Conversation 906-004

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I have a couple of plans.

I want you to be aware that I had, in terms of the conversation, not with Dean, but with Dean.

Yeah, yeah, good.

Stepping into the Garment's office yesterday, I didn't have a chance to give it to you last night.

I'd like to bring it back this afternoon.

No, no, I have it right now.

Okay.

Dean came into Garment's office, and I asked

Len what his attitude was toward the presidency.

And he said, it's very upbeat.

In other words, it's no dispersions against the president.

And he said to Garment, he said, the president should not do anything cosmetic.

He said, it won't work.

Garment said, what do you think is cosmetic, John?

And he said, well,

apparently referring to things transactions in 1970 and Garment said well 71 in other words like this thing that's broken today Garment said well what do you mean he said no what he says is that

taking action and also stepping forth and saying what he knew, what he didn't do, and accepting certain responsibility for it.

I agree.

In other words, this is what Dean said, and I said, Lynn, in any of the conversation, and I think you should know this, Mr. President, I said, Lynn, in any of the conversation, did Dean in any way sound derogatory to the President?

He said he did not.

He sounded vicious toward Bob and John, but not to the President.

Then Dean went on to say, I can't understand.

He said, I don't think the president as yet knows all of the facts about the Watergate.

This was just after noon.

He said John and Bob were implicated in it.

He said that Bob received daily transmissions.

I don't want you to hear all that type of thing.

Well, I understand.

I want you to know that I do that.

Oh, I know that.

Yes, sir.

He said John knows more than he is allowing.

And I have documentary evidence.

I don't know what that is.

Maybe it's this material that was destroyed.

I don't know what that is.

Then Dean said he has to take action.

Then Dean referred to the fact that Ehrlichman knew that some materials were withheld from the FBI.

Well, he's certainly referring to the story that he wrote today.

He was not intending in any way, he said, to be threatening at all to the president.

He said, except under oath, he said, I would have to testify on matters that circumstantially would create real problems because, he said, he told Haldeman in early rule everything that was going on after June the 17th, i.e., a restatement of the position.

And he said, there's one of two things that happened.

He said, they either kept everything from the president

President knew everything.

The first point is correct.

Excuse me?

The first point is correct.

I didn't know.

I know you didn't know.

You didn't tell him.

You know what I mean?

Yes, I don't know the validity of this.

I just want you to have this to .

And then Len Preston, he says, well, what did John do specifically?

What is the documentary evidence?

He said, well, he was involved with a whole cover-up matter.

He said Herb Kahnbach also would never have released money without authority from Bob and John.

He said specifically right after the Watergate, Ehrlichman was involved in keeping information away from the FBI.

Today's story.

Giving specific orders and keeping things away from the FBI.

And then Dean said, I have 30, 40 other specific things just like that.

And I won't give you any more, Lynn, but this thing won't go away.

Lynn said he appeared to be nervous.

and uptight, which you would expect.

And he said, I don't want to give you any more, Len, because I don't want to get you in trouble by getting you in a crossfire between Ehrlichman and myself.

Then Len said, well, what do you think the president should do or say?

And Dean said, I think that in addition to acting with respect to those who are implicated, referring to Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Dean, and Strong,

The president should take constructive responsibility for what took place here.

And then here, the government said he had trouble defining precisely what he was referring to.

But there was no animosity shown, and none indicated in this conversation.

He also made another point, which is that

He has stopped being specific about giving information to Silbert because, as Dean points out, any information he gives to Silbert seems to find its way back to Father John.

Ah, so, you know, that's totally untrue.

I'm sure it is.

I think I'm going to get a speech.

Why is he going to end with John?

Well, I would...

Okay, that's

No one.

No one has.

You're a son of a bitch.

Or you didn't.

Thank you.

Tell me.

You know what I mean?

Tell the funny question.

Mr. President, no one has anything on the president.

No one can have anything on the president.

Well, you could if I could, but I mean, of course not.

I'm sorry, but I'm straightening them out.

So, uh,

But basically, the hardest thing for me, when I go on, let me ask you if you've got a second.

Yes, sir.

I understand that I could be better done.

Ron, I can't, at this point, with the particular, with the dean, solve for the resignation.

