Conversation 909-029

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to him.

He had talked to Richardson.

Richardson had come right back to him and said, well, he told him sometime in March.

And Buck dissembled and said, oh, I don't know.

I don't know about that.

Told her the president.

Yep.

And so then they went out and talked about it a little faster.

So Buck, I think, just said, well, I don't know.

But it's going to make an affidavit, which will be filed in court.

He's going to make a fight.

He's going to say this is a bad actor.

It's a national security problem.

We've got to justify it and send the investigators out there.

They went beyond what they were instructed to do.

And so, boy, Young, he tells me now, he's going to make an absolute fight.

And he's just not going to say anything to anybody.

The New York Times has the Krogh story, and it's going to break it tomorrow.

What, the Krogh?

That Krogh was the engineer, this thing, and so on.

So, he's pressing ahead to get his affidavit finished, and get it to Bill Richardson's hands as soon as possible.

Well, the point that I want to make is this.

That must be the March 21st thing, indeed.

Well, he didn't get a date, I ask now.

He didn't get a date.

Well, but...

The point that I make is this, though, that my call to Peterson that day, I now recall it, I wrote it down, I was sitting in that meeting, was Hunt's testimony, and I said it was, as he said, it was an annual security.

And he said, was any information given to the prosecutors?

And I said, no, as I understood it,

However, in my discussion with him on that occasion of the break, I don't recall, I don't remember whether or not we discussed that or not.

I think it was just the national security, but I didn't take anything else.

Now, with regard to the question on the other thing, with regard to the question on the other thing,

We've just got to be sure that Krogh assures Richardson that Krogh is pointing out to Richardson that it's Krogh that made an affidavit that he gave this to the prosecution?

No, no.

His affidavit is going to be these fellows were sent out to do an investigation.

What about this?

What about the situation that he's going to say that he informed Peterson in November?

No.

He's going to say, if he's asked, he's going to put this in the affidavit and come out later as a matter of defense.

The dean told him in November that Peterson grayed the silver.

The dean told him?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, but that was this prosecution here.

Well, Peterson has charged all prosecutions, including this person.

I want Peterson... No, I just want...

Sorry.

I want Richardson assured, though, that this information with regard to this was part of my investigation.

He was told exactly what I told him to tell me, which was what you told me.

And all he was reporting back was that he had done so, but that Richardson had immediately come back with a certain thing.

No, I don't...

But you told me that when I, when the Attorney General brought up my name, and I said that that was that, that there was nothing in it.

Right.

But the dean had told me also not to tell him such a thing.

That's right.

But I, as far as what the dean told me, I don't really, I don't know what to say on that.

What did you say to him?

that Dean is saying to them what he told you.

And that's the problem.

And I don't think there's much you can do about that at this point.

Well, with regard to Richardson, what do I say to him?

Well, I think you're right.

It's presumptuous of me to advise you on this, but I think you want to sit down and give Elliot the big picture.

of this whole national security thing, which he got a sketch of from Crowe.

I was going back through some stuff.

Incidentally, I had some sort of diary memorandum of the NSC, the Jack Anderson thing, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

I had bound those up in their books.

I had bound those up and put them in the rules of the city for you, right?

Because I don't want them.

But you get into that stuff.

And there's stuff about, you know, Moore and everybody, and I don't know.

So I think you could take Elliott's sort of mountaintop on this and say, this is, this thing is peanuts.

But once you, once you begin to open this thing.

No, but the point that Elliott would raise, I would say, well, why, why wasn't the break in, why, why in March?

But then he was informing you that the Justice Department knew of it because the picture was at the Justice Department.

And he must have told you that.

He must have told you that.

That was the whole purpose of it, yeah.

I mean, how in the world would he know about it otherwise?

That's the thing.

I think that...

All right.

Okay.

If you don't have it, I don't know.

Ha!

Well, like I said, you know, this thing could be dangerous for our man unless he handles it very, very tenderly.

And, uh, because he's got Peterson involved and so on.

He had Peterson sitting over there and Silver.

And, uh, he himself is going to have to act at arm's length with those two fellas on this thing.

