Conversation 913-003

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Well, they're working on a strategy on that.

This is how to deal with it.

I think that's the place where we're going to have to fight it.

Oh, I think maybe so, yeah.

I mean, we can't let Dean with immunity go up and throw his case in.

I mean, just smear the shit out of him.

Well, the amount of smear...

I've got the little bastard pretty well nailed.

I'm getting ready to go meet privately, you know, with too many people.

Jesus, this is material that we got from him.

There's absolutely no question.

Incidentally, you know, we were talking about the fact that Bob had said we'd come in and so forth, and Bob and Allison, just to fuzz out a little bit, because he said he could have dropped in one time.

Just play that, don't play anything, and don't say that he undergained.

All that I know is that he was only in maybe twice in the whole period.

That's something I wouldn't be aware of anyway.

What do you mean you got him on?

Well, first of all, I'm not going to get into any of that with these guys.

They just want to know how I got my guidance and so forth.

Time after time, even in the March, we held total confidence in the guy.

He was the counsel, and he was advising us throughout not to infringe on the judicial process.

And I just, I am remembering that on the 26th of March, when we expressed confidence in him in terms of the McCord letter, I had mentioned to Dick Moore, I said, I sure hope that John Dean is telling the truth.

You know, well...

And then Jared recalled in April, when he started talking to him, that his confidence had dropped substantially.

You know, his voice was quivering and so forth.

And we stopped getting guidance from him at about that time.

Well, that was during the process of your investigations.

That was during the process when I had the position.

That's right.

But there's no question about the fact that the guy, throughout the period, left every impression and everything he said that he was conducting an investigation.

Also, there's, I suppose you have the number of people that FBI interviews he had, and he had a number that FBI didn't, you know, point out that he said it.

Well, but we didn't know that until the story broke, and at that time we checked him.

And he said, yes, I sent in a request.

That's right.

He sent in a request, and he had access to how many FBI records.

He's got that, too, as well.

Uh...

Well, yeah, Dick and I have chatted too.

Dick was involved in all of the guy's stuff, and the guy, it's an incredible thing.

Now there's, I've got to trust Bob and John, and I do.

And it means that this guy just got himself in over his head and started running down the wrong pipe.

Yes, you see, I gave you my answers at my Q&A meeting there.

No, I wasn't.

I went that way.

I was going to say my answers.

I'm very bad at what I say.

I'm a dick.

It really is a terrible thing that this son of a bitch can go down there and tear a pair of presidencies off the president, you know, in terms of, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, I was thinking, for example, and that was a pretty rough one, I mean, that cover on time, you know, how much did the president know?

Right.

What do they base their story on?

A nine-figure story.

Proxima, you know, took all the press today.

What did he say?

He said he's never seen such a rash and pure sin.

Unfairness demonstrated in the public press.

Why?

A lot of people may begin to develop that point of view.

You see, I just didn't try to review for this.

This is a minor event.

I can certainly see, you just mentioned right now, that he may have been in here a couple times.

I, Mr. President, is of all you have to do, of the many issues you have to do, I mean, the press secretary is simply on the edge of it and, you know, deals with the issues.

In trying to recap my mind over the period of October, November, October, November, December, what we were talking about, what you were talking about was the illegal war in Vietnam.

The acceptance speech, all of the war itself, the contact of the war, the POW promise, all those things.

I don't even recall, and I spent the afternoon trying to rack my brain to determine, even to recall the guidance sessions that we had.

And there were few of them because we were operating on a basic framework.

I could certainly see where this guy could come in during the course of the day

busy day, mention something to you.

Take it out of context and let it go right by you if you didn't have in your mind the perspective of what he was talking about, you see.

Which is, see, what could have happened?

He said he might have come in.

He said he might have come in when all of the security was at the end of the day.

We could only have very briefed what we hear.

We should have those logs there because I don't want to rely on them.

And Bob doesn't remember.

I can understand that.

But I had come in and said, well, I'm the son of the minister.

And I said, well, good.

Thank God that's good.

And the other thing is, I've seen you time and time again.

The many people come into your office, you say, well, Harry, Bob tells me, or John tells me, or Larry, you're doing a great job today.

What does that mean?

Does that mean that you are associating yourself with everything that God has given you?

In my little tiny, insignificant world.

Bob told me that John took me when I saw him in, you know, September and late February.

He said, John, you have to be a little weird, so you really ought to thank him for it.

And I didn't.

I didn't.

I didn't know what in the Christ he had been doing.

You know, I'm just saying, this thing is almost...

get to the point, it's just so insignificant.

I'm about ready to say we just stop talking about it and move on.

Well, I don't need to move on.

The point is, the day John Dean goes before a Senate committee and starts blasting the President of the United States is when I'm going to

Well, I don't know.

This thing is getting to the point now where we have to develop a strategy on the committee, but it also is getting almost silly.

