On April 26, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, H. R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:55 am to 10:24 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 905-008 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
Let me just show you somebody who still has faith.
Julie?
No.
Your daughter?
No.
Our former gardener, when he looked down at the candle, his wife, said that for, she said, an Easter.
And she had him drive into town with this Easter thing.
They had us interview.
No, that's to you, to Carla Nixon.
She'd make the cake for us, and she'd send me a card saying, you know, keep wiping or something.
And she sent that for you, and she sent a cigar.
But there are a lot of you just plain Americans around too.
Sure there are a lot of people.
What we have to do is to keep our faith, right?
Yep.
We've got really not much of anything.
We've got a meeting with the lawyers.
We've got to put some more stuff together for them.
We're trying to get everything anticipated.
Chiefs in the armor, anyway.
But I didn't talk to them last night, so there's nothing beyond it.
Nothing from them.
And, uh, if you only can turn to a couple of thoughts on the, forgetting about the case for a minute, but on the general situation that we've got a problem in that it's hard to act at all until the grand jury does something or until some, until justice does something.
You don't have any grounds for action and any action you take
I mean, this is both ways, the prosecution and the defense.
That's right.
That's the end of it, and they keep us, they've started to let us out there.
Maybe you just figure that's the way it is, and you ride through that.
I don't think there's anything you can do.
There probably isn't.
I call it a problem.
There's a need from a public viewpoint to
sort of pull the White House together and make things look better.
But they're not going to run under control, which they are.
I mean, there's no, there's no, that was good at Henry Sturgeon.
Very.
And there, all this stuff with the, you know, that you're restructuring the White House staff and all that.
That's a strange thing.
Well, there was a dealer made a long time ago, very likely to come back, you know, or something.
I don't know what it was about.
Probably the records.
The records.
Yeah, I talked to him.
Anyway, he talked to me.
That's why I don't know.
Well, let's set himself up for an office event, even if there were any.
Well, I must say, he never gave himself away on yesterday.
He called me yesterday morning and said, he said, I've got to go out, I've got to go public today.
And I said, well, that's your first mistake.
And he laughed.
And he says, I agree, but this was a commitment I made a long time ago.
And it would look worse to cancel it now.
So he said, if you have any guidance on anything you want me to say, let me know.
But he said, here is, just so you know, here is my position.
And he laid out what I'm going to say as a president.
I have full confidence as a president.
And I'm sure Eric was probably going to laugh.
He said, I don't think I should say anything more than that.
And I said, I think you're absolutely right.
He said, these bastards are trying to divide us.
They're trying to push us in.
And the same people who have always been against us, like the Brooks and the Schwachers and stuff, we still have a problem with.
And, of course, the Harris.
He says, I think we've just got to, until the president moves and when he moves, we've got to support that position all the way and nothing else and not go beyond it.
I'm sorry, Bob.
the medium climber.
I don't know.
I'm just trying to think whether there's something that from this side can be done.
What you're hanging up on, what we're hanging up on now, is if there should be a move on the
It should follow a word, it should be tied to it, it should follow a move on Dean.
You can't, excuse me, you can't make a move on Dean until you have some reason for it.
That's right.
Obviously he's not, he usually does not confess, well in a sense he's confessed to me, but he hasn't to the attorney general in an official way.
You understand?
That's right.
They have their arms length, what they call discussions.
But they don't have the basis that you don't have the basis, which makes you look bad here.
Right.
In a sense, because there's the public mind has been pretty well-fixed.
They have Mitchell pretty well-fixed.
And they have Mabuder pretty well-fixed.
Right.
They keep, they're careful about fixing me.
They say the closest to fixing me they get is I must have known.
That's right.
Because of the way we ran things here, it couldn't happen without my knowledge.
And that imputes to the White House the control of the campaign.
And somewhere, it seems to me, that's got to be undone.
You controlled all of your campaigns before.
But as president, you weren't able to control your campaigns.
Deliberately did not.
Deliberately did not.
And didn't really try to, except to keep on top of what we thought was an idea.
Well, we've got to be a little careful about that, because there was, in the post-watergate area here, there was a political meeting twice a week in Ehrlichman's office.
Oh, with McGregor and Harlow and Mitchell, I think.
I was referring to the pre-watergate thing.
Yeah, and there, really none of us had, it's amazing, when you go back and look through the papers, how little any of us, you or me or Herman, was involved in any of that stuff.
We all know some of what's going to happen on that case in California.
You know, I, Ellsberg, Ellsberg, right?
I, uh, I had to go down there.
Yes, he helped me, too.
I must worry the hell out of him, but, uh, he had to worry about it.
I knew that was going to come out.
I mean, they, uh,
He's not, no, he's not uptight about it at all.
I mean, why?
The reason that isn't, you know, that photo was in that file, and they were bound to mine.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Did you hear about it?
No, not until I heard the tape yesterday.
I still don't know what that means.
They took a picture when they broke in, and that picture was in Hunt's file, and the subject turned over to the FBI.
That's why he said he didn't get over it.
Well, the early one says he knows about the break-in.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, the point is that the break-in, therefore, Bob, is the break-in of the photo.
It's all admitted.
There's no question about that being proven.
But being out in the cold a long time.
We have one interesting development that gets into this whole timing.
Timing becomes one hell of a problem here.
And it seems to me, for your sake, speed is in the essence that every hour sooner anything can happen, the better out.
That Dash told Garnet yesterday that they want Earthman and me next week.
at the Senate committee, uh, internal, you know, the pre-preliminary meeting type of time.
Uh-huh.
Because they're doing their interviews to build their case for their hearings.
Well, you and I are going to have to go to the grand jury before that.
Well, Steve, that's what John's view was, that we can't go there until we've gone to the grand jury.
Absolutely.
That's going to be, that should be your view throughout.
Everybody here, we will not go before that.
Until...
If we understood, you could say that we're treating for the grand jury.
So if we avenged the grand jury, you passed.
Your lawyers are actually going to get me that letter.
Dean Peterson will get me a letter.
I'll have that ready to go.
If you and John could not appear before that and then, I guess you don't want Garvin to tell.
I must say now it really looks as if you have more privacy at the Senate committee than you do at the Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury thinks it's incredible.
The prosecutors apparently called Jack Anderson in to convince him that he was deserving the case by printing the stuff.
So he's not going to print it verbatim anymore, he's going to paraphrase it, which just makes it even worse.
Even his verbatim staff, I believe, the prosecutors told him that Jack Anderson said he was getting a good Republican.
What do you mean a good Republican?
You mean a Republican on the staff?
I mean the prosecutors said, what are you talking about?
That's very true.
That's probably from one of the reporters.
Well, it could be.
I doubt it, though.
How could they keep on doing that, though?
That's what bothers me, is if I go before the grand jury and they give Jack Henderson my minutes.
And he selects what, he's going to paraphrase it, but I don't think it matters, right?
Of course, the ground cares, right?
Oh, Bob, your stuff is happening, right?
Yeah, it really is, right?
