The Smoking Gun

Bob Haldeman^∇: —on the investigation, you know, the Democratic break-in thing, we’re back in the problem area because the FBI^∇ is not under control because [L. Patrick] Gray doesn’t exactly know how to control them.1 And they have—their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they’ve been able to trace the money, not through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources—the banker himself. And it goes in some directions we don’t want it to go. Also, there have been some things, like an informant came in off the street to the FBI in Miami with—who is a photographer or has a friend who’s a photographer, who developed some films through this guy, [Bernard] Barker, and the films had pictures of Democratic National Committee letterhead documents and things. So he’s got . . . there’s things like that that are going to, that are filtering in. [John] Mitchell^∇ came up with yesterday, and John Dean^∇ analyzed very carefully last night and concludes—concurs now with Mitchell’s recommendation that the only way to solve this—and we’re set up beautifully to do it, in that the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC, who did a massive story on the Cuban—

President Nixon: That’s right.

Haldeman: —thing. But the way to handle this now is for us to have [Vernon] Walters call Pat Gray and just say, “Stay the hell out of this.2 This is—there’s some business here we don’t want you going any further on.” That’s not an unusual development.

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Haldeman: And that would take care of it.

President Nixon: What’s the matter with Pat Gray. You mean he doesn’t want to?

Haldeman: Pat does want to. He doesn’t know how to, and he doesn’t have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He’ll call Mark Felt in, and the two of them—and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because he’s ambitious.3

President Nixon: Yeah. Yeah.

Haldeman: He’ll call them in and say, “We’ve gotten a signal from across the river to put the hold on this.” And that’ll fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working the case, at this point, feel that’s what it is: [that] this is CIA.

President Nixon: But they’re tracing the money to whom?

Haldeman: Well they have—they’ve traced to a name, but they haven’t gotten to the guy yet.

President Nixon: Who is it? Is it somebody here?

Haldeman: Ken Dahlberg.

President Nixon: Who the hell is Ken Dahlberg?

Haldeman: He’s a—he gave $25,000 in Minnesota and the check went directly in to this guy Barker.

President Nixon: Well, maybe he’s a . . . He didn’t—I mean, this isn’t from the Committee, though; this is from [Maurice] Stans^∇.Committee to Re-elect the President, or CREEP. Maurice Stans was the finance chairman of CREEP.

Haldeman: Yeah. It is. It was . . . It’s directly traceable and there’s some more through some Texas people in—that went to the Mexican bank which they can also trace through the Mexican bank. They’ll get their names today. And—

President Nixon: Well, I mean, there’s no way that—I’m just thinking if they don’t cooperate, what do they say? That they were approached by the Cubans? That’s what Dahlberg has to say, and the Texans too. [Unclear.]

Haldeman: Well, if they will. But then we’re relying on more and more people all the time. That’s the problem. And it does stop if we could, if we take this other step.

President Nixon: All right. Fine.

Haldeman: And they seem to feel the thing to do is to get them to stop.

President Nixon: All right, fine.

Haldeman: And they say the only way to do that is a White House instruction, and that it’s got to be to [Richard] Helms and, what’s his name? Walters.4

President Nixon: Walters.

Haldeman: And the proposal would be that Ehrlichman^∇ [clears throat] and I call them in—

President Nixon: All right, fine.

Haldeman: And say—

President Nixon: How do you call them in? I mean you just—well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things.

Haldeman: That’s what Ehrlichman says.

President Nixon: Of course, this is a—[E. Howard] Hunt will—that will uncover a lot of—he had a lot of [unclear] when you open that scab there’s a hell of a lot of things and then “we just feel that this would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further, that this involves these Cubans, and Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves.” Well, what the hell, did Mitchell know about this thing [unclear]?

Haldeman: I think so. I don’t think he knew the details, but I think he knew.

President Nixon: He didn’t know how it was going to be handled though, with Dahlberg and the Texans and so forth? Well, who was the asshole that did [unclear]? Is it [Gordon] Liddy? If that the fellow? He must be a little nuts.

Haldeman: He is.

President Nixon: I mean, he just isn’t well screwed on is he? Isn’t that the problem?

Haldeman: No, but he was under pressure, apparently, to get more information, and as he got more pressure, he pushed the people harder to move harder on—

President Nixon: Pressure from Mitchell?

Haldeman: Apparently.

President Nixon: Oh, Mitchell, Mitchell—is that the point that you made? [Unclear.]

Haldeman: [Unclear.] Yeah.

President Nixon: All right, fine. I understand it all. We won’t second-guess Mitchell and the rest. Thank God it wasn’t [Charles] Colson^∇.

Haldeman: The FBI interviewed Colson yesterday. They determined that that would be a good thing to do.

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Haldeman: To have him take a—

President Nixon: Good.

Haldeman: —an interrogation, which he did, and that—the FBI guys working the case had concluded that there were one or two possibilities: One, that this was a White House . . . They don’t think that there’s anything about the Election Committee. They think it was either a White House operation that had some obscure reasons for it, non-political—

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Haldeman: Or it was a—

President Nixon: Cuban—

Haldeman: The Cubans and the CIA. And after their interrogation of—

President Nixon: Colson.

Haldeman: Colson, yesterday, they concluded it was not White House, so they are now convinced it is a CIA thing. So the CIA turnoff would—

President Nixon: Well, I [unclear] Helms [unclear] get that closely involved.

Haldeman: No, sir. We don’t want you to.

President Nixon: You call him. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That’s the way they play it, and that’s the way we’re going to play it.

Haldeman: OK.