Oh, well, I see.

based on the fact that they could have disclosed it to the director earlier?

Sure.

He's got a prosecution going on.

He has a permanent obligation.

Then why was it that they first brought it to me?

Why did they bring it to me?

I didn't give it a thought.

I don't know.

Frankly, when they told me about this, that they had a picture, did you give any thought when we were talking about it that they had a picture?

I believe him.

It didn't even trickle in my mind to point it out to the old man.

In fact, I was reassured.

I got bothered by this business of knowing that there had been this break-in.

I couldn't see that it should be reported to the authorities because, after all, nothing happened.

Well, not only that, but it's a national security operation.

Things happen all over this town.

There are national security things.

The worst actions are violated if you don't report them in the larger interest.

But it didn't hang out.

And then when Dean told me that Peterson was aware of it, I just relaxed.

When did he tell you?

A long time ago.

You're sure?

Yes, sir.

And then he told me again recently, in March.

Then he told Kroger, the member.

And so it runs way, way back.

I don't know the date.

I just remember the idea.

It was a long time ago.

So, as I said, that relaxed me.

Yes.

I did expect Peterson to come forward with it.

When I first heard about it, I thought, well, that was the Ellsberg case.

But I never much cared about the Ellsberg case anyway.

If you remember, I suggested we not file it.

And when it blew up in the fall and went to the Supreme Court, I was like, well, the important thing here, though, is this.

Let's look at it.

The important thing here is that I didn't learn a goddamn thing about it until March when Dean was supposed to have told me there was some sort of picture that they hadn't found.

And the important thing was that it wasn't, that he had that from the, this wasn't something Dean had.

Dean had, didn't have, didn't need this to happen.

Not that he used to have it.

That's the FBI investigation.

That wasn't.

This came to Peterson from the CIA.

And I think the route actually, and I'm just guessing from what Kurt said today, the route probably was the CIA called the film and camera, saw what it was, sent it to the FBI.

The FBI turned it over to Henry Peterson.

So Gray saw it and then Peterson saw it.

And then apparently Silbert saw it.

Peterson showed it to Silbert.

Now, the way Dean told me, Peterson was sitting on this, in effect.

He knew what it was, and he was sitting on it.

Now that's where it went next time.

It's got to watch his step.

Is there anything that you prefer with Elliot on this?

He doesn't think so.

He's in jeopardy.

He just thinks he's gone as far as he can.

And it's what he says.

What he told Elliot was very simply that when I, as Attorney General, brought it to my attention,

I said it was part of the judge.

Right.

And then he came right back and said, what would he do about it?

I don't know.

The court was going to quietly resign this weekend.

And it will look like it's reactive to this time started problem.

That's right.

Inevitable.

He's looking for a job in Europe, and he's right on time.

Well, I'm pretty sure I wasn't sitting on this guy today.

In my situation, I can't reassure you on this, really.

And I wouldn't kill you.

I'm just going to hang out with this, if you don't mind.

Sure.

Because I think it's better that way.

Your information was...

You knew about it in when, in 71?

I knew about it almost immediately after the break-in.

And told them to knock it off?

And said, that's the end of that concert.

How long did they stay on after that, do you know?

No, I think they stayed quite a while.

You see, I never knew what became of them.

I just ceased to care about them.

And as a matter of fact, when Watergate occurred,

I had to call around and find out what had ever become of him, because his name was the one that was given to me on that night when the police called.

How well it is, by the way, that one of the claims did come to me with this information, is that they said it had been brought to their attention.

I mean, I suspect this is what happened, that Dean came in and told them the whole story.

and give it to the judge.

Give it to the president.

And make him make the call.

Then if there's a cover-up, it's his cover-up, but not ours.

So my niece and Peterson came driving over here to see you.

Confronted you with the judge.

And you did the only thing you could.

Was mine another wrong call?

No, it was the only call you could make.

Absolutely.

They recommended it, though.

They showed you a piece of paper that showed you the six guys in the Justice Department had been

pass memos around about it.

That's right.

So they were certain it wasn't a secret.

That's right.

And the other thing that came out of it was the investigation practice.

