Nixon & Finch on Watergate scandal and John W. Dean III

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Hey, Robert, how are you?

How are you, sir?

Come in, boy.

Well, it's been long.

Well, we're not alone.

I've been...

I think...

I think we'll be moving more towards the governor.

Go to the governor, huh?

Well, I'll take your side.

Come on.

Yeah.

Also, it's just that raw power that goes with that government.

I understand.

Well, you look at those idiots over in the Senate right now.

That's why you're so eager to get rid of them.

Yeah.

Hey, whatever you think I'm doing, you're asking me.

Maybe you know why I made it to the Senate.

Because I think you'd like it better.

That's where I'd like it.

The other hand.

You can go there a little bit.

I don't think he will.

Is he prepared to go out and stump the candidates?

I think he's going to be cold.

Boy, then he'll be out there and go like hell.

And he can't get it.

If you're going to you're going to have Nelson against him.

What he can do is he can get .

She'd get all solid, lined up, you know, the bosses would be solid.

Go ahead, Laura Brown there, if you were there, you'd say they had a lot of them, and you'd just say you can't get them there.

And I'd shout it was Compton Field.

I think you can do it if I say you could go Indiana.

You could do that, and I'd shout it all right.

Yes, absolutely.

And then you've got a power place still in California that's pretty great.

We've got a lot of Indiana there.

Right.

That's the other problem, and maybe in the absence of it was great, so...

We're not building anything that isn't going to be a party this evening.

Well, let them all be for sex, then.

Quite obvious that they're candid because there's going to be a little jetty.

I'm not sure.

He's sure to get the horses.

He's telling it back here.

But, uh...

But you talk about intervention literally, that is such an impoverished life that they've got.

For credit.

Yeah, after Kennedy what?

It's like candidates for governor, that's the other point.

If the Democrat did win, no, that would be the problem.

Kennedy for president.

Yes.

But Bob, do what you want, you know what I mean?

Do what's best, get your troops lined up and go like hell.

You know what I mean?

I've expressed my views and I think you've got a thing to do, sir.

At some point, I think you're gonna have to, everybody's certainly concerned about the energy.

And I think at some point you're gonna have to have

I'm worried about whether, you know, if there's going to be gas in the pumps.

I think I might just define it.

Basically, whatever information you have is reasonable at some press conference.

People literally are confused.

They're confused.

There's a new car that has four cylinders and six and eight.

They want information.

They just don't know.

One of our problems is if you get a lot of problems, you've got another.

In the present time, you've got a bully in prosperity, but the inflation is too high.

But that's not a task in place.

When I say it's not a task, my father had it for me before we started out of the theater.

I've been second-hand until we've been a little bit level now.

But he's trying to put you a whole lot better at having jobs than would you rather have it.

I mean, put it this way, 1971, before the August thing, we had the worst of both worlds.

We had a recession and inflation.

Now at least we have a boom and inflation.

I don't want to have a recession and inflation yet.

Well, I said, now what we showed yesterday, what are the possibilities?

When I run, when I run, he said, well, it's going to be pretty good.

Well, when you're evaluating, when you're evaluating what we do about this mineral water, you know, the way that the deans worship, worship, and all sorts of things, and the president, that's, that's, and every one of them, that's their main goal, they have their goals.

You don't join the people that say I can resign because of this.

That's just, that's a lot more shit than I'm flying on.

That's not true, but that's a lot of shit.

I don't know that, but the worst bad factor behind this.

Oh, that would be more.

I don't know.

You don't realize what a genuine base support you had, residency had.

That is just .

I had never known him.

I had only seen him twice before February.

We got him to take over .

But my God Almighty, you know, he was deeply involved.

He survived the third year.

He basically disappeared.

Which, of course, never would have happened.

But nevertheless, the point is that he was involved in the cover-up activities, which I finally found out.

I had ideas that people were raising money, but I didn't know the cover-up.

He had no idea.

But they're going to charge him off and the president tried to cover it up.

The president tried to get the CIA to cover it, which is totally not true.

That was Dean.

Dean who oversee Wal-Mart.

I had, I told them to get together to find out whether the CIA was in or not.

I thought they were.

Remember when we first did it, when I said, well, how the hell did the other bunch of goddamned Cubans know what the crisis was all about?

I don't mean that they did it, but I wanted to know if they were involved.

The way you take it, it's worse, throws all that shit on top.

How do you react to it?

I'd stay around.

I wouldn't want to be.

