On May 17, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon and J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House from 8:44 am to 9:36 am. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 921-003 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
They have to go forward and say so.
That's right.
If we don't say anything, and they release them.
Also, that lays a foundation for us to say that they did a very irresponsible act, particularly in view of the fact that nothing happened.
We have to have this approach made in order to establish the irresponsibility to release.
Who are they out there talking to?
They're talking to Signington at 2.30 today.
What are they going to say to him?
They're going to let him read the papers.
They're going to let him see the papers.
Yes.
And they're going to say what?
They're going to point out the sensitivity.
Well, can they point out that it didn't go?
Yes, sir.
I think they should.
Yes, sir.
Can I suggest that?
They will.
They will.
Can I suggest that that's important?
Yes, sir.
I mean, let's just say that they point out that this was a study that was made.
It had been going on back to 67, 68.
It was approved.
And then that approved.
And within two days, the order was rescinded.
He won't.
If we tell him, he won't believe us, Mr. President.
I think we should tell him.
I think we should tell him.
We should be quite candid with him that it did not come.
Shouldn't leave the inference with him that it did.
be a party to that.
Quite frankly, I don't believe you'll believe us.
That's our problem.
But if we get, if you show your lines, or not to be able to spread it, we can win this public right thing that did not go, and then, well, and then you can win it or not.
It'll create why it ate one hell of a lot of confusion.
Because people will say, well, here was a paper, this was that, and the other thing.
And then every time Sigurd gets up, Sigurd just gets up and says, yes, there was a paper on a goddamn thing that was done.
I think that's the way that you have to handle it.
Okay.
One last thing.
Let me ask you a suggestion.
If you would, I would continue to sort of be the mother hand of this thing and to leave it all in your shop until you can.
Uh, I'll be available to help where you can.
Uh, in the meantime, too, on the basis of the... your conversation with Colson, though, and Colson, if he would wish.
Apparently he would.
Well, he thinks he would.
Well, he's a very powerful man.
He's a thorough man, sir.
He does?
He hasn't been before the grand jury once.
Right.
He's having an FBI interview this weekend.
He will go back before the grand jury here.
Right.
Substantial.
And he's been before the committee, right?
At some point.
Right.
And you're not implying anything's not on the guns, so I'm just going to go with that.
On that point, I wouldn't react to hearing the committee hearings.
I think the line there, the little signature should say I'm not going to comment.
I couldn't come.
Incidentally, we're doing a moniker of that committee about television.
Nobody representing the White House will be in that room.
Stretch.
I don't want anybody in there to stand up, you know, for her to pound on.
Otherwise, we'll use them as a... Well, he's putting a small front in today.
These are going to be very leisurely hearings.
Stretch it out.
Stretch it out.
He's going to stretch it out.
He wants to be in the public eye for a long time.
It is not of his interest, let me tell you, to be leisure for a reason.
Because there's minor heritage in the public relations side.
If you run him too leisurely, people can get bored as hell and then say, oh, Christ.
He's our biggest asset.
He's done some terrible miracles.
He's a very terrible person.
He stutters, stammers, can't understand his questions.
He's got words of mouth.
He is not, you know, he's the opposite of Senator McClellan, who is quiet.
One of the next mistakes he's making, he's going to let the members of the committee only do the interrogation.
He is not going to let his counsel interrogate him.
Yes.
Yes.
He is.
He is.
On this subject, he's quite cool.
I understand his topic.
I guess if you tell Senator Stennis out of them and the President's not involved in this, how do you or how do you go to Stennis?
I have told him that already.
And that we, and that the White House, rather than trying to get whatever comes out of us, that this is a question of
but frankly this being going off but right if it's it's centuries we aren't trying to involve the cia in this thing and we did it all openly but be sure to let us know yes
And finally, I know your feelings on privilege and so forth.
I do want, however, for us to not to decide that until we've had a chance to talk a little bit more about it.
I mean, there are two things that you very effectively point out, the two kinds of privilege you're going to know.
First, there's the privilege of the kind of conversations that I'm .
I am concerned about this.
I do think we ought to stand firmly on the original presidential conversations.
And don't you think most will respect that or not?
They will respect them, except within certain narrow areas.
And those questions will be permitted.
I'll let it go.
But I think on the other conversations
and specifically the ones that fall into the direct question area that could involve some element of a specific offense, I think they will not let the others stand.
