Conversation 902-001

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The second part, raising the history, raising the jury and so forth, right?

I don't think or believe I'm going to be running this shop without a strong person.

The thought that occurred to me is that... basically, sort of a half combination of COVID.

And some of you are honest.

That's all the problems, correct?

COVID, that's the other thing.

Yeah.

I don't mean to deceive you.

basically.

No question.

I think if we could put a list over here, just put it in there.

I'd like for you, John, to check the Banfields.

I'd like for one of the Johns to be up.

Now, who's the other secretary?

Uh, hi.

He couldn't do the job.

See, you need a counselor.

Banfield's perfect.

Yeah.

Banfield was taken for instance.

I'd like him to change it.

He's a counselor for community development.

I thought it would be a great move.

And Liz would work very well.

Liz is kind of a man that I like.

He's a kind of a guy.

He's tough and strong.

He commands and keeps everybody together.

It occurs to me also I'm going to have to rely some more on Ash.

Ash is a good man.

I agree.

Yes, sir.

and so forth and so on.

But I can't pull them out of there.

Well, what I wanted to say was this, that the other thing is, on the council thing,

I don't have anyone really to suggest to you.

We may have somebody tucked away.

in a department that we could bring over.

Now there's a superb guy, for instance, in transportation by the name of Mark, who's wasted there.

And there are two or three others like that.

And to get him, could we get one of those over?

Yes.

What do you do with the field?

Fielding can work for the new man and provide continuity.

He's really not of the center.

I'd like to meet him anyway.

Well, I don't.

Okay.

Well, he's not only a good lawyer, he's a superb young guy.

I want to see the lawyer.

I mean, I will see him at the time, but come over and ask him to go pick counsel for the White House.

You understand that he should move into the counsel's role with no responsibility, direct or indirect,

in any way, anything relating to the Watergate case at all.

And he was going to be pulled out of that, too.

Who's going to handle Watergate?

I don't think anybody in the White House Counsel Office.

Well, of course, it's got to have somebody, somebody with a certain privilege, who is, one, a certain privilege, too, who is riding along as a repository of information.

and who can handle things like being delivered over here.

Well, I'll tell you, I hesitate to recommend him.

Yeah, because he's gotten so old.

All about this old thing.

You really need a cool, collected guy.

Well, let Carmen do it.

I think he could.

Right.

In Carmen's case, we sort of thought that he could continue to let Carmen for sure.

Sure.

No problem.

My problem is that he gave me a call then, so... My problem is that Garmin ought to continue to prepare the Oden Committee proceedings.

And that should be his responsibility.

And I think he'll do a good job of it, because he'll have television in the PR sense, and so on.

Okay.

The other thing that occurs to me is that...

Once these, this kind of story gets fulfilled, that you don't feed on itself, and Jack Anderson has a column, and everybody else gets on it, and Cindy S. gets on it, and so forth.

So, I guess, I guess the correct, frankly, possibility of their feeding on itself, to the point where, like I said, maybe recently, all right with you,

in one column, and it's a party involved in something else.

But in the end, you know, it's a question of their views on the goddamn thing.

So look, and I guess, and I'm not speaking just from the standpoint of, I mean, it just irritates me when people like Garland and others come in here and say, the hell with the people, the presidency leaders and so forth.

They can't, you can't separate the presidency.

people.

I will not do it.

God damn it.

I remember I often told you that I was an archer and a sergeant.

I was, I mean, basically, Adam's, you folks didn't do a goddamn thing.

I mean, Adam's, uh, at least was, uh, big in a small way.

And I'm, I don't know what I'm saying.

Didn't mean to do anything bad.

You know what I mean?

Well, now, the thing I had to start about was looking at it coldly from a PR standpoint, from your standpoint.

I think we've got to figure, I guess, let's just not let the day come when the Grand Jury, as a result of the Grand Jury, sends out something, you know, like, give us 12 hours, or let's supposedly get 12 hours, and we'll just sit back and do it right away, of course.

It's a good for the Grand Jury day.

We don't know how to post that stuff.

Well, we apparently can't find out if you make it or not, but we'll go to it, of course.

See if somebody's supporting the Grand Jury because they tried to do the program.

I think the least I can do is to get him to lay out his whole list.

I just wonder if that would be good before we eat with our lighters.

Yes.

And we have no lighters.

And we need none of that first.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'll try.

I'm a level about the actual security stuff.

What I'm going to say is, look,

He will find in the file an admonition to Hoover from here.

Not always you personally or me or who probed me that this was to be handled as a principal case.

He had laid back for months and months and months and refused to let his agents get into it.

So he couldn't use the agents, he couldn't use the oil.

He was very tender about how agents would be used in this case.

Because of the marks.

And so certain rather routine investigatory efforts were conducted from here.

That's right.

Because it involved national security.

This one was apparently an access.

Yes.

But in the context of how the Bureau works, they might have been the same damn thing.

I think you should know that.

But the thing is that we, I think we're getting to the point where we have the right flow to understand.

I don't know how many of you have talked about it in practice and so forth.

and uh timing uh is out of our hands in a way but uh i would hope that we can

Let these fellas have a run at this today.

Oh yes, and that's why I didn't mean to do it today, this morning.

I can only say that I don't want us to catch up with us maybe like tomorrow night.

We can just get the son of a bitch unplugged.

So that, you know, we can talk in terms of first, let's separate us, the Edison people from Mitchell and the Grutter and the rest.

Well, in a sense, they've been nailed, Mitchell and Magruder and the public mind.

And in a sense, too, they nailed Mitchell and Magruder, and then they get all of them early when it splashes pretty hard.

You could argue another way from a PR standpoint.

You could say all of them.

And or if I got stepped on and said, well, we're not going to allow the White House to be involved in this.

