On July 12, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Dr. Walter R. Tkach, William M. Lukash, Henry A. Kissinger, and Alexander M. Haig, Jr. met in the Oval Office of the White House at an unknown time between 2:15 pm and 2:50 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 949-002 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
I couldn't break the x-ray machine.
I can't swim anyways.
It doesn't help much.
I wouldn't think this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
I'd rather not have this.
Well, I would suggest to stay as normal and routine as possible if you're up around noon or 1 o'clock.
Now, let's put it this way.
If there's no fever, Mr. President, someone could be concerned.
Sure.
The point is that they say that what I thought was concerning me was what was said with regard to this last complete.
In other words, that's what you said, isn't it?
Oh yes, just much longer.
If our arm only did it, it would last much longer than a bacteria.
That's true.
That's right, sir.
So?
But many people have no symptoms, right?
The x-ray, the x-ray isn't good.
It could last...
With people with viral pneumonia, it will not be this fever, and it's discomfort and shortness of breath.
I would think that you'd have this 48, maybe 72 hours of low-grade fever with some difficulty breathing.
And by money, this thing could resolve breathing when you still have a patch on your x-ray.
You might still have a few rattles there, but you would still be able to carry on a reasonable schedule without a test.
I don't think I can do a great deal over the weekend.
Well, I can work on my paper.
Don't be discouraged.
No, no, no, I'm not discouraged.
I can work on the...
On the, uh...
I had the viral strain at the 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 62, 62, 63, 62, 62, 63, 62, 62, 63, 62, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63, 62, 63,
No, I know.
I know.
I know what I mean.
There is a problem, though.
There is a problem.
We discussed it today.
We discussed a hell of a lot of things today.
I got a hell of a lot of things next week.
And I can put a lot of them off on the ground and work on the economic thing.
But you see, sometimes it's best just to tell the truth.
I don't think I've got anything for you.
I'll just, you can answer the next time.
I'll talk to you in a second.
Okay, so look that way.
Where will you be?
930.
You're here.
I'll call you.
I'll call you.
I'll call you.
Yes, sir.
And, you know, there's a case to be made that if you haven't, it's damn important that you take care of yourself.
And you just can't put off the line and tear out getting beat to the drums and working like hell.
Otherwise, you have another problem.
You've got all of our little boys in this staff, they're nice as they can be, and little boys in the Congress, and all these little guys like the Don, Kendall, and the others we've got scheduled.
We're going to say, what in the hell does it matter?
In other words, it's good to have an excuse
All right, now I don't, I personally won't make a request.
We're all going to have a fire in a moment.
I'm not so sure we're going to do this.
That's what I mean.
That's my point.
I personally, I don't want to say it's a day.
Well, all right, we'll make that decision and I can express it.
All right.
So I've probably had it most of the week, that's my guess.
You certainly did.
It didn't pop off last night.
Even dragging, probably for a third time.
Well, my view, Al, is it's a mistake to try to just go through motions.
It used to be possible people could go through motions even with a stroke.
But no more.
I mean, my schedule was always so
these days so full of the little boys that have to have their hands held and pat them on their back and call and caress and arrest them.
We've got to have an excuse for saying, I'm sorry, we can't see you.
You're going to have to see Jerk or Joe or Jim.
You've got to fight off these.
You've got to have a lot of this on you, though.
Sure.
Sure.
And in the present time, the situation that you are going to be
It's a little bit of the first row is to get the proper rest and proper care.
You see, I think the point is that if we, you have to realize, whatever your little plate shows, you have to realize if I'm going to be restricted in my activities for every four days,
You can't.
You cannot keep up.
I said, I can't lie.
What I'd rather do, frankly, is to go out and rather than wait until 930, I'd rather go out and let this one get the damn picture taken down.
Why the hell are we fooling around?
That's what I would say now.
Sorry.
What do you think?
Does that look bad?
Do the recollection have an impact?
