On July 12, 1973, President Richard M. Nixon, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and unknown person(s) met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:26 pm to 4:00 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 949-006 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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.
Well, I made a report to the Florida Tribal Police Center on the last two things.
One is Erwin has read this letter to you on television.
Sure.
He stated that he had a conversation with you on the phone and that you had agreed to meet with the chairman privately.
Didn't use the word privately, with the chairman.
And some other important business that you're working to take care of.
He was then reading the unanimous resolution of the committee that they were entitled to documents.
All documents.
All right.
Now, after the Oregon phone conversation, which Earl took in a committee here in a private session, in which they were all listening.
Why?
Because they were there.
Yeah.
a gurney called Mel Laird.
And he said that this morning he and Annoyed tried to prevent a subpoena action.
And I said, why don't you talk to the president before we do this?
And he said, I've got no more fear.
I can talk to Dan Annoyed.
He's trying to be helpful.
couldn't I come down and come over and have a drink with you and Bryce Harlow to bring you to New England?
No problem.
Now...
I don't know if there's a problem.
Now, Lane, oddly enough, is against this.
He said that in the context of your telephone conversation,
the fact that he believes that you want to hold to your letter.
You try to hold to your letter.
I don't want to hurt him.
He can't go around it.
And this will be interpreted as a negotiating effort on the point.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Even though.
Bryce, Mel, Bazaar, are the other view.
And even Ron is the other view.
They've been waiting for a long time.
If Bernie, our friend, makes us fall, we can't just turn him off.
I think we should find another way.
So it doesn't look like Bryce and Mel are negotiating a compromise.
The problem is, you can't do anything at all.
You know, when we come out one way, that's it.
It can't be bullshit.
I mean, these people are trying to...
It's just like Vietnam.
The rice and melons, they realize how hard I feel about this thirst.
Well, I've told them that you've cooked very hard, and I'd like to go back and tell them that there'll be no goddamn meeting, and if you want to tell Gurney that we're with him, which, God bless him, he's the only friend we've had up there.
But that I didn't do my conversation with Irvin, I think that it would be a derogation of Irvin for us to do it that way, right?
I thought we canceled them.
I said we canceled them.
I'll check with Steve.
Are they here?
Yes, they are.
They're in the room.
There should be no pictures.
Right.
No questions.
There should be no conversation.
Right.
Is that clear?
That's right.
They don't have...
Yes, I understand.
It's just a quick presentation, report, and an all-in picture.
Who did you tell General Hayden about?
Oh, don't worry about it.
It's all right.
It's all right.
We just, we're going to visit today.
But you see, if you saw Ernie in a nugget, that would be, I said, I would talk to him alone.
Instead of that, that's what we're going to do.
Otherwise, you'll get that cembering asshole, the beggar down here, who wants to talk to tenants.
I'm not going to let him come in.
What have you told these guys about?
I said, about beggar.
Did you give them the rundown of the conversation?
I did.
And the way they played it here, on television, I heard when he talked about it, I said, my great friend, the vice general,
dictated most of this letter to the president.
He is the reliable man that's looking for a compromise.
He's compromising us rather than the trouble.
And he ain't gonna come down to me to see me.
Mayor will not be in this office again.
You understand that?
And what's been put out?
Why he will not be in this office again.
What we put out to the press is that you had a discussion.
You received a letter.
You had a discussion.
You agreed to be meeting sometime next week with you and the chairman privately.
And that there is no change in the position outlined in your letter to the committee.
And that's exactly the way that she's sticking with this.
And don't get Analia and, uh, and, and Greg and, I don't know how you're going to have Gertie.
Analia doesn't worry me, but...
But Gertie and I tend to get in with proper and unscrupulous meetings.
He's got to understand these bastards have put us in a position where any meeting in the White House with your two key men is just looks like a, a pre-negotiation for Foles.
No, no.
I agreed to meet with Vega, with Ervin, and I put on the basis that I told Senator Ervin I would be with him alone.
That's the way it's going to be.
That's the way it has to be.