Oh, a couple of quick things.
He said that this is all my stuff here.
that he talked about Segretti and that they were trying to get into the fact that Segretti apparently had something to do with the Jackson Memorandum on Muskie or something like that.
Apparently that's the thing that's hanging on Segretti.
He says Segretti's scared and that's just that way he doesn't build them in, which is maybe so.
And also we're trying to text you that he did get a new letter.
It's crazy.
I don't know.
He probably did get a new letter.
You don't know anything about any of those, of course.
Your line was the greatest thing to me when you told him that I was keeping his authority.
Well, yeah, in the first place, that he didn't have any authority from you, any authority from me, and nor did I have any knowledge of what he did.
I had a knowledge of the premise of what he was supposed to do.
That's right.
That was clearly, that was specifically spelled out, not to be anything illegal.
So in that connection, it is for Barry Buchanan or somebody that he counterattacked.
We are going to make up their campaign tactics.
Is that correct or is that false?
I don't know, man.
That would say worse, but I haven't stayed in touch with that.
I think it is necessary.
If you get before the committee, that you be prepared to do that.
See, the minute you get before that committee, you've got to do that.
Yeah.
Now, Ehrlichman realizes that they may call Dean out there, and Dean will have to reveal what the operation was.
That's going to be a hell of a story, of course.
Watergate buggered us, broke into Ellsberg's office.
I mean, what?
How do you evaluate that?
Other than bad, who knows?
There's so much now.
It just appears more and more that we, I guess, are committed to the wrong.
Here I see where they fired some poor guy that hired a college kid for the purpose of participating in counter demonstrations.
And I can't understand that.
It's just political.
And why is that George Gordon, he was in here in your office, that they reached for?
The young guy said he was the more valuable guy instead of the college kid, right?
I know that.
But in the name of God, isn't wrong with that?
It's not a damn thing.
And it just...
Do they think for one moment that the demonstrators that get us all over the place were all unpaid?
Well, of course not.
They were unpaid.
And we weren't.
He wasn't putting demonstrators into him then.
He was putting people into the demonstrators that were hitting us to find out what they were doing.
We can do something about this.
And I'm saying people like what they did.
That's why I said that.
Let's get ready on that, shall we?
Another thing is that Ehrlichman and you just put together, Ehrlichman's apparently a pretty formidable thing, something that Fittler could perhaps get out of apology since.
The presidential initiatives calling within the staff for action on this thing.
You know what I mean?
And Ehrlichman mentioned several things I had forgotten.
He said that I said, look, for Christ's sakes, get this out, get ahold of McGregor, get ahold of Elizabeth, get out a statement, get a smart statement you forgot.
Uh, this was later, but all through the summer I was going to meet him.
Yeah.
Uh, or do you think that's worth meeting him?
Yeah.
I think the record that I was not, the other day I was thinking to my ass, I'm going to watch Money First.
Like, you know, David Polk.
Or is that worth meeting him?
I think something is.
No, I think it is.
I'm not sure whether he logged that out separately or whether he tried to tie that into something that is a next step.
Grandpa, won't you all be part of the staff?
I agree, I agree.
Don't just throw it out there and let it be killed.
But I think the entire record has got to be put out by somebody.
Maybe.
But the way I look at it is that you and Brother Urban have got to be the guy defending the White House on the campaign and also defending the campaign.
I don't mean everything in the campaign, but what I mean is that
You've been thinking of that anyway, you know.
Yeah.
And I don't think anybody else can do it, or can't do it, and so forth and so on.
But I thought you can, and that's going to be a very important function for you.
I think in addition to that, there's got to be somebody, there's got to be somebody who's got to get out the next...
record of the Watergate thing, which is a compliment just sitting on my ass, you know, asking everybody, asking the White House people who you involved, and never made a statement.
Digger never made a statement.
Without, without any of the Digger lie, I don't, I'm just not going to let anybody keep making that statement.
He did not, he never lied.
Digger always reported what he had been told, you know, he didn't go out there and deliberately lie.
Say to somebody who's been cleared, do you think he did?
No.
But see, that's what they're hitting him on, is not, well, Mullenhoff's hitting him that he lied.
He stands up and just screams at him.
But I don't think the others buy that.
But what they do buy is that his credibility is no good.
because what he told them has now proved not to be correct.
That's right.
Not because he intentionally lied, but because he was not told the correct information to tell them.
That's right.
That's what he's got to say.
He's got to say it.
So now they challenge him.
He says now, like they did yesterday, he said the White House staff, there have been no changes in the White House staff.
And then they say, well, how can we believe that anymore?
I mean, maybe that's what they've told you, but maybe they're having it.
That's right.
And, uh, how do we know?
You just gotta say, of my own knowledge, or gentlemen of my own knowledge, or sometimes.
You know what I mean?
And you've gotta separate it out.
Well, why don't press secretaries are often in tact for lying, and so forth, and I would get all head up about that.
No, and I think that's, but I think it's, uh, it's another area that, uh,
There needs to be more action on business as usual in here, I think.
I think that's what I'm trying to say.
There needs to be a, within the inside and out to their credit, some of the young guys in here got together yesterday and said,
I'll tell you, you've got some shits in this post, but you've got about 90% just really sterling people, right?
And they, on their own initiative, got together and said, we're getting hacked from the outside here on this crap about everybody for themselves in the White House.
Well, that was one idea that came out of that meeting.
Another thing I'm going to do, I'm having a long meeting with Schultz today.
I'm having a meeting with a truck driver.
You do need to do that.
Oh, then I'm having a meeting Saturday morning.
Good.
Good.
Well, these guys made the point that they recognize, they said it's obvious that some of the people here have got to concentrate on this other thing.
In the meantime, it's up to us to rally the cause here and keep things going right and looking right while we're doing that.
One thing they came up with is an idea that I'm not so sure is bad, is that we all have
the staff and the sub-cabinet for another one of these periodic readings that we do, that we've done, you know, from time to time.
Absolutely without your participation.
No, no, no, they say, they say the imperative fact in this is the President must not participate.
But where Erlingman gives a rundown on the energy,
And I make the point that, yes, this is very delicate, but it's got to be worked out.
And I think maybe we can't overlook the fact that the water heat factor is here.
And we're not overlooking it.
But we can't overlook the fact that all of us have far more important missions in the long run than that.
And as a president, we're doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this thing.
Believe me, every individual here is expendable in the event that the Watergate is touching it even innocently.
But just kind of make this point and get everybody sort of zapped back into wanting to do that.
I don't think so.
Well, I'm all for it.
I'm all for it.
And I think it's probably a good thing to do.
Well, I don't think I'd try to do it.
Maybe, frankly, I'd go the status thing.
First of the week, maybe tomorrow.
Well, do it Monday.
Why don't you do it Monday?
I'll put it down.
I'll just follow this.
Let's get, get hard.
Good.
Let me come back now to the tapes of yesterday.
Let me ask you two or three questions.
Have you gotten that chance to listen to the rest?
