Conversation 903-004

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I'm going to be able to catch you for a while.

Well, yes, he wanted me to talk to Bob, and he filled me in on your conversation with me.

He wanted me to talk to Reagan.

I called Reagan.

Reagan's in Phoenix.

I said, well, I'm going to have to see him at the Governor's Conference, and Finch makes that soon enough.

The problem, and this is your own territory, Finch makes a motion.

I had lunch with a group that David Packard and Clausen and a bunch of them on Monday in California, and they were

you know fine fish wants to run for the senate that's good but they clearly were against him running for governor uh this is just an independent group oh that's right and so what we're trying to do which i think he's got to have right he's got somebody retired and then he's got to have some sort of commitment yeah you have a commitment if someone gets out he wants a commitment on this constitutional amendment which i find that confusing all these guys up there

say, Governor, you ought to talk to Bob if you want to get him in this thing.

There's a room to work it out some way.

And then the other thing he wanted was some understanding on patronage, so that he can, you know, have, continue to have some say.

I don't know what positions the Governor will take, but I think it's a good way to get Finch into that race, if that's what you want, and that's what I assume.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, I think with Reagan, it's going to be almost tough, I think, but...

I don't know whether he'll talk that cold turkey with you, but I don't want to talk to him.

So I'm leaving it to you.

I told Finch, I said, you were the boss.

That's the way to do these things.

You want me to invoke your name?

Finch is trying to say to me, when I make clear the president wants this or something, I mean, do you want me to just kind of...

I had no candidates.

I don't know who they want, but Reagan had better.

They've told me that the lieutenant governor can't make it.

Yeah, but the point is that Reagan has got to decide what it is.

Absolutely, yes, sir.

And you can say to Reagan that, pursuant to the conversation that we've had together with Pete Sanklin,

I want it right away.

And this Reagan may do it because he wants to get pinched out of his hair.

Well, I put it in the base that it's not going to pinch.

It's already decided that it's going to pinch.

I have talked to Pinch, and I've gotten quite a way, and I've asked you to talk to him.

We believe in getting him out of the race, Governor.

Getting him to the center.

It's very honorable.

And what's he going to do?

And there's three of my problems that I'm confident he can work out if you just sit down and talk to him and open the door.

Well, anyway, I've talked to Reagan's office, and

He's going to call me Monday when he's back in Phoenix, but we're going to meet in New York in May.

Is that enough?

I've been failing for you on all this other damn stuff.

Well, it's going to get worse for us, get better, and then we'll get better.

You know what I mean?

I don't know.

The main thing, though, is to have it done in the grand jury rather than that goddamn committee.

The committee will still meet, but by the time they get through the grand jury,

I don't know.

And it's complicated by his wife and all that.

Would you rather not know detail if I told you something?

Would you rather I tell Peterson something that I know?

No, you can tell me.

I can tell Peterson.

This guy, Ken Reeds, is involved.

How is he involved?

He's involved because he was in the dirty tricks department.

And he handled large sums of money.

I looked him in the eye, Mr. President, before he came up there.

And I said, Ken, that's...

Not the Watergate itself.

It's a whole bunch of other stuff that's going to come out at the grand jury, though.

And he knows that he came to me and told me this.

Has he been subpoenaed?

Not yet.

No, but they're not going to be...

I don't believe...

I think the grand jury is going to be limited to...

Yeah, it must have been, unless they're illegal.

The grand jury has no interest in it.

What did he say he was involved in?

Well, he said that he was involved in handling large sums of money, which gets him an offense from the GAO, cash money.

He said that he was involved in doing some espionage on Muskie and stuff like this.

No, but what did he do on Muskie?

I didn't go into it.

I just, there's no problem on that because everybody spies on everybody else.

If I had to go use electronic devices.

Well, I didn't, I don't know what he did or not.

But all I know is that when I said, I don't know, sir.

Ask him.

Well, he's got a lawyer and I said, Ken, look, I have said I want to keep this thing clean and out of this business.

And we're going to have to figure out, you know, how you leave here.

Now, you can, I'm not going to do it in a way to jeopardize your rights.

And so he's going to,

He's got Jerry Leonard as a lawyer coming up to talk to him.

Good lawyer, good guy.

But it's just, and he's broken about it.

You see, he just flat lied to me about the damn thing when I asked him to come up there.

I asked the whole time.

I said, look, any of this stuff, it's just because of this service.

No, I said everything.

Just are you involved?

And then you see it came out in the press that he was paying some kid to sit in front of the White House.

And so I said, Ken, I've got to talk to you about something.

And I called him in.

And I said, what the hell is this?

She told me.

He said, well, it's the only thing I was involved in.

He said it was a conduit.

And after all, he explained it very lightly.

This was a clearinghouse for left-wing groups.

You see our people at EM.

And this was, and he said, and I said, well, and he said, I've got to go over and got this all signed to QA.