Well, that's the only thing I was going to say, that I still get back on a little, I don't know, Lawler's thing.
Don't give on it yet.
I would, I mean, you think the court's going to, going to go on that because
I think the courts are going to go on and on.
It's not privilege that we're talking about there.
It's not privilege.
That's what we're talking about, national security.
But go ahead.
I think we have a very difficult position on that one.
We're in a position of having literally taken the papers from Walters.
They were not presidential papers.
They involve a number of his contacts with other people.
So, and besides which, it's the prosecutor's office, an arm of the government, and normally on the claims of executive privilege,
and not a protective privilege, but a classification.
Well, Brandon, we have it there.
We'll fight that out the best we can.
No, there's some stuff in there that's embarrassing to us.
Basically, secondhand, one conversation to the effect...
It's hearsay conversation.
It's that there's stuff to the effect where Alderman says the president wants to do it because he thinks this thing is getting out of hand.
But the Alderman's testimony there is the president's trying to keep the CIA the hell out of it rather than getting it in again.
That's what he had, that's our, that's his comment.
Yes.
And the other is the reference to the fact that when I said to Gray, we talked to Walters, which is followed, however, by a reference to the fact that Walters, that I told him that Gray says, according to Walters, it is as high as it can go or something like that.
Mr. President, my recommendation would be for Ron to go this morning and say the president was concerned because of the rumors
newspaper allegations that CIA was involved and ordered that CIA level with the FBI who was conducting the investigation.
And I think Ron ought to come out with that and hit that thing hard this morning.
And then we've got him covered.
Then it doesn't matter.
He could get right in there this morning and tie you up.
The President was concerned that any government organization was involved in this incident.
Anybody in the administration that were members of the CIA that he directed, that the person directed, that the CIA be directed to level and level with as to what involvement any day or former personnel of the CIA had had.
That's right.
That's right.
His former personnel.
Right.
Because you see, the criminal act here, what was wrong here, was not that conversation.
The conversation was, but it was deemed to follow up and asked to put on the payroll of Christ.
That is what we ordered him to do.
That's what we ordered him to do.
And it's definitely in that.
Also, it's very important what, what Waller calls, what Waller calls for.
Yes.
You said, well, one version is that he told him, carry on vigorously with your investigation.
Right.
Another version is that...
I think it is the one that said, take as high as it goes or something like that.
I don't know.
It doesn't say that specifically.
Yes, carry on with the investigation.
And then I asked him what that meant.
Also, I asked him, I said, did Walters agree with his assessment?
He said, yes.
Then I said, carry on.
It would have been, you see, it would have been very natural for you to ask Gray, did the agency level with you, did Walters level with you?
And quite frankly, it would have paid a lot of sense to me that you wanted not only health certification, but also Walters, if they weren't involved.
Under those circumstances?
Yes.
And in retrospect, it would have been a very cautious move for you to be sure that was so, because it turned out that, see, Walters had been there on a short time.
But Helms had been there... Um...
I have passed the word to somebody else.
I want Sid Seale and Sid Kwok and not to get so excited.
He's got no reason to be concerned about this, for Christ's sake, he didn't do a damn thing.
And you remind him, I don't know, apparently they don't have the record of it, but I know that Walters, after an NSC meeting, I mean, Helms told me that the CIA is not involved in one of these.
I know that.
And you...
I think you ought to tell that to the president.
Recall that.
Not to refresh his memory a little.
That'll help me.
It's using C-A-E-T fields.
It's using C-I-A for a domestic purpose.
For domestic?
Oh, shit.
Ended up that we didn't order it from here?
No, sir.
It was just done on their own?
It was done at the request of David Young.
David Young is frankly the man who called Helms.
David Young?
Oh, yeah.
He worked here.
He isn't going to be there.
They're not Helms.
They're not basis.
Do you think?
No, sir.
Do you think he's getting jittery too much?
and say, well, look, it was a mistake.
We shouldn't have done it, and so forth and so on.
But, uh... We had one problem, I think, with Helms.
He may have told Simonson at some point, but they were absolutely uninvolved and didn't do anything for him to leave.
Now, he didn't... Now, he didn't give him the camera.
Well, I don't think...
The camera.
Well, this is the issue.
He personally handled it.