We're going to fight this battle.

We're going to fight it and protect innocent people.

He totally disapproved of this.

We had no knowledge of it.

In other words, I'd slap that off, and I would take Dean on it.

Like, under the circumstances, it's essential that we fight this battle.

Let me tell you, my last admonition.

You want to handle the ER thing, right?

But also, you have got to fight both of you.

All the way.

your lawyers and using every legal device there is to avoid the prosecution.

I think it can be done.

They have one hell of a case to prove.

So on that story,

Well, so I think I'll get, you want to say something about it?

No, it's kind of, it was interesting, as Henry called this point, where he kind of clearly, you know, made this point to me about what his view was, and he makes basically the same, same point, that, that if we are on a path where we're going to be nippled, you know, or, or,

in one stroke or nibbling by nibbling, we ultimately are on a path of destruction.

Just what you're saying, you get to a point where you have to go anyway, that we should move ahead of that and on a positive basis and fight it externally.

But then he said,

Don't take that step until you're totally convinced that the other result is inevitable.

As long as there is still a chance and you can still stay ahead of the other, the White House is going to be badly hurt.

And I think this is true, although maybe I'm not being objective.

I think the president is going to be badly hurt by our stepping out.

I agree.

Well, the president's been badly hurt.

Well, I'm not sure yet.

We're overreacting to a lot of that.

I still will say there's

You look at what's here now, you've been badly hurt by some people that have badly served you.

What you gotta decide is where the line is drawn, who badly served you and who didn't.

If I step out, my position's gotta be, and I've got a very good public case for that, that you and I, and now transferred to me, were badly served by a number of people.

I'm not sure yet even who they all are.

And as I said to Henry, I can't tell you.

I can't tell you.

Yes, I think that's the main thing.

And Magruder really, I did not expect him to be so mean.

It was the principles that you were better served on.

It wasn't Magruder.

Magruder was doing what he pressured him into doing.

But I suppose, I suppose, you know,

We were all sitting there, and there was a campaign, and we said, what the hell else do we do?

I guess we all started to say, wow, Christ, that's it.

Yes, but the point is, through all of that, I did not know, and you did not know, and I don't know today, and I don't believe you do, really.

What happened to the Watergate case?

I would not be willing to write out a scenario and say, I know this is the case.

I wouldn't either.

Because I don't know.

...and a report by AU starts out saying...

I'm not sure, but this is my conclusion based on three weeks of intensive interrogation of 15 people.

I have an opinion now.

I had an opinion back at the beginning.

At the position I was in, I don't feel I'm entitled to do anything as a result of an opinion.

I can't act very responsibly unless I know what I'm supposed to do.

I'm afraid to say that.

I don't know where Colson is yet, and I think that remains to be seen.

Colson's trying to stay very close to you.

He's doing his best.

And he's calling every day, and he wants to come over and see me today, and so on and so forth.

He must have talked to me.

But I mean, he's trying to be, he's trying to, we know his interest coincidentally.

Interesting thing that you should remember that I forgot and draped up in my records last night.

Richard Quindies was in Los Angeles

when we got to San Clemente this year, this last trip.

And we had him come down, and he had a private meeting with you in San Clemente on about the 21st of March.

We flew out the 30th.

He came down early the morning of the 31st before he went to New York, met with us for an hour or so.

I informed him that you had, by letter,

appointed me to get into this.

And the dean was out of it.

We discussed a lot of the ramifications.

He then went and had a private conversation with you.

Remember, I sat outside in case you needed me.

And so that ought to be added into the mix in terms of the whole sequence of events.

It shows that you were on top of it on the 31st of March.

And that he was informed

The White House had it back in the 31st of March.

That's a, that's something that I had neglected to put on my calendar until last time.

You know, what I mean is, you know, everybody, I'm trying to justify the fact that we've got, you know, we have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of, but we're, you know, perhaps a lot of things in that sense.

Okay.

Let's face the fact, I was trying to get the guy to ask for these things.

And I kept saying to him, I said, okay, I don't know what the hell's going on with the grand jury.

I don't know what the hell they are.

I mean, I've got to know.

And I said, we can talk.

So the meeting didn't produce any disclosures or bullshit.

I agree, Bob, that you're, you're, you're, John's reason for the question is,

The question is, we have to realize that you're being driven out of the herd more, I think.

I agree with you on that.

If it doesn't help.

I don't agree with you on this.

If I leave today, I was driven out.

If I leave next week, I'll be driven out.

It doesn't matter.

It depends on the circumstances, and we don't know yet what the circumstances will be.

If I had to bet on Peterson's scenario right now, that McGregor would go into open court and come aimless, I would take odds he won't.

Now,

That may be born of a forlorn hope, but it's an odd position.

Sure they are, but that's making trouble again.

We don't know what the circumstance of Dean's return blast will be, if there is one, or whether we're going to be hurt by it.

I hate to be in a position of hanging on to this.

The President said all of them are willing to resign.

Let me make a case in point that maybe is relevant, but it is to me.

I think we made a serious mistake in forcing Chapin to resign on the assumption that we had to get him out so that he wouldn't be forced out later.

We jumped ahead of the facts and we jumped wrong.

We lost a good man in the process.

We hurt a guy badly in the process and served no useful purpose as it now develops.

Whether he was here or there wouldn't have made the least of the difference now.

I just, naturally my own interest is at stake in the next step, but I think from the Presidency's interest, you have a question whether it is better served by our getting out before saying, look, you have to do it pretty quick.

You have to do it today.

You have to be totally comfortable.

with our state.

Otherwise, it would never, it would never work.

No, no, frankly, you know, what I'm doing is I'm exploring PR.

I should have accomplished that.