And I said, it doesn't have to do with demonstrations and that sort of thing.

Our common campaign is.

Good God, if they start trying to interrogate us for that, they're going to be guilty of just an enormous amount of stuff.

That's right.

So that is the question.

We've got to distinguish between that and what is illegal.

Well, all I know is what...

I didn't get any detail from him.

He came in to me and just... And if there's a problem, let him go.

Yeah.

Oh, I've got you.

I've got you.

If there's a problem, let him go.

I didn't let him go.

judicious and quiet way.

What he said, Mr. President, is that Jeb Magruder, and I don't know if this counts.

Well, he says that Jeb Magruder, this is what I recall of a conversation two days ago.

He said, Jeb Magruder told me that he is going to

You know, that he's telling all, and all involves something more than I've leveled you with, George.

And I said, well, what does that involve?

And he said, then he went back and he said, well, I just don't want to go into the details, but it's a whole web of...

The whole operation.

Well, I'm sure they were in a lot of those things, but...

I don't know whether...

I do, too.

But I did want, you know...

But the main thing, George, get it done.

Yeah.

Don't let it get you down.

Well, it's just that the process is getting sullied, and your record is getting obscured by a lot of damn headlines, and it's the Republican people that are upset.

I got in to talk at the press club.

I gave what I thought was a pretty good speech, but nobody gives a damn.

I mean, it's all, you know, droughts of all hours.

You're going to continue to have that.

You're going to have it for another month or so.

Two months, two months.

And that's just one of those things.

And the hill, of course, as you know, is just a straw.

I mean, and of course, a lot of them don't like being up here.

And they use that as a kind of I told you so kind of a thing.

So the planet is, as you know, you know.

All right.

Anyway.

Well, don't you think that I've taken the right move?

Oh, come on.

Just go out.

Absolutely.

And that'll turn around.

Because we're the ones that broke it, you know.

Yeah.

That'll turn around our people immensely.

I mean, they'll, they now have a positive, well, the Ziegler statement three weeks ago helped me immeasurably because it said, look, we're answering all questions in writing.

We'll go to the janitor and we're negotiating with everyone.

That was something.

We've done everything done, but we also said that there had been a major development.

And frankly, I've been conducting the investigation on my own since the first of March.

Yeah, yeah.

That's how it worked.

Well, I hate it for you.

I mean, you go in there and talk about these big problems and the thing is... Oh, no, no, this is a problem.

Happens all the time.

I remember it said it was only involved one man, but it was like signing these trends on Adams.

The Adams that came and killed Eisenhower.

How bad?

You see, Adams, Adams was to Eisenhower.

He was, he basically, in those years, after the heart attack, Adams was really the assistant president.

He was, he was all of them, and Earl and Kessinger were all of them.

No, no, no, no, no.

The difference, a difference, a good difference in that one, I guess, is that he goes back to New Hampshire and some of these other fellas, unless, again, I don't want to do what you said not to do, but they could end up pumping air to him in some federal pen someplace.

And this is a...

Well, if I can do something other than wring my hands and help in any way, I have a decent relationship on that.

I know the main thing, George, is to emphasize that President Biden is the most difficult thing for an investigator, an administrator to investigate itself.

This president insists on that.

He wants to...

Well, there's a determined press effort to get Bob Haldeman out of here.

There's a determined press effort to, well, Dean, a guy called me from

house that are leaving i said i love john he's about john linton i said john i told you he was at that thing and i told you the truth there i don't know a damn thing about it but i don't understand how you know well he says you know it's all hearsay i guess but anyway he keeps quoting this isn't it best though to get it done sure

And your statement was suspended, indicted, and dismissed if convicted.

Is that right?

Yes.

How will those things happen fairly soon, you reckon?

And if I am, I would hope that anything would happen in a matter of...

I'd like to have it happen next week.

I hope they will this week.

You see, George, they can't get a corroboration for this stuff.

That's their problem.

Marguerite talks, nobody agrees.

Some don't agree with him, some do.

He's got a corroboration.

You can't get one man against another.

Black Mitchell, he's got a corroboration.

That's the thing.

Maybe it's easy to sit up with a goddamn U.N. and be holier than thou, but I just don't understand how people who, you know, but anyway.

If I... No, I don't... Yeah.

Yeah.

just went off hog wild on a lot of crazy schemes mitchell i think he's telling the truth you know they still do this i i had this as a tiny thing and i mentioned it to bob around here there's something this is affecting our relationship with the congresses

Over in the EOB, somebody called us up, and there was a thing, and they said on a little minor deal, but it didn't seem major to me, in terms of serving the President of the United States.

Well, it was a little deal, where they said, and they called up up there, and we do a lot of White House support and mailings.

And there's some kid over here in the EOB called up on a stupid conference call.

He got my hate, Tom Lyons, who's a little short.

Great integrity.

And I brought a girl in a taxi.