He personally directed it, and apparently neither he nor Cushing would check it too closely at the time with each other.
on an individual who was involved in papers that went to the international problems.
Good job to them.
Pentagon papers, it just didn't have to do with this.
They had to do with the war in Vietnam.
This fellow had been elsewhere, you must remember.
He'd been out there and so forth and so on.
I know it's tough, but just the— But Helmfield just had to settle that.
And, you know, he did not make— Tell me, did you do this, among your many other things?
I think Mr. President would be much better if I passed his second hand today.
I don't think
So they're now testifying before the grand jury or the committee that we should be in the position of contacting him.
Tell me the other thing that might influence this testimony.
You call this a problem on the outside of the coin?
Right, a hell of a lot of people are goddamn pissed off at Ellsberg.
Oh, there's no question.
I don't know if you saw Senator Thurman.
Yeah.
Didn't see him on television, I think.
He blew his sack in the committee at Munson.
But this idea of Frankfurt crying out loud that this follows a national hero and all that sort of thing is bullshit.
Because if you just wait, this thing can turn.
This thing can turn if we handle ourselves properly.
Don't you think so?
I think it can.
I certainly hope so.
I don't know.
Well, good luck.
Thanks.
It's a conversation.
He said there's stuff to be paid back for all of it, says the president, for all of it, says the president wants to do it.
He thinks this thing is getting out of hand, but wants to do it.
All of it's questionable.
He thinks this thing is getting out of hand, but all of it's questionable.
There is the president trying to keep the CIA.
There is the president getting the hell out of it rather than getting it in.
He keeps the CIA the hell out of it.
That's what he has to do.
That's harder than getting it in again.
That's what he had, that's our consensus on this.
And the other is our consensus on this is the reference to the vaccine.
And the other is the grave in Dr. Walters.
The reference to the vaccine, when I said the grave in Dr. Walters, which is followed, however, by a reference to the vaccine in Walters, which is followed, however, by a...
Mr. President, my recommendation would be for Ron to go this morning and say the President was concerned because of the error.
Because of the rumors, newspaper allegations that C.I.A.
was involved, newspaper allegations that C.I.A.
was involved, in order to inform and order that C.I.A.
leveled with the M.C.I.A.
leveled with the M.C.I.A.
leveled with the M.C.I.A.
leveled with the M.C.I.A.
And I think Ron Hart will come out with that and hit that thing hard this morning.
Come out with that and hit that thing hard.
So we've got him covered.
And then we've got him covered.
Then it doesn't matter.
Then it doesn't matter.
Get right in there this morning.
Get right in there this morning.
Get right in there this morning.
The president was concerned that any government organization was involved in this.
The president was concerned that any government organization was involved in this test today.
Anybody in the administration that were members of the CIA was, that he directed, anybody in the administration that were members of the CIA was, that he directed, that the person who directed the, that the person who directed the,
The CIA be directed to .
The CIA .
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That isn't what we ordered all of Ohio to do.
It's very important, but what we ordered him to do, what Waller calls the positive side, and it does come out on Pat Gray's testimony to the effect.
What was it specifically?
He says the president said, hey, you know, high ride goes.
I said, yes.
You said...
Well, one version is that you told him, carry on vigorously with your investigation.
Right.
Another version is that...
I think it is what it said, take the time to do it.
I don't know.
And it's definitely in that.
Also, it's very important what Waller calls, what Waller calls from a positive side.
It does come out on...
It doesn't say that specifically.
But it said carry on with the investigation?
Yes, carry on with the investigation.
What was it specifically?
He said the president said, you know, how high it goes.
I said, yes.
Then I asked him, also I asked him, I said, do the Wallers agree with his assessment?
He said, yes.
You said, well, one version, is it?
Then I said carry on.
It would have been, you see, it would have been very natural.
For you to ask for a utopian path to carry on vigorously with your investigation, did the agency level with you?
Did Walters level with you?
And quite frankly, it would have paid a lot of minutes to leave.
Another version is that the people did not only help with certification, but also Walters, if they weren't involved.
I think it is one of the circumstances.
One of those circumstances.
Yes.
And in retrospect, it would have been a very cautious move.
I don't know.
It doesn't say that specifically.
But it said carry on.
Yes.
For you to be sure that was so.
Because it turned out that, see, Walters had been there on that short night to carry on with the investigation.
And then I asked, what's been, uh, what else has been there?
