Conversation 924-002

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Well, the Watergate thing kind of moved its way off of the front pages for a change, and the post started running some other news.

There's nothing really new in the developments on the Watergate thing.

moves the story at all beyond where it was over the weekend.

Bob Holden had a good quote out this morning.

Dr. Preston, I didn't know, you know, knowledge is a matter of the cover up itself.

Yeah.

That's right.

But the way to do that, Mr. President, is to use Bryce a little bit in this area.

And we're not going to get the leaders in the Congress, because basically the Republicans are fearful, unfortunately.

He's on step-up guys.

We've got to face that, I'm sure.

make them feel that they're a part of this.

Now, Bryce mentioned this morning in the meeting, you know, on this particular paper we're talking about, which, incidentally, is a good start, but read it for content.

We've got a lot of work to do on it.

We're in trouble.

Do you want me to get into this at all?

No, no, go on.

Bryce feels that one thing we could do to get the leadership to step up is once we get this paper home down, you know, like by 2 o'clock or something, and it's going to be today or whatever, we've got to restructure it some.

But even in its basic draft form, that Bryce and maybe Timmons, but maybe just Bryce alone, call Scott forward.

privately on the phone.

He says, I want to meet with you very easily, privately.

And meets with Scott back in his little back office.

He says, now look, I want to talk to you about something that is, you know, the fact here.

And then goes over the paper in a very confidential way with them, you see.

Makes them feel a part of the thing.

And Bryce feels that by doing that,

then these guys will feel part of the effort and will get this rebound.

Well, it could be.

I don't know if he's right, but at least it's good.

Well, his point is just at the outset is to do that.

Then in terms of Congress, not to call on leadership, but to have and bite down.

No, no, no.

And right now, at some point, and we will have to determine the timing on that, the leadership, not for official announced major bipartisan leadership, but just have Mike and Carl down to the Lincoln sitting room, offer some coffee and so forth, or some bourbon, and just sit down and talk to them.

Then, following that,

either tuesday afternoon or wednesday morning depending how we get the material put together release this paper just release it with lynn and buzzhart myself briefing on the paper why it was put together you know why you're releasing something let it ride out for a while for a thursday friday saturday sunday monday then next week after you come back from

we would have the whole weekend, not you, but Canada and the rest of us would have a whole weekend to put together a lot of Q&As and so forth for you to use.

And then not go over and have a major Eastern press conference with Clark Mullen all the way, and then Courtney Sheldon reaching out to him.

Now, there's two ways to do this.

One would be to have an informal type conversation with four

You're in here in the library.

Will you just talk freely?

Relax about the matter?

Because Bryce makes a point which I agree with.

We're talking to two audiences.

We're talking to Washington, and we're talking to the country.

If you talk to the country, you've got to talk differently than you talk to the Washington.

If a paper talks to the Washington, the conversation would talk to the country.

Now, the country is different.

Bryce's feeling and the group's feeling, wants to hear the president talk about this and discuss it in a very relaxed, forthright way.

Because, you know, the polls show that there's some wonderment, but no loss of support.

That's, you know, that's why people are joking about it.

In other words, that's why the media in Las Vegas can say Watergate, use Watergate,

You're going to laugh.

This is not running rapid.

But it's a point that they're not laughing about you.

I don't mean that.

I'm talking about the setting.

That means that people out of the country, at least it means to me, don't look at this Watergate matter as a serious national crisis.

Well, if they did, we wouldn't have had that.

That's exactly right.

So you'd sit down and you'd have a relaxed conversation about this, based on the paper and the material prepared for you.

Then, within two days after that, because you'd be prepared, really get them off balance, you'd call them in here.

So you'd call the press in here for a press conference.

You'd have a conversation on television.

Have a conversation on television.

days or a day after calling in here, is that they don't know what's happening to them.

So you're hitting them from all sides.

Now they'll write the presidents coming out and fighting them.

The presidents, you know, finally, you know.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this one on the field.

That has changed.

And I think that as far as this paper is concerned, I should not prescribe to the leaders.

No.

Only in the most informal way.

Well, a sentence could maybe be

Yeah, Bryce is, and this same thing goes to the, Bryce has the same impression from the congressional side that I have from the press side.

Which is?

Which is, if you have an Eastern press conference, it makes it too big of a deal.