I'll do it after the wire game today.
For me, it was at 10.30.
I don't know how long we've been sitting through it.
What you have for the rest is the rest of that day.
Then I can check forward and backward a little bit and see whether we've done anything.
I don't mean to be
slow on that, but it is, I don't, you've got to understand, I'm not quite looking at a piece of paper where you can see him through.
I don't have to listen to the whole thing.
You can't see.
What did happen after that?
That day was the 21st.
Did I see Dean again that day?
Yes, sir.
Well, not alone, I don't believe.
I didn't see him alone.
You saw him with Mitchell and us, and then you saw him with John and me.
You saw him twice more that day, but...
No, no, no, no, wait.
I'm wrong.
Let me get my book.
Britney and the Green Presidential Love Book.
You know what I mean?
Uh, when did you go to camp, baby?
Friday.
Hmm?
Friday, I think.
When was the funny first?
Isn't it your view that that basically is what Dean's talking about in regard to his body?
Big play.
Maybe, but I don't see how.
I think it's something else.
Just trying to go back through the Dean's stuff to see what could be there.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So the reason I ask is to do this connection for Higby.
The point that, uh, don't let the President get in a position of obstructing justice will help him with what he needs.
Uh, he made me... the business of you, uh, saying don't kill Unity.
Uh, I've changed.
You've covered that page.
Okay, you... That was your last meeting with Dean.
You never met with Dean again.
I got it.
You met with Dean, and I came in that morning.
I called him on the phone a couple of times.
I suppose we might have discussed it then.
Well, I can check that.
I'll get the phone log.
Yeah, that's fine.
I know the phone logs, but that won't prove it.
We don't have any tapes.
Yes, we do.
Well, it depends on what phone he is.
We do have the phone from here.
And from the EOB office, we can't tell him.
And then the next morning, Thursday morning, late morning,
and Mitchell and I met.
Then we came to meet with you at about 1.45.
That was the only time I had with Mitchell.
Just to put your frame of reference in there, that was the morning.
That was the day we had the sub-cabinet meeting.
The White House staff came over, the thing, you came over and gave them a little shot there.
Then you came over here, you met with Scowcroft for 20 minutes, and then you had Santa Maria.
And then you had Bush, Brock, Michael, and Timmons in campaign committees.
Then you met with the commission on marijuana and stuff.
And with some Mrs. Bedford and her nephew, whoever that was.
You heard of them?
And Congressman Butler.
Right.
And Congressman Edwards and some constituents.
Right.
And Herb Klein and his family.
Right.
And then Ziegler for a few minutes, and then Scowcroft for a few minutes.
And then you met.
for an hour and a half with Ehrlichman, Dean, Holland, and Mitchell.
Now, of that, if you actually met 100 minutes of that, Ehrlichman and I were there, and 110 minutes Dean and Mitchell were there.
So you have 10 minutes with Dean and Mitchell, either before or after John Knight.
Well, I had Mitchell alone.
I don't know whether Dean, this shows Dean was there.
It can be wrong.
There can be mistakes in this law.
I recall that I had Mitchell's day back at the time.
So you may have waited in the outer office.
You may have kept Mitchell in your inner office.
And Dean may have waited in the outer office for Mitchell to come out.
And that's more likely.
It's quite likely because then the girl wouldn't know.
See, she doesn't know until they come out of the outer door.
Then that afternoon, when you had your meeting with Erick and the Schultz, when Schultz, your helicopter, and Schultz went on talking, I wrote that memo about it.
Because it wasn't when I saw this better moment.
And then he left to keep his game at 6 o'clock or 6.30.
So I must have called Dean to keep his game.
No, you did.
We don't have the tape.
What's the date?
That's the 22nd.
At that time, Dean went to camp.
I'm not sure whether Dean went to camp either the 23rd or the 24th, but somewhere in there.
He went to Camp David.
I got told it was the 23rd.
Then when we came back and he stayed, it was the 28th.
A month.
That says you never met with him again.
See, on the 30th, we went to California.
We got back here, you know, you came back to Key Biscayne on Monday night, 26.
Right.
And I heard her on my speech.
Tuesday, you know, kissed her for an hour, then with me for an hour, and then with Ushiba.
Right.
And then you had a long meeting with her and me.
Right.
Then you had Congresswoman Bottoms.
Then you spent an hour with Bill Rogers after Bottoms, and then another hour with me, and then it was clear for a while, and then another hour with me later, and then you went over to Virginia Bowling Alley that evening with Julie.
Then the next morning, Wednesday, you were working on your speech.
And you saw me for a few minutes in the morning for about an hour, and they went in for about 20 minutes at the end of the day.
Great.
Thursday, you met with Schultz for a few minutes in the morning, and Kissinger for a few minutes, me for a few minutes midday.
And you did have Urban and me in on Thursday for two hours.
Yeah.
2.30 to 4.30, and Ziegler in for a little bit during that.
And that was...
I've got the notes.
Something must have developed that day.
Yeah, it was getting to where I put something out.
Oh, the public statement or statement?
That's right.
I got the 29, that's what you put out in the statement.
And then you got the girl in for an hour.
And I made a speech.
And you made the speech that night.
And then the next day you were just up to your ass in alligators.
I know, I know.
I know a lot of the state legislators, it's not a federal crime.
Correct.
Oh, a jillion things.
And then we left for California that evening at 6 o'clock, about 3 o'clock to 3 o'clock in the evening.
We met up early in the evening for an hour here before we left.
And the time was kind of weak in California.
That's right.
The next night was the John Ford dinner.
And he spent a lot of time with us that morning.
We were still talking.
That's how we were trying to get out the whole business.
And see, how I had to do this, I don't know.
I mean, you could try to reconstruct it and say, well, I lost confidence in Dean.
I don't think it was that so much as that Dean was under so much heat.
I just figured he just weren't getting anywhere.
You were getting, you were, it was a typical move where you weren't getting results one way and you started an action another way.
It wasn't so much lost confidence.
It wasn't really lost confidence.
It was just lost, just had to get more and get things up and satisfied with the results.
And he was saying, no, I can't get this thing done.
That's what you're talking about, taking the public stages of Miller, California, and all the rest.
That's right.
It's a long time ago.
I've gotten that picture pretty well.
I know that's what this business is.
Regarding these tapes, I don't know how you reconstruct it, but I think that the dirty, for your information, the directive I've given you is that it's been customary.
I don't think it should ever get out that we take this off the spot.
If we've got people that are trustworthy on that, I guess we have it.
I think so.
If it does, the answer is yes.
We only, but we only take the national security information.
All other, all other, all other information is scrapped, never transcribed.
You get the point?
That's what I want you to remember on these, if you will, if you might mind.
That's just a memory item for your file, basically, that you made.
I think that's very important.
Very important.
You never want to be in a position to say that President Jake did.
The whole purpose of this was for national security.
Other steps were taken.
I don't take any other places.
I don't know, but I just don't want this to be, I just don't want that paper to have all the time.