Also, I asked him, I said, was this assessment?
He said, yes.
I said, carry on.
It would have been, you see, very natural.
I was asking the word to somebody else.
I want to sit still and sit quietly and not get so excited.
And I think it's great.
The agency's members would be just wonderful to come out with.
about this for Christ's sake, she didn't do a damn thing.
And you remind him, I don't know.
I know that Walters, after NSC, I mean, tell him.
Yeah, I can't do that.
And you, you tell him.
But it's using
See it in key fields.
It's using C-I-L-L-Z-I-Z-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
I have passed the word to somebody else.
I want to sit still and sit quiet.
David, yeah.
Oh, yeah, he works here.
He's got no reason to be concerned about this or Christ.
He's going to be there.
They're not faces.
Do you think he's going to do a damn thing?
And do remind him.
I don't know.
Apparently, they don't have such a thing.
He's going to get it.
kind of say, well, look, it was directed to him.
I know they won't shoot the person and so on, but...
I think it's one problem.
I mean, Helms told me...
I think you ought to tell them that the president recalled that
Well, I don't think.
Camera voice.
Oh, wait.
It's using C-A-E fields.
It's using C-I-A for a domestic purpose.
For domestic?
Oh, shit.
It's enough that we didn't order it from here?
No, sir.
It was just done on our own?
It was done at the request of David Young.
David Young is traveling with the men in Colorado.
David Young?
Oh, yeah.
He works here.
Do you think he's getting jittery too fast?
Yes, sir.
He's too important a man, and he's going to say, well, look, it was a mistake, we shouldn't have done it, and so forth and so on, but... We have one problem, I think, with Helms.
He may have told Simonson at some point, but they were absolutely uninvolved and didn't do anything for him, believe me.
Now, he didn't... Now, he didn't give him the camera.
Well, I don't think.
Well, this, yes.
He personally handled us.
He personally directed us.
Apparently, either in a cushion or checked in too closely at the time with each other.
With each other.
No problem.
No problem.
It's all been elsewhere.
We must remember it.
It's all been elsewhere.
We must remember it.
I know it's tough.
I know it's tough.
I know it's tough.
You call Helms.
You tell him the president has trolled him.
You tell him the president has trolled him.
This is one of those things where you guys say, look, we were only doing this because of the same thing.
We were only doing this because of the same thing.
We were only doing this because of the same thing.
We were only doing this because of the same thing.
I think Mr. President would be much better
I think Mr. President would be much better if I passed it secondhand today.
I don't think today, I don't think today allow us to find before the grand jury, today allow us to find before the grand jury or the committee that we should be in the committee.
You call this a problem on the Ozark coin?
Right out of hell a lot of people are goddamn pissed off.
Oh, there's no question.
I don't know if you saw Senator Thurmond.
Yeah.
I don't know if you saw Senator Thurmond.
Yeah.
Louis was sacking the committee in Moscow.
This idea of... Sacking the committee in Moscow.
This idea of... Well, this is all...
This is all...
This thing can turn.
This thing can turn.
If we handle ourselves...
think and try to get, we handle ourselves properly.
Don't you think so?
I think you can.
I certainly hope so.
I think you can.
I certainly hope so.
Hi, how are you?
How are you, sir?
How do you like the job?
It's a unique job, Mr. Preston.
Well, I like it.
Aren't you?
Yes, sir.
It's a great job.
I was thinking a little about our program here and how we get this thing handled.
I mentioned one man, Charles.
He's in the staff meeting now.
It seems to me that, as soon as you get your facts, I would trust you to get them thoroughly, at least, unless it's an issue, try to get everything mailed out and so on, mailed out, that you should alert on a very quiet basis our friends, Lyon, for example, and the people we have to count on.
By that, I mean Peterson, Schlesinger, and Ramosov should know.
What happened here?
Now, maybe they already know, but how can you do that?
I can do that, yes.
I can talk to Henry and Bill.
You can talk to Henry?
Henry Schlesinger already knows.
Yeah.
What does he know?
He knows that it was not, never went forward.
Yeah.
I want him to know.
I want him to have butter.
I want him to see something.
I have taken time out to talk to him.
I want to see him Sunday afternoon.
Yeah.
He had some misgivings, and I had a long talk with him.
And, uh,
explained, I think, the Walters number.
And I'm explaining, sitting him on down, personally called Henry, made the appointment, reassured all the way through.
