On May 15, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Henry E. Petersen, and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 9:59 am to 10:45 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 918-014 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
President.
Oh, President, how are you?
How are you?
Mariner, how are you?
Yeah.
Nice to see you, sir.
How you doing?
Well, I just got to tell you, there's not been a lot of traffic coming on.
The leader's meeting is half-overweight.
Count it, sir.
I was going to tell you two or three things which I sure need to go without saying.
I didn't want you to feel it.
First, it's bizarre.
brought him over, and I understand that you know him, and I want you to know I have total confidence in him, and I hope you have.
I don't mean to be dumb, but don't worry about it, you know what I mean?
I don't want any situation to involve me in like we did with John Dean, you know, and I just want you to know that if you ever have a feeling, know that there's any, you're, you're, you're working bizarrely to the extent that you feel that it's perfectly appropriate.
Do you know him well?
No, I don't know him well.
He does some character things.
I don't think he's done that for so many years.
We're in defense.
I'll take him to him, and that's probably what I'll do.
He seemed to be a pretty confident guy with particular expertise in the area of, you know, the relations with the, you know, confidential documents and all that crap and so forth and so on.
So I thought that we'd just put him in full time, I think, so that he could work with the department and so forth.
But, uh, it's your call, and I want to make sure you understand that.
I don't want to hanky-panky it.
I never have any thought that there's something going on, but, guys, let me know.
I'm not going to be misled again.
Second point is that, with all this hullabaloo about the special prosecutors, I've told you that I'm going to make the broadcast, and I want to make sure that we can.
It's with great regret, frankly, in a personal sense, that I had to do that.
Uh, I, I, I feel, I, I, uh, I told, uh, I told Richard.
And, uh...
It is, under no circumstances, an inflection.
As a matter of fact, I think it's a hell of a bad idea.
I think it's going to slow down.
I mean, just talking between us, I think it's going to slow down the process.
It's going to get an extra guy in.
It's not an idea I like either, Mr. President, but it's an idea I think that we've both been forced to.
We were all hesitant.
We were talking about the dot-com thing the first time you came over, remember, on April 15th.
You know, on Sunday night, the client issues said no special prosecutor.
Oh, he talked about special prosecutors.
Yes, my agent did, but you didn't think much of it.
I'm sure you remember.
And I thought it was a lousy idea.
I still regret it, but I feel now that it's necessary.
It's necessary.
We're talking about confidence.
In order to do the confidence.
Now, on the other hand, I think as far as the confidence factor is concerned, Henry,
The important thing is here that you folks are doing one hell of a job now.
I mean, my God, we're serving you up, the heads of the White House people over there, the right-hand line.
I mean, you have no problem on that.
Everybody's cooperating.
We have lots of problems.
There's no sense of accomplishment, no pleasure in the job, Mr. President.
I know.
When I say certain amount, my point is there was never any feeling, there was never any feeling of non-cooperation as there may have been in the dream, the name dream.
And I'm not blaming him.
He may have thought he was wrong, but you know what I mean?
If there was any feeling of that, there is none feeling like that.
Rockwell's House is cooperating.
Everybody is giving you the coding cooperation
I don't know who L.A. was, but I'm deliberately straight out of the pub.
You know, this is all a pilot.
Yes, I know him.
Is he a good man?
Well, I think probably Miles Ambrose knows him as well as anybody.
They're very good friends.
My relationship with him has just been...
He's trying to get his own mind.
He's an experienced guy.
His own mind is not to come in and cram the whole thing.
You just get a voice in there so that the public will know there's an independent voice.
other than what we already had.
That's right.
That's right.
And the crisis is coming along at the moment.
They're unexpected and they feel like they need some guidance or direction on.
And you go to the special attorney because basically you've got your own U.S. attorney's teams that are steeped in this damn thing.
That's right.
If you jerk them out of the case, it would take them months for them to get onto the case.
Correct.
And the big decisions really are going to be not the affirmative ones, but the negative ones.
Yeah.
You're not going to prosecute X. Oh, well, that's right.
They'll say, why didn't you write this off?
That's right.
No, that's right.
The people do not indict rather than do it.
That's right.
First after you indict them, of course, people won't even care about it.
Well, it's a really terrible thing, because the first, Dave Bergman, is a very personal one, a very soul-searching one, and a very professional one.