Any other cases would be, I told the Senator we would not have other meetings, and I know that he and I as constitutional lawyers should discuss this alone.
I don't pull any punches out with regard to reporting what I said on the social origin.
I know these little boys are not, I shouldn't say little boys, they're not little boys.
Some of them tend to think little at times.
They're going to say, oh, Christ, why did he say that when he said it?
But I said every word that was most major in how I talked.
That's why I talked to Bill Green when he came in.
Four years ago.
That's the way I talk to children of mine.
It's the way you do it.
You just stick it right into them.
I mean, you're either fighting or you're not fighting.
Where?
All this crap.
Well, I was saying, maybe we can work this up.
Bullshit.
There's nothing to work out.
He put this up in the press.
It's private.
He said, it's private.
I don't even letter to the director, which I wouldn't be.
You're probably lying.
I told him I'd seen him in Christ.
Well, I think there's reliefs all over the place.
We don't know.
Tell Adam, tell Ron, well, there are reliefs around here.
We've talked about it all morning.
You know what it was.
You understand?
That's the way to handle it.
Tell them there should be no meeting with Gary and Brian and all that.
That's the whole commitment, frankly.
Passes a resolution calling for it.
So what it would be, maybe the whole Senate passes a resolution.
Fair enough.
You understand?
But they had, that's true.
They truly bought them off by them.
I agree.
You understand what we're doing here?
The committee, we say tough enough.
What?
The committee, we've got to say very, very tough.
They've already lost their...
That's what we want, a far-reaching, goddamned, rambling, non-judicial, partisan group of bastards.
And if one knows what they are, you know, I think we have to be very, very...
I don't believe guys know what I said.
We would have to talk together, so I'm sure.
Is that disturbing?
Not really.
I don't think it's disturbing.
They're all going to think, why don't they even know?
Why would he kid?
I mean, you read the news summary this morning.
You read what he said down on the floor.
You read everything else.
He's out keeping our balls out, and they're going to sold out, and they're keeping his balls out.
Now what the hell is he going to do?
And he's not going to get away with that at all.
I mean, the president of the United States can't be kicked around by a goddamn senile senator.
That's the question.
It's public.
Everything's TV.
You see, what I'm going to come up with is a bizarre and elegant study as to what kind of anything we can give the son of a bitch.
Now, we are allowed by these quants to go in and make notes, right?
But I'm not going to allow them to go in and make copies.
Do you agree?
Totally.
There's no way.
Oh, I think you understand.
I'm sure you understand.
And besides, if we're going to give on anything at any point in this process, it's to be in the cock's world.
I'm not going to get out of the intermediate form, because they're going to be tough.
Because of the law, you need the law.
Prosecuted people.
So what do you think?
So, you know, we just cannot do things with this committee which gives Cox another line of departure from which to start his work, which is far more important and more significant.
Let me say, as far as the presidency is concerned, I'm so disgusted with the cops and the rest that I'm about to let them go next week.
Anyway, I know everybody over here is wrong, but believe me, we're fighting a desperate battle against a bunch of anti-partisans.
And Elliot will come back, you know, with his flappy face and so forth.
We don't have public opinion with us on the cops, of course.
But by God, that's bizarre, or somebody, or you can, I'm told, say they're, he's too busy, got to get off their ass and get up to chapter and verse and what the Cox and his colleagues have said, which indicate, you know, we're out to get the president and all that sort of thing.
Got to do that.
Also, how they leaked.
How many leaks they had.
Look.
God damn it, if I had the time, I'd like to do this.
Do these fellows think of that certainly?
Yes, they're working.
Okay.
Working on the land deal.
Working on the Democratic deal.
This is a time of less.
That's right.
I agree.
You know what I mean?
I agree with you.
That's it.
Lennon's the smartest of the whole bunch.
Oh, he's brave.
He's about five leagues ahead of the others.
Sometimes, and he's loyal, but Lennon sometimes will... See, Lennon's looking at the curves on the line.
Connect all these.
Mel, Mel, and even Bryce.