You called Henry about this?
No, sir.
Jim was a little worried about the Walters thing.
And so I, I...
Worried about the person you were calling?
Yes, sir.
So I went over and personally had a talk with him.
Jim and I are kind of longtime friends.
I just want you to know that, by God, I have total interest in the Walters thing.
Whatever it may be, I just want you to listen to it.
If I get into the CIA, I'm just going to get in.
I just want you to know that, by God, I have total interest in the Walters thing.
Whatever it may be, I just want you to listen to it.
68.
68.
They made an effort.
They had a meeting here about reinstituting.
This did not fall through?
Yes, sir.
It didn't fall through.
And NSA?
NSA.
Clark Clifford presided over the meeting.
They decided not to do it?
He didn't make a decision.
He held that one.
He said he was going to think about Samoa.
And they raised the question again in 1970, when they could get somebody to take them.
They had discussions with Hoover in the meanwhile.
They raised the question.
Now, what is the, from which the 43-page MRN emanated from the policy sheet, emanated as a result of a battle within the various agencies
It was, uh, there had been a number of meetings between the agencies that was concerned.
In the initial instance, Hoover did not really express his objections.
He had a two and a half hour meeting, apparently, with Noel Giler and, uh, Lou Tardello.
Just the three of them.
Yes, over there.
And, as described to me, they got a lecture on communism, and he got a lecture on why they needed these entries.
He appeared to be convinced.
So they then had the meeting, which was all discussed, here.
The point that they needed additional intelligence coverage.
They were told, all right, go develop a plan.
Tell me what these limitations are that are in Comrade.
Look at them all.
At that point, no specifics were found in the discussion.
They just talked about constraints.
They were then sent back.
The result of that meeting, they have an interagency group to sit down and thoroughly work this thing out, what it was they were supposed to do.
The result of that was this 43-page plan.
Who is your witness that tells you this, this assault?
Cordello.
He's the best witness.
He told the president yesterday.
He said, Deputy Director, I guess the place was small.
Very honest.
Very honest.
Then they developed a 43-page plan.
It was signed by the four of them.
Elms, Hoover, Giler, and Bennett.
All four of them signed it.
All the recommendations were unanimous.
No, no acceptance.
It was unanimous when it came to you.
Right.
How did I approve?
You approved it.
The policy gave it?
The policy gave it.
Right.
Then, and this place is kind of murky.
You didn't approve it immediately.
Why didn't you?
Not when it was submitted.
There was a period of two or three months
about where the decision was discussed.
Hoover, at some point, raised the objection.
Now, this is the one we're trying to get on the notes on, to get pinned down on the data.
Because when the approval and the disapproval came, was not immediately following submission of the plan.
Some later data.
I was thinking about the last night, one day.
That wouldn't have been approved two days later.
It doesn't sound right.
We're still looking.
So what I'm asking about this, this, this recommendation was made to me.
I approved the plan.
Did I sign it or something?
No, you didn't.
I say you approved the plan.
I approved the policy.
One of the, well, that, it was a policy.
There were no specifics in that.
Yeah, some said it was a plan.
The hold'em was known to back to Houston, telling them to go ahead.
Or they did something.
He wrote a note.
He wrote a note to Houston.
Saying what?
Go ahead.
Saying the president has approved the plan.
Now, this was the 43-page plan?
Yes.
And to go ahead, but to do it with the procedures they had discussed, or to that effect, instead of you signing out the plan.
At the end of the plan, they had an option paper for you to sign on each one.
Right, right.
Now, we need to pin down—we still don't have it pinned down—the precise dates.
Subsequently, at some point in the process, Hoover had agreed to it, and then Tolson got to him.
He changed his mind.
Now, I'll hold one copy of this plan somewhere.
We're going to try to find it.
This is indicated by the memorandum we have.
We don't have the actual footnotes.
To which he took exceptions to a number of things in that, very violent exceptions.
What happened in Brady?
Yes.
Those were the two key issues.
Then when that came back, he took it to Mitchell or came here to see you.
And as a result, according to the words I get, I was told that the word was passed that the decision had been suspended.
The goal was recalled.
The decision was held in abeyance.
The decision was to go was held in abeyance.
It was suspended.
It didn't come out as an absolute no.
It was just a suspension of your earlier decision to go.
That's right.