Well, they said, look, if Jack Anderson calls, it was something to do about mailing out a Vietnam thing from some guy down here in Virginia.

I can't remember his name.

It was a supportive piece.

Perfectly legitimate thing to mail out.

Ideal to mail out.

But the call-up, she throws it up and says, you know, if Jack Anderson calls, you say you've been paid by this man.

Well, no, why not us just pay for it to begin with?

Or why not say he sent it and we paid for it?

But why lie?

Oh, this was... We hadn't paid for it.

He paid for it.

We hadn't done a damn thing.

We sent it out.

We had not been paid for it.

He said to say you've been paid for it.

My view is, look, it's supported material.

It's damn good material.

Go ahead.

It went out.

But I called the person up.

Don't ever call up here and ask us to lie, guys.

We're doing the right thing.

We're going to support you.

But you see what happened, Mr. President?

I think that it's permeated, and it's hurting you with the Congress.

They don't know this incident, of course.

But they repeat, no, no, no, because this is, that's sub-offenses.

That's dead done, unless somebody has a conference call, an all-stupid thing.

But you see, there's a disrespect for some of those guys.

And I know some of them are bastards, and I know, but

But they treat them, and it's hurting.

It's hurting our relationship up there.

And so what's happening now, the Congress has always accumulated, well, I'm going to hang these bastards from the trees.

And I said, now, wait a minute.

God damn it, you guys are the guys.

I was up there at lunch yesterday.

I took Pat Wilson out with that whole, you know, that round table in the house.

Oh, God damn it.

That was just a picture.

He's doing a good job.

He's unbattled, however, getting that money sent.

But these guys are, you know, I go, wait a minute.

Where's this whole Republican innocent before guilty thing?

I mean, where are we on that?

And why aren't you guys saying, let's...

I'm sorry, but it's got that painful.

It doesn't know how deep an opinion is shown otherwise.

If they're guilty of a crime, they should be convicted.

As far as others are concerned, we'll handle it, I'm sure.

But we've got to... You see, the problem now is, let's take an individual that's supposed to... Let's suppose it's a reach kind of a thing.

My own view is that you're probably better advised to give him a day in court if he wants it, if he prefers to be out than out.

Because, you know, the problem of letting somebody out in advance, highlight the duty, but not in his, not in his, but in a person's rights, shit, then you think, well, Christ, if you can determine that he's guilty.

Now, I haven't got anybody here at the present time, well, I don't think so, indeed, of course, who is basically as contested, but, uh, but, uh,

There should be decent folks.

I've got anybody here, I'm sure, I look at them and I cross their hands and they know they've been through it.

Because I've got to know.

They don't lie to me.

Nobody lies to me.

I've never talked to a breeder, unfortunately.

I'd have talked to the son of a bitch.

I'd have found out about this long ago.

But I'd never, never talked to a breeder.

And I shouldn't because he was, I figured Mitchell was talking to him.

And we were relying on Mitchell.

And Mitchell, it turns out, got away from him.

Well, I'm sensitive to this Rice thing, and I think that I don't want to complicate it, although he had said to me, he came to me and said, look, I'm gone.

I know how strongly you feel.

See, I gave him a real lecture at the beginning.

I said, Ken, God damn it, this is a party.

We've got 80 elections.

We're kind of moving on and all that stuff.

And so he left.

He called me.

Oh, I'm talking to Rockets.

I don't think, I haven't mentioned to Brock knows nothing, nobody knows anything about this thing except Tom Lyce in our office.

And Pat Wilson brought him to me.

He said, Pat, and he... Really, he's a capable fellow, too.

Capable, yes.

And he got distraught.

And the thing that gets me is that, and he knows, I mean, there wasn't any question about, you know, were you involved in Watergate, because I covered a whole scheme.

No, I think not.

I think.

No, he didn't.

I'm just saying it wasn't Watergate, but it was these other congenital things.

But, you know, I spelled that out before he came here, saying anything should happen.

The question was whether they were illegal.

Are you sure you asked the question for these lawyers?

Should I just, if I get anything on it, should it be useful to Peterson?

Is that the way to handle it?

I don't want to get any hell out of this guy.

No, his rights are involved.

I would commit to Peterson.

They're on it.

Mr. Ritter is talking.

Yeah, he's convinced that he's going to be called, and he's convinced that his name's going to be all over the papers, and he's convinced that, and then he also...

I will not be surprised.

It may not be till Monday, but I said, look, you've got Jerry Leonard.

We're going to do this in a way to protect him.

I mean, I said, hell, I'm...

He's going to be called Monday?

No, I mean, he's going to bring Jerry Leonard to see me Monday or today.

Get it illegal.

Whatever he did was illegal.

I'm not saying anything.

If it's illegal, I'm just concerned about it.

I don't want to put him in jail for, you know, crimes.

No.

For a campaign.

Pretty much the same as the past.

Take the line, let a miracle come out, and the praise is consistent that we've done it ourselves.