I don't want you to, I don't want you to disclose that to Ehrlichman or anybody else.
I mean, that's just something.
I'm not going to tell her to say that you went over it.
It's about the same.
I've already, what I said to him is that the tape, he knows that, whatever, of course.
I said it basically says, will the president recall?
Right.
Now, with regard to the thing, which it does,
and that was almost, almost a verbatim one, not very, not a one-way.
The question is whether or not did I, at that time, order Dean to pay off my go-to-work Dean?
No, I wanted to pay him off.
Now, not a point or two right now.
Are you sure I didn't?
Didn't I say, well, that ought to be done with the carpet and the bottles and the damn silly thing?
Yeah, but it was, that was rescinded and it was a, it was a, it was a shouldn't we do this, we at least have to do that.
You were drawing it out.
You did not order it to, with regard to potency, if the subject ever comes up, you can say it.
I was going to say that the matter is discussed, and I put it with people, and the way it came up is that they're going to talk about doing it before Christmas, you know, doing it before Christmas, and I said, well, you couldn't even consider it until after 1974.
We were without the elections, you understand?
Yeah.
I mean, you couldn't even consider it.
I mean, that's the point, because that puts it more in the context of the crime, shouldn't it be?
Yeah.
I don't, what troubles me is whether the, the, the memorandum of this, well, the fact that they had a memorandum is irrelevant.
Well, let's, let's look at this point, though.
That area is totally privileged until you come to an impeachment proceeding.
There's no way that that could be drawn out because it, there's no way that a presidential, there's no form for going into presidential
uh, guilt, except an impeachment.
I know.
And they've got to impeach you first before the proceeding starts, and they aren't going to impeach you.
No, I...
I struggled a little on that, and it's good for John to look at it that way, to... mind out about what the hell if he doesn't get impeached.
But John doesn't believe you have either, and John doesn't believe you can't be impeached, or, or will be.
What he believes is the best the game Dean is trying to play.
That's what he's talking about.
He does not believe it's a game with any potential.
Uh...
I may have called him, but I think he has to remember at some time about what the hell he's going to do about what's been done about Hunt.
If money is asked for, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
That's possible, you know.
Now, how would you, how would we talk about that at all?
I said, yes, I should.
I was trying to find out what he was up to.
What this thing, how deep this thing ran.
I had to find out.
All right, now, big question.
When I learned this in the 23rd, why didn't I go right over to the attorney general and say, well, I found out that this bit was asking for money?
It's a question of how long it took me to...
You didn't know what the facts were.
You didn't know what was done yet.
You didn't know where they stood on it.
They were still talking to Hunt and all that.
And there wasn't a timely problem there anyway.
And it wasn't a matter of something
Whatever Hunt knows or doesn't know, he's going to go on knowing or not knowing.
My question is whether or not Hunt, whether or not Hunt didn't know of the fact that an overture had been made by Hunt's attorney for payments.
But you didn't know what the nature of this payment business was.
You didn't know what they were talking about in terms of payments.
Well, they were trying to smoke it out.
That's right.
They were trying to smoke out where that involved other payments.
And, you know, was this the first time?
And then, Dean, in this conversation, it'll take a million dollars over the next year.
I remember that I brought that in.
Okay.
And was that a million dollars to Hunt or to all the defendants?
It comes to your...
attention because somebody has been working somehow with the other defense.
You logged that in.
Well, you said, what about the Cuban committee?
Yeah.
I said, how would you do this?
You didn't know the committee.
I had read about the Cuban committee in the paper.
That's true.
That's right.
Well, you didn't know then.
And I submit that you don't know now.
Who did it?
Well, I didn't know that.
What was the line between a legitimate effort to provide legal fees and a legitimate effort to buy off defense?
Then the question comes, Mr. President, did you know there was never a fee being made if I paid legal fees?
And the answer is, I didn't.
I did not know that.
I didn't know about the 350.
That's right.
I didn't know about the launching of the compound.
That's right.
You remember?
That's right.
I did not know.
i had read i had read stories to that effect but i didn't frankly look into it basically i frankly had this that i thought well it must be a bunch of cubits or something like that and i thought of nothing bad about everybody and i didn't know about my point is and i'm trying to be something but the point is the story is very true that i didn't know a thing now there's only one weakness in that the pathos thing the pathos thing where he said yes i know
I know, I know, but he said, I understand, did I say that Pappas was helping, or he said Pappas was helping?
He said Mitchell has talked to Pappas, you just quickly locked the answer up.
Yes, I know.
Well, the point was, what I was referring to only was not that Mitchell had talked to Pappas, but that Pappas never mentioned that to me when we were in this office.
Never mentioned it, that I know.
All he said is that I'm helping, I'm helping
John's special projects, and I said, well, thank you very much.
I appreciate it very much.
He didn't tell me that he was found.
So that was that conversation.
You see what I mean?
You read all this stuff.
Again, you're a long ways from having to make this case.
You need to know what John has.
That was, that, that Pappas thing was so, you know, just, just, your I know is almost lost in the fact that he, he was going like, he's injected an I know now.
He had to be damn alert to remember that and put it down.
And you've got to assume that maybe he was, but, but the odds are very much against him.
Unless he's got a tape or something.
But I just don't, I do not accept that as even a remote myself.
that he and John Dean were coming to this office with a tape recorder.
And I think if he did, that's one more discrediting thing on him.
I mean, you just make the point that that's inconceivable.
But then that indicates he was coming in to try to track the president.
I mean, what was his motive?
What were your motives?
What was the Justice Department's motives and prosecutors' motives at that point?
They didn't know there was... You know, look at the things in the context of the times.
There was no... At that point...
There wasn't any real feeling that there was a cover-up coming.
That's come up.
That just started to evolve out of Dean's thing.
Dean's report.
There was a story, there was a hush money story in James' report.
I'm not sure when.
Somewhere in there he did.
That's what it is.
He was frankly saying, he said, look, I need money here.
He said, I'm trying to get money here.
I was on the same side as the story.
I'll bring her up to his knees.
I'll bring her up to his knees.
Because I'll put out the same sentence that I did for him.
Basically, the name might be
And he said, he told the president that he was going to do this.
The president, as a result, said, no, man, we're changing.
And that is the president being engaged in.
He told me, when I called him on Sunday, I very much recollected this.
He said, you know, I know how that statement was regarding home.
He said, he got into your statement, into your statement, you know.
He just, he locked that out.
He should have guessed, of course.
Either he was early or he got in pretty late.
Do you remember?
It was 17 statements.
But I'm just trying to remember what the thing is.
He made, whatever it was, he's got to pop off.
He told Larry that whoever, that his statement,
that I'm not going to be a scapegoat.
He said that reached the right place.
He said it reached the right place.
He said the people I was talking to got the signal.
Something to that effect.
He said I'm not out to get anybody.
I was just making sure of the signal.
And he got through.
He said I was sending a signal and it got through.
The people I was sending it to understood.
I can't remember the guts made of him.
Because we've said he's not going to be a scapegoat.