Bryce is smart enough, but Mel, Bryce, and Ron would be compromisers because they want a bad story.
I don't know how bad it's going to be.
This is their story.
Maybe this is their own story, to say that we won't furnish incriminating papers.
That's what they're going to try to say, that we only want papers regarding criminal acts.
We've told them they can go in and they can testify to it.
They can go in and they can come out and make a notice on it.
Now, what in the name of God, what do they want?
They want the papers themselves.
They want their counsel to go through and figure it out.
After the way they leave, somebody's got to get down.
You may have missed some of the nuances of what I just said.
The reason I stuck that gate in the wrong place was to make sure security didn't see it.
But that makes the perfect case against a lot of cash or anybody else flying through those papers.
You understand?
Don't you agree?
This is good as hell.
I mean, let me understand the truth.
On the side of your specific authority that I have with regard to deed, I am not going to have even the sorrow that goes through all of this earth.
Do you understand?
I can't.
There's no way I can.
There's no way I can.
See, Bob's incidentally is safe.
He's locked in, and the only person who has the confirmation is Bob.
All right.
Chase, there's no way anybody can do that.
Good.
Isn't that an interesting little sidelight, though, that Bob, we found?
And that September 15th, I was thinking, I, you know, I, I'm sure Bob told me, gee, Bob tells me you've been doing a great job, that I would have said, but I didn't happen to say that.
I said, I understand you've been working damn hard.
You've been awful busy these last two months.
Very different.
Well, it's a very different thing.
I was just complimenting him.
He says, you've been good.
That was a job.
He made it up.
I'm complimenting him.
You've done a great job of coverage on my part and what I've done.
All right.
Well, now, for us to be sitting here talking about such crap when you got there, oh, man, we're going to keep counting the interviews.
No.
I'm sure you did not miss a couple of real staggers I threw at those staggers.
I don't think I did.
You heard what I said about Richardson.
You heard what I said about law and order and social justice.
You heard what I said about tough judges.
I said every word of that.
I thought, I want to prove those judges are dead.
They're going to hold on for, I don't want to prove them.
I've got to say chapter and verse, and I don't want to parent them.
I'm looking at a man who proves judges.
I've got to prove those judges.
I called, I called Moore this morning on this, and said, I just want you to know, and Elliot should know, I know it's at 10.
that that statement in the U.S. where it was reported was a shock to all of us over here, including the president.
And he got back to him, and he said, he said, that's totally out of line.
He said, it's out of line.
He said, it's out of line.
He never says those other topics.
But if that's what he means...
I mean, I want those judges to just say, look, I want them on the right.
Everybody on the right wing.
The right wing, how about your tongues?
I mean, it's right.
It's the second thing.
What do I?
No Jews.
Is that clear?
Maybe I'm not Jewish.
Now, we find some Jews that I think are great.
We're on there.
Yeah.
for they're black, too.
But you gotta do something in the stand office.
What the hell are we here for?
Just roll over and play dead liberals every time they sleep.
And I'm getting real tired of it right now.
I mean, what the hell?
You work here until you're practically dead.
And what do we do then?
They want to compromise and give them the rest of the papers.
Turn it all over.
Well, that would give their whole goddamn hearings a new life.
They take every little old piece.
I've never called them.
I said, now, what does this mean?
What does this mean?
Screw it.
He said, we just want evidence.
I mean, papers that deal with criminal acts.
That's when I said, we need a president.
But he'll, he will long remember that conversation.
You're great.
Yeah, a lot of your, you know, they had this game plan.
That's why you did this the right way.
You know, that's why I said, well now, Senator, why don't you get to my side?
You heard that?
He said he wanted an answer right away.
Well, I don't know.
I didn't get it from Tuesday.
Well, I said, Senator, I said, I've got to have a few days to think about your letter.
That's the way our guys are going to talk to people sometimes.
I mean, they can't talk as politically as I can, but I mean, it's tough.
That's what you have to do.
When did you get my letter?
He got it, didn't you?
He knows God that well that I'm not going to answer his today if I tell him that.