No.
No.
Dr. Jordan doesn't do it.
the landowners, as everyone's over here, maybe they have the, I don't know, we used to live over there without being a Muslim.
That's why I said I'm caring for them.
I said that there will be people here in the back.
I can go without a press.
I can go without a press if I want to have people go.
That's all something about anybody.
It's set up for you to go with minimum people at 9.30.
But I mean to go with minimum people at 3 o'clock today.
The clinic itself here, all they have in the clinics are going strong here.
You want to go at 9.30 or 6?
Well, frankly, I'd rather get it over with.
I'd rather know what the prognosis is, you see, because we've got a lot to plan.
We've got very much of a plan for a major economic speech, and we've got a lot of congressional people and others that are around.
I'd rather have a little brother, frankly, be done with it.
All right.
Let's do that enough.
What do you think, President?
What do you think?
I'm going to go through the three of them.
All right.
Well, I'm 3 o'clock.
You should see this man in the third minutes.
This guy will kill Henry for wanting to get him the hell out of here.
He's a bad one anyway.
I thought you said that the clinic would be at his people tree.
Well, we can trick and erase him, but the people will see him.
There's no way I can find him anywhere.
Anywhere we go, they'll see him.
We need the clinic here.
That's not a good idea.
I'd rather not report it out to our own patients if it turns out that...
The HF x-ray doesn't show a natural pneumonia.
You've got some crackles there, and oftentimes they're subclinical, viral.
Then we have to follow up.
He's got a viral infection associated with some fever and cough, and some, I hate to say it, chest pain.
He's got a shot.
He has a shot because he's got too much swelling.
You're uncomfortable on that side.
Not that bad.
It was better.
Better this morning than it was.
Better in the last couple of hours than it was in the night.
That's when it was tough.
But it wasn't that bad either.
And it was uncomfortable.
Yes, we had a tough night.
As far as not getting any sleep and the fever.
Sure.
Everything was magnified.
Many nights I don't sleep.
Well, all right, should we leave it at 9.30 and we'll do it earlier or something?
Well, we're doing it 9.30 under the guise that we didn't want anybody to know until we have let them know.
If this is not a problem in terms of we should let them know because they're telling us in fact everybody's going to be doing it anytime.
No, no.
I think it'd be better not to have the x-ray be the first thing that comes out from people.
But how do you know your character and how do you know if you want to decide to curtail schedule and announce it?
So could you do what's the earliest you can do it and have a reasonable chance of getting it?
Well, I think 10, 10, 6, 7 o'clock.
So at that point, I'll just go over about 6 or 7 o'clock at the end of the day.
6 or 7 o'clock, the traffic is, 6 or 7 o'clock, the traffic is resolved.
We're reasonably, the clinic is reasonably in.
Go in there and take a shot.
I'm just going to go over to the clinic and see if the doctor needs to operate properly to visit a friend.
We don't have an x-ray machine in the warehouse.
No, we had one here, but it went on some basis, and it wasn't used, and it became inoperable.
Okay.
All right.
What's this thing in terms of?
630.
630.
Most attractive.
630, we can move that.
We got our answer.
That's okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
There's no reason you cannot.
I just know that you cannot first hide this, sir.
But the other point is, what the hell's wrong with us?
If you're sick, you're sick.
That's right.
And you've got fire on the home.
See, if it's bad, I would say to do it publicly.
I'd let people worry about you.
I'd get the hell out of the hospital, too.
Why not?
Just stick around here.
I just read the new summary on earth and so forth, and I'm glad I read it and saw it.
I'm glad I was so tough on it.
You know, Bart, the way he and Wagner asked is disgraceful.
Disgraceful.
Disgraceful.
I'm sure that this and that...
They said they're not allowed to catch money.
We wish there wasn't nobody.
Worst thing I could do is to find out nobody was involved in the whole hypocritical bastard.
Where were you when you were at the security mess?