Came in for a time where we got all the facts.
I'll treat you all the same.
That's been good, though.
I think that's been proper.
That's just because if there's any threats, then you can never make any threats to me.
We didn't know about your...
He said the honey was on the floor.
It was so not that he was.
You've got a tough problem, though, I think.
The one thing that he put out on your conversation is unfortunate, saying, you're still my counsel.
I didn't sue him.
Well, he says he did.
I didn't sue him.
And that's his... And that was the headline.
Next call was being, he says, you're still my counsel.
That...
gets to this thing that I keep saying that you shouldn't express confidence in.
All right.
I agree with that.
But if you're still my assistant, you're still that and this and that.
My point, if I make it there, is that every move I make with the image, I refuse to
He said, no.
Anybody that's believed here?
Yeah.
I want to know.
Yeah.
And I said, are you dealing with Dean?
Yes, we're still talking about it.
Yeah.
Now, sir, I can defend that.
It's not confidence.
It gives you a public appearance of confidence.
Because he put it out.
If you're doing it privately, the dean is fine.
His putting it out publicly is not.
Because it puts you in the problem then of when you do have to move on, Dean, which is inevitable.
I would assume they have to either indict it or give it to the community, and you've got to move on either way.
What you do, one thing you would bother, John's got to work on, is the game plan, and how you handle John Deasley.
I mean, the deceit.
Well, let's face it, you would bother.
You've got to put the immunity thing in there, bother John.
I mean, bother him.
John insisted you go in there.
Do you recall?
Yes, I sure did.
I think Colson did too, to be fair, because John was the one.
But be sure that you say that nobody fits the enemy, and tell Peterson the way to get an enemy.
That I did.
Whether that was a good move or not, I do not know.
It may have been a good move as far as the individuals are concerned.
I think, on the other hand, he's going to always have something he's going to be at anyways.
Well, the only thing is, also, he's going to be then, it's a question that we've got, that went into the returning sessions, wasn't it?
How is he going to be most vindictive?
He knows a lot of the greatest things.
He's going to be most vindictive as a witness with immunity, or most vindictive.
And they say, well, yes, he's got to prove a lot to get some immunity.
He's got to know how to prove.
No problem there.
But as far as the president is concerned, he's got to be most vindictive to get some immunity.
See, we've really got to look at that and come back to that once we have it.
Well, the problem we've got, let's leave out growing from home.
Here's D, how is he going to take on the president?
The president's kind.
Okay, but how do you live with it?
How do you live with that?
And how do you live with the knowledge that other people have?
Oh, well, the immunity doesn't mean he isn't cute, doesn't know that he hasn't cried.
It only means that you don't hit him for it.
Because he talked.
Yeah, but the only reason for granting immunity to any witness
is to nail a more important defendant.
A community aid defendant is to make him a witness for the purpose of nailing a more important defendant in terms of someone who goes back and they're citing you because in your crime message you push for new immunity laws apparently so that we quit nailing the little guys in the mafia range and start nailing the big guys.
Okay, and that's the theory of immunity, obviously.
Right.
And they're making a big thing out of that.
So if you give immunity to Dean, well, they don't think I could track him for that.
No, not in this case.
No, but the point is, if you give immunity to Dean, he's a major guy, then what you're doing is saying he is a little guy.
Oh, yes, I know.
And therefore there are major guys.
Now, they don't need Dean's immunity to make Mitchell.
There are no other or major people than Dean.
Except for Erland Wallerman and you.
That's right.
In the White House and Mitchell at the committee.
Right.
They've already got Mitchell.
So the only thing you can give them immunity for, and the only reason they can justify immunity, is if they nail someone above it.
Otherwise, the immunity was a cover-up.
A cover-up?
Wait a minute.
A cover-up?
For the president, maybe?
Not for Erland Wallerman?
or someone within there.
It's a cover-up.
Now, it's a cover-up to keep... No, no, that's right, because if he talks, it's going to nail somebody.
Okay, then it's not a cover-up, it's an inducement to lie.
Induce them to get somebody.
Or to get Dean off of this account because he could get you on something else.
Maybe it was just a lie.
Maybe.
which he might not be able to get me, but embarrass me.
Yeah, he could make an attempt.
I don't think he can get you.
I don't think he'll even make the attempt.
But why all these bail threats that he's making?
To play his game now.
Same as when Bruder made all kinds of bail threats about Lyme, but when he gets down to the crunch, he isn't doing it.
He's telling the truth.
When Bruder was over here saying he was going to involve me.
Did he tell you that?
Sure.
He didn't tell me.
He told other people.
He told me.
Are you going to follow me?
Sure.
I was to get you lined up.
You told Larry that at some point to give the word to me.
Yeah.
I was going to talk to you about something you knew wasn't true.
I've heard of it.
Especially the live line call.
Yeah, but I'm not sure he is now.
Yeah.
I don't know what he's doing.
I mean, Dan should know that Strong doesn't tell a truth.
I've told him to.
And I don't want to get in trouble.
Consistently said that he's got to tell the truth.
And I think he is.
I would assume that he is.
It's a hazy area as to whether or not such materials, as to whether a budget came over, and whether he did this or that or the other.
As I understand it, he's sure that the budget didn't.
Right.
He is, he does have this concern about these three pieces of paper, or three documents.
But it did not indicate that they were telephone taps.
That's true.
No, they didn't.
And as I understand Magudra's thing, he says they weren't identified either.
Well, he said they were.
I think he's right.
And the interesting thing is all the testimony that's come out so far indicates that those taps
were identified by Gemstown as a code name, whereas the material that he had, he says was identified as Stagecoach 2.
Or whatever.
I don't know, that's a, it's a kind of a curious, maybe irrelevant discrepancy, but it's, it's kind of...
There's, there's a secretary...
says that she typed this stuff up on special paper that was identified as gemstone because it's on the text and Gordon way back when he said you know there may be a problem because thinking about it afterwards there are these three things that came over these three stage coach two items that may be looking back on it may be the result of the water game
But he did not think so at the time.
Not when he got it?
Because he didn't know there was a water gate.
Did he report it to you?
He thought that this was from Tappan, Missouri.
No, sir.
And you never, you may have seen... What he says he thinks he reported to me was that he thinks he may have given one of them to me.
Yeah.
In a stack of a lot of other stuff.
And that in that...
He may have like, he says he probably identified it as attached at tab H or something.
It's a sample of the intelligence operation that they've got going.
Or the output of the intelligence operation that they've got going or something like that.
And everybody says it produced something.
So, you know, it was a kind of thing nobody was very interested in.
Yeah.
And that would be the way he would do it.
Like he would send me the whole
telephone operation kit attached to the plant for the telephone operation.
I wouldn't look at it.
You say that as far as your recording is concerned and that the conversation and all you have so far is getting the part where you would come into the room and no more.
You've got, how much more would you say you've got to go on?
I would guess I have another 10 or 15 minutes maybe.
I don't think it's very much.
I'm not sure.
There's no way to tell.