Obviously, you have to make that.
But if that turns out to be negative, it's going to take an awful lot of confidence of the public and the person who makes that decision for it to make sense.
It looks like an unvirtuous prosecutor.
You would hope he'll get on the job before you have to make that decision?
Yes, sir.
That doesn't look like, uh, like your parents want to have a rivet at your street.
You don't expect to get to that for the first time on that thing, right?
Well, I don't see how we can't.
Yes, you really can't.
That's right.
It's just a very insufficient way to conduct an arraignment.
Well, you know, it's really a shame after all your years of service that, uh, that you have to go through this anger.
At first, uh, I didn't see you guys.
Well, no, sure, it's been a little rough, but I'll survive it.
That's our job.
And we just do the very best job we can.
We make the space.
We just hope that Christ will survive it.
You're going to survive it.
And you've got the best damn job you can.
People say, well, why did you do this?
Why did you do that?
Well, that was the decision we made at the time.
And that's the decision I made at the time.
People say, why the hell were they ever named Mitchell?
Why didn't he stand?
Why didn't they call him?
Why didn't they pick her up?
I don't understand.
Even, by the way, they came and said, who is involved at all?
Well, the point is that the man in charge has got to make decisions.
And sometimes there will be ones that are not that funny.
Sometimes they prove to be ones that are pretty good.
And sometimes he gets a bad rap on them.
That's true.
But I don't want you to get a bad rap.
I want you to know that I have told Richardson very strongly this.
I feel it very, very strongly.
But I want you to know that as I have looked over this whole deplorable mess that, you know, all the things that have happened, I mean, the well-intentioned people making the mistakes that come running, that your role has been one of trying your damn best to get the thing running wall after wall after wall.
And I think that's a proper description of it.
I go over and over.
The only thing I regret, you know, that I didn't have balls enough to be able to use the expression to come up and bang on your door earlier in the game.
When?
Like what?
Oh, well, I think that was early in July, you know.
You see, the President has put him in jail.
It was instinctive.
It was instinctive.
It was based on experience.
It was a goddamn bit of evidence.
And you can't walk up to the President of the United States and say, hey, look, this is what I feel, my gut.
Well, we thought we were doing it because we were telling Dean.
We were telling Dean Glenn.
He never mentioned it.
Well, now we know why.
He says he didn't conduct an investigation.
Well, now we know why.
Bullshit.
Who the hell was he talking to?
You know what I mean?
Who was he talking to about Henry?
Well, that's right.
I mean, he was alone.
Why did he sit in on all these things and so forth?
Well, I don't blame him.
My point is that, you know, that thing in the door, he did great.
Greatest credit of mine.
It was interesting.
I saw the paper where he called me.
It's not true, but I called him.
That's right.
I am right about that.
I congratulated her.
And he said, you know, Mr. President, I think that Ms. Van Watergate and some people around here, your staff,
you know, they're getting at the bottom, I don't know what word to use.
I said, and he has so now, I guess, mindset, and I responded, I said, take it as high as it goes.
That's what he was told.
And Grace, and Grace says he did.
And I think he did.
Or what happened?
He got blocked with him, too.
I'm just curious as to how you look at that, as to what the hell happened.
Greg's an honest man.
I don't think Greg would ever try to do something.
The CIA, I know.
Lawyers, I've known for years, have known.
They said, no CIA involved, and they got them out.
But Greg, Greg conducted all these interviews, but how could that have been a whole bunch of things?
What was it?
Weren't they asking the right questions?
Well, I think there was, you can't control
the bureaucracy at that level.
They've been out through all of those agencies.
You know, they all, they claim, oh, we used to go to this long regular on the last, even the latest March, February, February before we had our, March before we had our critical meeting on April 15th.
Long rule on how many.
He conducted 4,000 interviews and all that sort of thing.
So long.
He conducted the interviews, but...
It's hard to put your finger on, even looking back, Mr. President.
The agents, I think they asked the question.
No pulling punches there, I don't believe.
You see, especially exemplified by my Gruder story.
If we had been at the door, we would have gotten at it.
But we'll survive.
We'll get over it.
The main thing now, once these things happen, Henry, is to get to the bottom of the son of a gun and clean it up.