I like the kid.
He came out very well.
I don't know how the hell bastards would play at a mess like that.
But should we get ahead of the curve and put it on ourselves?
Yes, I had Ron and Bryce and Camille in there in my office and I'm going over.
in the general context of the discussion so that we've got any questions about it.
We were tough on the principal.
First, the question arose whether the staff included the paper.
Second, the question arose whether members of the committee had even sent their paper.
The question said no.
He said, what he would be considered to be a senator when he talked about the misconstitution.
What?
His third question arose whether this involved an appearance for the president.
He said, no, that question is not for us yet.
I said, fine.
And the question arose as to the talks that were done by various positions in the time.
He said, he said, they had only four days between Sabina's and, kind of, between his thighs and them.
And that's when I raised the point, well, you're not going to hear all my hearing, all until this week.
This week, I never said it's actually the turn of the day.
I thought, oh, yes, it's actually the turn of the day.
Well, you know, that's certainly unusual for these guys.
And that question arose.
What happened?
I said, well, I'm tied up right now.
And I'll be glad to look at you.
I said, how are you feeling?
He said, I'm a baby.
And I said, this was in the papers.
Just tell Ron the piece in the back of it.
I said, the police, I mean, start stirring from the ground.
Because how could you eat in the morning?
I knew something you had to teach.
That's what the assholes are talking about.
And I said, I want to be sure he has to lay the right object.
And the question arose, which is not clear.
Warren, apparently, was misinterpreted.
We were not allowing him to go in and come out and make notes.
We are allowing him to go in and come out and make notes.
No question about it, is there?
No.
The way the difference is, it's a misinterpretation.
Going in and making notes as they're reading the documents.
Oh, I understand that.
They're to go in and read the documents, walk out and make the notes.
That's what I said.
That's right.
They were to make copies.
They're not to do that.
They're to make the copies when they come out.
And Steve, as far as he's concerned, his solicitude for Dean was rather interesting.
Dean was unable.
I'll be ready in just about five minutes.
Okay.
And I just had a call from Dr. Norman Maynard, who was doing a party group.
A morning air.
How's that?
Well, he says you've got his face.
He says it's the first time in his life he's beginning to like you.
He says it's much more good to sit down as far as he was concerned.
I just, you know, I just want you to know what a radical leftist is thinking.
Because he said any man who can inspire such loyalty, and he said now he's beginning to believe maybe the president didn't know about any kid.
He said it doesn't make any difference.
I just thought it might interest you that here's a man who's pathologically lost.
What we're talking about is urbanism.
I just had to carry it home.
I laid it out.
He'd bake it to the papers, and once danged through, or once danged, he would now look over the papers and determine which ones could come out.
I said, out of your life, there ain't gonna be no papers come out.
I wouldn't, I think, I wouldn't give an inch.
I wouldn't give, I wouldn't sue.
I wouldn't sue.
Crashed big.
The Supreme Court wanted to decide this.
They wanted to destroy the presidency.
The Supreme Court destroyed it.
I'm not gonna destroy it.
I'll just give you a second.
I think he's turning anyway.
I think you're our best buy.
Well, I find that very interesting.
He said his theory is, you know, he's a little bit nuts, but he may go the other way.
But he said he thinks you're going to come out of this eventually stronger.
that the public is beginning to identify with you when somebody has kicked it out so much and endures and overcomes it.
That's what a lot of the people have experienced in their own lives.
They do, don't they?
That's what he says.
And that's an oppression.
Yeah.
I found it fascinating.
I found everybody.
So that I could give them a few arguments, and I find that I've had to pull them off.
Coyne, you know, Pete wants to deny that it's all a CIA conspiracy against you because you were on a day-trump, but I said four days.
That's a little bit more than three days.
Obviously, good, Mr. President.
Thank you.
That's my idea.
Well, if you wait, don't let her.
I mean, you'll have no problem.