That's right.
Nothing new.
Yes.
Sullivan was born to have the word.
Sullivan, we're going to try to get him back down here to get his notes.
And...
But he remembers that?
Yes.
He told you that in the phone, right?
Solomon, well, we know from Port Duller also.
So, all right.
I'm a little leery of Solomon's memory.
I'm a little leery of Solomon's memory.
But Tarnello says, Tarnello says, what does he say?
Tarnello specifically remembers that Solomon called him and told him it was go, calling him back.
Very shortly thereafter, he told him,
No go.
No go.
And he's looking for his notes right now.
All right.
Now, you have not found anybody else with the principles?
No, sir.
What about CIA?
They're checking, but they don't think that anybody out there did anything.
They're checking now to make sure.
They want to go down into the rows of the place.
I'm sure that answer will come up.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But whether they ever got the word themselves.
Besides our dollars, do you have anybody who's got the word themselves?
We know.
The word came to me independently from DIA that some of the people knew that the plan was no good.
Yeah.
It never did go.
But they have not located who called, who got the call yet.
Right.
I suspect it was Bennett.
Bennett's in Korea.
I have, but I would read.
Right.
I think it was probably the Bennett director, because he was a participant.
So this is .
Yes, he's four-star general now.
He's commanding .
Now, this morning's Washington Post, they're already playing the business.
You can see it all that the two Washington Post reporters have.
Interestingly,
They say that the series of burglaries, they said this was the whole pattern.
There were many of them yet undisclosed, you know, what we anticipated.
White steel wire cannons.
But they alleged that these were not done by the agencies, but done by separate front groups and special groups working out of the White House.
That's the worst point.
I doubt it was true.
We, you know, outside of this one group, and all the evidence indicated that they really didn't do any of this.
You know, Hunt was telling everything.
I went back and read his testimony this morning.
He swore no.
He made it all out.
But he said, no, they didn't know others.
No wiretaps and no burglars.
No wiretaps and no burglars, except the one of the psychiatrists.
Croak's affidavit.
Says he knew of no other project activities.
I know of no other group.
I know of no other group.
I know of no other group.
I have never heard of another group.
Of course, we had heard of this one either, but somebody would have a rumble of it, surely.
Whether there were any front groups, such as the Cubans.
Now, our problem is they used Cubans in this.
And obviously the Cubans could have done a lot of things on their own.
You know, if they play this story, every time we have a Cuban involved in a murder, even to steal money.
So we're going to have to...
It's kind of what I'm saying is we're going to have to work very hard because it's difficult to prove a negative.
At this point, though, that I'm ready to work on today, if I could suggest...
Not the Dean Papers, out of the goddamn water.
Because the Dean Papers would indicate that it was a government lie about the failure of the thing done.
And it was not.
Right.
You have no evidence of any government agency doing anything— None whatever.
None whatever.
None whatever?
No, sir.
Now, you have—you have Sullivan on that, and you have Marty on that.
Yes, sir.
And you have Tordello— Tordello on that.
Now, DePaul on that.
FDI.
Yes, sir.
Absolutely nothing.
And I know pretty well on D.I.A.
because I monitor them very closely.
On this one, though, for every component of the water,
If we move at our pace...
I want to get...
I want to get affidavits from all these people and get them in concrete.
That's right.
Now, if you get an affidavit, I think Cordella will give you an affidavit.
I don't think there's any doubt.
I get affidavits across the board.
If you get Cordella, you can get us all.
Let's say that there'll be nothing, Mr. General.
All right.
We hope we get Goddard an affidavit.
I hope we get Goddard's affidavit.
in Venice and their success of people who ever worked in this area.
I'll get one from Frank Wells who ran the committee.
Ran the committee, but ran it after all this?
After all this, yes.
And his committee was what?
What was his committee?
That was a coordinating committee of the intelligence community to try to get them to work together.
However much we talked about being able to analyze the intelligence, the truth of the matter was that Hoover cut off liaisons to all the other agencies.
No agent would meet with the other agencies, or Hoover would marry.
So we had this group.
The reason we had this in our meeting in here is that every agency were bitching about Hoover.
And they said, we've got to get Hoover to cooperate.
That was what it was.
This was the whole process.
And Hoover didn't want to.
I don't know.
I wouldn't be surprised if they take the conversations going in and out of that.