Well, you've got to assume, but I'll listen to him.
I don't remember.
I don't.
God damn it.
Until this day, I don't remember what happened.
I don't really remember.
Do you?
Whether you were told after that, well, look, for Christ's sakes, get this money.
No, I don't think so.
You don't think so?
No.
Because you remember that very well.
And if I were, I said that we can.
Yeah.
And I know we can.
Or I would say, well, do what you can to help make sure.
I might have said to him, get this dimension.
No.
Get this message dimensionally.
No, I don't think that.
Maybe you're right, because you've been right on the rest of it, that it's pretty accurate.
I sure don't remember that.
I'm sort of replaying mine, and I remember as much as I had thought of them.
Well, looking at all of that, looking at it in its worst, let's face it,
It was not something that he just came in and said, versus the cancer.
I mean, what is the cancer?
He says, well, it's growing and failing and so forth and so on.
He said, there is the promise of perfecting the failings.
Right?
We can recount the things, I'd say.
He said, well, for example, he's got a compound cancer that's never had a message.
The call was made to Kambach, and then Kambach raised money.
He's got a little on Pappas, but that's almost coincidental.
It's almost coincidental.
That's right.
Mitchell, Pappas is helping with the city.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't think we can...
I said, I don't know about that.
Go ahead.
I don't think we can... Well, I was going to say, I don't think we can pretend that we didn't know there was an interest on Mitchell's part in raising money for the defendants.
That's right.
I, and I sure as hell don't know what it was for.
I, I...
I didn't know about it.
I really didn't know.
That's right.
No, you know what I mean.
I deliberately got the staff to be coming for their credit, and I just wasn't getting involved.
It wasn't even a matter of protection.
It was not something that was necessary to get to you.
I didn't involve you.
It wasn't for national attention.
Then he said, now this is all good.
Then I started talking to O'Brien and so forth and so on.
That's when I got the $25,000.
Did we go in with the same side or was it all a conversation?
No, not really.
Then I said, well, a little bit on the point that it was national security.
No, but yeah, he said it was the breaking on the elsewhere.
Right, right.
And he said, and some other times.
That was the only specific he said.
And some other times.
Yeah, because I said, well, that was national security.
Yeah, but there were some other... What the hell they were, I don't know.
He didn't say who.
And I said, well...
I said, all right.
Is that going to get Hunt up?
And I suppose Hunt could tell him about other things he did.
I wonder what the hell that means, though.
Hunt says, well, the White House did this or that or the other thing.
He just shows the White House in a bad thought what they've done.
The point came up that you knew that he had, he said something about, you know, well, he had done some stuff on the, on the ITT, the Peter Beard thing.
And you said, oh, yeah, I know that.
And then you said, well, I didn't know.
You said, I didn't know.
Hunt had done it, but I knew that they didn't know.
I was working with him.
He said the papers.
Yeah.
That's when I was the flight lead mayor.
Sure.
I was the Colson operation, Colson.
I was flight lead, it was Hudson.
I guess I was all about, he told me that somebody had gone out there and so forth and so on.
That was the last, that I'm not concerned about.
I mean, what the hell, that was a common, I mean, in my conversation with Lee.
Yeah.
And I said, well, I said, well, how about this money?
He said, well,
He's going to blow it.
And I said, well, we got to, at least we ought to at least get that much, didn't I ever say?
Or we ought to keep the cork in the bottle that much or something.
It's very like that.
Yeah.
Is that what I said?
Yeah.
And I said, how much are you going to cost?
$2 million.
I said, well, we can get the money, but how do you get it to the defendants?
And I said, well, we can do it through the Cuban Commission.
Right.
And he said, no.
No.
He said, that doesn't even go the way we're doing it now.
the way it's being done.
No, he didn't say that.
Now, he said Mitchell has no rule about getting money, which I've told him is a very bad thing to do.
He shouldn't be doing that.
All right, how do you, how would you have me explain to me how to use it in a better way?
See, there's the other thing.
If you give Dean immunity, he can go into all that.
He can't make any case, but he can make sure he's not making a lot of comparison.
If he doesn't have immunity, he has no incentive to get into that area.
Because he is deeply implicated.
When he gets into that area, he is deeply implicated.
So he's going to go down.
So, therefore, he turns mad at him.
and says, I'm going to take the president on and destroy this administration, because they would have taken him out of the argument.
They, uh, got a curve in the bottom of it that needs to be taken care of.
How would you explain that?
That was exactly what you were doing.
You were drawing him out.
You were running this thing out all the way and trying to get a, trying to get a fix on what, what he thought the limits were, the parameters of it, what ought to, you know, what at least ought to be done or what at most ought to be done, where it was going to lead to.
Because he was making the case that this is an ongoing problem that will go on, not only through the administration, but after we leave.
Yeah, I think I was the one who asked him to leave.
And he said it wouldn't matter then.
He said, oh, we've heard in history that it won't be the same kind of thing.
Actually, what it really was, you've got to realize, it's like the La Costa conversation.
It was really not a question of setting something up or something like that.
It was beginning to create an awareness of a problem and a brainstorming on the problem.
There was no condoning of the problem.
It was a gradually dawning recognition that the problem was different than what we thought.
That's right.
We thought it was a matter of taking care of these people's fees and stuff.
That's what you did.
That's right.
Then, I gradually don't like it as this develops and as these pressures build up, and the hunting crop turns into pretty much focus because it's this big demand for, you know, this or else kind of thing, which was the first time I had ever heard of this or else sort of a threat, or whatever you want to call it, raised in this regard.
Up until then it was, we need money for these people to keep, you know, all this thing on the track, keep their attorneys in place.
One thing we did do, I remember, I did give Dean an advice on what the legal ramifications were, and I think he did, certainly like the dean.
I said, what about the legality of payments?
I don't know.
Did he say no?
Yeah, I think that's in there.
I think he raised that question at this point, this payment of legal fees.
Because that's what he was talking about, this payment of legal fees.
He said no.
Well, that's because then it's...
The Hunt thing, and I guess other stuff was building up to the point of, you know, we're being blackmailed now.
And, as we talked about, he even mentioned that as a defense.
Yes, I know.
I think at that point I almost laughed, because I said, the President didn't say we, we pay money because we're being blackmailed.
After saying we won't be blackmailed with the Cubans or the, the others.
But we did raise that point, didn't we?
But I think I've raised it in other times with the...
But see, there was...
I don't think there's any other knowledge than the fact that some payments were being made because I must have had some knowledge of the... As we got into the... As I got into the investigation, Bob, in February, was when I first got into it.
It was after the Vietnam announcement, after the 23rd, after the inauguration.
I never got into any of this crap about defendants or primary speeds or anything at all.
I remember with you or anybody else,
At that point, when I first began talking to James, the administrator of the committee, at some point, the question of probably the case in this conversation, and I don't want you to need to go back and read that over, not at this point, but at this conversation, the real question was, well, what is the legal situation in regard to the payment of fees and so forth?
