Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 931-001
Date: Monday, June 4, 1973 at 8:12 AM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haig, Alexander M., Jr.; [Unknown person(s)]; Ziegler, Ronald L.
Recording device: Oval Office
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/931-001

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:00] Oh, God.
[0:01] Oh, God.
[0:03] Oh, God.
[0:26] That's a complimenter to you.
[0:31] Isn't that nice?
[0:32] Yeah.
[0:32] It started with a lot of social security.
[0:34] That carries it forward.
[0:37] Yeah, yeah.
[0:38] The fairness and your openness with people.
[0:43] Yeah, I mean, he was very good.
[0:45] I talked to him.
[0:48] He's just, you know, so strong.
[0:51] Yeah, but not foreign.
[0:53] He's basically a liberal.
[0:55] Well, I don't know.
[1:23] You know, I got a state of depression, so did Bryce.
[1:25] And he was going to work this thing out.
[1:28] He called last night.
[1:31] He was a... Les?
[1:32] Yeah, a wife that went about it.
[1:33] And I don't know what kind of game he's playing.
[1:38] I never looked at Mel in any other way.
[1:41] It's not a game.
[1:43] Well, I think that's how it is.
[1:45] He's got to go and get somebody else.
[1:49] Get somebody else.
[1:51] I'm sure he is.
[1:53] No, I don't discourage that, but I'll invite you to come.
[1:55] If you don't forgive me, I'll borrow it.
[1:58] That's fine.
[2:00] For just the most of reasons, it's easier to work with.
[2:08] We don't know all the trust in things.
[2:11] Right.
[2:11] We will get it to the FBI, Captain, once you know.
[2:15] That's for sure.
[2:16] Yes, sir.
[2:16] Now, from the outlier, I'm just going over the sequencing.
[2:18] I was just very careful yesterday.
[2:21] I think if we get Laird, I wouldn't have asked him to be our guide.
[2:22] No.
[2:22] We wouldn't have asked him to be our guide.
[2:24] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:25] Great.
[2:25] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:26] Great.
[2:26] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:28] Great.
[2:28] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:29] Great.
[2:29] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:31] Great.
[2:31] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:32] Great.
[2:32] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:34] Great.
[2:34] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:36] Great.
[2:36] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:37] Great.
[2:38] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:39] Great.
[2:39] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:41] Great.
[2:41] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:42] Great.
[2:43] We would have asked him to be our guide on Saturday.
[2:45] Great.
[2:46] We would have asked him to be our guide
[2:48] I mean, I think about the names, but can we get them this morning?
[2:51] I'd like to see them, but I guess they're important.
[2:54] I don't know what the hell there is there.
[2:57] How are they going to go?
[2:57] I mean, who's going to go in and get them?
[2:59] You know, I think the best way to do it is just send a little trooper here to the administrative company and just take it all in.
[3:09] Make predictions.
[3:12] Can you hear me?
[3:14] That's about all I think we can do.
[3:16] I think he was in there.
[3:18] Last week, the request of his lawyers.
[3:20] Of course, he couldn't take anything out.
[3:23] Oh.
[3:23] The only way I could believe... Bob, you're on the same page.
[3:26] Yes.
[3:26] And number one, sir, I... No, we...
[3:28] I gave you strong last night.
[3:34] I talked to you at the dinner party.
[3:35] Some strong remarks that I could...
[3:40] I don't have this.
[3:42] I can't make you cry.
[3:46] I wonder if you could direct us to that now.
[3:50] How long does it take for us to go through all of it?
[3:54] How long does it take or whatever it takes?
[3:56] It should take long as long as we find the stuff that's most important.
[4:01] And that's probably the stuff that I don't talk because it's looking so terrible.
[4:09] Well, Ron's got a date.
[4:11] I just want certain dates, the dates of the conversations with me.
[4:13] I'm not interested in stuff you had with other people.
[4:16] You know, you didn't get any of that.
[4:18] You know, I'm reminded of the Russian account.
[4:23] Well, it's tagged in there, you know, where he's kept it.