• 1. L. Patrick Gray was acting director of the FBI.
• 2. General Vernon Walters was deputy director of the CIA.
• 3. W. Mark Felt was a senior FBI official. In May 2005 he was identified as Bob Woodward’s source widely known as “Deep Throat.”
• 4. Richard Helms was Director of Central Intelligence.

Cancer on the Presidency

Editors' Note: Previous versions of this transcript were published as Watergate Prosecutor Transcripts, WTT-EX12, pp.1-8; Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: Free Press, 1997) pp. 247-49

John Dean^∇: The reason I thought we ought to talk this morning is because in our conversations I have the impression that you don't know everything I know-

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Dean: -and it makes it very difficult for you to make judgments that only you can make-

President Nixon: That's right.

Dean: -on some of these things and I thought that-

President Nixon: In other words, I've got to know why you would feel that our [unclear] something [unclear]-

Dean: Well, let me-

President Nixon: -unravel something.

Dean: -give you my overall, first.

President Nixon: Your judgment as to where it stands and where we ought to go.

Dean: I think that there's no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we've got. We have a cancer within-close to the presidency, that's growing. It's growing daily. It's compounding. It grows geometrically now, because it compounds itself. That'll be clear as I explain, you know, some of the details of why it is, and it basically is because (1) we're being blackmailed; (2) people are going to start perjuring themselves very quickly that have not had to perjure themselves to protect other people and the like. And that is just . . . and there is no assurance-

President Nixon: That it won't bust.

Dean: That that won't bust.

President Nixon: True.

Dean: So let me give you the sort of basic facts, talking first about the Watergate, and then about [Donald] Segretti, and about some of the peripheral items that have come up.
First of all, on the Watergate: how did it all start? Where did it start? It started with an instruction to me from Bob Haldeman^∇ to see if we couldn't set up a perfectly legitimate campaign intelligence operation over at the Re-Election Committee.1  Not being in this business, I turned to somebody who had been in this business, Jack Caulfield, who is-I don't know if you remember Jack or not.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Dean: He was your original bodyguard before they had candidate protection, an old New York City policeman.

President Nixon: Right. I know. I know.

Dean: Jack had worked for John [Ehrlichman^∇] and then was transferred to my office. And I said, "Jack come up with a plan that, you know, is a normal infiltration, I mean, you know, buying information from secretaries and all that sort of thing." He did. He put together a plan. It was kicked around, and I went to Ehrlichman with it, I went to Mitchell^∇ with it, and the consensus was that Caulfield wasn't the man to do this. In retrospect, that might have been a bad call, [be]cause he is an incredibly cautious person and wouldn't have put the situation where it is today.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Dean: Right after rejecting that, they said, "We still need something." So I was told to look around for somebody that could go over to 1701 [Pennsylvania Avenue, CREEP headquarters] and do this. That's when I came up with Gordon Liddy, who-they needed a lawyer. Gordon had intelligence background from his FBI^∇ service. I was aware of the fact that he had done some extremely sensitive things for the White House [Plumbers unit] while he'd been at the White House, and he had apparently done them well, going out into Ellsberg^∇'s doctor's office-

President Nixon: Oh, yeah.

Dean: -and things like this. He'd worked with leaks. He, you know, tracked these things down. And so the report that I got from [Egil] Krogh [co-leader of the Plumbers group] was that he was a hell of a good man, and not only that, a good lawyer, and could set up a proper operation. So we talked to Liddy. Liddy was interested in doing it. [I] took Liddy over to meet Mitchell. Mitchell thought highly of him because, apparently, Mitchell was partly involved in his coming to the White House to work for Krogh. Liddy had been at Treasury before that. Then Liddy was told to put together his plan: you know, how he would run an intelligence operation. And this was after he was hired over there at the Committee. Magruder called me in January and said, "I'd like to have you come over and see Liddy's plan."

President Nixon: January of '72?

Dean: January of '72. "I'd like you to come over to Mitchells' office and sit in on a meeting where Liddy is going to lay his plan out." I said, "Well, I don't really know as I'm the man, but if you want me there I'll be happy to." So I came over and Liddy laid out a million-dollar plan that was the most incredible thing I have ever laid my eyes on: all in codes, and involved black bag operations, kidnapping, providing prostitutes to weaken the opposition, bugging, mugging teams. It was just an incredible thing.

• 1. Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP).

I want the Brookings Institute safe cleaned out

President Nixon: When you get to [John] Ehrlichman^∇ now, will you please get--”

Bob Haldeman^∇: Yeah, we did that.

President Nixon: [Unclear]--“I want you to find me a man by noon. I won't be ready until 1--”until 12:30--”a recommendation of the man to work directly with me on this whole situation. Do you know what I mean? I've got to have--”I've got to have one. I mean, I can't have a high-minded lawyer like John Ehrlichman or, you know, [John] Dean or somebody like that. I want a son-of-a-bitch. I want somebody just as tough as I am for a change, just as tough as I was, I would say, in the [Alger] Hiss case, where we won the case in the press. These goddamn lawyers, you know, all whining around about, you know . . .

I'll never forget that they were all so worried about the [Charles] Manson case. I knew exactly what we were doing on Manson. You've got to win some things in the press.

These guys don't understand. They have no understanding of politics. They have no understanding of public relations. John Mitchell^∇ is that way. John is always worried about --œis it technically correct?-- Do you think, for Christ sakes, [that] the New York Times is worried about all the legal niceties? Those sons of bitches are killing them--”that are [unclear] are leaking to the press. This is what we've got to get--”I want you to shake these [unclear] up around here. Now, you do it. Shake them up. Get them off their Goddamn dead asses and say, --œNow, this what we're talking about. We're up against an enemy, a conspiracy. They're using any means. [banging desk for emphasis] We are going to use any means. Is that clear?--

Did they get the Brookings Institute raided last night?