I don't think they would admit it, but... No, they should.
They should admit it.
Even delete it, but...
I think it's a common practice in town.
Sure.
But they never have to admit it.
They never have to use it.
That's true.
That helps a hell of a lot.
I'm sure they can hear the statement, I never used it.
Yes.
I guess they probably do it, but you know what I mean.
Johnson said it up here.
I don't know.
They tell me I don't know.
But I'll hear you.
Well, anyway, if you could get this one nailed today.
We're going to work hard to get that nailed.
We'll get him on that, sir.
He is key in the sense that he was turned around.
I think so.
I think we need to bring Houston back, too.
Yes.
He's in California.
He's in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis.
And he brings Houston back, and Houston comes back with all this verbal language.
He told me it didn't go.
He told me that it didn't go.
The division wanted to get him, and that's why.
He said, you know, I was really teed up, and I left.
He didn't say anything.
that was the reason that I was rotated off and I left.
If you don't know John Huston, it sounds like I've only met him about three or four times, but he's an explosive.
I think I met him when he was a college freshman, Mr. President.
Yeah, he's smart as hell, a smart fellow, ruthless.
He did well, and a decent man, but just wanted to do something.
But Huston could never remember him because he was very quiet.
He looked last night.
He hadn't found the memorandum in the files.
He said he would not have taken anything that was classified with him.
But he's come here to find out where his files were?
Yes.
This would have been classified probably.
It might have been.
It might have been, depending on what he put in it.
I suspect he didn't write a memorandum.
I imagine he called Cooper.
I mean, he called him.
So he would have...
And Houston said it did not go.
All right, so independently, understand?
I'm just trying to get the facts.
Yes.
No matter how we want the facts to appear, the facts are wrong.
Screw it.
I mean, we can call it if it's wrong anyway.
Goddamn it, we want the truth.
Independently, you first heard from Houston, and the plan, whatever the goddamn thing was that you talked about, did not go.
Independently, Sullivan told you that he made calls indicating that it did not go.
Independently, Targol said he got a call that it did not go.
Yes, sir.
Otherwise, you got somebody else reading it.
No.
We have people in the Defense Intelligence Agency who know that it didn't go, but they don't know who received the word.
Oh, but they don't.
You say they don't.
They heard that it didn't go.
That's right.
John still will open that one Saturday night.
Yeah.
And he said it did not, never when they got the word, he doesn't remember for a second where.
God, they must have made notes on that, Fred.
They must have made notes.
Whoever did the talking surely made notes.
They are starting to find out.
They're, they're finding out.
But based on what we have up to this point,
Uh, it seems to me that you're in a position to have a, I don't know, to get rid of the top eight points.
Yes.
So that you can, I mean, instead of, you know, no length.
My view is don't put in the whole story that there is an issue with the government going back to 1967.
It was discussed in 1967.
It was discussed again in 1968.
In 1967, it was brought to the president's attention.
There was even an amateur edition for the policy.
The president approved the policy for two months.
No, after two months.
Two days later, as a result of the, I would then say, let's give it to Roland Browning, as a result of the objections of the FBI, that's really what it was.
It was, at the reconsideration.
Yeah, as a result.
Mr. Hoover conceived and signed it originally.
Yeah, as a result of a... Can't get my... As a result of... Mr. Hoover asked for reconsideration, and the policy was, uh, was, uh, was, uh, was, uh, then, uh...
The approval was with...
The approval was, uh, was, uh...
Withdrawal and withdrawal, approval and withdrawal.
And then the bottom line, no activities were undertaken under this policy.
Not in accordance with law.
Correct?
Right.
No activity for undertaking this policy.
The point being that it basically turns out to be, look, a study paper.
What I mean is a policy paper that is developed in this government by the rules.
where you go through, and you agonize, and you come up with a paper, and somebody signs it, and then somebody bitches about it, and then the goddamn thing doesn't go through, and nothing ever happens.
Is that about fair and accurate?
That's right.
I would say almost the majority of papers we generate go that way.
Right.
Now, as to how they handle that, it depends on how it's handled by others.
But if you can get that kind of a paper
I think I should talk to Jim.
I don't think you should hand your paper around until the time comes to use it.
That's true.
Well, they had to say all the questions about NSA and that the result of Hoover's rejections was it was a group and then it was a group.
And we want them to know that that's the situation.
All right.
All right.