And I wanted to tell you that I was appreciative of the fact that I remember that day that you and Dick gave over.
And then suddenly after that, you told me that, oh, it took me two weeks, but it was pretty hard.
And you cut off one arm and cut off the other.
And I thought, well, is there anything we can do?
But you were right.
You were right.
Well, I thank you so much, you know, because it's great to stress to me to see what we're doing.
And obviously, I stress to you, but, you know, I think we have to do it.
Sure, because justice is never considered.
One point I wanted to ask you about is one thing.
You know, thank God we got that thing off the burn, you know.
Yes, but let me ask you as a matter of law.
You remember when I called you from Camp David at the time on the 17th or 18th, and I said, look, you couldn't have tied down anything on Watergate, but National Security, because he was involved in the, I didn't know about this, crazy break-in or whatever it was.
I said, he was doing work for the National Security Area.
He said, that's correct.
And that's a good judgment.
But my point was, then when you found this business about the psychiatrist thing, how the hell did you find that?
Was that from a picture in a camera or something?
No, sir.
Or does that happen?
If we go back, in October of 1972,
Um, we were just at the point where I said, when I called you, I didn't have any idea about it.
That's crazy.
Until you and Nick walked in that day on that Sunday.
Again, that Sunday was...
In October 1972, we had some questions to put to the CIA because we were dissatisfied.
First of all, we anticipated that the defense was going to defend on the grounds that this was all a CIA operation and we had to be prepared.
Yes, especially the Cubans.
Yes, sir.
And we were trying to prepare for that in the anticipation of trial, and we were dissatisfied with some of the answers the CIA had given, and we had them over there, Larry Houston and what have you.
And they gave us some documents which had indicated the contacts with CIA, and that they had furnished identification and camera and what have you.
But I'm sorry.
That's right, they furnished that much earlier.
That's right, but they furnished this identity and these were the identities that they had used and of course that was a material factor.
We were considering putting that on the case in chief because we could prove it directly with two witnesses, whereas we had to go through the roundabout way and prove where they'd been and the identities they'd used in their handwriting would take us 17 witnesses.
CIA didn't want to go on the case in chief.
That their role could be undisclosed.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, they furnished us with some stuff.
For example, I have talked to Walters myself.
They were trying to get, of all things, I can believe this, that thing was trying to get the CIA to put these mad people on their payroll to pick up their expenses.
That's so goddamn crazy.
I agree.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
When they furnished this, they furnished him a camera.
And then he had come back and asked them to develop some of the pictures that they had taken.
Well, one of the pictures, a couple of the pictures they furnished him to us, and we didn't know what to make of them.
There was a picture of a room, a chair, a wall, and the outside of a parking lot.
Yes.
But they didn't know what happened.
It was in October.
And they didn't know what they were either.
So we sat down and we looked at them.
And there's a picture of Liddy in front of a parking lot.
And neither we, nor the prosecutors knew what they were, to make any sense to us.
No description, no identifying information in the CIA information.
So we sat there with it.
Now, when Dean told us about the break-in on April 15th, about the burglary, Dean told us about the burglary.
It's not the first burglary we heard about.
Dean told us about it.
Why didn't he tell me about it?
I don't know.
Thought he had it.
That's the way I interpret it.
You're saying to me that I know about that.
I thought he had told you.
Oh, yes, he did, because he saw me after that.
When I talked to a lady, and I said, yes, Dickie,
Dean told me, he said, I saw Dean after I saw you and finally... That's right, that's right.
And that's what I told you.
Yes, yes, yes, hold that.
Yes, of course.
How did you know about the breaking, though?
I don't know.
That's the first thing I heard.
That's the first thing you heard about it.
And then...
I was telling you that he might have told me earlier, I mean,
The earliest he could possibly have told me would have been on the 1st of April, if I had been in the March, but I didn't know.
I thought to myself, what the Christ was all about.
Go ahead.
Well, so we still didn't know.
We didn't even know whether there was any validity to it or not.
And we started the investigation.
When we made the disclosure of Judge Byrne, we, of course, started the investigation.
We had no information of the psychiatric nature in our file.
There was one interview with a psychiatrist.
Well, when we determined what that psychiatrist's name was,
Then we went back to the food bridge.
And see, I didn't have the Oldsburg case at the time.
It was internal security, and I didn't know anything about it.