Haldeman: No, sir, they didn't.

President Nixon: No. Get it done. I want it done. [banging desk for emphasis] I want the Brookings Institute safe cleaned out, and have it cleaned out in a way that makes somebody else [unclear].

You need a team

Editors' Note: An earlier version of portions of this transcript was published as: Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power, p.15

President Nixon: I think you need a team. This is a big job. But you need a commander of the team and maybe--”

Bob Haldeman^∇: Well, this was [Richard] Allen's point.1

President Nixon: Maybe--Incidentally, Allen should not be a commander, should he? All right. But shouldn't [Charles] Colson^∇ be, when you come down to it, Bob? Is this--”are we--”

Haldeman: Probably.

President Nixon: Are we putting too much of a load [unclear]? What is--”

Haldeman: Well, it's structured so he can get--”

President Nixon: He's got a lot of people working for him, hasn't he?

Haldeman: Yeah. And he's got good people. And he's--”you know, that--”

President Nixon: His instincts are particularly good.

Pause.

Haldeman: All right.

President Nixon: I think we ought to consider this fellow. I think we ought to put him over here. You know, on temporary duty for the purpose of working on this.

Haldeman: Well, the beauty of this type of CIA^∇ guy is that--”

President Nixon: USIA.2

Haldeman: Oh, you're talking about this guy now?

President Nixon: Well, either one of them.

Haldeman: OK.

President Nixon: Both sound good.

Haldeman: The CIA guy, the fact he's working outside, we can just hire him as a consultant.

President Nixon: Yeah. Right.

Haldeman: There's some merit to getting a guy from outside.

President Nixon: Right. Good. Fine.

Haldeman: If he knows his way around here.

President Nixon: Good.

Haldeman: We can get this guy, too.

President Nixon: This guy, just get him from [Frank] Shakespeare and bring him over. 3

Haldeman: Just have him assigned here.

President Nixon: I like the idea of a young bearcat who thinks there is a conspiracy. I'd put him on the conspiracy side, with the CIA guy, you know, on the declassification side.

• 1. The President was interested in putting Republican foreign policy expert Richard Allen in charge of the administration's response to the leak of the Pentagon Papers.
• 2. The acronym USIA stands for United States Information Agency.
• 3. Frank Shakespeare was the director of the U.S. Information Agency.

I really need a son-of-a-bitch

Editors' Note: And earlier version of this transcript was published as: Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, (New York: Free Press, 1997), pp.7-8.

President Nixon: It may be here that we can use [Melvyn] Laird^∇.1 I’ll tell you why. Laird has the biggest spy apparatus of anybody, you understand. That’s bigger than the FBI^∇ on things like this. The FBI won’t get into this sort of thing. They don’t know how to handle it, Bob. They do not handle it.

Now, the main thing is whether the Laird group will get into it. Here’s what I have in mind, and I’ve got to get [Tom Charles] Huston^∇ or somebody fast, but either Huston or somebody like Huston fast. That’s why the—on the Dick Allen thing.2  I think you’ve got to take Dick Allen on the mountaintop and see if he wants to handle this. Who said that he didn’t? You didn’t think he was the right guy, or somebody didn’t. John didn’t, I think, or somebody, because he’s too—

Bob Haldeman^∇: Well, Dick doesn’t think he is.

President Nixon: Dick Allen doesn’t? OK.

Haldeman: He’ll come—on the short term, though, we can get Allen in right now and get him—

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: Get him pulling some people together who can do it.

President Nixon: He doesn’t need really to come to [Henry] Peterson^∇ right away, does he?3 Does Peterson need him now right away?

Haldeman: Yeah, but, you know, we can use Allen.

President Nixon: But here’s the thing. This is the way I want it. I have a project that I want somebody to take it just like I took the [Alger] Hiss case, the [Elizabeth] Bentley case, and the rest. And I’ll tell you what this takes. This takes 18 hours a day. It takes devotion and dedication and loyalty and devilishness such as you’ve never seen, Bob. I’ve never worked as hard in my life and I’ll never work as hard again because I don’t have the energy. But this is a hell of a great opportunity because here is what it is. I want to track down every goddamn leak there is and, you see—and here’s where John will recoil. I don’t—probably we, we’ll have to tell him. You probably don’t know what I meant when I said yesterday that we won the Hiss case in the papers. We did. I had to leak stuff all over the place.

Haldeman: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: Because the Justice Department would not prosecute it. Hoover didn’t even cooperate until I leaked it out. It was won in the papers. John Mitchell^∇ doesn’t understand that sort of thing. He’s a good lawyer. It’s abhorrent to him. John Ehrlichman^∇ will have difficulty. But what I mean is we have to develop now a program, a program for leaking out information, for destroying these people in the papers. That’s one side of it—how to get at the conspiracy.

The other side of it is the declassification . . . declassification. And then leaking to or giving out to our friends the stories that they would like to have such as the Cuban confrontation. Get what I mean? Let’s have a little fun. There’s a . . . Let me tell you why the declassification of previous years helps us.4 [Unclear.] It takes the eyes off of Vietnam. It gets them thinking about the past rather than our present problems. You get the point?

Haldeman: Yeah. Absolutely.

President Nixon: And, as a matter of fact, these papers in a sense, well, in a sense, well, they were about the Pentagon war papers and so forth. It was too confusing to be the war, in my opinion. What do you think?

Haldeman: It was another day, and it was other administrations, other casts of characters, you know.
President Nixon: Yeah. [Unclear] I think it was, sure, it’s about the war and so forth, [unclear] but it is not what we’re doing in the war at this time.