Right, Mr. President.
Thank you.
They don't believe in the male fish, but by God, there comes a time.
They didn't object to the son, did they?
No.
No, I said that you were strong, that you maintained the principle of your letter, but that you were also reasonable in the context of expressing perhaps a willingness to get together alone with Irvin.
Well, that's the other point that I said that you were Irvin alone.
Well, that's the head spelling.
So screw the television.
I'm going to be with him about 7 o'clock at night.
See?
Yeah.
Get it down.
We're going to have to have some of those children.
Well, I think we are.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and I also think, in the context of where we stand right now,
You know what I mean?
I've got the whole bedroom.
I've never had any time off.
And I've had this.
Not that I need a hospital.
A little sleep over is not bad.
I'm guessing.
But I do think it's silly for us to make a little bit of gain figure out.
And I'm saying, the guy right over there to see who did the data and all that sort of thing.
No, I think they can answer it if they find it's the best way to do it.
If it comes out, sure, it'll come out.
And if this were one of the, you know, you might yourself feel something.
You see, the one thing that really worried Christ, they didn't pay any price.
Christ kept on coming to the glory system, so they didn't bring the one thing that would drive harm on the world.
And that conversation would probably, he would have probably changed.
You know what I said to him?
Who are you trying to get?
I just like that.
Yeah, he said if you treat me with the same on that period, you'd get gavel.
Right.
Who you talking about, Gav?
Gerval.
Yeah, Gerval.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I saw Gerval.
I said, well, make the same argument you made with the fakers.
I was, I just, what I'm going to take is crap.
Yeah, and you got Baker for your security.
So I'm going to go with Baker.
I don't think that he could be wrong.
There's a lot of services that work.
I'm tired of him.
He can go back and tell his committee what the president's very and where he's keeping the people and what they do and then take it out.
I don't know what their secret is up to handling this sort of unsophisticated thing.
I don't know.
I didn't show it.
I think you can hand it back to Jerry for it.
Oh, good God, yes.
Well, I think it's just going to be a depression.
You noticed, too?
He's moving.
He knows what happened.
You probably had to see him all the time.
I said, now, who is it?
Who do you think we should talk to?
He said, Sam.
I said, hold on.
Who is your head?
He mentioned something.
He'll do it.
Caroline, I said, fine.
He said, by Bill, you have some calls.
He got it right away, that son of a bitch Nash.
I mean, Nash was the security of it.
The security staff, the security of it.
The security of the big maker.
And also, it was just as well the letter, you know, the secret papers that you read into the record.
My God, you've got to know that I felt that was wrong.
Don't you think so, Maxie?
Oh, it was tough.
It was tough.
It really was.
But it was a tough, mean conversation.
And not with some mean victims themselves.
Not with the best of grace, but not with a lot of this slutty southern asshole that threw that old crap on me.
And these gentlemen, he's trying to work things out.
Bullshit.
The best thing that we've lost by the president wasn't to call bail to the president.
We've got nothing to thank God for.
You know what I mean?
Maybe they do.
Oh, these guys are what?
They're like, if this is just like democracy, then it's not going to work.
They turned into villains to the American people in that committee.
And as it's been so bad, the best thing we did was essentially keep quiet.
Let that goddamn Dean have his day and look like a slick merchant, a dishonest guy.
Let them have their unobjective, partisan god damn work.
Or he's up there.
Put a quiet, gentle, older man like Mitchell on there and goddamn it, he just ripped them apart.
From this point on, we're going uphill.
There's no question about it.
All of us have our problems, man.
All of us.
I've heard of Dave.
I've heard of Dave.
I've heard of Dave.
I've heard of Dave.
But I made one note to myself last night.
You forgot to talk to Cosa for that bizarre job.
And tell him to tell me the last words about everything else.
He must do nothing to screw the others.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Why does he want to defend himself?
He's got a great memory about himself.
He isn't.