No, I can have a few days to think, too.
It took me four days to figure this thing out.
Why didn't he answer right away?
He did.
He told me, you know.
You know, so I pointed that out.
I said, well,
We said, do any of our guys, none of our guys, they overstepped the mark.
Can you understand how far they've overstepped the mark?
That's a vicious question.
You mentioned compared with their softballs to me.
What's the matter with our people?
Why do they make urban committees so fair?
Well, I don't think they do.
I don't.
Okay.
No, everybody's all right.
What the Christ didn't tend to do something about Baker then?
What in the name of God was he doing?
God, his Baker's phone should have been ringing off the hook.
I don't mean by that that you have to get a Colson operation.
We've got enough sanctuaries around here to do that.
It should be ringing off the hook.
And Bernie should have been ringing off the hook last week.
Now these are important things, Al.
Colson had his weaknesses, but at least he knew that sort of thing for me.
You say Kevin's going to do something about that today?
Yes.
We've got to, we've got to,
Get Bush short up here, too, because he's going to have to leave faster than the guy who acts the way he acted.
Yeah.
The Republicans have certainly pooled many money to carry the message to Goldwater.
And they don't get it, huh?
I think not.
I don't think it is.
Or Bryson.
I don't think it was Bryson.
I believe Bryson.
Brass, we love you all.
It's a company of ours.
Goldwater has no brains at all in terms of this.
Goddamn it.
I can't.
I can't.
Look.
Now, if you have any doubt on the paper's issue, let me know.
I don't think you can start a selective relief without releasing everything.
And I just don't think so, Ed.
I can simply say there's nothing involving a criminal activity.
Maybe we should put that out.
We could say that.
What do you think?
Say nothing.
We're covering nothing.
They can testify about it.
You have turned witnesses loose to testify under oath without any admission of executive privilege.
And a man who stole the documents and also an offender is allowed into the White House for the purpose of looking over his file to see if he can find any more dirt that he's going to put on the president, including confidential top secret information.
And there's just no way.
You've drawn the line on executive privilege.
It's a constitutional issue.
Now, where the flexibility rests.
Although I really think that you don't even want to use any of it.
It isn't something that wouldn't be a presidential paper.
I know.
I mean, that guy's easy to use.
Yeah, a paper to the department, to the Republican committee, to the decree, or to... Maybe the political stuff.
Which ain't gonna be good.
What do you mean, all that?
What have they got to get it from?
They've taken all the committee files.
Load it down on that.
A bizarre hand look.
He's already looked at it.
See, I think that's what we want.
We want to save that doe fur.
It's a bizarre look.
We've been looking, yes.
As to what we can give?
Yes.
Well, he's looking at Strong's files.
That's where they all are.
Strong's?
Files?
Because?
He sent these things out on the campaign, you know, I have it too.
Oh.
The recruitment to the committee.
And...
They have to be able to handle and control all those files.
So these would be the duplicates, or they'd be the original file copy of what they've already got access to.
But I don't think we should do it with the committee.
I think we should do it with the state.
With cops, which is going to be a much tougher constitutional problem for us.
I think we'd be much better in a strong position with the Senate, whose performance has been blatantly partisan, totally irresponsible, and vice-versa.
Please, please.
And there you've got a separate branch of government.
You'll always have a Senate committee of its character.
Open hell, there's our students that we may have to turn all the papers to the cops.
Well, he thinks that we may have to, we may want to, in order to not precipitate a constitutional issue, which the Lord wants.
And perhaps even, maybe by that time, we need a fire.
That's a good issue, a fire.
Before it goes to the military.
But I don't think it's a good issue
Don't you try to buy off the committee on it.
We're not gonna buy those bastards off.
They're television hounds.
That's what they are.
So I said, the president agreed to meet with him.
I said, well, next week.
I said, I was dating.
You know, I did.
Because if he, the chairman, had managed to at least get some kind of a dialogue going on the papers only, he didn't say he was going to talk about Spain.
I said, no, I really marveled at that.
I said, you're not talking about Spain at all?