That's right.
Actually, there was really no delay then.
That's right.
There was no delay.
That's right.
Because I remember the instant that you and Pundit brought over to me, I said, fire over.
So what?
So when we went back and started to run the investigation to determine whether or not we had any of the product of the illegal entry, that's when we came up with the information.
I trust that I was not in any way, when I talked to you in the 18th, trying to indicate to you, don't talk to me about that right here.
That wasn't what I was talking about at all.
You know, Helly had asked me about that, and I said, you know, and I said, well, I said, he was mad, I didn't cross-examine him, and I'm very good at cross-examining presidents, and I guess I'm not.
I see, Helly had asked you.
Yeah.
But, uh... No, but I just wanted to be sure that you understand.
What I was mad about was something else, you know, on the point.
But I just wanted you to understand, my God.
I was probably, Mr. President, I was mad, too, because of that, and so on.
But I was, uh, but I was, uh...
That was the farthest thing from my mind.
I didn't have the slightest idea what the damn thing was all about.
Well, I'm sorry the Oldsburg case got dismissed.
We still could have beaten it.
The case was untamed.
but it would have really you know what you see you remember the reason that i the reason when i started in 18 to 17 when i said hunk was involved he did work for for you know in the in the so-called national security area he did and that's the body was here
And the national security area, I said, was in my view not appropriate, was not what the Watergate was about.
But now, therefore, should not be done.
But did you remember, you asked a question.
You said, was any of the evidence obtained from this office operation?
That's what I described it as, I think.
Well, as a matter of fact, the Ellsberg case as a matter of law was not her.
But you see, we didn't get the opportunity to prove it.
And the burden that would have been on us to prove that every item of information we could obtain came from an independent source and didn't stem in any way from that burglary.
But Byrne got upset with us when we couldn't find the records.
I guess he assumed we were holding back and he just threw us out.
You mean not the records of the, you mean the second sentence, the records of this FBI study?
That's right.
Which was, as you know, which was something that occurred long before, totally illegal, and investigated, not at Ellsberg, but at Halpern, a member of the NSC stand.
Well, I just wanted to have you to have your own minds up for the rest of the night.
First thing in my mind when I saw you on the 17th was the Ellsberg case.
I mean, I wasn't even a damn bit concerned about that.
My sole interest then was
not to get witnesses before the Watergate Committee questioned on national security operations, which is my responsibility.
I mean, that is the thing.
I hope that you understood it that way.
Well, I think that's right, but I think we're into that area in any event as a result of development since then.
I mean, this press release that Purple's House had yesterday
The fact that these records were in early, let's say, Sullivan State Library, you know, it's... Well, I understand that, and I understand now you've got a letter.
I understand now.
But I just wanted to...
I just don't want you to be under any illusions.
I, as of that time, was trying to keep it frank, and I was trying to get the goddamn facts.
And to find anything together.
Well, as you remember, I told you...
I had called you Sunday with regard to getting a hold of, what's his name, the lady's lawyer, you know?
Yes, Burroughs.
That's right.
Didn't do any good on that.
No, sir.
Now, where does that lead?
I'll have to conduct an investigation of that.
Thanks.
Hunt, Ellsberg, the, uh, well, but that will probably be done at, uh, that has to be done in Los Angeles, I guess.
Well, we're not good with, uh, You can't do that at this time.
No, we're not doing that, but the local district attorney out there is, uh, is investigating with respect to the burglary.
Um, in our grand jury, Not the federal district.
The local district attorney, Bush, the district attorney of Los Angeles.
Oh, I see.
In our grand jury, we're going into that only to determine the origins of trying to determine the origins of the Watergate escapade.
That's right.
But the Senate committee, I'm certain, is going to go in on a much broader basis.
If you've been able to get Huns to talk much, you know, not much.
Well, Huns talk.
I don't care about the grand jury, but I meant the, it would seem to me that he doesn't have a damn incentive not to tell everything he knows, because basically he's not going to, you know, it's, but I don't know.
I've never met the man.
They tell me he's very intelligent.
I'm sure he is, but he's talking.
Basically, they're all talking now except for Liddy.
Liddy doesn't talk.
Liddy doesn't talk.
And they can get it on before they, uh, come any other way?
Oh, yes.