Well, I had to rely, my whole answer here is that I had to rely on my, in this case, chief of the assistant, the assistant of the event, who knew about the goddamn gun apparently for months.

And I would have mentioned Dean told you that.

I'll bet you Dean told you that in the course of those conversations.

No, is that Peterson?

No, he didn't.

I don't, if Dean told me anything in a conversation, it was very,

I'll tell you how to handle this with Richardson then.

Why don't you tell him that I told you afterward, when you got checking into him, that Peterson knew about it.

All right, fine.

In other words, you came off the Dean thing, and he had told you this, and you asked about it, and I said, yes, that's what happened.

And I told you the circumstances, and I said, Henry Peterson knows about this.

That's right.

Or I will say that.

In other words, I'll say that as soon as I heard this, that something happened, that I asked you about it.

You said, yes, it was a dry hole, but it had been turned, that Peterson had, but the films were in Peterson's hands.

You know all about it.

So I just had to assume he could do it, but I wouldn't necessarily.

Why don't you do it then?

That's good.

Okay.

I will say when, I don't have the date back.

It's probably in March.

Might have been, might have been the middle of March.

I don't know when the hell Dean could have told me that.

Well, and I don't remember either.

You know, it's just somewhere in there.

But I have said it in the month of March.

When I was in, there were lots of things, as you know, that started me getting into this.

March was the only time I really got my mind going on a job.

I remember March 21st when I started, and I had been on it for a while.

The 21st came in with this famous, famous card against the presidency.

He's got quite a, quite an extravagant tale in the New York Times this morning about how Holcomb and I engineered a cover-up.

He's given us some more version.

I don't think he said he did it.

I didn't read the story.

He said that we did it all on the telephone, and we didn't have meetings with anybody.

That there were a lot of meetings over at the Committee to Real Act, and the first plot was that McCord would take the ramp, and the second plot was that Liddy would take the ramp.

And Hugh Sloan boogered it up because he insisted on telling the truth.

Hugh Sloan came to see me.

There's one true, one true fact.

There's a dialogue between Sloan and me where Sloan said, listen, there are really problems with the committee.

And I said, Hugh, you should have told me about it.

You should get a lawyer.

And that's true.

I did.

I think he was in the 60s and 70s.

You may be in a lot of trouble.

You've got to have an attorney.

Don't come around talking to a federal official until you've talked to an attorney before.

I don't want people sitting there making admissions and me not advising them his rights and all that sort of stuff.

So I kicked him out, as a matter of fact.

But that's painted as...

An anomaly.

On the one hand, I'm censored, and I'm plotting behind the scenes for a cover-up, and on the other hand, I'm refusing to take information from you as well.

So, I'm keeping you from getting the information, but not receiving it from you as well.

And then, uh... Do you mean it's Parkinson at the moment, or are you in the home?

Yeah.

And the reason is, if that keeps him out, what does it do for him?

He's negotiating for immunity from the committee now, since he can't get it from the prosecutor.

Can they get to immunity?

They can.

They can get to immunity.

Which would affect the prosecution in any case?

Yep.

Is that what he's trying to do?

Exactly.

The prosecution, why don't they get to immunity?

I don't think they're...

I don't think we've seen this story.

This story is all a combination of Dean and the Hill investigators.

I don't think they believe it at the Grand Jury.

Do you think the Grand Jury is beginning to doubt Dean?

I think so.

There's less suspicion.

Why would they begin to doubt him?

Well, I think for one thing, he's been trying to case the newspapers for two weeks.

And that has to make him wonder a little bit.

And then all these cute tricks he's pulled, trying to blackmail him, and dangling these stories out and all that.

And then we've been very steadfast and cool and collected and confident.

And that has to kind of rattle the prosecutor a little bit.

He's got to wonder where he can make it around.

I guess he hasn't been too successful in getting corroboration, or did not corroborate it.

I don't mean murder.

What do you mean murder?

Not corroborating on what?

Yeah, Moore's attorney called ours to say that we had nothing to worry about.

Yeah, Moore's very good.

But Moore's was very clear that they isolated us.

