Nixon & Ziegler on Watergate and Daniel Ellsberg

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Yes, sir.

Ah, thank you.

Good coverage on the timeline, isn't it?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Well, they seem to be the biggest story this morning.

The Ellsberg thing, I guess.

Well, I think that's not what I mean.

I mean, there's no problem as far as I'm concerned.

We ordered an investigation.

These assholes did this.

And Ehrlichman's plane is on.

I didn't know a goddamn thing about that.

They're hitting Ehrlichman from the standpoint of being aware of the burglary and not saying anything.

I know.

But you told me at one point.

And see, first of all today, I don't think I say anything.

I hold the same position.

If they ask, did the president order something like this, I say, gentlemen, this is not the time for me to address that, prejudice the rights of individuals.

But the question will come, why didn't the FBI do it?

You told me that Hoover refused to do it because

You can't.

It's hard to say that.

Yeah.

Well, just say it because there had to be an investigation.

So there had to be an investigation of both levels.

I don't know how you're going to get out of the movie, sir.

Well, the question is, should it have gotten out at this point?

You see, my only problem with that, Mr. President, is if we do that today... Don't say that today.

See, if we do it today, everything is so, you know, as we talked

and bubbling up and so forth.

If I say that today, it's the White House today compared with the President's order, you see.

And I would just prefer to keep the thing the way it is.

It relates to two trials, and...

The president in it, a lot of people don't give a shit what the president was in it or not.

That's right.

But if I commented, it would put the president more in it than the early comment of yesterday.

No, it's quite true what happened.

It was perfect.

To be perfect, you can't do anything.

I had this crazy idea as to whether or not we could go over any psychological problems with Henry's.

I mean, I knew as shit that he had psychological problems or not.

We were, we wanted to know if anybody could take him from here.

Right.

That's what we were investigating.

And so Henry got into that.

And poor John, you know, we just sort of carried on with the, with all that on the staff level.

I had a slight anxiety.

No.

I finally found this picture.

These crazy bastards.

And they're going to shoot point-blows.

Very positive reactions.

Speaking to the nation.

So far.

Why those idiots did that?

I don't know.

I'll show you the mistake.

And God knows what he was told by.

It's why John didn't

All right.

All of the bad judgments and all of the bad activities.

When I said you were disturbing, nothing, Mr. Kelly, I fought that stuff, and a lot of people inside did, because it didn't work.

And you were getting fed back into you, I'll tell you directly, a lot of paper, you know, memos about these actions with the columnists and all this type of thing.

They didn't do anything of any significance in that area.

Not really.

Nothing that worked.

I mean, they got thick glass.

We can do a better job of that.

Well, we're never going to get into that again.

I mean, in a way, you know, like, we think that kind of meeting has a new beginning.

It's a tough one, but it had to be.

Sure.

We had to layer out there, and we're going to have everybody work together.

I had a thought that I wanted to give to you.

You're going to Florida to rest.

You should think about nothing, but it might be a good idea before you leave and before

if you have a chance today.

I think in this whole process of, you know, that you're going to be thinking about, not in Florida, but when you get back, about how the staff should work.

The best guy to talk to on that before you begin to formulate your thinking is Bob.

And I'd like to suggest that you sit down with him today before he gets too

I had long talks with Bob six months ago and a year ago about the White House and the way you work and the way you make decisions and so forth.

And I don't think, Mr. President, that a lot of the people here who will be advising you on this understand how you approach your problems and make the decisions.

And he would be very helpful, I think, in providing you

I'm understanding all of that, but I'm giving some thoughts as to how it could work.

Would you like me to tell Steve to... Well, you can have the story.

I'd just like to make that point.

Yeah, I don't want to be too late today.

I'm just going to start getting a little rest.

Absolutely.

He said, Ron, you're absolutely right on the FBI thing.

He told several people here, he said, I had a question about the decision that the president made.

He said, in my view, now that it's made, and now that I've thought about it.

He said, I'm not there at all.

No, no, no, no, of course not.

But I'm moving on now to the thought about the decision about the attorney resignation.

He said, I'm convinced that you're right.

The bomb's already made.

And his attitude is excellent.

He's a good man.

Well, that was, are you talking about the Ellsberg thing?

That was not a leak.

Oh, yeah.

I was just going to say that New York Times story.

I don't know.

It looks like it, you know.

I don't think the prosecutors, I think what, there's a funny

source type of thing began to develop in Russia.

It's called the Associates.

And guys are using their contacts with the press three, four removed.

Well, it's developed that those three, four removed sources from the primary source have proven to be so accurate now for the past 10 months.

One day, they're going to be wrong.

Oh, they've been wrong an awful lot.

I don't mean accurate.

It's .

You're not there yet.

came in a question, said, Ron, the president came in the press office, in the press room last night, and indicated that keep giving us hell and so forth.

He said, based upon that attitude expressed by the president, the one in his speech, are you, as press secretary, prepared now to make an apology to the Washington Post?

Well, he sort of forced it.

I said, yes, I am.

And then I went on.

But.

But you made your, or you said on one of the facts that you know.

That's right.

Now.

Take something else very quickly.