I don't think Cosa can get anywhere.
God damn him.
He mustn't say, well, I thought that you was involved or I didn't.
There was a bail around the White House
This conference is, in the fall, a patent committee, and I was up to it.
And I thought at the present moment, I mean, this whole idea that I should sit here, because I'm a lean child, this is where I'm from, and to take this horrible shit, that I'm holding, because I can do it, not personally, not for this office.
And that's what they did.
When I said about peace with honor, I said, well, this isn't a game.
I told you, God, we're on.
Half the staff wanted to quit.
Best thing I ever did, that's the first time he's without our shoes.
You have to say that.
It was happening to be true.
It'll gag some.
It'll ruin it.
Sure, it has a mix.
You've got to realize, when you take something off, it has a mix.
to be able to play it, I was very unreasonable.
Me.
No, I don't think he, I don't think he, I don't think he wants to, what I want him to do is to destroy it.
Because he was tough, and he was, and that's, I think that's the greatest thing, that he,
may have called the president and dealt with him on an equal level and made demands.
What's your concern?
It didn't quite sound that way.
Oh, it wasn't.
That's what he said.
The point is that he said, I turned down the staff.
I can't see him.
They can't see him.
My position, Senator, hasn't changed.
I finally got to the point where, as I said, he said, well, I guess there isn't anything to mean about it.
And what we've talked about in other agencies, you know, I threw that in, correct?
But I guess what's more important than any of these things is that that son of a bitch got an idea that he has a tough son of a bitch on his hand.
And she would come to the next level.
Oh, God.
If he doesn't, then he's not very observant.
My guy just died right off the bat.
Yeah, I read it in the newspaper.
See, I'm here.
Everything he said here.
You don't touch a senator.
All the way through.
I have a little secret for you.
Music.
Small.
I'll show you.
I was curious about what Breed was said on September 15th.
I had to check in my own way.
The conversation, to my surprise, because I never questioned it, all of them had not questioned it, did not start off, Hi, John, Bob tells me you've been doing a great job.
The conversation began and said, John,
I understand you've had a lot of hard work over the last few weeks.
You've done a lot of work over the last few weeks.
That's the way it started.
That's the way it started.
And all of them has this idea of not being able to testify.
I understand you've had a lot of work to see, which of course, that was the handling of the 93 people on the staff.
over the last two months.
He's been tired of it.
He's lying again, see?
All these little lies.
All of them killed, all of them.
By the time Harvey gets to him, he'll be murdered.
He doesn't.
I think Mitchell just destroyed him.
He heard it.
We know what Morris was.
What?
We know what Morris was.
Right.
On March 21st.
I know.
Moore is the one who told him, come see the president.
Oh, my God.
You've got to see the president.
The idea that he said Mitchell was involved and all of them were involved, he did not say that.
He did not say that.
He made one of the businesses a blackmail.
That was the purpose.
He said Mitchell could meet all of them.
And the conversation, the telephone conversation of the 94 is very significant when he asked for the department.
We can't use it for other reasons because we have the Stonewall thing in there, which is perfect, all right, if you put it in the context of Moore's meeting.
But you can't use it.
But I asked him, I said, now, John, is anybody in the White House involved?
He said, there's not a ton of evidence involving anybody in the White House.
And sitting right in that chair, God damn him, on the 21st, he didn't say anything.
He said, the early ones got a problem.
I said, what the hell is it?
I said, and he said, that's because of the break.
All of them got a problem because of the $350,000.
That's all.
Nothing new about that.
Make no money with it at all.
Never made any money.
You see, the difference
between Mitchell and that little shit.
He'd say, you know, dare to call him?
He'd get some of the hand.
Mitchell, who had a hell of a lot of work to do.
He'd hand it down and he'd hit the, hit Senator.
Hit the people to find the avenue.
Did he deserve it, Senator?
Yes, very much so.
Because, and he said it was,