He said, well, you can pay fees, but you can't pay support.
I think I heard that in one of the cases.
They made the point that the support thing doesn't hold up at that point in time because the defendants were out on bail and therefore were able to earn their own support.
They were out on bail all the time, which I didn't know.
I thought they were in jail all the time.
They were arraigned and let out on bail a couple days later.
They said, why are you taking them out all the time?
I'm always there.
Oh, I forgot to support you.
Sorry to speak to you.
It doesn't make any sense.
No, this is a support thing.
They thought they were going to go to jail.
They were planning to plead guilty.
They were worried about support of their families in the long haul.
I'm not talking about immediate support needs.
You're looking at a guy looking down on you.
What are you trying to say?
For example, you said, you know, I'm concerned as to what that you, ultimately, conspiracy thing on the support of the defendants on the workplace.
We didn't have...
We didn't have any motive.
We did not launch ComBot.
We didn't take initiative on any of this.
That was passive, non-disapproval, really.
And because Mitchell said there was a need, we didn't, and Dean said there was a need.
That's what the U.S. Attorney says.
I think it went the other way.
I think ComBot called earlier.
Because Kambach had an agreement with us that he didn't do stuff unless he had an OK from here.
Because he didn't want to get into stances fundraising.
So indeed, Kambach was going to slave-servant and they all made a great deal of money for the veterans.
That's right.
That's right.
For their attorney's fees.
That's right.
Well, he says for humanitarian purposes.
That's right.
Well, isn't that true?
It is, I'm told.
What are your attorneys saying about that?
They're, yeah, a critical question that I'll ask you.
Well, let's see, but that's, and I'm going to go, because I'm going to get some stuff put together.
That's what I've got to, that's one of the areas we're going to cover today.
Just going to sing all that out.
See, we, they study this stuff, and then they look to the problems, and then work backwards on it.
Right.
Where they see...
Well, so far, they're satisfied with everything they've come up with.
They're satisfied with... Well, have they ever...
I'm satisfied on the strut before.
They can't make a case.
I'm satisfied on all the strut in between.
They can't make a case.
fight is except for the raising of the money and the transaction of the money for the purpose of so-called hush money.
That is the construction of justice, depending on intent.
You must have discussed this with some of the subordinates.
Oh, yeah.
And they've been researching the statutes on the question.
And fighting is corruption, is the word.
Well, one of them is corruption.
The other one is willful.
And they say they think we're on very sound ground because of that.
They were concerned at one point that there's a circumstantial change and that if intent or willfulness is not required, that we might have a problem because of the circumstantial change.
But their research of the statute says of yesterday,
to convince them that either corrupt or willful.
One statute is corrupt and the other is willful in one section.
That those are required and that they have a very sound case on that basis.
They thought they could carry it.
They thought they had the case even on the circumstantial, but they were concerned about it.
What is the situation with regard to what Dean actually did?
I don't know.
I don't think he did anything regarding it.
Well, it's sure as hell alleged that he did by McCord and some of those people.
He had $175,000 that he delivered.
He did.
Well, I don't know.
That's what McCord says.
Now, I must say that everything McCord has said has proven to be accurate.
or virtually everything is accurate.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we can get in on the fact that it's hearsay, but it's hearsay seems to, from what we picked up the other directions, it doesn't seem to be erroneous hearsay.
So, a card.
A card says that John D. is only working 125.
No, that's not clear.
He says John Dean didn't deliver McCord.
McCord has something on first hand.
Could it be McCord says that Hunt told him, or Liddy told him, or something like that?
How Dean, being a lawyer, is as smart as he is now, could not tell everybody not to do this or that, the other thing.
You see, he could have gotten himself so involved in that with more than I can recall.
No, maybe he did.
Of course, maybe.
There's a whole pitch on that, too.
Right.
But how could he have done it?
But you see, Dean told me when he was working back through this stuff, he said, if I can just get a bit, send me to the grand jury and give me immunity, and we have no problem, because I'm the only one in the White House who has any real problem on this.
And it gets...
It would stomp at me, and if I'm the mean one, it doesn't matter.
He said it would mean I'd have to leave the White House.
Don't you see that?
Hmm?
Don't you see that?
Somewhere in this period, when we were talking about the strategy of Dean going to the grand jury, which was in that, we bargained for him.
No, after.
But I was not there.
No, sir.
This was probably on the telephone while he was at Camp David.
He was spinning out different routes of how you can work this out.
At least that's what I think.
And his point then was, nobody else has any problem on this, but I do.
And if I can get immunity, and I can spin it out, which will clear everybody else, and it stops at me, and I have immunity, so I don't get hung.
And then the thing I'm worried about was, but he said, I guess that would mean I'd have to leave his council.
And at that point, he was trying to spin out a plot that would keep him on his council.
And as it turned out, what he was working on was not a factual thing for you, but a library case on how to pull John Dean out of the suit.
Yeah.
Which is understandable, because he was... And he got his attorneys in.
His attorneys go to see the U.S. attorney.
When did his attorneys not get John Dean?
I don't know.
When did his attorneys go to see the U.S. attorney?
I don't know.
I don't even know if they can find him.
What, in other words, did Dean start to... That must have been...
First, we were in California.
He didn't have an attorney then.
It was on, it was past March 28th.
When I had that very long call with him, he didn't have an attorney then.
March 28th, and we were in California until when?
April, uh, well, April, California.
March 30th to April 7th or something.
Yeah, April 9th.
Keep relating if you came back.
Keep relating.
In fact, in the office here on the 9th.
Keep relating.
In fact, in the office here on the 9th.
And the 9th is when you got the garment going on.
Because you met with him for a few minutes that day after you met with Garland and me.
When was this?
The 9th, yeah.
Yeah, for him to handle the committee characters.
See, that's what we were worried about.
We were so concerned about the committee.
shows on my schedule here john dean on the 16th of april that's correct what the hell was that well that was after the 15th was the day you met with bond beach and everybody oh that was the resignation you met with dean the night of the 15th also remember you had it in
The 9th and the 15th, I guess, is when you reported that he had talked to the attorney.
It's the 16th, you should know.
You see, let me put it this way.
One thing's got to happen.
Rob, you and John
are not, there's no way, in my opinion, that they can do a goddamn thing or do anything.
Because if they do a fraction of it, it doesn't do anything.
By the end of the day, it doesn't do anything anyway.
You get my point?
Yeah.
So John's theory, the President's, fired his ass out of here, et cetera.
has to be examined in terms of, does that, and this is not in terms of accepting life, I'm not talking about a community, does that necessarily, not necessarily, give Dean a motive for him to go wild against, not only early, but at home, which he already is doing and will do.
But,
to try to drag the White House to account, the President.
That, we've got to look at all the harm, and do the best we can not to let that happen.
You see, that's the reason why the idea of, well fire Dean Bass out of here, can frankly make, put the blame on him for what he did and didn't do.
But it would certainly, it would certainly
serve a reasonable and justified purpose in the case of John Hugh, although it wouldn't help one way or another much.