Even that story he tells does not make weird problems for us.

No, you mean like you said, go ahead and run?

Yeah.

That does not, that does not bother me.

But he had, he had tried to solve the concert story.

Yeah.

So, there's only one thing I'm looking about that I didn't talk to the Senate, which was before the 27th of February, that's on.

Yeah.

But you know what I mean?

It's, uh, we didn't, unfortunately, those early talks were all, I remember, but about, that, those are the ones we're talking about privilege and

A lot of crap like that.

What else did we talk about?

The Irving Committee.

Whether Dean should go up or not.

Whether Dean, why didn't you go up, Greg?

Should there be any White House witnesses?

That kind of stuff.

Mitchell.

You have an internal staff problem.

that I stumbled onto today that I might just drop on your desk and put on my shelf.

Uh, the Vice President moved in on Cam Cole this morning, called him over, and said, uh, uh, I want all policy recommendations cleared through me from now on.

I want to listen to your staff.

And Ken said, well, what's this?

And he said, well, you heard the President yesterday.

I'm taking over domestic policy.

You should consider your staff.

No, I called Ken in when I called him.

I didn't know what he did.

Well, that's what Ken said.

He's a vice chairman.

Yeah, no, see, that's the point.

He can't believe me.

Yeah, and Ken said, that's not my understanding of what the President said.

And the Vice President said, well, I think I'm carrying out the spirit of his remarks.

So Ken called me and said, what the hell do I do in a case like this?

And I said, well, I'm going to be talking to you, I'm going to mention it to you.

But I think you're going to have to straighten out.

I'll straighten it out.

I think it's moving fast.

He's leaking all over town, and he's taking over, and he's trying to consolidate.

Interesting comment he made as well.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't see what he said.

Smart move, I think.

Why?

I don't know.

One direction to go.

Let me just spend another minute if I can.

I've got to see how to press.

Let's see, follow along.

They feel fine.

They haven't changed their minds a bit.

They feel very good after my session yesterday with the Vescovi.

They felt that that went extremely well.

They're not terribly troubled about this, uh, Bernie, uh, Ellsberg thing.

They're not at all troubled about any of those little episodes.

The Ellsberg thing?

Yeah.

What kind of thing?

What was that obstruction of justice?

That's the, that's the only thing it could be.

How would you have threatened us if I failed to immediately pick up the phone and call the authorities and say how are you, sir?

Oh, I see.

Did Dean know about that, then?

I don't know what he...

I didn't know about it.

No.

You didn't know?

If you didn't, please, please let me know.

I never heard about it.

I don't think the list may be gone.

You did somewhere in the middle there, but I can't tell you when.

Let me say, I'll just have to recall what I recall, and all I can recall is that when this whole thing came up, there was some discussion of a picture that had come up in that dam from the CIA that found this in Roseburg City.

Very little, but early.

They never reported it to me.

No.

They didn't report it to you either.

No, I heard about it quite a bit after that.

But your story on that is, I don't know, you haven't heard both.

I was mid-flight in a very touchy national security investigation trip.

And I wasn't allowed to blow the investigation from that point.

The investigation also did not in any way impair the rights denied.

Of course not.

But if I had picked up the phone and notified the authorities, I didn't know whether I had spy ring or the Gell-Belsberg complex inside the government, what the hell it was, or how big it was that spread it to Neil Sheehan and all those people at Harvard, or what it was.

And it would have been...

against the national interest for me to report it.

What does the title of the reporting prove?

I mean, it's different.

It was already reported that you did it, not me.

No, they're going to claim that he authorized it.

That he knew what they were going to do.

That he authorized it.

He said he did it, but that's what they're referring to.

Oh.

Well, actually, I don't think he authorized it.

I think they did it on their own level.

He said they authorized a covert investigation.

They did not authorize burglary.

That's a big difference.

Even for national security, they shouldn't burgle the right station.

Probably.

It's done all the time.

All right.

Give me just a little bit of counsel, if you will.

I had deliberately called Cole in the time I talked to him.

I was the vice president.

I didn't have more to do when Ken...

I thought it was great.

