Nixon, Dole & Bush on Watergate and National Security

What was the view?
He said it was unanimously hostile.
I said, well, God damn it, that's simply not fair.
I mean, in terms of fairness, it's simply not fair.
But that's not the way the country's going to look at it.
And they're homing in on the CIA thing, you see, today.
And they're with Ziegler now on kind of some technicality.
Instead of separating out national security,
Well, people are going to leave with the president, Bob.
I think, I know they would in Kansas.
that they they're bound to be which don't happen right and that's why i think some of us including the chairman can be helpful if somebody can get that stuff together for us we're still making speeches all over and so are other senators uh you know we could be making the points locally in kansas or illinois wherever we might be
today a lot on getting you know the right and i have to support i guess so i call it and then plus we've made it that we if you weren't we certainly concurred it must go to all the leadership we're getting out of the mailing today
Very, very good.
very curious, almost unbelievable thing happened.
The purpose of Haldeman earlier, for example, meeting with Hale, it's like we were going to do it politically, why the hell would I have Haldeman?
Meeting with Haldeman was not to get the CIA to reflect, because, if you recall, right after this damn watergate, there were widespread reports that the CIA people were calling, you remember, this and that.
So,
They go over and they talk to, Walters goes over and talks to Gray and so forth, and it's not sure that they were on it.
But after this, John E. goes to see Walters.
And this is not, I'm not going to get into what all I spoke was, but he goes to see Walters and treat him for an occasion, and tries to get the CIA to hire the butters and put them on their tail.
Now, nobody knew of it.
I didn't have this, I mean,
That's a silly thought, Nancy.
That's the kind of thing, you know, that, uh, I just across from here.
Excuse me.
Yeah, it's Carl Kirsten.
You know, I'm trying to set up a juvenile court.
I mean, some of the activities, some of the, you know, well, don't be concerned about them.
I'm already sure I have.
I can tell you those guys.
They're going to have us for a long time until they get us.
But you see,
going to realize this is a horrible fight, but I think our foes are ready to fight.
What do you think, Bill, sir?
What do you find?
Well, I've talked around yesterday after the statement, and a lot of guys are ready to fight.
We've got to do it, and we're helping them do the request with the materials.
And we've talked to the House members, particularly some of them over there that are standing against it.
It's like a picture of your younger bar.
You're going to fight the tribes like hot
They love to get in, you know, that vital moment.
Scott Ford did very well in the press conference this morning after the leadership meeting.
What did they say?
What did they talk about?
That the first right of any nation is self-preservation.
And they hit the national security.
They're in the arms of our national security.
They want to fight this week, but they were trying to keep this thing separate in the market.
They were trying to protect the national security throughout.
And they held their own with the reporters' questions that they referred to.
My suggestion, I think there are a lot of us, probably House members and senators, you know, they get it off in the court of the press people and they get very cold waters and they send things out on paper.
Because we don't have any, you know, we don't have any quarterback.
And I don't see what's wrong with it.
We believe in the president.
We want to set the record straight.
uh, brought to justice.
But let's quit attacking the president with innuendo, et cetera, et cetera.
That's, that's wrong.
So what, and let's quit, uh, and let's quit, uh, and then you're going to issue security and court policy this time.
I think basically people are with the president, the presidency.
This person, in spite of some of the crap you're reading, I think in terms of the national security of American people, understand that they basically do not want, you know, communists or anybody else looking at our mail.
I mean, and I'm just convinced on national security that this whole sophisticated thing is a veneer.
I just believe that when you can get it out, a lot of people are going to say, well, look, that made sense.
Of course, you ought to be concerned.
So I think it will be separated out, right?
And they're in there trying to, well, within one pot, but I don't think they're going to succeed on that.
I mean, it is subverting the democratic process and the institutions.
And indeed, if a dean did what he's alleged to do, he indeed is an individual who's trying to do that.
And that's the kind of thing that we've got to, you know, make separate out from the president.
Well, Grant separated the state in person, and now I'm out.
We had nothing.
Nobody ever did.
We were trying, as I said, to keep the CIA out, not to get it in.
I think all we ought to do is have Jerry or you, Scott, have a... We've never had a joint meeting of the members of Congress and Senators and Republicans.
That's it.
We're going to back the president.
The guys aren't going to do it.
They're not going to show up anyway.
unity and determination to do something about it, Senator.
We've been in our own groups all the time.
We don't communicate anyway.
Joint conference.
Joint conference with Senators and House members.
And I ask you, Scott, or Jerry, or both, just talk very frankly about how important it is that Republicans, not for Richard Nixon, but for the presidency and the party, that we do something about it.
I don't know.
The time is right, I think, maybe.
I like it, of course, Chairman.
I like it.
I think, I think, I think.
I don't want to be mean, honestly.