Well, I mean, I don't think, I don't, I mean, except for discrediting him.
On the other hand, uh, treating Dean, uh, in a, and also in a different way,
I mean, not, not in a way in which we get immunity because we can't, we can't be blackmailed into ability from being, you know what I mean, as a major here and there, and the prosecutors don't want to get into that, you know.
That's their decision, not mine.
I'm told, you know, that that's up to them.
But the question is,
You can't make an overt move on the, unless there's a reason, which is a better reason than you have now.
Let me say it.
Also, what you said.
Dean, please.
I asked Peterson, I said, what's the price of the minor thing that he seems to be after you, Peterson?
Of course, I mean, blowing on a few trucks, he didn't let you in on anything.
I don't know.
I don't know.
He may have, he may, if he's going to see Peterson about a big bomb, it may be a big bomb on Peterson.
that he would like to see me in Florida before he made his final decision.
He said, completely self-incrimination or whatever I'm going to do.
And what he did say, he says, I may want to see you before I make it.
I said, well, Tom, I guess.
I buzzed it.
I said, well, Tom, let's see how the situation evolves.
I told Peterson about that, of course.
And Peterson said, don't say it.
I said, fine.
I said, I'll see him.
I said, let me work on that.
That's my job.
You know what I mean?
And he's absolutely right.
I can't bring John in.
The only purpose of bringing John in is very important.
And there's a human factor involved in this, which you've got to bear in mind.
It's early.
You understand it better than early computers do.
Even early computers, the guy does all the humanitarian work.
You've got the human factor involved.
He says, and I think many
according to Peterson.
He says he's never really expressed anything but the greatest respect for and even affection for the president.
Now, I don't know whether that is a case that is with others or not, but it was Hagerty's report saying that.
What's Hagerty say?
He said that he has no
And, you know, that he was trying to give advice to the President, in a sense, and saying, don't let the President get caught in any obstruction of justice type stuff and all that.
He told him, don't let the President get caught in obstruction of justice.
What do you think he might have done?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I think that he's working on his own ass, but not in the way of trying to hurt the President.
I think he'll use everything he's got, except that I don't think
Unless he becomes a madman.
That is a danger that I guess you do have to possibly contend with.
So the argument there is you don't want to do anything to drive him to becoming a madman.
But you...
Point cannot let a record be made of you protecting him.
No, no, all of them.
But Bob, I am, and I'm totally the principle to look at it.
Every day I ask Peterson, I say, what do you want me to do with regard to Dean?
I ask him what he wants me to do with regard to the group.
You are if Peterson holds up.
Huh?
You are if Peterson holds up.
But that's...
He's going to hold up.
Well, I think that's on how much Dean has on him.
He's got a lot.
And Peterson may be just as worried at his level about what Dean's got on him as you are yours about what he may have on Peter.
Peterson, I think, is going to hold up on that point.
I mean, I, I, I, I have, I don't have, I, I agree on Mike's counsel.
I agree that he's a counsel and a friend.
But my buddy is, or Dean said that, well, our lawyer doesn't even agree with him as a counsel.
Our lawyers totally distrust Peterson.
I know.
They distrust him.
They distrust him.
But I, but he said, all I've got, Bob,
I think, though, that Peterson, on the other hand, I repeated that so often to him.
I've never failed to do it in there.
We will use it.
We just will say that we got that tape, Henry.
That was the obvious tape, isn't it?
Okay.
I have hit it that way time and time again.
I just want to understand.
What situation is here?
I have not.
I'm treating them all the same.
I'm going to wait till I hear from you.
If you've got any further instructions, let me know.
That's why I asked for the report of you and John.
And I said, as far as Dean is concerned, he says, well, we're still having talks with him, but I aren't playing.
I said, all right.
I said, I can't make a move.
Well, they aren't playing.
I'll get them from that piece.
And that is, there's the impact.
Now, the other part that I need is this.
Dick Morris, I've received the other day.
I went to him the morning of this call.
He likes Morris very much.
Everybody likes Morris.
And he said, Morris and we, we don't see this as an event.
We see it as a witness.
We also see it as a comment, basically, that they're concerned that they're subject to money stuff.
Well, the money says we don't have money, we don't have reparations and so forth.
But Bob, everybody's going to be convicted of something with the money.
And isn't that thing they ought to be fined rather than imprisoned?
They don't send them to prison for violation of the campaign law, spending laws, really.
Well, I agree that's the case anyway.
That's what the situation may be or may not be.
It's coming around.
So I understand that the only person you couldn't hang on to the violation of campaign spending was the treasurer of the campaign.
He has the total liability.
Who was that?
Sloan.
It was Sloan, and that was Glenn C. Gannon, I guess.
Well, Moore, Moore spent some money, and Kampong spent some money, and so forth, and so on, and so on.
But anyway, my fight is with Moore, and there's that, and so I'm gratified.
I'm also gratified with Moore's recollection of McCosker.
It's not him who did it.
It was about Dan Sharpe.
He was here in the office.
And I'm not sure they have a Dan, Dan, Dan, you know what I mean?
You can't do anything with that.
It's quite a glorious recollection.
I know what it is.
I know what you're talking about.
My point is, if you had thought LaCosta was important, you could have told me that.
It wasn't.
I mean, you didn't discuss the fact, as a passing record, as LaCosta.
And it was in the same chain as that.
What?
That passing records go out to the need for money.
Yeah.
How was it left in town?
I don't, I don't even remember.
I'm not even sure I was in the thing because I don't remember.
Or the recollection of something about that, well.
Oh, Rockefeller, John Ehrlich was supposed to have said, well, let Rockefeller, eventually let Rockefeller get a half million dollars.
He said, well, I've got to go early to the crack, you know.
Well, she's not mad.
Not mad, in other words.
Money was talked about, and they said, gee, that's the way it is, but we're not going to get into it.
That's exactly right.
That's the line we had always said.
That's the line you're getting into, except for the fact that my conversation was very, keep the cork in the bottle.
That's not what we did.
Huh?
Yeah, that didn't go any closer.
You mean the question is, I'll finish, I'll finish, sorry.
The other point is that, that a whore, I'm going to ask you,
Morris was very close to Dean.
Is there anything out of the way about him?
See, there's nobody that can talk to him.
I can't abuse a doctor or anything.
How about Morris gets back at him?
Yes, I would say that.
Have a talk with him.
See what the hell he has in mind.
Would it be useful?
I don't know.
I don't know what...
Here, let me tell you the only thing we've got in common.
We have one father.
He doesn't get infinity.
It was Vic.
And there's only one place where he will ever get any possibility to find it.
That's right.
That's the other one, but I sure would say that to him.
Oh, no.
No, no, but I... That's got to be in the back of his head.
Absolutely.
All right.
Why don't we see you again?
Well, okay.
Why don't we have... Why don't we have...
That's got to be in the back of his head.
Absolutely.
All right.
Why don't we see you again?
Well, okay.
Why don't you have it?
Why don't you have the other one?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.