I'd just stay around, of course, and do what you don't ask me to do.

And despite the charges, the rest of this town is so obsessed with this thing.

It has national faculties.

I must say that these hearings are turning a hell of a lot of people off.

There are a lot of monsters aboard.

But the sense of what has to be done here in this place has just begun to take over.

As far as I'm concerned, you want me to stick to course?

Yes, sir.

I mean, I should think about that possibility.

I'm not thinking about it, but I'm just, I throw it out of me because I... No, sir.

Nobody suggested it to me.

But I meant it.

You see, the people say, well, what's that all about?

What do I look at?

Do you realize what happens if you pursue that?

My God.

The...

I think we've done the whole thing with regard to arms limitation, but we've been trying to time rush.

I mean, our whole .

We would literally have two years of lost time.

I don't care.

It's not anybody who would come into this position.

We lived for a year in the blues.

Two years.

We lived for three years.

The other thing is, we said we can't have a president of the United States sit down and worry about us.

They'll charge every goddamn thing you imagine.

Boy, it was rough.

And there is something to be said about the fact that there is a lot of support in the country.

There are a lot of our friends and many others who are on the reservation.

They all .

But your advice today is to take the course and fight it out.

More than defensive though.

Yeah.

I think it's a great story you told me.

Those blips of leadership, next couple of weeks are going to be important.

The blips of, you know, on our part of the area, next couple of weeks.

Next couple of weeks.

Yes, sir.

The Russian summit, of course, will at least give us a week's rest.

When Russia comes here, it's just the 18 people we're going to get.

And they're going to add to the news a week's a day.

Which was not a major significant announcement, but I made about six agreements.

This gravity issue, keep it moving.

That's the hard gravity here for Ronald.

He has a damn great vision.

I have quite a bit of those out there if you want any questions.

I'm really familiar with such things.

But you know, we know the basis of the argument.

He whacked the old man down.

Isn't that really it?

There's a lot of that.

How do you analyze it?

Well, I mean, did you ever know?

No, I didn't know where he came from.

I forget.

Roger Mitchell.

Just a very heady atmosphere.

over his head and found that he was involved.

He decided to go try to get him to enter.

He wouldn't give a fuck.

And he turns on even the president.

Arthur Brockman said these boys made the famous quote, you never strike a king unless you fall.

That's the problem right now.

I don't know what we can do about it, but...

the country is not going to allow the nation to sign the rest of their agreements and then you might go to the so forth.

The president wants to know the chances and so forth.

Why did he do it?

He must have, you know, participated in this.

I don't even want to even uncover it and so forth.

Oh, Christ.

Well, I mean, how can they?

People don't want to believe that in the beginning.

But beyond that, even if they did, they want the president to continue it on or something.

Isn't that a curious thing?

It's more practical that they don't want to lose the crime that's not just getting the housekeeping chores done.

I mean, I would have a commencement speech Sunday, and I'd talk about a view of what we're, with Rockford College, Frank Johnson, yeah, and we'd talk about, we'd come out of the 60s, the 60s were the black period, and we probably had the most difficult decade.

What this administration did in brokering those difficult

which you can accomplish in the second term, is just cause for enormous, great obstacles.

I mean, our system is stronger, our technologies aren't viable, cities aren't great, and that's an imprint that, you know, with Brexit and the riots beginning to recede, the world is somewhat safer.

Well, when we make the decision,

Well, it does bother me.

I try to whine and talk to everybody else.

It's not only the attacks on the presidency, you know, but it's awfully hard to do that eventually.

I mean, it ain't probably menace.

They will not be convicted.

In other words, and not in the Watergate, but for, you know, the pretension to raise money for the menace.

But you'll have to see how you pay them to be convicted.

Except for one thing.

Those hearings.

Yeah.

You don't see a case.

Well, there's so much raw hearsay going on over there.

Raw was a very outgoing witness.

and talk about what goes on in Maury's mind as he stands on it.

Well, why one of those lawyers, a Republican lawyer, I was a senator on that, and he doesn't happen to say, you know, we appreciate your desire to be helpful, but that's hearsay.

And, you know, just when that hearsay, which I'm sure you're pointing to, that creates a point where I don't think Maury and John Mitchell can go after each other.

Well, I'll say that I'll stay miles away from the Reagan flag and so forth.

How do you get along with him?

Do you speak?

Sure.

Nixon & Finch on Watergate scandal and John W. Dean III

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 18, 1973

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