Bob, John, David, and so forth and so on.

It's just, also, I know the whole deal about my secret time.

It's gonna take two bites of the apple.

On the other hand, I had a walk with Bob last night.

It was perfect.

I'm gonna talk to him again on my way back from there.

So that they can separate from Dean, I want them to move first.

and I want them to take a leave of absence.

Now, the leave of absence is not as bad as you would think.

I mean, you know, I mean, if you go around the tracks of the way it leaves, I can completely divide it in my response and combine it with the fact that I want to see it.

I feel we should, you know, that it is.

But the standard that I must apply, will apply, is not something that the standard is narrow, legal,

But the higher standard would be five, and then you'd be barred, and then you'd be served and shadowed, and then you'd be taken to the high office.

Were you able to get out of any of that sort of line there, I guess?

Mr. President, I did.

I worked all day on it.

But who said the briefing about that?

It's too many other things to worry about.

But you see, that's my thing for the president to sit here and sit in front of the wall.

Now, the second point is, I don't want to try to get it done immediately.

Second, I'm trying to find the speed of the, let me tell you, the gray successor.

problem.

The problem being that we want to burn the judge in the case out there.

And the, uh, the, uh, and, uh, that case will go very soon.

I'm, for your information, I'm going to take a hell of a run and rub his house on it.

I think he would be a good FBI director.

How do you come to that?

Sure, a small background is pretty good, I guess.

Oh, excellent.

We'll see.

We'll see what happens next.

We'll move on to that.

The third thing is that, of course, I've been doing your interview, which I think is an outward step for that business.

Right.

Bob and John, they've got to get out of here.

They can't run, and they've got to, and I told Bob, I said, you have to answer stories every day, like last night, I told Bob, I said, the very fact that Ron and Bill, you should put Bob's and John's statement out in the White House, and it's not that much you're going to have something to answer virtually every day, now you've got to get the hell out of here so you can answer.

I said, you see, the difficulty is that the, that's the raising issue,

at this point at this point you're right there's a lot of stuff around and but on the other hand there's going to be stuff about it they may say they know stuff that they'd screw around about you about pimmons about others and i'm not going to just on the basis of unproperty because somebody say all right resign good but my clients let me come to the point

You see, that's the grand jury will act for that matter of two months.

It's not three months, I would hope.

Because Dean is going to get back on his word.

If I'd love it, John, if you had a force to be, Dean would have to come in and say to you, I'm not going to ask you to do it, I'm a son of a bitch, you know, and maybe he's going to have a force to be.

Mr. President, let me go back to what point you made.

Bob mentioned the fact that Jimmy went through this list about

You know, Bob and John are involved, and Timmons and Warren and all this.

Let's make something clear, and all due respect to Bob.

You must know, in your own mind, I don't know about Timmons, but you must know in your own mind that my scope of involvement and evidence and awareness of this thing is exactly parallel to yours.

In other words, I proceeded and followed up, and what's your key word that you tell me?

No, sir.

Can I have a word?

That's what I thought the other day.

I'm perfectly prepared.

I'm not even concerned about myself.

But I want you to know that there are a lot of other people around here, frankly, like that, at the psych level, close to 17, that may have read some of the newspapers and heard that, but they were not involved.

You can't let people out.

Everybody in Washington knew something about your argument.

No, no, no.

Then you see,

Two or three weeks, three weeks in January, when it dies, when it dies, then they've got to make a commitment to the people of the country, regardless of what they say or not.

You see, then, I will not prejudice their legal case.

I will badly prejudice John Brown's funding.

I, and then, you understand?

Yes, sir.

I owe that much to them.

Now, now, I can take that much heat.

And then, when that is, then they've got to say, look, our

We still have an urban committee hearing.

There are other things going on.

We think under the circumstances, we should decide, even though we have not been indicted.

Or they may be indicted a year and a half or a full way.

And in that case, the subject is answered.

So that's fair enough.

Now, let us interrupt.

But then, the question that I really have, and I want you to motivate me on, pick my own name, is when I say something, I want to go out and take the responsibility for the soul thing myself.

I will.