Haldeman: That’s true.

President Nixon: It’s not about what we’re doing. Now, you see what we need? I need somebody . . . I need really rather than a worker (just to give you the personality type) oh, like [John C.] Whitaker who’ll work his butt off and do it honorably. I need a— I really need a son-of-a-bitch like Huston who will work his butt off and do it dishonorably. Do you see what I mean? Who will know what he’s doing and will—I want to know, too. And I’ll direct him myself. I’ll pitch it. I know how to play this game.

• 1. Melvyn Laird was secretary of defense.
• 2. Richard Allen was an aide on the National Security Council staff.
• 3. Henry Peterson was assistant attorney-general.
• 4. Nixon is referring to the ongoing publication of the Pentagon Papers in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Everybody bugs everybody else

John Dean^∇: The resources that have been put against this whole investigation to date are really incredible. It's truly a larger investigation than was conducted against--”after inquiry of the JFK assassination.

President Nixon: Oh.

Dean: And good statistics supporting that. [Richard] Kleindienst^∇ is going to have a--“

Bob Haldeman^∇: Isn't that ridiculous, though?

Dean: What is?

Haldeman: This silly ass damn thing.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: That that kind of resources against--”

President Nixon: Yeah for Christ's sake [unclear].

Haldeman: Who the hell cares?

President Nixon: [Barry] Goldwater^∇ put it in context, he said --œWell, for Christ's sake, everybody bugs everybody else. We know that.--

Dean: That was--”that was priceless.

Haldeman: Yeah. I bugged--”

President Nixon: Well, it's true. It happens to be totally true.

Dean: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: We were bugged in '68 on the plane and bugged in '62, even running for Governor. God damnedest thing you ever saw.

Dean: It was a shame that that evidence, the fact that that happened in '68, was never preserved around. I understand that only the former Director [of the FBI^∇, J. Edgar Hoover^∇] had that information.

Haldeman: No, that's not true.

Dean: There was direct evidence of it?

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: There's others who have that information.

President Nixon: Others know it.

Dean: [Cartha --œDeke--] DeLoach?

President Nixon: DeLoach, right.

Haldeman: I've got some stuff on it, too, in the bombing halt study. --˜Cause it's all--”that's why, the, the stuff I've got we don't ever use--”

President Nixon: The difficulty with using it, of course, is that it reflects on [Lyndon] Johnson.

Dean: Right.

President Nixon: He ordered it. If it weren't for that, I'd use it. Is there any way we could use it without reflecting on Johnson? How--“could we say that the Democratic National Committee did it? No, the FBI did the bugging, though.

Haldeman: That's the problem.

Dean: Is it going to reflect on Johnson or [Hubert] Humphrey?

Haldeman: Johnson. Humphrey didn't do it.

Dean: Humphrey didn't do it?

President Nixon: Oh, hell no.

Haldeman: He was bugging Humphrey, too.

All three men laugh.

President Nixon: Well, God damn.

Haldeman laughs.

Financing a Kennedy Write-In Campaign

Charles Colson^∇: The Poles have a strong influence in that [unclear].  

President Nixon: Hm-mm.

Colson: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: Yeah.

Colson: So that may help us in Wisconsin.

President Nixon: Is there—Should something be done to finance one of the Democratic candidates [unclear] not sure this would work [unclear] [Ed] Muskie on the ticket.

Colson: Oh, I don't think [unclear].

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Colson: No, I think, oddly enough, that there'll be some scattered write-ins. There'll be some Kennedy write-ins.

President Nixon: Why not-why not at least . . .

Colson: Finance a little Kennedy write-in?

President Nixon: Yeah. Put this down. I would say a postcard mailing to all Democrats in New Hampshire: "Write in for Ted Kennedy, the man you could elect." [tape whip] [Unclear] hit-get every Democrat in the state with it. Now, that doesn't cost too much.

Colson: No.

President Nixon: See? Just an open postcard.

Colson: We're probably talking just a few thousand dollars.

President Nixon: Hmm?

Colson: You’re just talking a few thousand.

President Nixon: That’s right. That’s right. And we go to [Bob] Haldeman^∇ regarding the money, OK?

Colson: Yes, sir.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Get me the names of the Jews

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this transcript was published as: Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power, pp.31-32.

A dog is barking in the background.

President Nixon: Billy Graham^∇ told us an astonishing thing. The IRS are badgering the shit out of him. Some son-of-a-bitch came and gave him a three-hour grilling about how much he, you know, how much this contribution is worth. And he told it to [John] Connally^∇. Well, Connally took the name of the guy [unclear]. But, now look, I've just got to get that name out of Connally when you get back. Now, they've gone after Billy Graham and he didn't know it. Now here's the point, Bob: please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats.

Haldeman^∇: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: And remember [unclear] [John] Ehrlichman^∇, I guess, or somebody.

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: All right. Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers? That's all.
Now look at here. Here our IRS is going after Billy Graham tooth and nail. Are they going after Eugene Carson Blake?1  I asked, you know, what I mean is, goddamn, I don't believe--¦ I just don't--”

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: I just don't know whether we are frankly being as tough as we ought to be, that's all.

Haldeman: Well, I know we haven't been up to now because we didn't have a man.

President Nixon: Sure.

Haldeman: We have a man, and . . .

President Nixon: You see--”

Haldeman: This guy's in there now is in supposedly, purely on the basis that he'll do [unclear] this.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: You call [John] Mitchell^∇. Mitchell can go stick his nose into the thing. Tell him about [unclear] went after Graham and say, --œNow, goddamn it, are we going after some of these Democrats or not?-- They've gone after [Robert] Abplanalp. They've gone after [Charles --œBebe--] Rebozo^∇. They've gone after John Wayne. They're going after, you know, every one of our people. Goddamn it, they were after me. For example . . . [Unclear.] [tape whip] --“somebody told me that [Ed] Muskie used Frank Sinatra's plane in California. Did you hear about that?