But if you folks can come up with something like that, I think it's an excellent idea.
I think that is our concern.
And I think it's a silly thing to cover.
My judgment is it ought to be commended.
There's no reason in the world for leadership not to get them together, and I'd love to, of course, comment.
I can't speak any better than this far in policy stuff for two years about that end of it.
I know the facts are bad.
Look, the time actually would never succeed without secrecy.
The Soviet Union would never succeed without secrecy.
And instead of the POWs being here, as I said in the leadership meeting this morning, and then fake Ben and Hanoi, if it had not been for secrecy, we had to protect the national security.
And as it was, I'd have been home a little sooner if it hadn't been.
You know, we had Ellsberg seated up in the judiciary committee room.
That's the hero, sir.
He's the hero.
Yeah, he won't last long.
Well, I told the boy yesterday, we're sorry you had to go through this thing, but what the hell, we have to be strong.
We got our job done.
We were elected.
The same reasons of electiveness still exist today.
The same approval of our court policies.
You're the only one except the leaders who are there.
Don't tell anybody.
You don't want to take that road because right now
Nothing to do, whatever, with the day.
That won't work.
That won't hurt you.
That won't be something else.
Oh, here it is.
I didn't talk about it all this morning.
We're trying to put some people out there.
It's just not that hard.
I get that Alaska pipeline.
There'll be a lot of things.
But, you know, everybody's fighting about that.
Say that to Steven.
you are not the chairman now right right because bush has to take a lot of gas even if you have to thank god you're you're out of and i will appreciate everything
in all aspects.
The, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh,
Somebody down here can give us a little guidance.
So we're not only doing it, we're doing it.
So Frank Mozart is here now, and he's very good at this sort of thing.
So this has to begin, I think, or it's yet to begin.
He said, sure, you're taking a lot of gas.
He said, you realize.
He said, you've got to set up the job.
Well, I find, and I think I understand politics very well.
You have a great metaphor, right?
You know, getting the president to fight.
You make suggestions.
It just seems to me that people out there are eager to see the president.
If you're out here and you're ready to go, watch.
It seems to me that that would really make a great change as far as confidence and all the stuff they talk about.
And I've said as much in my own state.
People agree with me, and I'm going to stand in ovation when I say that in Chicago.
I talk about standing.
I found the time to stand up for the president.
This was, you know, I'm not speaking of the dairy and butter group.
So I think that people want to really get an arm's amount of mail.
In fact, it's very injurious on them.
You know, that's always the politics is action and counteraction situation.
But this is what it's all, you know, it's not like they want the attack too much, right?
People begin to, I said, for Christ's sake, they get people out, they're accused of imprisonment.
of everything from fever to cover-up to the lie of Jesus Christ.
And of course, the next day, you're out in the field, and I'm not sure if it's over yet.
We've got it now.
But they don't know.
But there are all of those people in the middle out there, the great majority, who are just waiting for something to latch on to.
It just seems to me an uncertainty in the works.
There's some way to show up and...
I'm going to Illinois, for example.
I have to go to Iceland next week.
But then I'm going to Illinois to the Durslein Bridge.
Good.
Yeah.
And if you've got any good dates out there, I'm going to go.
Because if you have a good date, I'm going to have more dates.
That's great.
They're going to be there, perhaps, tomorrow.
But if you have a good place to go to, I'm going to go.
I can't go there.
No, I understand.
I think there's a feeling that, you know, both the press is involved, and he ought to come out here and tell us, you know.
I got it.
And instead of being, can't be the local office.
I really believe it's there.
I think the strength is there.
And, you know, these stories have a way of turning around, and there's been such a revulsion.
My farmer didn't criticize me, you know.
He said, I'm going to do it back there in Compton.
Goddamn Watergate.
What about the farm bill or the IA bill?
They're sick of it.
But it just seems that the housewife is talking about the parts I ate.
That's true.
I'm not worried about it.
But I don't know if we've got it.
You know, it's hard for everyone.
It's hard.
But we'll agree.
But we're just trying to make statements that, you know, are fair.
It's easy to take a guy out and, like, kick Bob home.
I don't know.
with all those pressures on them.
I think we can avoid all that stuff.
We're not supposed to comment on anything.
Don't comment on that at all.
They'll come out, in my opinion.
They'll come out.
Some will not.
The point is, the main point is you shouldn't comment on any of those specific cases, and I believe it.
But the main point is that all of this got them using this to attack the president for all of hers, their country, hers, the cause of peace in the world, everything else.
And they ought to lay off of that crap.
I think if people read the statement carefully yesterday, you made that distinction.
You made it very broadly.
So the people who want to read can't.
I mean, the party leaders who are talking across the country.
How are you feeling?
I feel good.
I've gained about seven or eight pounds since January.
I will frankly, I can't think too much more this year.
You know what I mean?
