to bring the tape over.

And let's see if the tape exists.

And let's see what it really does say.

And then maybe blow the Magruder tape.

I don't know what the circumstances of Colson having it would be, but blow it and expose it and attack it.

Take the offensive on it.

You know, what Poston says about the obstruction of the office getting right to the door of the Oval Office, I pan it down on that.

All right.

What the hell is he talking about?

At least there's no discussion of obstruction of justice in this office.

I have no idea what he's talking about.

And I didn't ask him.

I, uh, processed it.

Prosecuted means that the, uh, his own, his own conversation with regard to the, uh,

The hunt?

Yeah, that might be it.

That might be it.

That was him?

Yeah, that might be it.

I didn't ask him, and I wish I had.

Well, he's going to come up with a written scenario for me, and I'm going to have him back, so we can double back on a few of these things.

But I thought it would be useful for Bob this afternoon to see if he could listen to that tape, if it exists.

At all means.

Well, there are parts of it that I think are validated.

I think I've got to talk to Dean this afternoon about the possibilities of at least taking a leave on the basis of conflict.

I don't think he should fire me.

No.

One other strong recommendation from Colson is that you take Lee Rankin as a special counsel.

I think part of the consideration

I don't know what Chuck is up to here.

Mitchell is always hating Chuck.

Chuck is not like Mitchell.

It is very possible Mitchell's conduct is damn strange.

The point is, I can't understand what the hell is the score of Magruder.

I thought that Bob would talk to him.

He has, and we've passed the word through his lawyers and so on.

How did Bob's conversation with Magruder go?

What do you mean today?

I think Bob felt it was perfectly satisfactory in a sense of warning him to shut up.

Now, the guy is one of those fellas who

thinks he's smarter than anybody else.

And I think he can be manipulated.

And I think it's reasonable to assume that O'Brien, or Mitchell, or somebody is manipulating him.

Either that, or he's just decided that he knows how to do things.

How Mitchell could possibly think a beginning would be justified by pulling down the White House with himself, and what, in the name of God, is he intending?

Well, the closest there is that

If, the mental reason is as follows.

That if Irvin gets home on a plate, he'll stop.

He'll stop.

Alright, let's take this.

Suppose McGregor does go up there.

Suppose McGregor does go up and testify and talk.

What do you do?

Call him in the night.

effects have, of course.

One hope in that process is that the verter can be shown to be a liar in the process of the examination.

The other thing he says is that somebody in the White House, I've forgotten whether it was, oh, it was Dean, suborned him to perjury before the grand jury.

That's true.

It's arguable.

In the meeting that he had with Mitchell over here in the law office.

But there, of course, he gets Mitchell on the suit.

Well, when I say this, they went over and tested him.

Yeah, I mean, that'll come out and that'll hook me.

But a guy like Gurney...

Or this Thompson, if he's any good, could take a witness like Mabruder and make a lot of points on him.

Whether he can destroy him or not, I don't know.

I'm told that he's an adroit witness.

I'm very credible.

Well, do you want to destroy the witness, John, if you have the cooperation of the press?

Yes.

And this guy was depressed and wanted to leave Magruder.

Just like they want to leave McCord.

Here again, he's having him on television and people would be able to judge for themselves.

But, uh, Magruder apparently came off before Sirica with flying colors.

Yes, with a total lie.

Is it not important, therefore, to get the breeder before the rancher?

Or is it?

Yes, so that he stands invited.

Or, if we can't have the herb committee bring him, bring him out here.

He can do that.

I just hope that you'll understand how close this is to you.

Well, let's find out if he does.

He said he did.

Let's find out if he does.

I'll double-bank him.

Bob, that's all you have to say.

Yeah.

I understand.

There's this statement that accuses you and me, and I'm sure I can listen to it.

Does Colson say it accuses him, too?

Yes.

Good seeing you, Bob.

And he claims it.

Both.

Right.

And that Bob knew.

Right.

In advance.

The first part, I believe.

Right.

But not for some things.

For certain things.

He might have been true.

That's my question.

The second part that Bob knew, I do not believe.

The other thing that he says, the tape says, is that he, Colson, forced Magruder to hire Hunt, which Colson says is not true.

That was iron, fire, and lead.

That's something else.

That was Colson.

He was on.

But this is one I'd like to go and think about for about 20 minutes.

Agree?

Yes.

He said he was going to start with McCord the 1st of May.

And I've made my record now on desiring early hearings next week.

I had the 25th in there.

That was when I was the president.

Now he said, no, we aren't going to do that.

So I'm off that now.

A good arrest supposed to say, uh, he may be that Mitchell or somebody is leading him to think that he can get, uh, that he can't be granted, uh, immunity.

Well, he can't.

He can't.

But he, but in point of fact, he cannot.

Why can't he?

Why, why can't he, John?

I mean, that's what language shows you.

Yep.

That's the policy.

Yep.

Suppose he rats on people that are higher up.

I discussed this with Dick.

He said, well, if a little bitty guy came in and delivered the U.S. Attorney, ten big guys, yes.

But if one of ten big guys came in who had already testified and said, okay, now I'm going to change my testimony and come clean on five of my colleagues, we'd say, go jump in the lake with all of them.

They consider Bruder a big guy.

I think so.

I mentioned Bruder in the course of talking about the deal.

I said, your concern, and I didn't say you.

I said, the concern here is that somehow or another, the Justice Department would be seen as granting favors.

And we wouldn't want to get that impression.

I want you to go to, to get to Pentecost and down when he says this thing goes to the other walks.

I don't know, I mean, he sure as hell has not done it.

He said, he said the only, the only time I've ever heard, except for the time you and I walked in the beach, I've never heard about this goddamn thing.

Okay.

I don't know what happened.

He said he talked to him.

Yeah.

He talked to him.

Yeah.

I will, I will find out what he, what he means by that.

I just regret that he said that.

I said it very, I said exactly what I would say to anybody.

I said, well, take into consideration the personal tragedy of this family as well.

Well, that's all.

Merry Christmas.

I hope he gets on that.

Well, it's a matter of fact, I think.

I want to do something about either Wright or Rankin or somebody as soon as I should.

I'll call Rogers.

How about Frank?

Then I can get back to you in an hour or two.

He's highly respected.

And he knows the government.

He knows the White House and all that.

Now, he was solicitor at City of New York or something, and I don't know what connection he may have had with Mitchell in the old days.

I think it's a matter of fact.

He's closer to Brownell.

Oh, is he?

Brownell is his assistant.

I just called him and asked him about it.

All right.

And move on to that.

And I said I want Colson to come.

I'll get back.

I should think you could just put that to him on the phone.

No.

But what I will do, if Bob gets it back with the tape, I'm getting that.

Otherwise, he's going to be back tomorrow with his scenario.

Ask Bob to get it back with the tape.

Nixon & Ehrlichman on Watergate and Jeb Stuart Magruder

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 13, 1973

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