Conversation 946-021

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We've got a good many things going.

As much as possible for the Sunday stories, we hope to be able to see one problem.

I think the Sunday papers are the best way

You'll need the facts.

We are...

They undoubtedly will.

We're getting a little back feed from some of the people in contact with him that he really doesn't have as much as the papers have carried in connection with Watergate.

So currently, most of his statements will concentrate on miscellaneous things he thinks he can dig up.

I remember one of the things that basically he said on the line, he said, you know, in the sense of business of the plumber's operation, you know, the administration, the general producer.

Right.

Yes, sir, unless we can develop some real holds and some other stuff.

That would help us.

Right, that we could go after this credibility.

We might want to develop some things for people on the Hill to study.

Make sure we get into the newspapers, that sort of thing.

So we have to anticipate as best as possible when we're trying to prepare this material.

A broad range of

The more you learn, the more mystifying it becomes.

Really?

Yes.

Clayton is saying he's, I think I told you, we have reason to believe he got this money in his hand at some point.

What was left of the 350.

He apparently was called on to produce it so it could be sent over to Mill Road.

As far as we know, he produced it and was sent to the road, maybe in two installments.

I've learned that he went in

late in the year, and I haven't got the precise date, but very late in 72, he went in and sold all his socks.

Oh.

Something less than $100,000 worth.

And, oh.

I can only assume he had to replace the money.

I can only assume he had to replace the money, and that's going to be something that we can't... We'll never get his financial records before the first of the week, but the more we can prepare on this, of the circumstances, the more we can...

It's interesting.

He was requiring none of the conflict of interest standards.

Everybody had completed the rest, among white house staff.

But we didn't get it.

I don't know if this is late 17th.

They're quite a poor pony, aren't they?

It's, uh... Yeah, he was the guy in charge of that.

Well, I think he really prologated the third field.

The third field has never worked on it.

I don't know.

Well, these tangential issues are common to me.

There's a lot of those, you know.

But they're not the same.

more apparent that he is trying really just to get the president and the more he puts in extremists the more it's going to demonstrate that he doesn't have it as long as it's on the security issue i'm not concerned i can't handle that

You know, the IPT, what Morgan Lee said about IPT at this point, very little.

I don't know anything about the name.

So much of it's been in the press, detailed hearings.

There's not much more to it.

Did he work with them?

Yes.

Had two big files on him.

He only has a very few, I assume,

Uh, the ones that Mark... No originals.

Oh, you mean...

The excerpts were comments.

The ones that went to him, I looked at all of them thoroughly.

Unless he got some that were sent to other people from somewhere else, he might have gotten some additional.

I've been through most of them.

And, uh, might be some comments people would say something about.

But there's nothing there that's...

And I think there's nothing there on the others, except, you know, why don't we do normal reaction?

Why don't we do it back to them or something like that?

Which is no great problem.

He took those out.

He took these out, sir.

Of some type.

We don't know for sure, sir.

He took some of these out, sir.

Maybe that's the problem, sir.

But I don't really think it's a...

No signature on any of it.

I did ask comments on a lot of, you know, when he got back.

I don't doubt he's going to have a statement that'll get some white flag headlines.

Newspapers will make as much as they possibly can out of it.

They almost have to.

They've built them so high.

So it'll be a bad day in the newspapers for one go-around on television.

Probably very little if you read through this statement.

They're going to go with him until they finish.

How long that will take, I don't know.

been reported in the press.

Mary McCrory said she was there on a Saturday afternoon, and Wycliffe and his wife dropped in for beer and fries.

Yes, sir.

You know, she's a big sponsor of things.

Has written a column, I guess, every day now for two or three weeks that talks about people.

Is that right?

Yes.

But she ignored this story.

Apologies for the fact that he's a friend of mine.

He doesn't seem to make a pretense of objectivity.

So, this is very well out in the open.

Everybody in the Senate knows.

And in the public, we want to read it.

I think that that's the only thing.