Yes, they've already applied to, uh, give immunity to all of those people.
And of course, you know, they have as much authority in that area as we do.
Sure.
It's a very useful community, from what I've heard.
Pardon?
They talk about a very useful community in some ways.
Is that right?
It's only as far as any of these things they themselves say that they would be completely independent.
That's correct, Mr. President.
But that's a distinction, really, without a difference.
That distinction at first was enunciated by Justice White in the case of Murphy v. Waterfront.
He was drawn to the distinction between sovereigns, so the federal government is a sovereign, the state is a sovereign, and the separateness of the prosecutive functions in each jurisdiction.
Well, there is a great deal of meaning.
It's very important to us to be able to immunize
who may have also committed a state crime without precluding the local prosecutor from prosecuting him for a state violation, assuming evidence has independently arrived at it.
But it becomes a much more difficult problem when you're in the same jurisdiction, in the federal jurisdiction, whether you be in the Congress or an executive branch.
Now, if you anticipate the Congress granting ex-immunity, and it's in a televised hearing all over the front page, then the prosecution tried to establish, beyond a reasonable doubt, that its evidence for overlapping was independently arrived at.
It's a tremendous... Why didn't Dean accept it?
I don't know.
It's a curious thing.
Well, of course, we have not agreed, so far as Dean is concerned, so...
with respect to immunity by the committee.
Not yet.
Well, we could only hold them up for... We could go Friday or so, and you said forget it.
We could only hold them up for 30 days, and after that, why...
Remember, we talked about that, and I said as soon as you got on that trail, you said Friday, and we'd go Friday.
But that's right, that's your problem.
That's something you'll have to decide yourself.
see what you can produce but uh maybe you can produce it out of other people but you won't have to and that's your little problem isn't it that's what we're trying oh yes sir and god darn it's a long long trip well when you get through you can write a book only one thing i would appreciate if you would be sure to assure if you get if you believe that you can be sure
I'm sure anybody concerned, Elliot in particular, because it was certainly not intended, that I had not intended, in any way to keep you from questioning us about the L-Cert.
As a matter of fact, no one brought that thing in.
I said send it out to the NAM prosecutor.
I was not trying to stop that.
My concern was getting the national security investigation in
Mr. President, I thought, oh, Mr. Ziegler, you know, it's not a question of how the debate goes and what position people take.
It's how the decision comes out.
You know, that's the reason we have lawyer-client relationships, and that's the reason we have executive privilege.
And, uh, the ultimate decision was the right one.
Yeah.
But in the end, obviously, as a student, I want my own people.
They've got to have confidence.
The president may make mistakes, but he doesn't do it for the purpose of obstructing justice for Christ's sake.
No, I understand.
No, he does not.
But I told you that tonight.
I don't know why I was so distrustful of my cousin.
I mean, I had to answer.
You know what I mean?
What you can't do.
I was a little irritated about something.
Oh, something I'd seen on paper.
You know how it is.
I told him to do it.
He kept it.
And I said, now for God's sake, don't.
And I said, I remember to this day, I said, you can question about anything you want about the goddamn Watergate, but not about national security.
But, now I'm questioning about that.
But, it's not going to relate to Watergate.
The committee that investigated could get a voice from the National Security and let him do it.
I'd like to see what the hell he knows.
I'd like to see, I don't know whether the son of a bitch did any good while he was here.
Now, I'm glad we're here all this time, Henry, and I have never said, I've never heard since then, that they ever stopped a leak.
You know what I mean?
I think we did, actually, well, we did well.
Had we just indicated that Halbert was let go for whatever reason, so Hopper was let go because of police.
We did catch him, but we were just saving his face.
And one other, we also let go for that.
So we did get two, just think of two people right when they hit the security office, had to be caught.
And that, damn it, that is a justifiable thing to do.
I don't have any problem with that at all.
I don't have any problem with that at all.
The problem is the way it was done.
If you had decided to run leaks, I'd prefer it be done with the FBI, but even though it was done by somebody else.
But the problem was the disappearance of the records and pulling the records out of the FBI.
and bring them over here.
And we were under the assumption that were destroyed undermines the validity of the base break.
The truth about that is, so that we well understand it, is that we likely didn't go over here.
Sullivan brought those damn records over here.
That was an internal fight within the FBI.