[4:27] I don't know where he attached it.
[4:42] Well, it's just quite a double-edged line for you to get over.
[4:50] You can't think of anything else, but I'm going to go look at it and see what it is.
[4:59] Pretty something.
[5:01] You know, it is.
[5:02] It has to go through some stuff.
[5:04] They just, they're just playing this thing.
[5:06] They're all political.
[5:07] You know, the thing is, I wanted to tell you this, but I...
[5:10] I don't know what I said.
[5:13] I mean, I, you know what I mean?
[5:17] I, I know that they're very good at covering up for anything like that.
[5:25] But you know, you're in a hell of a spot.
[5:27] I, I, I played the punk around.
[5:32] And, uh, that story took a lot of them.
[5:34] Rob's story said the president directed the cover-up.
[5:38] Yeah, it's going to be tough, but it's going to be Cameron.
[5:46] Yeah, I don't know.
[5:51] I mean, he says he's been in the conversations with me about COVID coverage on the phone.
[6:03] Yeah.
[6:03] I don't know.
[6:08] I think Robert and John will sustain it.
[6:12] And I think he's got a couple of these along with him, which was so brief.
[6:17] No, they had some, they had two that were, well, most of them were copied by Bob and John.
[6:25] I mean, a lot, a great number.
[6:28] And let me ask you to do this, I'd like to see
[6:36] I don't know whether there was a meeting on the 27th and 28th, or 12th, or we don't know.
[6:42] Our district record shows that.
[6:47] Who should go over and just get back from that and start on that?
[6:51] That's the first time I saw that.
[6:54] I can see what they're always saying that for.
[7:04] Bob, let's wait.
[7:05] Yes, sir.
[7:06] Everything Dean so far said is true could be true.
[7:23] It's just not true.
[7:36] This stuff is written in the most scurrilous way you can see.
[7:40] Investigators are reported to have said, or prosecutors are reported to have said.
[7:48] He also said he has a mental improvement.
[7:49] No, he doesn't have any for me.
[7:50] That's not me.
[7:51] I know God that well.
[7:54] There's nothing for me.
[7:56] They would not be doing it this way.
[8:00] Except they, because they don't have enough.
[8:05] You don't have to run a court.
[8:08] Well, I mean, I was, you know, I was, you know, I'm kind of a worrier.
[8:12] I don't like to make any decisions about your, you know, greatest visitors.
[8:19] So I don't describe them because I don't want to.
[8:26] You know what I mean?
[8:28] I, well, I'm not built into that.
[8:30] I'm not a lawyer or anything like that.
[8:33] But I guess, I mean, I,
[8:36] Justice can't have this constant, uh, here's the son of a bitch that was right in the nest that he's talking about, and he's talking to John, and he's talking to me, and so forth.
[8:48] Christ, I don't know what the Christ we're talking about.
[8:52] We've talked goddamn freely, but I think I know.
[8:54] I think I know that.
[8:55] I thought that I was in it.
[8:56] I think I know we didn't do anything.
[8:57] Didn't want to do anything.
[8:58] There are just as much things that we're talking about as there are things that we're talking about.
[9:03] Getting the stuff, for example, I told him I told him about the jobs he was talking about with me one day.
[9:06] And I had jobs quite in our plane.
[9:08] We were trying to get that from him, you know, because he was very close to, uh, he told him.
[9:13] He called him down.
[9:16] That was one assignment I gave him.
[9:18] That was good, though.
[9:19] Well, that was good, too.
[9:23] I don't know anything good.
[9:24] But I just want you to know that I, I don't know if you get it, but I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I don't look at this damn crap that you do.
[9:30] I've been talking very confident to you, of course.
[9:38] He's described it as something that you have to be discredited.
[9:41] But it just technically needs to be described.
[9:44] You can wear a black leather coat on the president, after a white president for a time.
[9:49] Yeah, I mean, it might form a coalition, which the Democrats and the other parts come out.
[9:57] That's how much I've been on the internet for the last 10 years.
[10:04] And it's very practically a clear democratic movement.