Otherwise, why didn't I go to Dr. Jarman's advice?

Well, I understand.

You know, I understand.

But I just want to say it again.

I just want to say it again.

Both of you are dead on the PR side.

And I just want you to think of the PR side in terms of yourselves, in terms of us, but also in terms of

Well, there is an intangible ingredient here called, quote, the president's confidence, unquote, which Ziegler goes out and spends occasionally when he says the president backs Pat Gray on the Hill.

When you do that, you pump adrenaline into Pat Gray's future up there just through the fact that you're heading to sit there.

There are other ways that you do that, and that's by not doing things.

And to the extent that

That pumps adrenaline into my viability or my reputation or my ability to cope with a problem.

It's obviously to my interest.

And so that's something that I would hope would be spent very sparingly.

That in other words, we'd be very slow in just tossing that away.

That's why...

I say, I think we ought to wait and see what develops here.

All right.

See what Peterson says to you this morning.

See what our lawyers can find out.

And then match them up.

Our lawyers will hear one thing and we'll hear another.

That's my prediction.

No.

I'm sorry.

That's the...

I think you, uh, you see if you can get Henry Peterson to come over now, please.

Yes, sir.

And, uh, take, uh, I am not going to bother you today.

I'm traveling.

Yes, sir.

You know, how many times have we said, well, let's take a day off from this thing.

Let's take a week.

Yeah, let's do it.

Then something happens.

The, uh, the speaking of the church, like all of us, all of this, the retreat of the shepherd, the last time I've seen the Jews, the last time.

I'll tell you what it is.

It's to be, not to be burdened with personal pain.

is that I, you know, I'm a white man.

I'm not as lazy as any of you, but I spend my resources in a very deliberate way.

And, you know, I hope to come to a big place.

My mom is very important to me.

The period since the election, considering the reorganization, followed by the bombing, followed by the agony of the Congress, followed by this and so forth, has been extremely hard on me.

I don't, I think I will say the truth.

On the other hand, I think you both have to figure that there's some way that I have to insulate myself somewhat because it goes to me more than it does to most people.

I mean, if I look at this, as Garmin says, looks only at the office of the president.

I don't show it, but it works to me as not a personal tax, but it affects other people, whether it's my personal family or my official family.

So, the problem I had was, basically, you know, we'd sit around here yesterday and talk about the economy, and every day we'd talk about a really bomb-solid economics.

And in addition to that, Dennis will be in and saying, why can't I call Eddie Ager on politics?

But the where effect of that is enormous.

It is enormous.

And it may be destructive.

It may be fatal.

I think you should be aware of that.

So I was not really kidding about Ager.

The second point is that, I don't know about me, but I wonder if this whole thing, whether you state or not, is not so destructive that our ability to govern will be totally destroyed.

That's what really, that's really Henry's point.

I think that depends on how you handle yourself in the next two months.

If you take occasions to separate yourself from this, take occasions to condemn the wrongdoers in a way, not possibly, but if you communicate your experience somewhere, other than backgrounders or otherwise, I think you can come through this road water

Uh, very nice.

Uh, the, uh, certainly, uh, are you okay?

Absolutely.

I don't know if any of his even remotely approaches me, but I guess it's just one more.

matter if you break it or not, you've got to hang through it and rise above it.

And I understand your point, you can only use so many of the results, but you've got so much in you.

It wouldn't make any difference to me.

Reston had an interesting article with Mitchell yesterday where he said that.

So did Barclay.

They don't understand why Mitchell doesn't come forward and just take responsibility for this.

But, uh...

I think, if I could, if I could say so, that if you will spend a week in Florida and not take calls, and just delegate to Ash, so that they can't break the country in a week, and just, and Henry,

and rip it, and just get the hell out of there.

Take the lid off, and don't read the papers, and don't read the word.

I mean, just really, you know, he would be inclined to.

He would say, he's the one who did this and that today.

Okay, great.

But if you could just detach yourself for a week, and then come back from the mountain, so to speak,

with a fresh perspective on this, and sit in the sun, and listen to some good music, and see some shows, and just take a look off.

I just think you'll come back with an entirely different view of this.

That's the best advice you've got.

Thank you.

Well, you lay out the picture you're talking about.

The way you're talking now, the viewpoint you're taking, is the only problem in this that isn't insurmountable.

It isn't insurmountable.

It is insurmountable.

You're not mattering of mind right now, for any good reason.

No.

Well, I'm sure that you want to.

No, you know, you're not.

I think we're just going to see your frame of mind, and it shows to us.

And that's something that's been concerning us.

And you will show it as time goes on.

We're also students of your public presentation.

And you do a damn good job to a point.

But nobody, you can only go get to a certain point.

And these people out here watch you very carefully.

And they should be given the opportunity to watch you for a while.

And you ought to go through this.

You've pulled away other times.

When you run into a problem, and you're in one now,

The way you've dealt with them and dealt with them well is to get out of them.

And out of the doing of them for a time and work them over yourself.

And then come out of that.

In the process of that, you may... First place, we're assuming a set of events that we don't know is going to take place.

We've got to be prepared for the worst of them, but we don't have to... We aren't assured of the worst of them yet.

It takes me back to May 8th.

In May 8th, we sat over in your little office, and Henry Kissinger argued with you for a long, long time.

You must cancel the Soviet summit before you announce the bomb.

Because if you don't, you will bomb, and the Soviets will cancel the summit, and you will look bad in world opinion.

I argue strongly in that discussion.

That that's ridiculous.

You don't know what the Soviets will do.

All you know is that they might cancel it.

And that it's worth taking the chance that they might not.

And still have the summit.

Because the best thing that could happen is to bomb and have the summit.

And you basically agreed with that, but Henry totally didn't.