Haldeman: Some.

President Nixon: Maybe we could investigate that?

Haldeman: Yeah. [chuckling] It also, landed at the wrong airport.

• 1. Eugene Carson Blake was President of the National Council of Churches.

Going after Dan Schorr

Bob Haldeman^∇: --a very positive, sort of background piece on the press conference.

President Nixon: Rather than just reporting it.

Haldeman: Yeah. Well, he had done a reporting piece, too, but this is a separate--

President Nixon: Was that in the News Summary?

Haldeman: Yeah, I'm sure it was. I'm sure that's why it [unclear].

President Nixon: I don't want to read it. I--

Haldeman: It's probably not today. It may have been yesterday.

President Nixon: [Unclear.] On the other hand, when you come down to [unclear] when you come down to stuff that is . . . these fellows . . . in fact, the media . . . you take a fellow like this Dan Schorr, he's--I notice--he is always creating something, isn't he?

Haldeman: Oh . . . He incidentally is on--you don't, shouldn't get involved in this, but he's on our tax list, too.

President Nixon: Good.

Haldeman: They're--

President Nixon: Good.

Haldeman: They're going after a couple of media people. They're going after Dan Schorr and Mary McGrory.

President Nixon: Good.

Haldeman: And--”

President Nixon: Like what? Have they been making any money on the outside?

Haldeman: They think they might have some, yeah, on them. [tape whip] just want to harass them. Just give them a little trouble.

President Nixon: Exactly. Pound these people.

Haldeman: Just give them something to worry about.

President Nixon: It's routine.

Haldeman: Yeah. Oh, that's right, you were going--and you talked to [J. Edgar] Hoover today, too. The damn FBI^∇, you know, we, through the indirect route, tried to get an FBI thing on Schorr and they didn't have anything in their files on him. And so instead of admitting they didn't have anything, they started doing some investigating. [Nixon chuckles] And that . . . So who did they investigate? They investigated--they talked to people at CBS. And so the first person they contacted--

President Nixon: Was Schorr.

Haldeman: --said, "why are you"--no, not Schorr, it was one of his associates or somebody, you know, in there--said, "why are you investigating?" And they said, "For--because he's under consideration for a high level government position." Well, that got back to somebody else and we got this, this panic stricken thing from--”

President Nixon: [Patrick] Buchanan^∇.

Haldeman: From Buchanan, saying, "Jesus Christ! What are you hiring Daniel Schorr for?!" [laughing] And he was in a state of absolute panic, thinking we'd lost our senses, we're going to hire Schorr.

President Nixon: That's all right, though.

Haldeman: [laughing] [Unclear.]

President Nixon: If that all comes out you can just say, "Well, it's on a bipartisan board, so we have to have a Democrat in it."

Both men laugh.

President Nixon: Schorr [unclear] the only one.

Haldeman: On some of that stuff, I must say, though, the Bureau [FBI] doesn't have a helluva lot of finesse.

President Nixon: [Unclear] not much better. [Unclear] very much better [unclear]. [tape whip] great PR call.

Haldeman: Yes, indeed.

President Nixon: Mitchell^∇, today talking--crying to me about the Supreme Court. He and I have got to decide that. And I can't talk to anybody else.

Haldeman: He's got a couple of things, I think, that [unclear] talked about. When he was planning to go on the boat last night he called me and asked what your agenda was, and I said, "nothing." And--”

He's just got to tell them to lay off

President Nixon: [loud banging and room noise] OK, [unclear] and just postpone the [unclear] and all that [unclear].

Bob Haldeman^∇: All right.

President Nixon: [talking softly] Just say that [unclear] at primaries [unclear].

And I would just tell them that it'd be very bad to have this fellow [Howard] Hunt, you know, it's--”he knows too damn much, and he was involved, we happen to know that. And that if it gets out that the whole--”this is all involved in the Cuban thing, that it's a fiasco, it's going to make the FB--”the CIA^∇ look bad, it's going to make Hunt look bad, and it's likely to blow the whole Bay of Pigs thing, which we think would be very unfortunate for [the] CIA and for the country at this time, and for American foreign policy. And he's just got to tell them to lay off. Is that what you--”

Haldeman: Yeah, that's the basis we're going to do it on and just leave it at that.

President Nixon: I don't want them to get any idea we're doing it because our concern is political.

Haldeman: Right.

President Nixon: [Unclear] I wouldn't tell them that it is not political.

Haldeman: Right.

President Nixon: I would just say, --œLook, it's because of the Hunt involvement.-- Just say, --œ[unclear] is involved [unclear] sort of thing, but the whole cover is basically this thing. [Unclear.] It's a good move. [Unclear.]
Well, they've got some pretty good ideas on this [unclear] thing. [George] Schultz did a good paper on [unclear].

How much money is involved?

President Nixon: It's just [Jeb] Magruder's a guy who [unclear]. He's a decent fellow. [John] Connally^∇ apparently asked Magruder . . . just couldn't possibly be . . 1

He [Magruder] thinks [Hugh] Sloan pocketed the money?
 
Bob Haldeman^∇: He can't understand where it all went. There's something confusing apparently to Jeb.

President Nixon: How much money is involved? Is it a lot?

Haldeman: A couple hundred thousand [dollars]. It's two or three hundred thousand.

President Nixon: Well, then [unclear] I think somebody stole it, too.