[10:12] I can tell you for the last time that I know, I know very well that most people are not turned off on this.
[10:18] Now this is a huge list because they're all coming up.
[10:24] uh, said it makes it direct to help all of them, or to cover up, because that's the CIA.
[10:29] That's the, that's the cushion of that.
[10:33] But they testified, uh, Dan, uh, Walter, they testified well.
[10:36] They testified well.
[10:37] And they, if I may, that was the New York Times, and the New York Times, everyone.
[10:43] They were all listening.
[10:45] Yeah.
[10:45] So that'll be it.
[10:56] They had everything they had.
[10:59] They had statements by McCluskey.
[11:03] They had a couple of governors.
[11:05] They turned out to the jury.
[11:08] We just have to remember, we're gonna go in for all of them.
[11:12] What the hell do I have to hold so they're not gonna break for us?
[11:25] I don't know if this was a weekend where they planned some big thing.
[11:27] I think it was in the context of the way they conceived them.
[11:31] I don't mean by that to induce damage to the figures.
[11:38] We've got to tack back in the context of the way they're going.
[11:45] But we have no reason to any more to serve this weekend.
[11:47] If we wanted three or four weekends to have them around, we could give them lots of new equipment.
[11:54] to flush out the original charge.
[11:57] Of course, it's not new, but now they've been talking to me about it, and I've lost it again.
[12:02] The case has been passed, and they've been saying it from the beginning, it's just that the whole thing has been orchestrated this weekend.
[12:15] And we're right now in New York, not completely free.
[12:18] Now, as a matter of fact, the New York Times was less ambitious than the Post.
[12:24] Well, I think that's right.
[12:30] Dean said that I'd let you come up.
[12:54] I didn't.
[12:56] Doesn't make any difference.
[13:00] That's fine if I did.
[13:02] But I don't want to try to even knock it down, but it does show you though, it does show you what he's, why he said that.
[13:09] He said that because he had put such great stock in the lockbox.
[13:15] I really think they thought that was going to knock us out of the box.
[13:22] And we came back unabashedly.
[13:25] This weekend, we cracked this one.
[13:32] On the bus side, there are some buses ready to go.
[13:36] Ready to do something.
[13:37] A lot of game stores are getting a little bit further down in the play, aren't they?
[13:42] Yes.
[13:42] In the first, there was a big air crash.
[13:47] But there was a toll sign that you see when it ends.
[13:56] I told Henry, I told him that his mayhem is overwhelming.
[14:23] Well, I want you to know that I don't want you to step out of your first year of old career and fresh success.
[14:36] You know what I mean?
[14:40] There's something that you need.
[14:43] Things are getting bad.
[14:48] It's good.
[14:48] You know what I mean?
[14:49] You know what I mean?
[14:50] You know what I mean?
[14:51] You know what I mean?
[14:53] that I was all about, you know what I mean?
[14:56] That whole business about $50,000, which is totally explainable, totally, for Christ's sakes.
[15:03] When I got this son of a bitch, it might help, what the hell the fuck was, and Bob was here, and I had Bob with us, and I said, Bob, what did I say?
[15:12] And he said, well, he said, you asked him.
[15:15] He ran over to me, and I called Bob back, because I said, he said, you asked how long, what would it take?
[15:21] uh, no, uh, I'm actually taking you into these things over four years, just a million dollars.
[15:28] I said, well, we didn't, we haven't done it.
[15:31] I said, how the hell is he going to get into law?
[15:32] I said, he said, oh, I said, well, that's our problem.
[15:36] I said, we've got to wash the money and so forth.
[15:39] He said, well, I've got them down.
[15:40] I said, Las Vegas, we're not very good at that.
[15:42] Then he left and they're making theirs.
[15:44] We haven't did this board again.
[15:46] I said, we know better how to do it.
[15:47] You know, and then the
[15:50] And then I said to her, John, the problem with all that, though, if you could get the money and all the rest, it's very, I can't believe it, it's very, then they want clemency.
[16:03] I said, you couldn't even consider clemency for two years.