Yeah.

At this point.

Bryce's point, if you call a formal bipartisan leadership meeting a crisis zone, it suggests major crisis.

On the other hand,

if you approach both of them, all of the audiences.

One of the things I can do, too, is to do just a few more calls down socially myself, you know, really, and say, well, I'm talking about this.

I think, you know, I was thinking this morning, putting that paper out,

with the bipartisan leaders, again, shoots the big bullet too soon.

First, that's another thing.

And, creates a crisis atmosphere, and so on.

And so, dude, you can allow me to stand there and defend myself, which is what I'd have to do, to explain everything about it.

That I didn't do the CIA, and I didn't try to keep Grover to catch by,

On the other hand, you sit down, as you do so well with the leaders, and say, yeah, let me talk to you about the situation.

Here's what I was thinking.

I had the idea before of people sitting around talking about it.

It's not bad in a conversation.

But they're not aware.

They're talking about the problems, the present-day problems of people.

One of the things that I thought I'd make a canon statement, so let me make it here if you want.

I was rather surprised that,

I don't know.

He follows the news and analyzes it very well.

But he seems to think it was a mistake for me to refer to all of them as true crime.

And I think so.

Well, but... That's because Peter and the General was in here.

Boy, what else could you do?

Well...

I mean, condemn them.

No.

See, but then... See, they didn't know the problem.

Yeah, that's right.

See, if I had put that in that speech, you would have had those two men there.

There's no need to second-guess that.

I think those who write that and those who feel that, that's not even a concern of some kind.

We're not involved in that process.

They don't know what you're up against.

It is hard.

But you see, Pat has a great number of people, you see, Rob and a whole other number of people who love the administration.

It'll be 15 people in all.

And it's a raging experience.

And it is.

And they're leaving without change.

And it's true.

It's true.

But nevertheless, they left.

So that's your reflection.

Actually, the president picked them.

So forth.

Yet the country is so excited about their leaving.

It's their strange reaction.

I respect that.

I don't know why they're not that big of a man.

Maybe a reflection.

I think that Bob and John at this stage are better off for it to appear non-tied.

Number one, what they say has more impact.

What they say before the committee has more impact.

They have a better chance to build their case and make their case in an unrestrained way.

Therefore, that has a better impact on the precedent.

I don't know if I've seen the precise one, but you just referred to it.

eight weeks of revelations and that kind of investigation brought up and so forth and so on.

But he points out the problem of, uh, uh, he really tried to judge not to be the president.

His friends, all of them, are in the same country.

The standards come up here, hey, we're having close control over the political ethics.

They're surviving, they have to do it on their own.

Once the president's taken an excusable action, that is named by his name,

Once he concedes to the receiver, he will be counseled in the mornings.

The chairman charms the chairman with heat.

Once his press states that he chooses to sit in an evening, the president does not expect him to knock, as is widely believed today, a part of the matter.

Having taken this kind of posture, we may perhaps have lessened our ground bother in trying to stand and fight.

No, I don't think he is.

I've talked about it.

He just can't do that.

No, we talked about this in the beginning.

It's not... Well, you don't have to say it in those terms.

But I think what he's saying there...

Exactly right.

in the sense of how you separate them.

Separate means that you don't say anything to bring them.

Yeah.

But it also doesn't mean that you have to condemn them, or you have to blast them.

Well, it's all right to say that they've got a chance to go there.

They have their right to be heard.

That's right.

The way you try to shut us in terms.

But the reason you're doing it.

Yeah.

The overall objective is not, is that if you're thinking of the men, which we should, the best thing for the men, and they may not realize it, is the separation.

Yeah, of course it is.

You know, rather interesting, they interpret films as despite names and misinterpretations.

Higher ups are trying to get the CIA to cover up this thing.

No, no, sir, I...

Is that what he said?

No, but not really, but you have to keep in mind on this whole CIA thing.

That's one of the things that—well, that's one of the things that the paper does, you see, is to deal with that whole CIA matter.

And that's one of the matters that has become distorted because of the testimony to Walter's affidavit and the fact that Bob and John, and people know Bob and John have testified

that you asked them to have the meeting.

Now, OK, that being the fact, one of the things that the paper does is to put that in perspective.