And you were listening to both views.

And we trotted over to Connolly's.

And there I argue the other side.

That's my suggestion.

Right.

But Conley strongly took my position.

And out of that, Henry became convinced that you could go the other way.

And then he did go the other way, and it worked.

My point is, until you know something, a course of events is going to run, you can make the worst of all possible decisions based on the fact that the worst will happen.

And find that you cut off options you don't need to cut off.

These are very interesting.

The first was another Asian point.

We were for a week, and David Bannerman and I had that poor general Lincoln, not Lincoln, I'm not quite sure what he was saying, Colonel Kennedy up there, and I was on the phone with Dave, you know, and all that sort of thing, and we avoided a terrible mistake.

Henry was insisting that I had to go on television to announce the resumption, and I did not, you know, insist it.

After that, he was, his growth was vicious, so I would have killed him.

And, uh, I wouldn't do it.

And, uh, and incidentally, most people thought of, incidentally, of Burley for ten days while we were bombing the road back home.

You're right.

And all of a sudden, he was wrong.

My question.

And then he was doing it on the basis of a premise, which is that you have to sell the American people on doing this in order to be able to do it.

Well, he was right.

He lost.

Well, it was American to his argument.

It was American to his Soviet argument.

And if there was an ambition, it would be answered.

Uh-huh.

Coming to this one, I suppose that the strongest argument that can be made for that, from the other point of view, is the... what John calls the little white-out theory.

And they say, well, if you as the president must be like Cedar's wife, there ain't gonna be anybody around here that this son of a bitch can even touch.

Well, it's hard to find anybody to touch.

Maybe they asked Rose about betting money for these people.

Well, I think it's already goddamn hard to find people who say, back down, you've got to consolidate your gains.

You gained the other day by going out to the camera.

Because everybody's getting this.

There's no fairer favor with this man.

And he's trying to suppress even the Washington Post is writing to the editorials about it.

Now, if you can get out the chronology of how you got into this,

Now, who rooted that only man who could get that out of his job?

Her.

That's right.

And I think you better know, whatever we do, the only problem you've got there is what we do with regard to John Dean, and I think maybe John Dean's going to do it anyway.

That's my two.

If he will.

He may not do it.

He either will do it anyway or he won't do it anyway.

There are powerful forces that weigh against his doing it, so it's a good possibility.

The most powerful force that weighs against his doing it is that he doesn't get the damn thing.

and it has to look very atmospheric.

Wow.

In Peterson, it's the linchpin.

That's the most part of the personal factor.

Now, today is what, Thursday?

Yeah.

Do you want this in the news magazine cycle?

Sure.

Because I can have the two news magazines in, or I can have U.S. News in.

No, not if this is what we're doing.

I wondered if you wanted it again.

Well, I don't think you need it yet.

You need it later.

Everything is off now.

You're on the top now.

You've got what equity you've got.

Run out as carefully as you can.

You spent a big chunk when you went out to the press room the other day and it bugged you a lot.

And you're still getting the payoff.

You know, I'm bugged because I saw this

on the store, the blood ran down.

Well, I'm not doing that.

It's those papers.

But, again, I think you're... We're the folks.

You are in a rough frame of mind on this.

You are looking... Are you?

Well, I have a... No, matter of fact, I'm not.

You're ready to fight?

Well, that and... No, not yet.

We're ready to figure it out.

I'm very confident that the right thing is going to turn out.

And a few couple days ago, when you said, well, remember when you had that call, and I'll regret it.

He said, you just sung me.

Well, I'll never be able to.

I'm finished as a lawyer.

Nothing like a good Christian side street.

Now, the fact is that I'm very confident that the right things are unfolding.

that I am concerned about your general mental approach to this, frankly.

I mean, there's two questions here.

Yeah.

And I think one is, because you're reading things, you know a lot of stuff that the world doesn't know, first of all.

And some of it the world will never know.

Some of it the world will.

You don't know what the world will know.

But you're in control.

You're in control of a lot of stuff.

Yes, sir.

I think you are.

And you've got a damn good record.

And when that record comes out, you will be seen to hear that they go in the first instance and badly served.

And people will be very sympathetic.

They want to believe that.

And secondly, you will be seen to have moved ahead in the tradition of the young Richard Nixon as soon as you had a blip that something wasn't right.

And you've made the right moves, as it turns out, and are approximately responsible for the uncovering of this thing.

And they will never... Well, I agree with you.

Basically, I think our talking, everybody, finally triggered the question.

When did it trigger it?

My guess to you is that it can be argued that it did because there's a jumbled telegraph.

All over this town was saying that I was talking to people.

And the jig was up.

You were determined to open her all up?

No.

The other good guy, I would work into the PR on this, and this will sound odd to you, but I think there's something to it, is Judge Sirica.

No question.

I would make him a good guy.

I would say, this is a man who didn't believe this shit that was shoved in.

Well, as a matter of fact, we can even make a point out of the fact that we were trying during this period, too, to work out a deal with the Senate.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And Urban will be the first to say that I was fair and above board and open with it.

And that Howard will say the same thing.

So that your record there is impeccable.

Now, it may be that what we'll want to do is just put out my verbatim notes of the whole thing.

I don't know.

But the point here is, Dean coming in and saying March 21st, I told the president there was a cancer on the presidency and that's what turned him on.

Hey, you'll be able to show as a matter of record that you were on this thing weeks before that.

And, uh, he'd been sent to, uh, but we were constantly asking Dean, I, I, we were, we'd say, I'd say, Jesus Christ, what about Mitchell, and what about, uh, Hall?

Well, and you were being had by the end.

Uh, Dean said, well, this fellow isn't, uh, I don't think this works, and this and that.