[16:06] Couldn't consider it.
[16:07] And I said, where's the parking lot?
[16:12] And the other one, I said, that burglary's wrong.
[16:17] That's the way the conversation is.
[16:20] Whatever.
[16:21] But anyway.
[16:23] But it was a discussion.
[16:25] But we just need a whole purpose when we were investigating.
[16:28] The plaintiff said, yeah, nobody will ever believe that.
[16:31] That's the problem.
[16:32] I mean, I was investigating.
[16:34] I started for the first time of a goddamn black calendar.
[16:39] And what would that come to?
[16:40] I'm not sure of that.
[16:43] But I should have an edge against me.
[16:46] All he puts up, the precious, the precious is that we could pay a million dollars.
[16:51] Well, that, of course, is a total dispersion because it's out of the context.
[16:58] It's like you've got to end up trying to do it.
[17:06] It's like you've got to end up trying to do it.
[17:10] It's like you've got to end up trying to do it.
[17:17] I particularly want to get right away.
[17:18] Bob said that he thought the first meeting was at 27th and 28th.
[17:21] The log should have been made in this presence.
[17:23] The checkbook says that the log, which we know, should have been made at 5.
[17:29] Okay.
[17:32] I have somebody over there.
[17:33] Now, can you do that?
[17:35] I've got you at 28th and 25th.
[17:36] Would you mind running out before your shift and breaking down that log, please?
[17:40] And, uh, what do you think was the order that, uh,
[17:47] Just bring the original song.
[17:49] Sure we can.
[17:51] Rather than having copies of the goddamn things.
[17:58] I don't really want copies.
[18:01] I just like to see the goddamn originals.
[18:06] I just like to see the originals of that thing.
[18:16] I don't know.
[18:17] I don't know.
[18:20] I don't know.
[18:41] Now, let me ask you to get February 28th and 20th, and March 21st, and when you're by, if I just want to see correctional substances, can't we, can't people walk in the files and pull over and show something?
[18:55] Sure they can, for the president.
[18:59] I want to see the original source of his, whatever it was, how does he describe it, Ron?
[19:05] Is it chronological?
[19:06] No, that's it.
[19:07] No, that's right.
[19:08] He had a memorandum he dictated at the end of each day.
[19:12] Ron doesn't think he dictated, shall we say, an extensive memorandum because he didn't have that kind of decimal.
[19:20] I don't know.
[19:21] But I stand by what I said.
[19:22] I don't think he is trying to make me interested to look at his files and show the remarkable lack of it in him.
[19:29] Well, can we, can we find out?
[19:31] Because I want to know now.
[19:34] We certainly do.
[19:35] I know we're going, I've got a note this morning, like in about a half hour.
[19:39] Good God, can somebody go over there now and get it?
[19:41] Where are the dealings?
[19:42] They're in the information.
[19:44] I can tell you all about it.
[19:48] You can't be in a position to help Kevin.
[20:17] I don't know what the hell, being drugged down by somebody, even though he's not, even like I'm not guilty, it's your own, you know, that's the kind of atmosphere that...
[20:43] We have a job to do and it's going to be a tough one.
[20:53] God damn it.
[20:54] We've got so much going on for us today.
[20:59] Not to give it all.
[21:00] Regardless.
[21:00] Regardless.
[21:01] Regardless.
[21:03] Regardless.
[21:05] Regardless.
[21:05] Regardless.
[21:06] Regardless.
[21:06] Regardless.
[21:07] Regardless.
[21:08] Regardless.
[21:08] Regardless.
[21:10] Regardless.
[21:10] Regardless.
[21:10] Regardless.
[21:13] I'm sure everybody's having a dispute at the whole time, you know.
[21:16] And it gets, finally it's down to 2-1-1 and that's where it's at.
[21:21] Everyone's very good at this, I see one of them.
[21:28] Well, can I give you a little more of our own answers?
[21:31] Well, if, uh, on the other hand, I think we should go to the Broncos now, sir.
[21:40] Yeah, sure.
[21:45] Thank you.