It really is.

It's just getting to a point that...

But you don't think it's time for another presidential speech?

Absolutely not.

I don't think we should give another speech on this.

No, no.

Well, I mean, I don't mean that I'm not going to be glad with John Dean.

When he starts slashing, he makes a speech.

I can't go out and answer.

No.

I think somebody has got to take him on.

Somebody that they have senators or I don't know.

See, that's our problem.

We don't have anybody to be...

So we'll work something out.

There's a way to do it.

We'll work it out.

We don't seem to work it out too well so far, anyway.

Well, we're not doing too badly.

Indeed.

I think he's a little afraid of the edges, but I don't know.

I don't see most people are really playing him up.

He's a great hero.

We'll play him up a little bit more.

Shoot him down.

What the hell, I thought we were getting everything out.

Dick Moore remembered too that I was the one that told him on the 10th of March, I said that I wanted Dick to get the, after Ehrman, Ehrman talked to me about it and told Moore and the president wanted to let it all hang out.

Yeah, well, the 10th of March, you know, my position.

I mean, I'm not trying to contain anything.

I said that's—you've got to let it hang out.

But you were— That was insistent all the time.

Who was insistent on a goddamn subreddit report?

I don't know why they didn't.

Get out.

Why don't all of them do it?

Excuse me.

What did I say?

Well, but, too, at that time, what you were talking about getting out was certainly not the scope of things that people are talking about now.

They weren't.

I wasn't aware of the goddamn, of the goddamn, my business, Trevor.

Unfortunate though, I'm afraid.

Bob and John, whatever.

On the money, not a check.

I don't think they intended.

You understand, there's the key line.

I don't think that Bob, when he turned over the 350, intended it to be hush money.

Right.

I just said it's for the committee, you know, they need it for the and so forth and so on.

And I don't think that earlier, when he approved the calls to the Compact, he intended that it be hush money.

I'm sure of that.

The purpose was to allow Compact to raise money for this.

When I saw Tom Pattinson here in March, I said, thank you for his help, you know, to let, to the help he was given.

John Mitchell, I just thought he was helping John Mitchell with his funds, you know.

But you're his own, I suppose.

You know, the time of, but I don't, we've told, I've already told the New York Times, the time that you made the comment in your press conference, Mr. President, that, about the Kennedy complicity with the,

overthrow and murder of DM.

You did not base that on that cable.

You based that on the information that you had been aware of.

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

I didn't even know about that.

No, but I'm just thinking, did Coulson or someone... Never, never, never, never, never, never, no.

No, I was basing that, I do want the real truth, I was basing it on the book that I had read by the Herald Review reporter.

My reading was

They want to bring both ends of their necks.

I read it.

It's another book that I've read at the time.

Oh, and the other one is Kennedy's, and another book, this, that book, Kennedy's Third Clause, Made with Snakes, and all that.

Did that mention that?

Oh, yes.

It said that.

Good.

Oh, Christ, I...

I didn't even know about this conduct.

No, I thought you might have been sinned back then by someone.

No, sir.

Was that person on respect?

It was supposed to be.

Or around that period of time.

Did I use the term that Kennedy complicity?

Kennedy complicity in the overthrow and murder.

That's right.

The murder was the result of the overthrows.

Well, everybody had it.

Nobody questioned it.

No, of course not.

No.

He pulled the plug on it.

But it had nothing to do with that pandemic, that Coulson thing of Coulson's.

He said he just told him to improve the wires.

Oh, Christ, he's looking like a goddamn fool.

Yeah, he is.

But what's he going to say?

He'll make a lot of other stories.

I think Hunt probably did whatever he did quite willingly, but had Coulson made it clear what he probably did.

What's your guess?

I think my guess is that Coulson put in the fake one.

Yeah, I do.

Oh, God.

But you can't call fake wire romance.

Well, that's something we talked about before.

Right.

An awful lot was done over there.

Please, God, though, I'd rather be sure you got across from me.

I had no goddamn knowledge, whatever, and I didn't even have, you know... Let's take things then.

Just rather than throwing it on the books...

If you want to do that, those are the two books that cover it very well.

Just take all of my study of the situation.

That is the first time I've said that.

I said that during, in 1960, before the 1968 campaign.

I made that charge.

I said that.

The greatest mistake, there was a speech that I made in 1967, 1966 and 67.

My speech was in 1966 and 67.

Were you referred to the murder?

Overthrow a landmine.

That's right.

Good.

I think you can find it over there.

That's right.

It's not that important.

No, it's not that important.

No, sir.

I said that that was not new.

It's not new.

I refer to that.

Based on that, you could say books by Marguerite Haynes.

If you want to read, you know, it's one of the classics.

They sure were.

You see, the point was, it's the complexity of the overthrow, you see, and then the murder fall.

Sure.

That's what it was, the overthrow, then.

Well, this thing is starting to sort itself out.