And starting it up here, I was trying to, frankly, let's face it, he used to say, the President was trying to frame this thing in a way that we didn't understand.

Well, you were, look, as I said, you had four ideas for this stuff, all in a series of days.

And you were saying all kinds of things to him.

You met him in a total of 12 hours.

And when you get done with that, you say to yourself, this is a dish that doesn't ring true.

This guy is not the fellow that I should rely on.

I was making the best of it.

I overruled the rules for every transaction.

Well, anyway, have a nice day.

Thank you.

You too.

What time off do you think we should go tomorrow?

One o'clock.

Okay.

Every minute.

There'd be a place where you could say some things about letting the winds of freedom blow through this thing.

Yeah.

And I say we're going to get it all out there because when the final story just comes out, there won't be anything that anyone will have to apologize for.

There's not going to be anything that we've, uh, this has been something that I could, it's been, I couldn't do anything because we were lying.

We were lying.

On reports that have been made that we thought were true.

And those reports are not true.

Well, would you say that?

No, I'll tell you what I'd say.

I'll tell you what I'd say in front of you.

Is, is, gentlemen, I can't talk about this.

Obviously, with this proceeding going on.

But I just want to assure you one thing.

You will never have to apologize for the conduct of this administration to this man.

In the administration, there may be individuals who will all regret having acted the way they did.

But I think when the history of this last several months is written, you will see that we have been as faithful to our trust of the American people as any administration could be.

We prosecuted ourselves.

And then I just leave it at that.

And then let them go out and say, I have the President's word.

Okay.

I'll see you later.

I say, I think we ought to wait and see what develops here.

All right.

See what Peterson says to you this morning.

See what our lawyers can find out.

And then that's it.

In other words, we'd be very slow in this.

I second our lawyers.

We'll hear one thing and we'll hear another.

I'm sorry.

I'm not going to use the interview again.

Tossing that away.

Yeah.

That's why I say I think we ought to wait and see what develops here.

All right.

See what Peterson says.

Peterson, come over now, please.

And I'm going to talk to you today about Travis.

I see you this morning.

See if our lawyers can find out.

And then match them up.

In fact, our lawyers will hear one thing and we'll hear another.

Uh, no.

No, I'm sorry.

I'm Steve.

I'm not.

Well, I'm not going to, uh, use the idea to get Henry Peterson to come over and hopefully just, uh, and, uh, take it.

I am not going to bother you today.

Let's take a day off.

Thank you.

Oh, that's funny.

I'll tell you what it is.

B, Dr. Bergman, for the personal name is D. B, Dr. Bergman, for the personal name is D. The problem I have is that I am not...

All I have is that I, you know, I'm a white man.

I, I, I, I'm not as lazy as any, but I'm just kind of a minor socialist.

In a very deliberate way.

And, uh, and, uh, you know, I'm being so, I hope, in a very deliberate way.

And the period plays.

And the period .

I'm going to consider re-organization, and all since the election, I'm going to consider re-organization, and followed by the bombing, and followed by the haggling of the Congress, and followed by this and so forth.

It's been extremely hard on me, and I don't, I think I will, by the bombing, followed by the

The other hand, I think you both have particularly

Because it goes to be more conventional.

If I look at this, as Garmin says, there's some way that I have to insulate myself somewhat because it goes to be more conventional.

I don't show it, but it works to me, is not in the personal context, but when it affects people, whether it's my personal family or my official family.

So, the problem I had was, basically, you know, we'd sit around here yesterday and talk about the economy, and every day, we'd talk about it really long.

And, I mean, if I could look at this, as Garmin says, well, it's only the office of the presidency,

show it, but it works to me is, not in personal terms, but when it affects other people, whether it's my personal family or my official family, South Vietnam again.

And in addition, the attendance will be at the same length, and I call it a year or so.

Well, I think, but the where effect of that is enormous.

It is enormous.

So, uh,

The second point is that

I wonder if this whole thing, whether you're state or not, is, you know, not so distraught South Vietnam again.

And in addition, the tenants will be doing the same thing.

Why can't I call the guard?

The ability to govern will be totally distraught.

That's what we're doing.

That's, that's what we're doing.

If you take a case, the where and effect of that is enormous.

Separate yourself from this.

Take a case to condemn the wrongdoers in a way not fallible even.

And it may be destructive.

It may be critical.

If you should be aware of that and aware of it.

I was not really kidding about it.

Your sounds somewhere or other, background or otherwise, I think you can come through this rough water.

I don't know what happened.

The second point, very nice.

It certainly gives the background.

Okay.

Absolutely.

I don't have any hints.

Okay.

He even remotely approaches me and says, I wonder if this whole thing, whether you're state or not, is working.

Remember, he's reading your question.

You've got to hang through it and rise above it.

As you look.

And I agree.

Not so destructive, they are.

I understand your point, you can only use so many of them, but you've got so much in you.

Fight Mitchell.

The ability to spend money on this thing.

Speak up.

Wouldn't make any difference to me.

Rest in having an interesting argument with Mitchell.

We've got her.

We've totally destroyed her.

That's what we're here for today.

That's what we're here for.

He said that.

So did the department.

They said that they don't understand why Mitchell doesn't come forward and respond.

Just take responsibility for this.

But I think, if I could say so, that if you take occasions to spend the week in Florida and not take calls, and just separate yourself from television to action on this,

take occasions to condemn their own shows.

Hell, they can't break the country.

And we know their words in a way.

Uh, and just, and anger.

And, and grit, and knock, knock.

Just get the hell out of here.

Take away the dog.

And don't read the book.

I'm probably the one who wants to.

And don't read over it.

I mean, just read it.

How you would be inclined to.

Maybe you'll say, if you communicate largely to this and that, you're sound.