And they, now, moving, you can follow up on that, Dave, if I can find it.
moving to, uh, moving to the other, uh, some of the, uh, the Washington Coast area.
You better have more of this than what we did in the way of tapping and so forth.
So I think, let me tell you, God knows what the hell happened to my other five crews, but I don't know of anything else.
I think they would have.
No, I wouldn't.
I'm sorry.
I wouldn't know, because I didn't know about the program.
Uh, but the only group we had
I do isn't on that.
Let them just fire around and scramble around and squeal and so forth and so on.
And we do our best to get what information we have only for the purpose of playing, or do you have any other to gain by all that stuff?
I don't think dyslexia can do it.
I don't think, let me say candidly, I do not think we should try to run
an investigation out of the White House at this point.
Well, an investigation would be, Mr. Peter Lee, Christ's life, the Christ's story in my house, for example, and things like that.
There are going to be more and more and more of those.
There are going to be more.
They're going to, they, and they want to believe that we're, they want to believe that we have everybody dead, but we've abandoned them.
I'm not sure if it was so, so insignificant and unbelievable.
That may have been something that you didn't know about, Mr. Preston.
You can't tell.
How many private people do it?
You know, it's... That's her.
Mr. President, very little out there is done in defense now.
I...
I wrote the report on that, Mr. President.
I did the investigation.
On my way?
Yes, sir.
The young woman, Adamo.
The backing of Henry.
You know what, sir?
too many people about that know about that i'm very afraid he's going to come out well if it comes up you know who's going to hurt him he's going to kill the champ i'm aware of that that's why i kept it under i'd love to kill that angus but we know the fact on that son of a but uh that god damn human uh he knew too much he knew too much he gave it all to ang so forth and frankly we just sort of let it go and it's that they are events and used to see where they go we've never
Well, I can attest that that was all.
We had circumstantial evidence.
We had circumstantial evidence.
That's all we had.
But we can't kill each other.
We can't do it.
We've been doing it for years.
Perhaps even his predecessor.
It was a rough... You know, I interviewed the gentleman with his wife.
I don't know about that.
I think it was well handled at the time.
But we're not...
We have, unfortunately, to be very candid with you, your people over here were concerned.
They started the investigation with the wrong people over there.
So they know something.
It's on his .
He told me to take it away from those people because he was .
And then said, give me a full report so I can tell them what happened.
.
Oh, sorry.
Absolutely.
Talk to .
Right there, that's the national security in my opinion.
Well, it has more than that.
I'm just not going to have more .
Well, you accomplished nothing.
Well, screw them.
I'm not going to go in on that.
I simply say we don't have the evidence.
That's the way to play that.
I'll simply say, no, we worked it around, but we don't have the evidence.
That's the way to lay a firm line.
That's true.
We did it.
Yes, this was that.
That's the line.
I put everybody around here.
I said, now, look, if anybody were to ask about it, actually, the whole answer is we just, yes, that investigation had a lot of targets on it in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and so forth, and getting tested.
We just couldn't get the evidence.
So as far as we're determined, why did the element move?
I mean, people that were under any kind of suspicion, yeah.
Well, that's not a huge game plan on that.
It's fine.
You have to stick with it.
Good.
It comes out.
Good.
On this one, the day ahead, if you would get that— We'll get moving.
I'll maybe do that.
If you would cover—if you would cover Schlesinger and cover, uh, and cover Peterson, I think, for his own, just so, so he knows.
He could, he could, he could put out some fires over there and just say, look, this—how would you approach him, for example,
He has never seen the papers to the best of my knowledge.
I would give him a general description of what was in them.
I would give him a general description of what was in the Dean's papers.
And apparently they thought they had something, but they don't have anything because here's what happened.
If you go that way, Schlesinger, I would say the same thing.
That Schlesinger knows what's
What?
Slexinger knows what's in the Dean's papers.
Oh, yeah?
Because I've talked to him.
Oh.
You see, the intelligence community is up there now trying to keep this from being published.
So there'll be a pure understanding there are serious national security implications to the release of this paper.
Well, Stuart Simon will never, never play that game when they try to keep it from being published.
They won't.
I doubt it.
Very seriously.
I doubt very seriously that he will assist in preventing their disclosure.
But Mr. President, they do in fact have a serious impact on national security.
And I think on behalf of the people with responsibility in this area,