I mean, I'll say I didn't have knowledge, but I, in the present, in the present, have responsibility for everything that goes on.

And I take that responsibility, and I take responsibility to clean it up.

And I'm not ducking it at all.

And we've got to stop this sort of thing in this country.

Well, I think also you can, there are a couple ways to go.

You could point out, I think, what led to this tone.

In other words, there's no reason, it shouldn't be harsh, but you could make reference to the fact that you have to remember back in 1971,

This country was faced with great unrest, great turmoil from various groups in society.

Men moved to deal with that situation and went too far, something like that.

I think we could even... Why can't you say that?

Yes, sir.

I can't even say it.

We've had terrible problems in our campaign and security and all that.

That's a number of threats we've received and so forth.

And yet, what do we do?

We overreact.

One wrong doesn't justify another wrong.

And I'm not just trying, but I'll tell you, I take responsibility, but I think the most important thing is to make a little thing of our story.

That is done.

It seems to me it ought to be done in the Oval Office.

I've come to the conclusion that you can't do that in a speech.

It's not someplace.

You mean at TV addresses?

Or it could be done out there in the press room.

Or the press room.

You're absolutely right.

One of the other things

Mr. President, let me tell you, sir.

I've been in this job four and a half years, therefore I can sense how public opinion reacts.

Not a good gauge.

The sympathy for the president is overwhelming.

Not only amongst your friends, but amongst your critics.

This is a given fact.

Now, the might of

gnawing concern and forget bob and john you've got that well postured in your mind my gnawing concern i'm not saying you have to move in 42 hours sit on it too long because the reaction today i think out in the country the reaction that you get is oh boy this is just going on too long what is happening you see i mean that's a natural gut reaction and if you wait too long that little barrier

What I'm thinking of in terms of that is to have them do it, perhaps, tomorrow.

I think, uh, there's a...

I think you could...

The first of the week.

Good.

All right.

Now, just, I want to raise one thing, which I'd be prepared to raise with Bob and John, but I wasn't aware of this now.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I just want to offer it to you.

You may have already considered it.

With Bob and John going to Mississippi today...

going to make that Mississippi trip a Watergate story.

Now, secondly, with Bob and Joan going to Mississippi, you do close some of your options.

Now, thirdly, with Bob and Joan going to Mississippi, it probably would make it easier for them to leave, you know, the leave of absence to take.

But there are a couple press things that I see building here in public opinion things.

One is, what is, what's the White House doing expressing its

an attitude of competence in these men, and that's what we're doing.

Well, I'm not saying it publicly.

Then the other thing that this bill... Well, that's one side.

And the other thing, in terms of moving fairly soon, is this whole Peterson grand jury thing, there's beginning to be a bill for special prosecutors.

That's right.

There may be a bill for special prosecutor and

and prejudicing the, you know, rights and so forth.

That's starting to build up out of this, you see.

Now, one thing, and this is not the time to talk about it, but as you go down your list of things, special prosecutor may not be any good, but maybe a distinguished man associating himself with Peterson could be something to think about over the weekend before you move.

But while we're talking here, these are the two things.

With regard to Bob,

Yes, sir.

And the fact they do go will be why.

That bill, put it this way.

If they go and I do that, then you have a hell of a problem.

But if they go and then they leave, that's why I think the answer to that is to expand it.

My other observation, I want to give you these, I assume you want me to, is that I'm all for building the line of business as usual.

But the fact is that we are not business as usual.

What we are is doing the business that you have to do in a situation where you're dealing with a major problem.

And therefore, I think any efforts are...

meetings like next Tuesday or Wednesday where we get together and people brief on the domestic informants.

It's just, it's just...

Yes, sir.

It's got to be real stuff.

Black meeting hearings are... No, I'm not talking about you.

I'm talking about if the staff gathers together in the East Room or somewhere and get briefing on foreign policy and domestic affairs.

At this point, Mr. President, it really is a...

Yes, sir.

Yes.

I want you to know the direction of my thinking.

Yes, sir.

It's going to be long here.

And I realize that the leave, the half measure, but it's going to be a hell of a measure.

You know, I mean, we think it's half, but it's the way it's going to be stated.

They're going to leave.