Okay, great.

But if you could just detach yourself for a week and then come back from the mountain, so to speak, with a friend.

somewhere or other, background nerds or otherwise, perspective on this.

And sit in the sun and listen to some good music.

I think you can see some shows and just take a look and come through this dog.

Don't water.

Very nice.

I just think you'll come back with an entirely different view of this.

Thank you.

The certainly.

Well, you might have to make sure you're talking about the way you're talking now, but the viewpoint you're taking.

Is the only.

Absolutely.

I don't think it's a problem in this that isn't even remotely turn on.

It isn't turn on.

It is turn on.

You're in the wrong frame of mind right now for any good reason.

The approach isn't the same way it exists.

No, you're not.

I think we're in the wrong frame of mind.

And it shows to us.

And that's something that's a big concern.

You've got to hang through it and rise next.

And you will show it as time goes on.

And you do a damn good job to appoint.

But nobody, and I understand your point, you can only do so many in person, but you've got so much in you.

It wouldn't make any difference if you didn't.

You can only go get to a certain point.

And they've just been given no opportunity to watch you for a while.

And you ought to go through this.

You've pulled away other times.

When you run into a problem, and you're in one now.

Happened to me yesterday where he said that.

So the way you've dealt with them and dealt with them well is to get out of them.

And out of the doing of them.

And work them over yourself.

and then come out of that in the process.

They said that they don't understand why Mitchell doesn't come forward and just take responsibility for this.

First place, we're assuming a set of events that we don't know is going to take place.

We've got to be prepared for it.

But we don't have to.

But I think we aren't assured of the worst of them yet.

Fortier, take me back to, take me back to May 8th, Fortier.

If I could say so, that if you will spend a week in Florida and not a May 8th to be sent over in your old office, and Henry Kissinger are with you for a long, long time, you must take calls and just delegate to us.

Ash, cancel the Soviet summit.

for us the bomb that's right because if you don't you will bomb and the soviets you don't know what the soviets will do

And that it's worth taking the chance that they might not.

And still have the son.

Because the best thing that could happen is to bump it off.

And don't read the papers.

And don't read the paper.

Thank you, Doctor.

You know, we would be inclined to... And you can use the part they did this and that today.

We basically agreed with that, but Henry totally didn't, and you were listening to both of you.

Then we trotted over to Connelly's.

And there I argued the other side.

And my suggestion was right.

But Connelly strongly took my position.

Okay, great, Doctor.

Like, if you could just detach yourself for a week...

And out of that, Henry became convinced that you could go in and come back from the mountain, so to speak, the other way.

And then what a friend of his did was retrospective on this.

So it didn't work.

My point is, until you know something, a course of events is going to run, you can make the worst of all possible decisions.

based on the fact that the worst will happen, and find that you cut off options you don't need to cut off, and sit in the sun, and listen to some good music, and see some shows, and just take a look off.

This is another Asian point.

I just think you'll come back with an entirely different view.

We were for a week and they were battered and I had that poor general Lincoln, not the general, the great general Kennedy up there and I was on the phone with Dave and all that sort of thing and we avoided a terrible mistake.

I had to go on and tell you.

The way you're talking now, the viewpoints are not consistent.

After Stryker, he was very suspicious.

And I wouldn't do it.

And most people thought of infidelity for at least 10 days while we were bonding, but I can't do it right.

And all of a sudden, what you're taking is the only problem in this that isn't...

Mr. Honnold, this is Mr. Honnold.

It is you, sir.

You're not marrying a man, right?

My question.

And then he was doing it on the basis of a premise, which is that you have to sell the American people on doing this in order to be able to do it.

Well, he was driving me off.

Well, it was American to a Soviet argument.

If it was American to a Soviet argument, if it was American to a Soviet argument,

Coming to this one, I suppose, the stronger starting point, right now, for a good reason, you know.

No, you know, you know that thing, we're just going to see your frame of mind, and it shows to us.

And that's something that's been made for that, the other point of view is that, you know, what John calls, let it all hang out very...

And, uh, they say, well, you as a president must be like Cedar's wife, and there ain't gonna be anybody around here that this is not a big thing to even touch.

Well, it's hard to find anybody to touch.

Maybe they ask Rose about her ass.

And you will show up as time goes on.

And you're, you do a damn good job to avoid it.

But nobody out-fet the money for these people.

Well, I think it's already goddamn hard to find people to track down.

You've got to consolidate your game.

You gained the other day by going out on the camera.

Everybody's getting this.

There's no fairer favor with this man.

And he's trying to suppress even the Washington Post is right.

Now, you can only go get to a certain point.

And they've just been given no opportunity to watch you for a while.

And you ought to...

If you can get out the chronology of how you got into this, and, I'm ruder than Tony Manning can get that out of John Kerr.

That's right.

And I think you better go.

Whatever, whatever we do.

The only problem you've got there is what we do with regard to John Dean, and I think maybe John Dean will go through this.

You've pulled away other times when you run into a problem, and you're in one now.

The way you've dealt with them and dealt with them well is to get out of them.

And I'll do it anyway.

That's my tip.

If he will.

He may not do it.

He either will do it anyway or he won't do it anyway.

There are powerful forces that weigh against his doing.

So it's a good possibility to be one of the most powerful forces.

And be able to do any of them for a time and work them over yourself.

And then come out of that.

In the process of that, you may...

In the first place, we're assuming a set of events that we don't know is going to take place.

We've got to be prepared for the worst of them, but we don't have to... We might be sure that he doesn't get the unity and has to look for the atmosphere.

And Peterson is the linchpin in that.

That's the most powerful personal factor.

Now, here's the worst of them, yeah.

Today is Thursday.

Do you want this in the newsmagazine cycle?