Sullivan brought them over here after some consultation was mentioned because Hoover is
Old age, apparently.
Uh, there was some thought that he was like a huge, you know, talk about ghost.
And I couldn't, couldn't believe it, because I always heard such comments.
Who were they?
Black male, uh, Mitchell.
I mean, I've got Mitchell Sullivan all over here.
What I meant is, what I meant is, I didn't know the goddamn records were here.
Couldn't have carried less, but they weren't destroyed.
You see, that was the assumption of it.
When they couldn't be found, and even the fact that they were hidden and taken out of the FBI, never mind whether you hid them or I thought they hid them, but that's the way it appears, then it undermines the whole basic predicate of just debate, because those things have to be done in government.
What do you think happened to them?
Mr. President, I don't know if there are things that are running this office that, that, uh, square where...
They can't be ran.
They can't be carried.
All the, uh, they can't be had, they can't be mined.
Okay.
I'm sure that's it.
I understand.
I guess it's done, because that's the way Hoover ran it, you know.
Hoover, Hoover did a lot of that, but he didn't like to admit it.
But, uh, oh.
Well, at least we can agree now that you're comfortable with the fact that the thing is going forward full blast, that we are getting the facts, that their indictments will be forthcoming sometime, and that the system of justice, the ability of the administration to investigate itself will finally, finally prove itself.
That's what we have to do here.
Yeah, I'm confident of that phenomenon.
We're going to do it very good, selling that as a proposition.
Not yet.
That's right.
The only thing that's going to stop there are the deeds.
That's right.
You've got to think about it.
You know what I mean?
Please, God hold that up.
I understand what you're saying.
You know what I mean?
It's only when you think it's going to happen that people are going to believe it.
Otherwise, they're going to say, well, for Christ it doesn't matter.
I agree.
And they say, why are they taking so long?
And the reason they're taking so long, apparently, is that you've got a jungle bunch of
Isn't it so difficult in a case like this to get one corroborated?
Particularly when you have a lie piled on a lie, it's like a real problem.
Or people telling the truth and seeing it in a different, clear way.
Well, first of all, we have people who are admitted perjurers.
Second, we have people talking who obviously have something to gain.
which immediately makes them suspect.
And both of those, we have to corroborate them almost beyond chance.
And third, we have the general reluctance of the people who are not yet involved to tell the truth.
And then we have the natural tendency of all of us to put a self-serving cast on all of our statements.
And with all those factors coming to bear, well, you have a very difficult time.
And also it's an intricate kind of bad case.
And you have this destruction of all the documents.
This is like a murder.
Destruction of the documents.
And there's the absence of any real motive.
Motives, that's right.
That's at least an easily understandable motive.
Even motives of the so-called comrade.
What if the crimes were really kind of comrade?
What could they have said?
You know?
What could have gotten into them?
They're all caught.
They're all going to be going to the claim.
Oh, yes, if they could go, then I could cover somebody higher.
Well, that's right.
That's right.
But you can't cover up with that many people involved.
Especially with work.
Well, you can't maybe with a real criminal organization, you know, where jail is part of the business and they don't really fear it.
But with people like us,
You know, when the jail door starts to clang, you know, they just want to know, what can I tell you?
That's right.
Well, also, the whole idea, you know, that if you had it in hand, you know, these guys would have to sit in jail there for four, five, six years and not talk.
Where are you going to get the money?
If you could get the money, how are you going to spend it?
That was the question I asked Dean.
I said, well, but Johnny said, who in the world thinks that can work?
How in the name, how in the hell could you expect Hunt to stay in jail for four years or something like that?
And who else would have been for four years?
I said, no.
Well, I did it.
Thank God, let's get it done right now.
Let's get it done right now.
Frankly, I think some of the poor Cubans in the rest are going to preserve those 20-year churns over.
They left the chief investigator of the urban committee off with a suspended sentence for this damn thing.
Of course, I'm certainly just trying to break the thing, and I assume that he'll
That's another reason why you're invited to sing in here, for once you and I are higher up, then I would think Soroka would be more reasonable than the poor damn Cubans.
That's right.
Would you think so?
Because Jesus Christ, and I feel the higher ups too, you understand, more.
They're my friends.
But basically, I take the Cubans for example.
I don't know at all.
My God, they're just like
That's right.