I don't know if he's going to stop and come up there or something like that, but he's going to have to think damn hard for me to show up.
I think so.
I think, yeah, this is going to be damn hard for a city senator and a Republican, a seniority, an international...
All I've been doing is going out and fighting up the fences.
I've lost so much in a couple of years.
I've been going to the market for that $500,000.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I was trying to deal with Trudeau.
The way he's only got one charge.
And talking about the pipeline, if you put that thing, if you say that's a Canadian pipeline, believe me, you aren't going to get that.
The thing is true, because I was in that business, is that the lag time, I'm talking about the oil business, but the lag time is immense too, and they've done all this planning, so I think it's, I think that, that point can be gotten across.
Bob's going to be talking to Roy.
He likes to run for governor.
We have a four-year term coming up in Kansas next time.
But we're getting organized here, isn't somebody in?
I can see one of the American, or the Royals, the only confidence playing guy today wants to get back here, so function.
You can raise him lots of money.
There will be, there are going to be about four or five state visits in July.
You see, just to show you, I've got Iceland next week.
I don't mean it that way.
I've got a lot of business here.
Then after I get back from Iceland on Friday,
The following week, we got a tall group of Liberians.
And then, on the 18th, for 10 days, we've got Russia.
That's very important.
We've got the month of July, and after 8 and 3, we're on the 4th of July.
On the 17th of July, we've got the Buddha of Pakistan.
On the 24th of July, we've got the Shah of Iran.
And on the 31st of July,
I'd like to send you a note on Vuto.
I had a great visit with him twice.
Scott's during his visits at the U.N.
Remember when he tore his paper up?
He took your security counsel and he's a couple of incidents you might like to remind him of.
what's this guy looks like.
Yeah.
And he was, he's, he's really fired up.
We have the university.
We're not against India.
We're about the only French Pakistan government.
Well, the Chinese,
What would you like to do, Bob, in terms of your trip?
My view is it's too early.
I think that's what I thought, Bill.
I think you'd be better off to another harvest.
I mean, they're not hard to find.
But my view is I get through this session in Congress.
And I can travel, say, November or December or something like that.
Then you can start off the year and come back and talk about your travel abroad.
I didn't mention this to Bob when I was at Camp David.
I said, we arranged a trip.
But just start keeping the wind out of it.
You're watching things.
That might be something.
Take your time talking overseas, too.
We had that muscle train fare.
nine days.
That's right.
So it just didn't have much, you know, appeal.
Don't worry about the main things.
It's a good time.
That's something for you to do.
Why don't you take it?
They'll have the NSC people.
You take it up with them without checking on me.
to watch, and say, say, say, USA has a good one.
That's the best one.
See, the USA, a trained person has a good thing to do because it's a legitimate, I can make you a representative that way, see.
If we could, I hear you, I would, we may move that one to Moscow, but we can send you to some other country.
I'm not really worried about it.
I'm not worried about me and that one.
Let's go down to Dr. Dredd.
Well, I appreciate that.
I don't have any.
We've had it.
We've had it.
It's a matter of the problem.
Let me say, there are some new people in every area.
I don't care what they are.
Yeah, Chavis.
He's not running.
Oh, he is running.
He's running.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He's done.
He, he hired that, uh, the new, uh, co-author, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
In our campaign, for example, the government, any organization that ever occurred.
But we, we've been combining, we've been combining action.
But violence, they have violence in our convention.
They have violence in San Francisco.
They, they, they've banned people around the place.
There wasn't an appearance I made without the intent to deny the president the right for his speech.
I would love to see this in action.
Of course, we've got to get the New Orleans Interact right over here to public and fair to stand for this work that you're doing.
The people don't like that, do they?
Yeah.
I mean, I think the people are still all right, but the people don't look around.
You can't, you never, you never find randomly either.
And also, you have to realize that when the, when the assault is massive, the reactions are really serious.
They come out of here and call attention to everything.
And there's a counter-reaction that sets in.
And I think it's a sympathetic crack, you know, now for the president, which is about his crack.
But it's just quite real, you know.
We haven't started out with, you know, a lot of senators now that are calling in.
was uh was what we need now the country needs beyond what i said and i know it's true and they looked at me you know the sour look and said well wait how do you explain this opened up to something i said wait i don't explain that at all i'm not trying to don't understand what i mean read that part but look at this i gave him a cover sheet and the first point i said this is what the american people are going to understand if you presented it all fairly
The only place in all the news stories to find the cover sheet 8.8125 or 8.8125 weren't reported.
They were factually reported, I will say, in one big page where the whole text was.
But none of the stories got into these very positive statements by the press.
And Marty Schramm, I walked out of here with him, he was a big guy.
He said, Marty, tell me how...

Nixon, Dole & Bush on Watergate and National Security

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on May 23, 1973

Cite this conversation