Nixon White House Tapes › Tape 908 › Conversation 908-021
Nixon, Rogers & Bull on Watergate and H.R. Haldeman
Tuesday, May 1, 1973 · 3:41 PM–4:02 PM ET · Oval Office · 5 min
AI Summary
President Nixon met with Secretary of State William P. Rogers to discuss the handling of sensitive files belonging to departing aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman amid the ongoing Watergate investigation. Nixon expressed strong disapproval of the presence of FBI guards outside the aides' offices, characterizing the optics as unprofessional and damaging. The participants discussed ensuring the security and custody of these records to prevent unauthorized access by figures like John Dean, while also touching upon the political silence of Vice President Spiro Agnew.
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Is everybody ready?
Mr. President, Secretary Rodgers, and, uh, Richardson, and one of the members of the committee, and Secretary Rodgers, they all said that he is under control, required memorandum, and he can step in for just a moment.
Yeah, I want him to step in.
I don't want that.
Yes, sir.
My idea is that, God damn, I was so shocked, you know, I made so embarrassing to Bob and John.
Well, actually, I got in front of Bob and John, and I ordered it.
I said, Mr. President, my idea is that Bob and John knew that they wanted something like this.
Now, they didn't want the FBI to beat a lot of them all the way, obviously.
Well, obviously they did.
But you can't have been behind it.
My boss came in and he said, who the hell are these men out there thinking?
And that wasn't how he put it in.
But I said, for God's sake, send him a signature about it.
And said he'd put it out to the press.
I said, for Christ's sake, Ron, I'm signing a memorandum.
Nobody's going to steal any files.
It's a beating, Jess.
But it can't have Bob and John embarrassed like that.
It was like criminals.
But I think they came and tried to get the fuck.
So what they were trying to do is mistake the way they did it.
What we've agreed to now is that the files should be placed in another room, and they'll get beneath the prison FBI and get the hell out of the way.
The FBI won't have any access to it.
For the moment, it's got to be out of the way.
Then we can talk to Bob and John and see how they want to handle it.
And secondly, let me say something interesting.
Now, the papers are your papers.
They're the presidential papers.
nobody can have access to them nobody can subpoena them because they don't want me or somebody else to think about in other words
We don't want anybody, but this is not me, I didn't have to do it, but their decision is they don't want anybody to monkey with those files.
They want to be sure that nobody has access to them.
Dean or anybody else.
Okay.
Including the FBI, they don't have access.
They were just trying to, actually what Elliot, I think, wanted was to have them sealed for the moment and then decide if we need them for day-to-day operations, then we can decide how to deal with them.
Seal my files, ever.
Well, whatever.
All I want to be sure is that Dean or someone else has committed a full-on plot of captains.
Captains and commanders have been taught the same.
We want to look at those because they're his papers.
What we want is to know every paper.
That is, I haven't heard from him at all.
He's my paper.
And that's the reason I decided to have an FBI guy outside of my office in my office.
I wrote one plus five in front of your office.
Well, I think the worst thing is the possibility that Dean or somebody else will get the file.
How do you prevent anybody from going into those files?
That's what we want.
I don't mind the FBI guys sitting in there watching.
Well, that's what I think.
Or the guards sitting in there watching.
That's what they're doing.
I remember they prepared me a memorandum, which he issued to the press.
That's what they were praying for you.
Well, it's old.
It's old.
They don't understand politics.
I thought that was a great cosmetic.
Oh, I understand.
God almighty.
My God almighty, when I thought cosmetics.
It proves it.
It shows it there.
They look like they're thieves.
That maybe the French tied some kind of a sign.
Okay, that's good.
I'd like to hear your comments.
I think that's all very good.
Good, good.
It's good to meet you.
Okay, I'll see you tonight.
I had to take a little break from Percy because he took off.
I like his day.
I don't know about that.
He took out the vice president kind of duty.
Did he get it?
No, I believe he had it.
Percy actually.
I don't think he did.
No, that was Percy really.
If anybody wants to stay with me, yeah.