The reason I'm waiting, though, is just to maintain control and not move, because there is a great time

They accepted the apology, but also an important thing to raise at some point in the future, a year from now, a year and a half from now, when, you know, the things that are moving before that, but they will have moved around.

But the time then will be able to address the fact that

Those people who accepted my apology for this statement refused and did not have the courage to apologize.

They may have been wrong.

Like for example?

Like on the Soviet summit.

Like on a number of the foreign .

Like, well, of course.

Now, that's a year.

The time to make that point is a year from now.

But also, don't let them think the president's all discouraged.

I know, I know.

I hope they're not getting out of frame.

No, I don't think so.

As a matter of fact, I think they sense the feeling around here.

I don't think they are.

It was good to have it.

I think it was good to have the cabin staff.

Yes, sir.

So that they were all together.

No, I didn't.

No, I'm not talking to you.

That Percy thing leaked out.

Which doesn't bother me.

No.

It leaked out on the way that you expressed.

No, not shuddering.

It was a strong way.

It wasn't a weak way.

That Percy, just a day after you had given Richardson the total authority on this, including this special prosecutor, if he's so judged, walked out and advocated it himself.

And that in the course of that expression, you sent that man another reprisal.

Well, it's not bad.

Why not?

We've got to take a little bit of it.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Huh?

I said it's not bad.

He wanted to have it.

He wanted to draw the sword.

He draws the sword.

Sure.

I said, that man will never be president.

By God, that's true.

I think some things have got to be done like that.

Sure.

I agree.

Also, it leaked out that you were in a large meeting like that at all these times when we were dealing with this last night.

It also leaked out that you were disturbed about the FBI been standing in the hall.

And therefore, it came with the president and Jerry, I

background and say the President understood that the process should be set up.

The President was concerned or his concern was the fact that in that process that there were men standing out in the hallway making it appear that these men, you know, were guilty.

And I said, make it clear again that this step was taken to set a process to

I'm inclined to think the initial story broke with Helen Thomas.

There are not people who walk around these halls.

Well, I mean, inside staff people, not press.

Well, it's too bad that it didn't leak out, but maybe it wasn't bad.

No, I don't think so.

You don't think so?

No.

It's not a big story.

It's just down in the story.

I think it's good.

You see, it's things like that, little things like that.

Actually, yesterday, I thought I couldn't assess it.

Today, I think it's a thing like that that's good because, by God, it shows the president, you know, running things, fighting things.

and I think it's a positive perversity, but I don't care.

I mean, if you take out this period of

this one little small element in the last four and a half years, you've been able to accomplish what you've accomplished under a certain procedure of operation.

Now, that may have to adjust some, because you can't replace all of them.

There's no other man who has the discipline that he does, really.

and the Cambodian names.

And yet, curiously enough, we have a country we made.

We have a really good problem now with it.

It's a question of confidence.

It was really, the reason we did it was the damn Colombian people.

I mean, you hit people with 70 million, 73 million, it's all that damn name.

I mean, they're going to look at it and they're going to say, well, that president's not lying.

Yes.

Absolutely.

I hope so.

That's the way we've done it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it next week again.

We can't say walk out and tell them everything the other day.

No, no.

Not the day before.

I don't need to put this economic statement out here.

It's a statement.

It's a way to do it.

Just go ahead and do the business of government.

You still think the

I don't want to overstep my bounds in saying things, but I've been working for you for four and a half years or longer, and I know when you're tired, and you are tired, and you've got to go down there and do nothing.

I think you should go down Thursday and not come back until Tuesday.

Absolutely.

And you must get the rest.

Because in doing the things, following out the strategy that you've carefully thought out here, we can't shift that now.

And a part of that strategy...

I can't get involved in Bob's and John's and all those other cases.

Absolutely not.

What you have to do is get the rest so that after this terrible, terrible strain of all men that you've

The burden has been on you so greatly.

I mean, magnified 100-fold from anyone else.

Because you had to tell them.

You had to make the decision.

I mean, it's like a 1% to a 2,000% comparison when I say that.

You really, I think, have to just break away from that for five days so that you can then come back and think through or make the decision.

I think the strategy that you're following, the decision you made, indicates you have to stay away from the White House.

No, but I mean, I'm thinking at least, but I'm thinking of the only thing left in my hands is the...

Of course, I'm getting to the point where I feel that if we, in the next two or three weeks, you move along with the business as you're doing already today, move to, not abruptly, but to make the staff, organization, and the way you're going to work known, it's going to begin to shift things away.

And when and if.

the whole plumber's thing, leaks or whatever.

I'm inclined to think that you will be, or you are moving into a position where you can simply say, gentlemen, yes, that did happen.

The decisions that I made in relation to determining these facts were made, but the execution was done poorly.

And it's all out now.

Now, what's your name?

execution and the running, but I mean, there's no reason why if something leads to a newsman, there shouldn't be some, you'd have to check the newsman.

You kind of should check where they left those.

Oh, sure.

All right, don't you agree?

Well, I wasn't speaking specifically to, you know, one instance when I mentioned that.

I was just speaking as a general proposition.

Well, and the fact is, it was your judgment, as President of the United States, that lease would have an impact on the

Yes, sir.

Nixon & Ziegler on Watergate and Daniel Ellsberg

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 2, 1973

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