I mean, and we're going to put up other people who need jobs.

Everybody's going to know that there's a, and you're going to be asking them how they're going to return.

The president's, that's,

when this thing is cleared up, and only if it's cleared, and only if then these two men can come back and say that the president can agree on the conscious that they reach the highest standards and so forth.

But you see, you're not going to have it too long, because my final ruling on this item is the conclusion of our agreement.

I've got to give them time for that then and that.

Yes, sir.

I'm not...

This is the judgment you made based on the facts you have and the fairness that you

Do you feel you have to apply?

No, he did.

I wonder if he could, so that people know.

In fact, Chappie Rose is his special advisor, as I know.

I talked to Chappie.

He's in Mexico.

He preferred not to have it serviced yet.

We can, if you'd like.

I can link it.

He was gone, yeah.

I'll call him.

Let me do it.

When we get back to San Francisco.

I want to say that the president, on an voluntary basis, is an consultant to Chappie Rose.

If your thinking is going in this direction,

And you're thinking about a major statement.

The question is when.

Can you do it before the grand jury?

You mean your Oval Office statement?

Yes, sir, I think so.

You see, because I'm out there.

Let me give you a feel out there.

I don't mind being out there.

That's the job.

But you have 100 questions.

Now, I can't turn them off.

The question is, how do I do it without having to do it twice?

That's my problem.

You could do it without doing it twice.

But the other thing is, in terms of not only announcing this, but the direction in this, we've talked about the new tone you're going to set, the direction you're going to set.

I have a feeling that, are you getting the counsel, or do you have someone to sit down who has a scope of wisdom and so forth, not to sell you on something, but just to

to provide you a cross.

Yes, sir.

And I wonder if there's maybe Chappy Rose coming back in or something.

I don't know.

He's not very good on that, though.

Yes, I can go out and say that I'm not going to speak before the grand jury and so forth and so on, but I want you to know that, you see, I could say that I insist on the standard of conduct, which is that that's the official position of the chair.

This is a very painful thing and so forth and so on.

It just kind of requires this.

You see, if only we could wait until after they had indicted him in a better position, because then Mitchell would have been indicted in.

You mean in a better position to give a speech?

Yes, I can say now.

I want to talk to you about this.

In fact, you could announce it anyway.

Now, that's one thing, too, that you could announce.

I didn't report to the nation.

I want to report after the, I mean, not because of it, but because of the enormous impregnance, right, of an individual's prosecution.

I'll report immediately after the grand jury completes its, uh, its work.

And I would do it, and I could do it sooner.

What should we do?

Let me think.

Think about that, sir.

Timing is... Well, it isn't just timing.

It's knowing what the hell to say and not having to say it twice.

Because don't worry, let me say, there's no question about the decision.

They have to go.

And they can't come back.

And they both, Bob, John, and we need a new team.

And we're going to get it.

We're going to get new FBI directors, new military generals.

And we're going to clean this goddamn place up.

And that's going to be done.

And in all of this, we've got to shift.

I believe, and this is not the time to talk about it, to our own advantage, so we can do the things that you believe and understand for.

We've got to shift our way of dealing with the press in terms of our communications.

We've got to cut the staff, the communications staff.

We've got to cut the... Well, yes, I mean... Well, I don't know.

I'm talking about that type of complex, so that we can then move back up through in...

making the positions, and I will guarantee you that we will be, within four or five months, able to do that very effectively.

Because anything we do after this period in terms of the way we've been handling it, you know, the calls to the columnists and so forth, we're going to have to shift that way of operating for a while.

Everyone does.

I haven't read the columns.

From Reston to Phil Patrick, from Smith, Hempstead to Crosby, all of them say the President of the United States obviously was deceived.

The President of the United States will take action.

The President of the United States has a responsibility to his office and he will always carry it through.

I mean, they all think that.

The argument that the problem won't pass.

The point is the question of time.

But the attack against the presidency is the same risk no matter if you take action or you don't.

There's a strong body opinion that the risk of the presidency is stronger against the presidency is stronger if you don't take action.

In other words, that when the Congress returns, the rhetoric will be more aimed at the presidency if you don't take action.

Oh, there he is.