Haldeman: Well, it wasn't just for this operation. It was for other stuff.

President Nixon: Oh, I see, that whole . . . oh, I see. [Unclear] it would take him to get information from other sources, I suppose.

Haldeman: For some. Some.

President Nixon: Not much. That was a very bad place to have it, Bob.   

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President: To have that sort of an operation in the Committee.

Haldeman: It was absurd. Except this was something John was after, apparently.

President Nixon: Mitchell? That's what I think.

Haldeman: On the finance thing.

President Nixon: Yeah, the idea of getting their contributors.

Haldeman: Well, he had some [unclear] on who it was or where it was coming from or something. He thought he had something. There probably is something on the [unclear] money sources business or something.

President Nixon: Yeah.

• 1. Jeb Magruder was deputy to John Mitchell on the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP). John Connally was former governor of Texas and a Nixon supporter. Hugh Sloan was treasurer of CREEP.

Howard Hunt (2)

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this transcript was published as: Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power, pp.14-15.

Bob Haldeman^∇: --”I explored back with [Charles] Colson^∇, the guy he mentioned, this former CIA^∇ guy [Howard Hunt]. And I talked--”I raised him with [Richard] Allen. Allen doesn't know him, he doesn't think, but he's not sure, he [unclear] he might. And he said that kind of guy might be better, a guy with the CIA experience. The problem there would be he is known in the intelligence establishment and you'd send out some waves. I said, --œWhat the hell difference does that make? As soon as this guy gets started, he's going to send out waves no matter what.-- And he said, --œYeah, that's right.--

President Nixon: But we haven't . . . I would still put down for consideration the possible pattern here of really putting the damn job--”and I just wonder if we should put Colson in charge of it, and then putting in with him--”and put him in charge of a team. And, for example, [Tom Charles] Huston^∇--”taking--”I realize Huston is no good unless it's something that he really believes in, but put him--”couldn't you bring him in to put him in [unclear] he did believe in, you know, and say, --œAll right, this is yours, Tom.--

Haldeman: He'd have to be in as a lone operator.

President Nixon: Yeah. Right.

Haldeman: You say, --œYou bore in and don't come up for air until you've produced so and so.--

President Nixon: And let him go out and just [unclear] you want to get both things. You've got to do the declassification thing, bore in on something. [Unclear] of course, you've got to do the conspiracy thing. [Unclear.]

Haldeman: In any event, Huston [unclear] ought to be ordered back, just--”

Howard Hunt

Charles Colson^∇: There are little things that we have going that one by one, I think, will nibble away at [unclear] Kennedy's statement about recognizing Cuba was, just, God, if he never thought he was going to carry Florida, that's--”

President Nixon: We're going to get that around, aren't we?

Colson: Oh, that's [unclear]. Our former CIA^∇ operative, Howard Hunt, who's been working on the Pentagon Papers^∇, he ran the Cuban government in exile during . . . through the end of the Bay of Pigs.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Colson: All of his friends are down there. That's--”that's been widely distributed.1 He's also [unclear] available to create a little hell when the Democrats have their convention down there.

• 1. During a speech on October 12, 1971, to the Chicago chapter of the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Edward Kennedy [D-MA] had criticized the Nixon administration's Latin America policies and had urged the administration to explore re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

It just repels him to do these horrible things

President Nixon: When [John] Mitchell^∇ leaves, as Attorney General, we're going to be better off, in my view. I think that--”I think that--”I think that while he is less [unclear], one thing about [Richard] Kleindienst^∇, he has got more of an instinct for the jugular and is less influenced by, you know, the press and responsibility, and all this. John is just too damn good a lawyer, you know. He's a good strong lawyer. It just repels him to do these horrible things. But they've got to be done. We've got to fight this thing. [Unclear]--”

It's a balls thing

The discussion turns to the administration's Phase II economic policy.

President Nixon: [Unclear.] It'll start coming in. I hope for old George Shultz^∇'s sake it does. He's hanging on to the last. He said we were doing the right thing. Too bad we couldn't do this. He's right: They were doing the right thing. I think it's going to come anyway. That's what I think we have going for us. You see, I am not of the view that this new policy is what they think it is.

Charles Colson^∇: No.

President Nixon: Bah. This new policy was necessary from a psychological standpoint on the economy. Point one. Second: the new policy in our terms was very important, from a leadership standpoint.

Bob Haldeman^∇: Presidential leadership.

President Nixon: [Unclear] based on [unclear] and [unclear] handled the jail break. I mean, maybe that's leadership. Anyway, that's what they need.

Colson: And there's a third point.

President Nixon: It's a balls thing. It's a balls thing.

Colson: That's right. And there's a third point and that is that when the good results start coming in, it's because of what you did.

President Nixon: Holy shit. That's right. [Unclear] because of the economy.

Haldeman: It's not true that it is, but people will think that's what it is.

Colson: If--”if--”if--”

President Nixon: If any good results, Chuck, we're going to brag.

Colson: You get all the benefits. And if there'd been good results before it would have been, --œWell, we would have had these a year ago if the President had done something about it.-- I mean, it would--”anything that comes in now--”

President Nixon: You guys made a very good point.

Haldeman: That's the advantage of the [unclear] to the, to the--”

Colson: Yeah. Well, it is and it's the advantage to being upfront. And if prices come down, it's because you [unclear]--”

President Nixon: Internationally, of course, you see, despite the nitpicking from abroad. Let them nitpick us a little, but internationally, there are damned little constituents that you'll find abroad. But we have got--”we really needed it there. You needed a new bargaining relation. The United States has been a patsy [unclear].