I'll just say, well, let's not get involved in all this.

Let's not have any fights here.

I'm just going to look flat out at it.

But with Ken Parsons, you know, say that's the way it is.

You talk, Ken.

Don't break with me.

No, I'm proud.

I see.

Yes, it is.

I would mention it to you probably after you get back to Florida.

Yeah, yeah.

But with regard to this thing with Elliot...

I've got to go to Florida tomorrow.

Maybe I'd better talk to him before I go.

I don't know.

But I don't know.

I don't have any...

I don't know what the hell to talk to him about.

I don't think you need to talk to him.

God damn it.

I mean, uh... Well, if you feel I should... Carl, I...

The whole point of the matter is this.

I told the audience when I came, I said, now there are some national security investigations.

I said, you should know them.

And I said, those you have to be very careful about.

I said, no.

I think I've been able to.

And I said it was a proof, I said that what we called, I called it the, they called it, I said it was called plumbers.

And I said, 100 million were involved.

The probe killed him even more than that.

What did the probe say?

I don't know.

But he said, I explained to him the whole theory of the operation and some of the things we did.

Here's what you might do.

You might just give Elliot a call and say, listen, Saturday or Sunday, why don't you give me a progress report?

and tell me if there are any problem areas.

And then maybe I'll smoke you out.

That's sort of antithetical to your hands-off, though, isn't it?

You don't really want to get periodic progress reports.

I don't believe I really want to now.

Let me ask you this.

Let me say this, though.

On this whole business of this particular matter, the Krogh story and the direction, what do you advise that I say to all of you with regard to a genius?

I think we've got the best answer.

You have to talk to me.

You can talk to me.

That's right.

And I reassured you.

I said that, yes, that it had been, that it was in the hands of the Justice Department.

It was in the hands of the Justice Department.

They haven't matured yet.

Well, that's what Dean, in fact, told me.

You can hang me to that one.

Yep.

I reported it to you, right?

I asked Earthman about it, and he said he was in the hands of the Justice Department, and I forgot it.

And then later on, why didn't he just wait that long in order to get it out today?

Because Dean didn't blackmail them until later.

See, Dean's blackmailing was you guys, the Justice Department, covering this up.

Oh.

And you better give me a name or I'm gonna tell.

And that didn't work?

It didn't work because they were trapped and they passed the buck to you.

And you did the courageous thing and said... Wasn't that the right thing to do?

Absolutely.

I didn't ask you, you know, I just...

I thought probably it was right or wrong not to ask you about it.

No.

It was exactly the right thing to do.

You remember you phoned me afterward and I said then that I thought it was precisely the right thing to do and I still do.

Not that I have to see my name in the newspapers, but I think I'm bound to the only thing you could do then.

I guess you're not in any position to call all the people telling them I'm poison.

They won't return my calls.

I think you might.

Sorry.

No problem.

I know.

They'll come to the end.

They will come to the end, you know.

And they'll be working the other way.

I don't know whether it should be a case of my getting into any kind of a, I don't want to get an apologetic position with Hillary Richardson.

Well, then he'd come to you, and take a raise, and then you'd say, look, I'd be happy to even mention that to him.

Yeah, because if I fall, it looks like maybe that I'm fixing up a little story, especially because it's around the same time as Dr. Krogh.

Because Krogh's story is, Krogh told him,

How would Crowe have known that I informed Clint East?

I told you.

So Crowe tells Richardson that he believes that your first real knowledge that it wasn't known on the coast was when Clint East came over.

I'm trying to let you assume that the Justice Department kept everybody informed.

That's what Crowe told him.

Krogh didn't find that I, he, Krogh did not, I trust did not indicate to Richardson, because you and I agree that he shouldn't, that I didn't know before, no, no, that he, that he came to me and I told him, Richardson volunteered that, and he came right back and said, well, Dean told him not to be involved.

And I just said, oh.

Well, what I will say is that I, I, I asked you what, what about this, and you said it was in the hands of the Justice Department.

This person, I have one request.

If anything ever happens to that boy, Crow, and he ends up with a pokey, I don't care whether it's me or Bob or anybody else, but I wish to get him out.