One of the things that a conversation would do would be to put that in perspective.

One of the things that the leader should know would be to put that in perspective.

The other one that you get off.

I was talking, trying to get my own recollections are right about the matter of clemency.

First, no conversation ever occurred when he walked into the office.

Second, I said, John, did you ever talk to me about her?

He said, yes, once.

I said, well, tell me about it.

He said, I got your call.

I said, I want to hear the truth.

He said, in July, where I told you we were walking on the leaves right after this happened.

And I sort of said, I sort of said, you know, probably we have not aligned.

I don't know what happened to that one, I don't see it.

And he said that I tried to lie very sharply and I said that you can't possibly do that because it would be condoning the crime.

And he also testifies and he gets it on the jury.

But you see, that's part of what you're condescending.

But it's an interesting comment, right?

We're solid on that issue.

Another issue that is tough, tougher, is this whole issue of the Quran, this damned

When we were talking about it somewhere along

You know, it was after they used to say, after Dean started to come in and march, that Crowe had a problem.

I don't know if you've ever heard the word Crowe had a problem.

That's very good.

But the fact of the matter is that what really happened there, according to Dean, this is Dean, is that Dean said it in the summer, the CIA returned the camera.

Bill from the camera to the Justice Department.

The film has a picture of these two idiots in front of the psychiatrist's office.

This is Dean talking.

All right.

Now, you have two opinions.

First, John Irving knew about the rape that might have happened.

He did not report it to me.

My aunt didn't know that, we ought to be sure.

Absolutely not, he said.

He said nothing about it.

He said it was an actual security thing.

Now, the picture that he did not know about, that they had, that Dean, when Dean started to talk to us in early March, John, very much, probably said they got this damn picture.

to that break.

So Dane must have known about the break, too.

Now the point is that on this one, this is where Peter's attacking the problem.

When I brought me in on April 18th, they were not working on it.

I said to them, that was a national security investigation.

And they could not go into that.

He asked if any evidence had been found.

He turned over to the prosecution.

I told him, no.

Now that's the gist of that conversation.

He said, good.

Then later, about a week later, he and the ladies came in and said, we have evidence now, clear evidence, around the Justice Department.

There wasn't very much.

We knew we shouldn't shoot the dead.

We tried to put them in prosecution.

I mean, the judge.

I don't know what we should do.

And I said, I mean it.

This was the camera.

No, this is just a story about them.

Not a story.

It's a story.

It's basically just the facts indicating that they're not, that there was a great attack.

That their investigations had so educated them.

Now, the only thing that they will try to claim there is that I, first, actually observed that I had a land that he should have recorded earlier.

That's another problem.

He has to be done there on the ground with national security.

The question is whether I should have done something earlier.

I spoke about

Well, you asked me to call him one day about this matter.

This was a week or so ago.

And I called him to ask him about, I don't recall what.

Probably what I... Oh, what you had told him in this whole process, the Attorney General coming in and Peterson coming in.

And I said to him, really, I said, well, the point is, isn't it, Henry, that the damn stuff was turned over.

That is the point.

Yeah, and killed the trial.

The fact is that it was turned over.

It doesn't matter what the process you went through before it was turned over, but it was turned over.

The claim that we made, the worst charges we made against us, we tried to keep it, you know, from being turned over.

Well, but not...

But we didn't.

You know, we, I mean, at what degree, what degree happened to us when we were trying to protect the national security on the one hand by keeping them out of the hunts?

Oh boy.

You know, I got a complaint that I just met.

I think of all of our 50 people that are involved in the campaign.

And any campaign, my God, if you start to unravel it, it's a great stuff.

God's a son of Jesus.

They were very excited to be talking about it.

Demonstrations about it.

Something like illegal activities by the scads.

We're just caught up in it.

Well, there's nothing else caught up in it.

That's why the only way we can...

I don't know how you get off of it.

Well, I think I...

I don't know how either, but I think the feeling of the group is...

Right.

It is a bunch of crap, as you refer to it.

If you look back, not only into history, but you look into the former, you know, Democratic campaigns, and if you look into campaigns of those

senators up on the Hill, you would find a lot.

But our point is, how do we deal with it?

How do we win on this?

And the way to win and deal with it is to develop a point of view within our own mind of the rightness of our position.