Haldeman: Well, then, let's [unclear] alone.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Colson: Well, that giving-away-all-the-chips line, God, that's [unclear]!

President Nixon: People remember that, don't they?

Colson: Oh [unclear].

Mixed voices.

Delaying the indictments

Extracted from Conversation 758-011

President Nixon: Oh, you mean, that’s [unclear], that sort of thing? Yeah. And [unclear].

H.R. “Bob” Haldeman^∇: Yeah. Then hang onto that for a while then let them all go.

Pause.

President Nixon: You say no cooperation from the Justice Department? I understand the FBI^∇.

Haldeman: Well—

President Nixon: I, well, I—

Haldeman: It’s been very hard, it’s—

President Nixon: It’s hard. 

Haldeman: [Henry] Petersen has been reasonably good.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: Within--in fact, pretty, I guess, darn good.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: The problem has been [Richard] Kleindienst^∇, who has just, you know, just totally washed his hands. Now he’s come back in. [John] Ehrlichman^∇ hauled him in yesterday and said, you know, “This has gotten ridiculous. [Unclear.] Now is--you’ve got everything you need, now for Christ’s sake turn it off.  Bring your indictments.”  Kleindienst seemed to see the light. [Unclear.]

President Nixon: They don’t think this delaying—there’s no way to delay the indictments until after the election, is there?1

Haldeman: No.

President Nixon: No way to speed it up?

Haldeman: Yes. It could be speeded up, but then it would hit right about the Republican Convention time.2 It possibly could be speeded up, not certainly. But it would [unclear] which you were really be better off to have them after.
 

• 1. The election was scheduled for 7 November 1972.
• 2. The Republican National Convention was scheduled for 21-23 August 1972 in Miami.

Destroying the Tapes

President Nixon: I've often thought that if this thing should parse out the way that it might--we don't know that it will--you're absolutely right, we don't--there's [unclear] goddamn [unclear], you know what I mean?

Bob Haldeman^∇: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: Every day you live. I'd like for you to take all these tapes, if you wouldn't mind. In other words . . .

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: I'd like to--there's some material in there that's probably worth keeping.

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: Most of it is worth destroying. Would you like--would you do that?

Haldeman: Sure.

President Nixon: You know, as a service to the [Nixon] Library and so forth and so on.

Haldeman: Sure.

President Nixon: [Unclear.] Then I think I'll keep the damn machine in. But I--

Haldeman: I think maybe if you want to--

President Nixon: Yeah. Well, you know what I mean? It's just every son-of-a-bitch--

Haldeman: It's not a bad thing for you to have.

President Nixon: --conversation is interesting and so forth and so on.

Destroying the Watergate Tapes

An earlier transcript of this conversation appears in Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (New York: The Free Press, 1997), p.292.

President Nixon: Oh, what the hell, even, frankly, I don't want to have in the record discussions we've had in this room on Watergate. You know, we've discussed a lot of that stuff.

I Want the Goddamn Funds

Extracted from Conversation 131-040

President Nixon: I want those funds cut off, for that MIT. Did you--

Bob Haldeman^∇: Right. I know what you mean.

President Nixon: Now . . . All right. You get ahold of [Caspar] Weinberger^∇ and say, "I want the Goddamn funds, and I want them to know it now." Get it done.

Haldeman: Right.

Nixon: OK.

Haldeman: OK.

If It Blows, It Blows

Extracted from Conversation 758-011

Bob Haldeman^∇: It’s too early to say, but it would appear that—and given a very difficult situation and no cooperation from Justice-

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: Either FBI^∇ or [Richard] Kleindienst^∇-

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: --that our guys have done a--and these two lawyers that the committees hired, have done a superb job in really keeping this thing--

President Nixon: Cool up to this point [unclear]--

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: Let’s be--let’s just be fatalistic about the goddamn thing.

Haldeman: If it blows, it blows.

President Nixon: And if it blows, it blows. And so what?

Haldeman: And we’ll ride it out.

President Nixon: We didn’t have to kick [Spiro] Agnew off the ticket, did we? So what is this?

Haldeman: Exactly. We’ll ride it out.  

President Nixon: So what is this? I’m not that worried about it, to be perfectly candid with you.

Haldeman: Well, it’s worth a lot of work to try and keep it from blowing.

President Nixon: Oh, Christ, yes. I still don’t like the idea.

Haldeman: But if it blows, we’ll survive. It isn’t something—

President Nixon: After all, [John] Mitchell^∇’s gone. And as we’ve all pointed out, nobody at a higher level was involved, the White House not being involved and all that stuff. The Cuban crap in there. The Cubans are going to plead not guilty, too? Or are they going to--

Haldeman: I don’t know. But everybody’s satisfied. They’re all out of jail. They’ve all been taken care of. They’ve now all . . .

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: They’ve done a lot of discrete checking to be sure there’s no discontent in the ranks. And there isn’t any.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: They’re all--

President Nixon:  All out on bail.

Haldeman: [Howard] Hunt’s happy.

President Nixon: At considerable cost, I guess?

Haldeman: Yes.

President Nixon: It’s worth it.

Haldeman: It’s very expensive. It’s, it’s a costly—

President Nixon: That’s what the money’s for.

Haldeman: --exercise. But that’s better spent than . . .

President Nixon: Well, they took a hell of a risk and they have to be paid. That’s all there is to that.

Haldeman: Yep.

President Nixon: They have to be paid. Although, I must say that--and I know I am kind of second guessing--but whoever made the decision--

Haldeman: Was pretty damn stupid.

President Nixon: --was about as stupid a thing as I ever heard. I mean, that [unclear].

Haldeman: But whoever did has suffered for his sins.