I can feel it.

We've got to see what his papers show.

That's the next big thing, I guess.

The damn documents he's got.

Everybody seems to have documents.

What they'll be, though, are his metacons.

They might be.

You think that's manageable, those metacons?

Sure.

Why?

Just because of the direction he's taking now.

They can be proven as totally self-serving.

You can make them sound very, you know, he uses quite a bit of language like keep the lid on and things like that, which makes it sound as if it's right under the harshest mountain.

Probably was never said.

And that's the point that can be made.

People believe you much more than they'll believe a council that precedes the president.

But Jesus, he's getting all the tires.

By the way, I was going to say, though, this is the third day of the fight.

That's right.

You're still going to fight, aren't you?

I'm going to stay full of fight.

I'm getting full of fight every day, particularly after I just reviewed my notes.

Are you going to go over to the Senate committee, guys?

Well, very privately.

Stay here and see.

Do you know the words?

Be sure to use it on your cross-examination.

So did you never have a reading of the notes?

Or did you have some questions?

The point of it is that in reviewing the notes, June, a couple days in question, July, August, September, nothing on what it means.

October, there was a segreting matter.

Then into the election.

November, December, January, nothing on Watergate.

No questions.

I mean, there were a few questions, but it was, you know, it was like, you know, it's being handled in judicial process and all this kind of thing.

But on Dean, though, you haven't had that much.

But Dean, though, the vote that it made was... Oh, sure we did.

You still got games.

Well, we didn't have them.

meetings with him even, the theme and the feeling and the tone that was projected was that he had conducted an investigation.

And he refers to the investigation, for example, to Jerry.

You don't have to comment on that.

The Dean investigation shows that no one in the White House was involved.

You've got to, what do you have to prove that sort of thing?

You just borrow recollection.

Borrow recollection and Jerry's oral recollection.

You don't have any pieces of paper over there.

Well, he has some notes, you know, that he typed up.

Good luck.

Good luck with this.

It's a matter that is so clear-cut.

So clear-cut.

Well, I think we've got to keep him, though, from going first out there and sparing everybody.

It just is incredible that they would even consider this.

They have that, but the rights...

Well, leading out the presence of Christ and so on, which they ought to be doing first of all, but how do they have a guy go up there and blast off when he's going to affect them?

When the grand jury is still conducting its goddamn hearings, they've all been gone.

Apparently, Mitch, I figured, looked at Christ and didn't come to him.

There must be a, some strategy here.

Ron, uh, Ron, uh, uh, uh, Al was greatly concerned about our basement, the wrong way down, and he said he, you know, he went too far in that statement.

And in the light of Dave's comments over the weekend, he said we're moving there again.

And, of course, everybody had to give some of that.

But...

I don't know what's happening.

And because of the fine being, if he says that he takes work from women, now we're conscious that we consider a conversation with the president regarding legal activities of privilege.

And I don't, do you sense that as much as he does?

Well, that seems to be a moment of contention that the press are riding on.

Well, we can give some of that.

But we cannot let them get into presidential papers.

Never.

Conversations, I don't give a damn.

We've broken up virtually everything else.

You'd have anarchy if they got under president too quick.

They can't get under president too quick.

You'd have to be in the constitutional government.

The president should never run.

You can't do it.

Never.

But conversation was the president.

Keep in conversation with the president.

How can you conduct this?

You didn't feel that, for example, me as a staff man, I could come in here and talk to you in the sanctity of the Oval Office, and you could explain and discuss?

I think what we could do is to loosen it up in terms of any kind of change.

Give me conversation with the president.

Why don't you loosen that up?

Or you could say conversations with the staff.

It's a criminal activity.

No, I mean, you can't.

Just don't let them get to you.

We're going to work out a strategy here, as I already told you.

And I'll work with him on tomorrow.

But we've got to have a strategy here to where... Where... Hustler moving into a point I'd say we'd be there maybe in about... Four or five days where he'll show his hand far enough where we can... Give some very real consideration to some very constructive leaking.

Well, just how it happened, what, you know, his position was inside of the White House.

His destruction was going to be, you know, like you guys said, he did it.

We've got the problem of whether or not he subordinated or didn't.

I was coming, the more and more that I think of this, I think about it, and I'll have to say that my view has wavered here a little bit.

I've questioned, as much as I've liked Bob and John, some of their judgments in this.

But I've got a feeling here that the real,

snake in the woods, this old Johnny Dean, and if you look back over his record, and I suppose if you look at it as an individual now, knowing about all of this, the fact that he didn't flag the person, how many times have you said something and you say it to be flagged on it, or you say it to a staff man who has any guts about him at all, and I've heard you say this over and over, to say it.

But if that happens, this will take place over and over again.

He didn't do that.

In the course of this investigation,

Well, I will be staying at this guy's bar now.

Okay, you'll be fine.

Okay, sir.