The fact that things did go wrong in some way, to put it in a sense, is assuming extensively a coup or anything of that sort.

And not allow ourselves to develop the frame of mind that we are going to win this battle, and this is what you refer to all the time as a fight, that we're only dealing with a lot of insignificant stuff because we're in a position and we've got to look at it.

where the headlines are made, where we're sitting here spending the time on this.

Whatever it is, we're here.

And whatever the elements are, we're here.

And we're here to fight.

And that's... No, no, no.

I don't mean...

I am not at all suggesting that the problem is small.

I'm simply suggesting that the cause is small.

The cause, that's the treasure.

The cause...

The cause of it all is small.

There's something, not that you did, but there's something that happened outside that door, however.

And I'm not a whiner or a...

The guy that... Something happened outside that door, Mr. President, as we've talked about before, that allowed a series of events, I'm not blaming it on any one factor, to get us to where we are, to get you to where you are.

And you cannot...

we've talked about before, assume all that responsibility unto yourself.

Well, in a sense.

In a sense, because you're the president.

Well, but, Mr. President, we've talked about this before.

It is staff judgment, staff order, staff points of view that the president must depend on.

And something, as I said before, happens.

got us to where we are today.

And I think .

I'm referring to the whole .

No, I'm referring to what has become known as the Watergate cover.

No, the Watergate matter.

Yes, yes.

Part of what happened, though, was a reaction to this national security thing.

They were fighting our antics.

Which was right.

It had to be done.

If we had stopped there.

It had to be done.

We would never say this to any of us.

We have a recruiter with a large responsibility there, over there, at the campaign.

And the recruiter had taken the Libyans and the Huns and that bunch of the Anacostas over there.

See, they were like barracudas, they came alive.

He got a rich call, a call to travel.

Not a fan.

The tragedy was, Rachel,

And the tragedy was that I watched it myself.

But Bob didn't watch this.

Now it's not, you can't take it onto yourself.

Bob didn't watch this thing.

Now believe me, they say that Bob approved everything that's out there.

That's bullshit.

We're talking about this campaign now.

Bob approved some of it.

I've been informed of this, Mr. President, and this is one thing that we have to break out in our minds.

We know what we were faced with in 69 and 70 with the buses around here and with the general turmoil in the country.

There was a need for internal security.

We know what we were faced with in 1970 with all the leaks and so forth that affected and impacted heavily against the national security foreign policy initiatives that you were undertaking.

It then moved to 1971 and in the 72 where the plumbers set up to deal with

some force began to do other activities.

And men were brought in.

And as you say, the citizens thing was set up and so forth.

That's what I'm referring to when I say something happened outside of that door.

Now, I'm not pointing the finger at anyone.

I suppose I could point it at myself as a part of this, too.

But somewhere, people didn't come in to the president and say, Mr. President, if this is done this way,

this is what the possible result would be.

And that is what I mean.

You see, when... Let's face it also.

I mean, realistically.

You, in terms of your position as president, did not need someone to make a judgment.

day before the damn campaign thing went into effect to bring $350,000 here and put it in a safety deposit box.

You see, now, Bob Haldeman, I love him and all due respect to him.

He's a fighter.

He's going to stand by you and all that.

But I think the point I'm making, what is the impression that is now coming against you?

The impression is that the day before the

the campaign law passed by the Congress wouldn't affect 350,000.

I checked that with Bob, and he said, Bob, did I ever know about that?

No, you didn't.

He said no.

I checked also with regard to the call to Combox.

He said that I, you know, under a theme called Combox, Combox, call her back.

He said no.

He said that all that they have on that, I said, what does Combox say?

Combox doesn't talk to me either.

Does Combox

I didn't know about it.

That's what I'm talking about, the judgments.

The carrying money in the suitcases and so forth.

It's just that combination of things.

Of course it's done.

And it's done everywhere.

It has been done in the past.

That is only one of the, of course, many elements of this.

Well, I can look at it as bright and lovely morning.

Oh, you're still a good heart.

I'm a very good heart.

Absolutely.

And what I'm talking to you now is not one of being discouraged by that at all.

It's one, as we said the other day on the phone, the battle is here.

It's not as extensive as many of you would suggest.

But in order to move ahead to the ultimate goal, which is the achievement of what you want to achieve in your presidency, we've got to face up to this thing coldly.