The vice president's been sort of notably silent.
Well, that's just as well.
That just solved that problem.
Well, thank you anyway.
It's been a pleasure.
See you tonight.
Yeah, I had a good idea.
See you tonight.
NARA Description
On May 1, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, and William P. Rogers met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:41 pm and 4:02 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 908-021 of the White House Tapes.
Nixon Library Finding Aid
Conversation No. 908-021
Date: May 1, 1973
Time: Unknown between 3:41pm and 4:07 pm
Location: Oval Office
The President met with Stephen B. Bull.
William P. Rogers
-Elliot L. Richardson
-[Unknown individual]
Presidential papers
-Memorandum [memo]
-Removal
Rogers entered and Bull left at 4:02 pm.
Watergate
-H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman
-Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] guards in offices
-Leonard Garment
-Ronald L. Ziegler
-John W. Dean, III
-Custody of files
-Haldeman’s and Ehrlichman’s papers
-Ownership
-National security
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, NARA Online Public Access Catalog Identifier: 597542
-Custody
-Possible access by Dean
-Ownership
-Richardson
-Sealing of files
-President’s files
-Rose Mary Woods
-Possible access by Dean
-Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] watching files
-Garment’s memorandum
-Politics
-Rogers’s schedule
-Charles H. Percy, Jr.
-Richardson
-Spiro T. Agnew
-Percy
-Spiro T. Agnew
Rogers left at 4:07 pm.Also recorded on May 1, 1973
- 908-017 3:07 PM · 35 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:07 pm and 3:10 pm.
- 908-018 3:07 PM · 11 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:07 pm and 3:10 pm.
- 120-001 3:10 PM · 30 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, and Cabinet officers and staffers, including William P. Rogers, George P. Shultz, Elliot L. Richardson, Rogers C. B. Morton, Frederick B. Dent, Peter J. Brennan, Caspar W. ("Cap") Weinberger, James T. Lynn, Claude S. Brinegar, Roy L. Ash, Anne L. Armstrong, John A. Scali, J. Philip Campbell, Richard G. Kleindienst, William P. Clements, Jr., George H. W. Bush, William E. Timmons, Kenneth R. Cole, Jr., Henry A. Kissinger, Peter M. Flanigan, Ronald L. Ziegler, Kenneth W. Clawson, William J. Baroody, Jr., Richard A. Moore, W. Richard Howard, David R. Gergen, Patrick J. Buchanan, David N. Parker, Frederic V. Malek, Lawrence M. Higby, Bruce A. Kehrli, Stanley S. Scott, Stephen B. Bull, Rose Mary Woods, Arthur J. Sohmer, Lee W. Huebner, Jerry H. Jones, Donald F. Rodgers, Gen. Brent G. Scowcroft, Herbert G. Klein, Thomas C. Korologos, Gerald L. Warren, Andrew T. Falkiewicz, Max L. Friedersdorf, Lyndon K. Allin, Fred F. Fielding, Michael J. Farrell, James H. Falk, Richard M. Fairbanks, III, James H. Cavanaugh, Dana G. Mead, Geoffrey C. Shepard, and C. Gregg Petersmeyer, met in the Cabinet Room of the White House at an unknown time between 3:10 pm and 11:52 pm.
- 908-027 3:10 PM · 1 min — United States Secret Service agents and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:10 pm and 3:41 pm.
- 908-019 3:41 PM · 2 min — President Richard M. Nixon, Stephen B. Bull, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:41 pm and 4:02 pm.
- 908-020 3:41 PM · 55 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Rose Mary Woods met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 3:41 pm and 4:02 pm.
- 908-022 4:07 PM · 55 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:07 pm and 4:16 pm.
- 908-023 4:07 PM · 14 sec — President Richard M. Nixon and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 4:07 pm and 4:16 pm.
Cite this conversation
Conversation 908-021, May 1, 1973. White House Tapes, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives. Audio and AI transcript via Easy Nixon, https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/908-021 (accessed October 5, 2026).