Sure.

Because I can have the two newsmagazines in.

Or I can have U.S. News in.

No, no, the U.S. News won't do it.

I wonder if you want it in, yeah?

Uh, 14 or 16, that takes me back to May 8th.

14.

You need it later.

All right.

You can make it stop now.

Hey, you're on the top.

He's not over in your old office.

And Henry, now, you've got what equity you've got.

Run out.

I heard it.

As carefully as you can hear, I've been listening to your argument with you for a long, long time.

You must cancel.

You spent a big chunk when you went out to the press room the other day, and it bugged you a lot.

And you're still getting the pay off.

The Soviet summer.

Yeah.

You know, I fought us over because they saw us before you entered the bomb.

That's right.

Because if the bomb was started and the blood was spilled, you were going to go out.

Not necessarily because that sells papers, but the bomb and the Soviets will cancel the summit and you will look.

Because again, I think you're not really focused.

You are in a wrong frame of mind on this.

You are bad in world opinion.

I argue strongly in that discussion.

Well, I have a... No, matter of fact, that's ridiculous.

No.

I don't know what the Soviets want.

Didn't I say they're ready to fight?

I'm very confident that the right thing to do.

And that it's worth taking this on or not.

Yes, that they might not.

And, uh...

A few couple days ago, when you said, well, remember when you had that call, and I regret it.

You just sunk me.

Well, I'll never be able to still have the son, because the best thing that could happen is to bomb and have the son.

I finished the lawyer.

Nothing like it.

Thank God.

And you basically agreed with that, but Henry and Christian signed a treaty.

Now, the fact is that I'm very confident that the right thing is going to unfold, but it totally didn't, and you were listening to both views.

And we talked it over at the conference.

I am concerned about your general mental approach to this, frankly.

And I think that you're reading things that you've read.

That's my suggestion.

Right.

But Conley strongly took my position.

There's a lot of stuff that the world doesn't know, first of all.

And out of that, Henry became convinced that you could go the other way.

Some of it the world will never know.

You don't know what the world will think of you.

You're in control of the life of some of them.

Yes, sir.

I think you are.

And then you did go the other way, and it worked.

My point is, until you know a damn good record, and when that record comes out, you will be seeing something.

A course of events is going to run.

You're going to be dulled in the first instance, and badly served, and people will be very sympathetic.

And secondly, you will be seen to have moved.

You can make the worst of all possible decisions based on the fact that the worst will happen.

Add in the tradition of the young Richard Nixon.

As soon as you have a blip, that something will happen.

and find that you cut off options you don't need to cut off.

And you made the right moves, as it turns out, and are approximately responsible for the uncovering of this thing.

And they will never...

for a week, and David Banner and I are talking to everybody, finally triggered.

No question.

What did it trigger?

My guess to you is that it can be argued that it did, because of Jungle Telegraph.

That poor General Lincoln, Colonel Kennedy, all over this town, was saying that I was talking to the Colonel Kennedy up there, and I was on the phone with Dave, you know, and all that sort of thing.

And the jig was up.

And then you were going to get to the bottom.

You were determined to open her all up.

No.

But I haven't worked into the PR on this.

And this will sound odd to you.

But boy, it was a terrible mistake.

And there's something to it.

I had to go on television to announce the resumption.

I would make him a good guy.

I would say, this is a man who didn't believe this shit that was shoved in.

And thank God, because I think he's in the favorite system, and the president, where he takes the cases, doesn't he make those gross and suspicious cases?

And I wouldn't do it.

And it's not like most people thought.

It's not like it's barely for a chance.

Well, as a matter of fact, we can even make a point out of the fact that we were trying during this period to do the work out of deal with the Senate.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And Irvin will be the first to say that I was fair and above board and open with it.

And that in the days while we were bombing, I was like, I can't do this right.

And all of a sudden, he was wrong.

And then he was doing it on the basis that Howard will say the same thing.

So your record there is impeccable.

I don't know.

But the point of the premise, which is that you hear this, you have to sell the American people on doing this in order to be able to do it.

Well, he was directly lost.

Well, it was an American to a Soviet.

It was an American to a Soviet argument.

And with D.D.

coming in and saying, on March 21st, I told the president there was a cancer on the presidency, and that's what turned him on.

Hey, you'll be able to show, as a matter of record, that you were on this thing weeks before that.

It was an ambitious thing.

And he'd been sent to... Yeah, but we'll turn it on.

Coming to this one, I suppose that the strongest argument that can be made for that, from the other point of view, is they're constantly asking me, I believe we're going to the same action, Jesus Christ.

What about Mitchell?

What about Hall?

Well, you were being had by the end.

Dean said, well, this fellow isn't, I don't think this works, and this and that.

And starting it up here... What John calls, let it all hang out very...

And they say, well, I was trying to, frankly, let's face it, you could say the president was trying to frame this thing in the way that we did.

Well, you were, look, as I said, now we can work that way.

You had four ideas for this stuff.

You as the president must be like Cedar's wife.

There ain't gonna be anybody around here that this son of a bitch ain't gonna even touch.

Well, it's hard to find anybody that didn't touch.

Maybe they asked Rose about betting money for these people.

All in a series of days,

You met with him in a total of 12 hours.

And when you get done with that, you say to yourself, this is a dish that doesn't ring true.

Well, I think that's all right.

I mean, it's already gone down hard.

My people have cracked down.

You've got to consolidate your gain.

You gained it the other day.

I was teaching investigators.

My old rules were every second.

Everybody's guessing at us.

Well, it's no fair to this man.

He's trying to suppress even the Washington Post.

Now, have a nice day.

Thank you.

You too.

What time do you think we should go tomorrow?

One o'clock.

Okay.