And that's why I suppose dwelling on the separation

to knock off any comment, whatever, and so forth.

They call it resignation and so on.

You know what I mean?

Now, that is pure newspaper and other, you know, partisan talk.

Anyone gets it now.

Oh, sure.

Those are the ones that resigned and those that want you to be elected.

There's not a lot of talk about resignation around here.

No one's thinking those things.

But my point is, I just want you to just say that's absurd.

Oh, sure.

Every time.

We want to carry this country apart and have the president resign.

No question about that.

That's what we're talking about here.

No question about it.

But here again, just to conclude the point that I was making earlier, the case that you can make and the case of the confidence that you can make, the honest assessment that you've gone through

I mean, you really have gone through the assessment of this now over the last 30 days, Mr. President.

You have done this.

That's right.

You've done that now.

You recognize the things that we've talked about.

You've talked about the others.

You don't have to, you know, appeal for understanding or anything of that sort.

All you have to do, quite frankly, in my view, is to talk about it and put it in perspective in a very confident way.

You don't have to go to the extremes of by any act.

Instead of going through the networks, do one.

You could do one.

You could do one, and then solve it.

You could do one.

You don't have to figure it.

Basically, they'd all be .

Well, it depends on which one you want to be figuring.

Basically, we're on the people that we care, that we listen to.

We're the one.

We all know the one that we don't know much about.

The thing about it is that it's more of a conversation.

So it's all hard to pick a man.

I'm picking somebody that's going to be with me.

And that is a haunt.

They give up.

Well, I think that was the next one I did.

I did that one the next day, too.

You see, that does not hide it quite as much.

Right.

And then you cut it after the paper.

Then we built a normal slant.

You might have been able to do it with a slant.

See, the problem with that now is you're picking a guy and picking a girl.

No, absolutely not.

But you could do it.

later than you can do with Smith, with Severide or Cronkite.

You're better in an adversary relationship anyway.

And with a chancellor.

Look, it doesn't matter what they ask you.

It doesn't matter how they ask you.

As a matter of fact, you're far better off having these guys.

Except you don't want to stop.

No, you don't.

He totally out.

That's why, guys,

And you know who a good guy would be?

The rest of us brought up in there too.

The Segurite would be all right.

But the rest... You know, he's kind of has that preacher type... What are we talking about?

Okay, so let me... We'll... Let's say I...

When we say five people...

I thought I'd go over to the, uh, EOPJ.

We could work over there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Get on with the work of the presence.

They do want to see their work in the present time.

If we get something that's economic, they will like that.

Whether it works or not.

They like such frills.

It's more than a frill to spew about these investments.

They don't like the pressure.

and that the communique is right, that would be good.

It shows the president's still in command and sort of really has to get down to what we have to do.

See, that's right.

And one good reason to see Bush, if you have the conversation, and let's just look at, if you have the human communication of this communique, hopefully, but maybe something on the economy for next week.

Then when you sit down with the conversation, you not only talk about Edna's paper being out of place, then you have all of that to talk about or to refer to, which also shows the momentum that also applies to the anonymous press.

The bill isn't having a press conference.

He's true.

We've got to shut it.

That's right.

That's what we can't do there at the end of the day.

Not at this point.

We've got to do this.

We say we've got to do this.

The only way to deal with the enemy is to stabilize them.

And my reference to arresting this president is not an ID reference.

It's just an example.

But the way to deal with these guys in the next three hours, years, or nine months is to get them off balance and use them.

And of course the reason to do that is that is in our best interest.

That is in the best interest of the Presidents.

And there'll come the day where

I don't know the question.

It's because there's only one man that counts.

There's only one white shape.

There's only one man that got this.

There's no one around here who has worked or accomplished anything but the President of the United States.

Now, people have contributed in their own way.

They have worked hard, and they have believed in what they've worked for and the cause and the man who they respect and love.

But there's one man who got there, and that's that man.

You know, there's no one around you who's indispensable, who's indispensable, except the President.

It's quite true.

And look at it, if you say.

Look who's left.

Sure it runs.

The schedules are still being prepared.

I guess so.

We have a very high standard though.

Totally.

Of course.

It's the appearance of the other country.

We don't wait until they're found guilty.

Okay sir.