Engaging in activities that not only did they get a slap in the wrist for, that's right.
That's right.
I was supposed to get better.
But anyway, I wanted to tell you that I will probably not have an opportunity to see you again, because I'll leave the whole thing with Bazaar, and I don't want to have any interference, whatever, with this thing.
I just want you to know that if there's ever anything
If there's any lack of cooperation in this White House, I expect you to come bang on the store.
I will indeed.
You can do it.
I mean, you'll know.
I will.
I may not act quite as fast sometimes as you like, as I do now.
But I think I would do the right thing.
I'm sure you want to do some trying.
We all try.
Everybody tries.
It's a mess on us.
And we'll do our best to cooperate.
And if you find anything over there, I want you to particularly be sure, Elliot, if you will, to the special prosecutor when he gets in here.
And the talks we've had that I have tried to do cooperatively and told you this, and we want to know the goddamn facts.
Because I must say that even that mystery of the business
On Ellsberg, we got it out there as fast as we could.
Yes, sir.
And we got it out of this damn office as quick as we could.
But not as, not particularly where it was.
We didn't know where it was.
Too bad we didn't get it there as soon as something came.
We didn't poison the case, though, because that was the case.
That's right.
That's right.
It was not known to the prosecution, was it?
No, sir.
And why is it ruined?
He just got his ass berated.
That's about the essence of it.
He thought we were deliberately withholding based on admitted governmental misdeeds.
Too bad we couldn't have found the FBI paper every other day earlier.
Well, you see, that would have made a difference if you had gotten that data out there.
Well, we would have had to produce all the stuff on Halpert because Halpert was also a
a member of the defense team.
Oh, in that case?
Yes, sir.
We had to produce all the stuff on Halpern.
Oh.
Well, good.
Produce it.
Well, I mean, you know, we didn't get it there in time.
You have to produce the image.
Oh, no.
We didn't get it until Saturday.
You threw the case out on Friday.
Oh, well, you don't have to now.
That's right.
You can have them.
I don't want them.
Well, we've got a little talk for you.
These are the presidential dumplings.
People who do extraordinarily good things.
Thank you so much.
No, you're right.
She's got to believe in the President.
She does indeed.
We pray for you, sir.
We do indeed.
That was a tough call.
I made me a drug test from this office, and that was the hardest part, but we had to do it.
And we're going to do the right thing here.
Don't be concerned with a single pass.
We're going to get a lot of kickin' around.
But by God, you can be sure that if I move, we'll cooperate every way we can.
We've got to get this out.
system of justice must be vindicated and of course i i think henry i don't know you should not comment on this i think it's going to be a great travesty of justice for the urban command to go forward with those hearings and to drag those out and convict these guys before they ever get before that i don't think johnson i don't think that i do not think that john mitchell can get a fair trial
I agree with that.
But one word from me about that, and it's going to look like I'm trying to cover up.
I know.
You're responsible.
That's right.
That's right.
Elliot can always talk.
The special prosecutor can always talk.
Maybe the special prosecutor can't.
But he ought to.
But let me say it.
I won't say it.
I won't say it.
Because Elliot can't cover up.
Elliot can't say it.
That's the special prosecutor.
If you were, if you had a free hand, you should be saying that.
I wouldn't want to say that.
The council can.
But we're friends, you know, I can say it to you.
Let me tell you, the other four with this shirt, if you watch, they will, they will be talking about poisoning the prosecution.
Let me tell you, they're going to have the damnedest roadshow up there putting these guys on live about each other, talking about each other.
You're right.
You might get a fair crime.
Yes, sir.
At the very least, they're going to get a change of pace.
Well, I'm going to change it after we're in college.
It's all going to be a project.
And the second thing is, they'll get it delayed a year or more.
Ultimately, they may be able to try to keep something middle American.
But, uh...
Thank you, sir.
That's the deal.
I get that.
Finally...
Thank you so much, uh, and be sure you reassure everybody that as far as my call was concerned, it was about the purpose of avoiding the Ellsworth thing.
I understand.
Because I actually had a bit of hope.
It was useless.
And if you brought it in, we got it out there.
I could dream that it could have involved that son of a bitch.
That's who should have got him.
He was guilty himself.
Indeed so.
I regret it.
You know, because I'm used.
Okay.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you.