No, that's not the issue.
You're talking only about papers, right?
All right, fine.
I think we can have a little talk about that.
And so it, uh, it came out to us about what he had done.
He couldn't, he couldn't do what they had deemed him to do.
And that was, they were going to get you for not only sending that letter where he said plenty of things on the Constitution, but also for family to talk to, or agree to discuss procedures.
Sure.
So you defuse that, and we're now in a position where we can fight and hold, and you're not being charged with being unreasonable.
You may charge for being strong and personal.
That's fine.
What I'm going to do when I'm even with him, of course, is to recur the conversation.
I think this will work for Claire.
What if it's work?
This boat is, I don't know where it is, but I'm sure it is.
I'm sure it is.
It's not seen before.
Nice and proper city.
Historic, but it isn't.
Sure.
What I'll do is I'll meet with him.
Record it.
And I should tell him that, no.
And that's recorded, shall I?
I don't know.
Would you?
Then, of course, the difficulty is how do you use the courage to think about others?
Well, I check about a little on who the hell he's out to get.
And he said, many of them know that, Baker, Weicker, and all the rest.
And I said, his staff was leading that.
He knows God damn well and has too.
But how does he become a bait in the woods?
He's getting good at himself.
Of course he is.
He's making statements.
Like when he said the cat of the nine lives, why didn't I ask Mitchell about it?
I don't know.
All right, we've got the signals.
Harlow, he can go water.
If he can't, but I'm not going to see him go water on this issue.
I'll talk to the Senator.
I've got to have him understand that.
And go water has been a flu-perfect task.
Harlow's got to be pretty talkative on it.
And he hasn't been helpful at all in a lot of things.
And we don't want him to have a thing.
I don't know if that's a good idea.
I don't know if that's a good idea.
I don't know if that's a good idea.
We're not going to play these little games, Al.
The other thing is that you ought to, I hope they put a little heat on this fall.
No, I'm not sure.
Is Tim in your meeting?
No.
No.
He's working on that.
I talked to him earlier about that.
Well, fine, if he's not here meeting, I'll talk to him.
Who's in your meeting?
Sigler, Carlo?
Sigler, Carlo, and Diamond.
Good.
Good.
That's good.
We've got to take a position right now, hardlining.
Hard, hardlining.
Garmin is a good old negotiator.
We're lucky we've got a hard-lining business.
He says, don't give him a thing right now.
Is that what he says?
That's what he says.
And, uh, I'll leave him, and I'll, you pick a time to do, I should make the old fart, but what I was thinking, it can't be Tuesday, we've got that Sunday dinner.
But I could do it Monday night or Wednesday night.
I'm inclined to think I'll do it Wednesday night.
Wednesday night, and then I'll do it.
I'll say, look, I'm tied up to about the long pay center.
Well, I mean, what I mean is if I catch him at 7 o'clock, he'll walk out, he'll walk out, and I'll probably put him in a trash can.
But I'll screw him up some way.
He's not going to be there, so if he goes out in the middle of the day, he'll make some papers.
I like the idea of meeting them all.
Sorry, but I have to work up an impression of this for me.
What the hell we are?
What the hell?
We'll make the impression, you know.
Won't we?
By the time?
I think we've got it.
Huh?
I think you're putting the impression on us.
I don't think anybody's ever been mad at me before.
That's impressive.
I never imagined they would never have a case for the people of the White House.
We agreed in June that he was in charge of it.
He popped up and showed what it looked like.
You might indicate to the Board of Sovereign that this looks similar to the old facts.
I got this flight.
Can't believe it.
It was May 8th, December 18th.
I dug in, and that was enough.
And there's nothing to be compromised with these goddamn sons of bitches.
Now, Baker, Baker said, Baker's not going to be in this office.
That's what he said.
Dash is going to be in this office.
I will not have either of them in my presence.
Now, that's going to be clear to the chief.
Yes, that's correct.
I think it was good for him to object.
I'll build him up, and I'll do it with it.
I'll be able to kill him.
See if you can get him.