Whenever you're finished.

If you can get out the chronology of how you got into this,

I'm really the only man who can get that dirty.

I think we ought to give the captain a little shot of economy.

A little shot of energy.

I'll give him a little pep talk.

There'll be a place where you can say some things about letting the winds of freedom blow through this thing.

And I say we're going to get it all out there.

That's right.

You better go.

Whatever.

Whatever we do.

The only problem you've got there is what we do.

When the final story comes out, there will be a thing that anyone will have to apologize for.

It's not going to be anything that we've...

This has been something that I couldn't...

I couldn't do anything because... John Dean and I didn't say we were going to do anything.

Maybe John Dean's going to do it anyway.

That's my cue.

If he will.

He may not do even lie on reports that have been made that we thought were true.

And those reports are not true.

Gentlemen, Peter will do it any way we want.

I can't talk about this.

Obviously, with this proceeding going on.

But I just want to assure you one thing.

It's not powerful.

There are powerful forces that weigh against his doing it.

So it's a good possibility that he's one of the most powerful forces that weighs against his doing it.

You will never have to apologize for the conduct of this administration in this matter.

In the administration, there may be individuals that will all regret it for years if he doesn't get the unity and has the love of earth.

And that must be the final.

And Peter's having acted the way they did.

But I think when the history of this last several months is written, you will see that we have been faithful to our trust.

That's the most powerful personal factor.

Today, as American people, as any administration could be, we prosecuted ourselves.

And then let me go on Thursday.

Do you want to stop and say, I have a present order?

Okay.

That's in the news magazine cycle.

Sure.

Because I can have the two news magazines in.

I will not see you, but you will call me.

Okay.

I wonder if he wanted it again.

You need it later.

You're on the top now.

You got, what equity you got?

Run out as carefully as you can.

You spent a big chunk when you went out to the press room the other day, and it bought you the line.

And you're still getting the payoff.

You know, I bought us up because they saw us on the store at the Blood Ranch.

Well, I know doing that sells papers.

But, again, I think you are in a rough frame of mind on this.

You are looking at it.

Are you?

No, matter of fact, I'm not.

Didn't I say you're ready to fight?

I'm very confident that the right thing is going to turn out.

And a few couple of days ago, when you said, well, remember when you had that call, and I'll regret it.

You just sung me.

Well, I'll never be able to.

I'm finished as a lawyer.

Nothing like a good Christian side street.

Now, the fact is that I'm very confident that the right things are unfolding.

that I am concerned about your general mental approach to this, frankly.

You know a lot of stuff that the world doesn't know, first of all, and some of it the world will never know.

You don't know what the world will know.

You're in control of a lot of stuff.

Yes, sir.

I think you are.

And you've got a damn good record.

And when that record comes out, you will be seen to go in the first instance and badly served.

And people will be very sympathetic.

And secondly, you will be seen to have moved ahead in the tradition of the young Richard Nixon as soon as you had a blip that something wasn't right.

And you made the right moves, as it turns out, and are approximately responsible for the uncovering of this thing.

And they will never... Well, I agree with everybody.

Basically, the information, I think, our talking, everybody finds it triggered.

No question.

When did it trigger?

I guess it is that it can be argued that it did because a jungle telegraph all over this town was saying that I was talking to people.

And the jig was up.

And then you were going to get to the bottom.

You were determined to open her all up?

No.

But the other good guy, I would work into the PR on this, and this will sound odd to you, but I think there's something to it, is Judge Sirica.

No question.

And I would make him a good guy.

Tell us.

And I would say, this is a man who didn't believe this shit that was from Chuck D. And thank God, because I think it's in the court system and the president, where he takes the case, doesn't he make the case for me?

Well, as a matter of fact, we can even make a point out of the fact that we were trying during this period, too, to work out a deal with the Senate.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And Irvin will be the first to say that I was fair and above board and open with it, and that Howard will say the same thing.

So that your record there is impeccable.

I don't know.

But the point here is, Dean coming in and saying on March 21st, I told the president there was a cancer on the presidency and that's what turned him on.

Hey, you'll be able to show as a matter of record that you were on this thing weeks before that.

And he'd been sent to, but we were constantly asking him, we were going through this, and I'd say, Jesus Christ, what about Mitchell, and what about Hall?

Well, and you were being had by him.

And Dean said, well, this fellow isn't, I don't think this works, and this and that.

And starting it up here, I was trying to frame people, and basically he could say, the President was trying to frame this thing in the way that we did it earlier.

Well, you were, look, as I said, you had four ideas for this stuff.

All in a series of days.

You met him in a total of 12 hours.

And when you get done with that, you say to yourself, this is a thing that doesn't ring true.

I was making the best of it.

Well, anyway, have a nice day.

Thank you.

You too.

What time off do you think we should go tomorrow?

One o'clock.

Okay.

Whenever you're finished.

There'd be a place where you could say some things about letting winds of freedom blow through this thing.

Yeah.

And I say we're going to get it all out there, because when the final story just comes out, there won't be anything that anyone will have to apologize for.

It's not going to be anything that we've, uh, this has been something that I could, it's been something I couldn't do anything because we were relying on God.

on reports that have been made that we thought were true, and those reports are not true.

Is, is, gentlemen, I can't talk about this, obviously with this proceeding going on, but I just want to assure you one thing.

You will never have to apologize for the conduct of this administration to this man.

In the administration, there may be individuals who will all regret having acted the way they did.

But I think when the history of this last several months is written, you will see that we have been as faithful to our trust of the American people as any administration could be.

We prosecuted ourselves.

And then let me go out and say I have the President's word.

Okay, I'll see you later.

I'll see you when that fellow comes in.

And I will not see you until you call me at the next call, sir.

I'll be back.