Because he doesn't deserve this.

Let me tell you, I'm trying to have this.

He's too good.

Nothing's going to happen to him next time.

I know how much this office, I mean, I want to do everything I can for this office, but we're getting a bad rap here.

We're getting a bad rap, and I'm going to handle it.

Understand?

Let me say something.

The Mitchell was the toughest university, frankly.

But believe me, I know the others.

I don't know anybody

or any of the rest of us.

But what did the name of the consul look like?

I don't know.

But if it ever happened, it would be the saddest thing that I can think of.

Wonderful man.

What, that he instructed justice by not reporting a crime?

Yeah.

That would be the only thing I could give you.

He said a crime, not to report it on him.

Yeah.

But he would say he did it on the basis of national security.

That's right.

But he could still be convicted, I suppose.

And if he were, well, I'd serve five extra years to get him out.

Give me a point.

I said I'd take five extra years to get him out.

Well, look, you're not going to serve.

But how do you vote?

Do I have that first thought?

Do I have that authority?

I don't know.

Or is that the attorney general?

No.

I think the president's got the authority.

But the point is that he's just too good a guy, and he's too important to this country.

He's an action security investigation officer who's able to do some action security investigation.

Have we ever discussed it?

I've never mentioned it.

I understand.

He's the one guy we care about.

Could you at least tell Crowe so that he knows that maybe he is the one who's regarding this thing?

that uh that uh uh or do you want to say this the dean didn't tell me in march and i told you i think we'll just keep it between the two of us all right and uh because i haven't said anything in one way or the other right and uh but if it comes up

I suppose they're trying to, he is trying to claim that Justice Act is late in getting us to the Helzberg and all that.

That is his claim.

Well, that was his claim.

When he was banking for our identity.

But he knocked that under the rug.

Do you mean?

You don't have to think.

Peterson said, Peterson at the time, that he sent this out to me and said, she said, we, he said, it's being made a mistake.

He said, we think we have, I don't know what he meant.

I didn't know what he meant.

That must be it.

I don't know.

Or he said, we think we have, we think this is a blow to him or something like that because I don't think he expects us to do this since he's a comrade.

And I suppose Peterson could say, sure, we had the information, but there was nothing in it.

But Warren, he may say, we had it, but we thought everybody just watered it and put it into the other case, or, you know, he may say all kinds of things to defend himself.

What does that mean?

Well, he may say that, but that's true.

That'd be a little hard, wouldn't it?

I would say so.

It's Ellsberg's office.

He could just say that it was information that was not related to the thing, because, as I said,

We had a long conversation with him that night.

He seemed to be so relieved when I told him.

Remember, you know, we did discuss it.

You were there.

I said, there was a bones operation.

I said, they investigated a lot of, you know, but that was a long time ago.

And I said, and I said, investigate.

He said, did any of them go to the prosecution?

And I said, no.

All right, I'm sorry.

I think I look over to you, sir.

No, I asked you this, I think, well, I'm not sure you did.

I think we talked about it ahead of time.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I don't think I should talk to Peterson, do you?

No, sir.

I don't think I should talk to anybody.

Is that why you're going to keep him, huh?

I don't think he can.

It's too bad.

I guess.

What do you think?

I'm going to go out to Arkansas and find a place where they are.

But I hate that, but you think he just thought he was...

really one of us with the right thing working out.

I have always suspected that he had a vested interest in this case.

Did he walk close, perhaps, to the favor of Dean?

Favor Dean?

No.

Until Dean began to get rough with him, did he overreach?

Did Dean overreach?

No.

Or Dean could have done it again?

I don't think he may have done it again.

Do you have any influence with Howard Baker?

I hope we can keep that from happening.

That would be a travesty if I can't get him out.

It's a travesty.

They don't need his testimony.

They'll get all the truth.

Yeah.

It's taken way down deep until I agree she's convicted.

And then caught.

That is what you intended, sir.

What did you want?

I don't know.

They're not going to start burying you for nothing for two months.

That's an issue.

I see what you're trying to do.

Remember, we wanted to not get it.