President Nixon: I know. Oh, no, don’t--

Haldeman: Bloodied.

President Nixon: Never blamed. The poor son of a bitch--what the hell--got such a stupid goddamn idea. He must have gotten it from Hunt. Sounds like him, does it not? Hunt—[Gordon] Liddy, I mean. I can’t think of anybody in our, in that organization . . . [Jeb] Magruder wouldn’t think up such a damn thing. He isn’t--

Haldeman: I can’t conceive that he would.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: I think it’s Liddy. Liddy apparently is a guy that just, you know-

President Nixon: Hates them.

Haldeman: Well, lives on this kind of stuff.

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Haldeman: He loves …

President Nixon: Now, he’s resigned?

Haldeman: Long time--No, he was fired.

President Nixon: Fired, for not cooperating?

Haldeman: He was fired for not cooperating with the FBI. Long time ago, right at his, right at his first--

President Nixon: He will be—he will be--That’s already been printed, hasn’t it? And Hunt, it’s been printed that he’s refused to talk to anybody. That’s right.

Haldeman: I don’t know where Hunt stands.

President Nixon: [Unclear] not here. You know, they might just be so silly they’re thinking of putting [Larry] O’Brien on there, putting him on this committee—this case [unclear] case about the Watergate and so forth.

Haldeman: That’d be very [unclear] that.

President Nixon: There’s not that much--I don’t know of--I never discount the kind of crap that the press will put it to us on a thing like this. But Bob, it does not, we’ve, we have stayed completely away from it. I’ve stayed completely away from it. And we will-- [Clark] MacGregor^∇, of course, will take a, as he should, a holier-than-thou attitude. I will.

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: Right?

Haldeman: Yeah. And we’ve kept [Charles] Colson^∇ clear of it, which is—

President Nixon: Yeah. [Unclear] knowing everybody is difficult.

Haldeman: And if we can hold up this civil thing then they won’t get – see they, they’ve served Ed Wilson.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: On a discovery deal. But they’ll--

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: The motion will be made on a civil suit to suspend all activity on that, pending the outcome of the criminal action.

President Nixon: We are still trying, are we, to--doing our best to be sure that the various groups that are [unclear] political hanky-panky are kept under indictment, or whatever it is, or charged, until after the election, on the other side. Know what I mean? That veterans group, down there in Florida [unclear]. You remember?

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: The [unclear] stuff. In the end you’ve got have the veterans. You’ve got to pardon everybody.

Haldeman: Yeah. Well, what we’re trying to do is get some more. Some other actions on the other side that—so you’ve got some--

President Nixon: It’s hard to find them. Well, not necessarily.

Haldeman: Well, I think we’ll find some more.

President Nixon: They’re going to be doing something.

Haldeman: They’ll be doing something.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: And maybe catch some on some bad raps.

President Nixon: You mean, like what?

Haldeman: Where they appear to be doing something. We may get some pretty good chances at the Republican Convention.

President Nixon: Oh, you mean, of course, riots and that sort of thing? Yeah. And violence.

Haldeman: Yeah. Then we’ll hang on to that for a while and then let them all go.

Let the Democrats squeal

John Dean^∇: The problem is this: there are so many damn Democrats down in Congress there--”

President Nixon: Oh, of course.

Dean: --”that it would have to be an artful job to go down and get that file.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Dean: Why the Commissioner and the Secretary can't figure out how they can't get down in there and get them despite the fact that there--”

President Nixon: That's right.

Dean: --”are some bureaucrats down there, I don't know. That's what I haven't ever been told the answer to. And we've been round and round on this for at least the two years I've been over here.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Bob Haldeman^∇: Well, after the election--”

President Nixon: Why in the hell [unclear]--”

Haldeman: [Unclear] let the Democrats down there squeal, and we just say, --œWell, we've got--”as a result of the election campaign we've had a lot of complaints and we've got to check these things out,-- and we just do it. But before that, we do have to do it artfully.

President Nixon: We have to do it artfully so that we don't create an issue by using the IRS politically.

Dean: That's right.

President Nixon: And there are ways to do it, god damn it. Sneak in in the middle of the night.

Dean: Well, we have a man. We have a man who could do it and was doing it for me.

President Nixon: Yeah, they threw him out.

Dean: No, we've appointed him [to] a higher post. He is now the Commissioner of Customs. [Vernon] Mike Acree.1 Mike was very good. He could get down there and get me any information I needed. That didn't have to go through [Johnnie M.] Walters or anyone else.2

Haldeman: Why the hell did we promote him?

Dean: He's a good man. [laughs]

President Nixon: That's a hell of a loss, though.

Dean: That's right, it is. And Mike has lost his former ability to use other people over there now because it becomes very blatant.

Unclear, short interjection.

Haldeman: It actually--”the way things are now it doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference whether we get them before or after the election anyway.

President Nixon: Not an issue.

Haldeman: And we sure shouldn't take the risk of--”

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: --”getting blown out of the water before the election.

Dean: Absolutely. [Unclear.]

Haldeman: We should keep--”we should find a way--”

President Nixon: But keep them worried.

Haldeman: But after the election, I think--”so let them--”let the Democrats down there squeal and say, --œNixon's pulling the tax files of all the Democrats.-- You say, --œYou're damn right because we're worried about being charged with covering up tax problems.--

President Nixon: Sure.

Haldeman: --œAnd we're going to get--”--œ

President Nixon: They're the ones who've been talking about loopholes.

Haldeman: --œWe've been having a lot of complaints and we're going to check them out.--

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: And let the Democrats squeal.

President Nixon: Let them find out about loopholes, right?

Dean: That's right.

President Nixon: And they [unclear].

Haldeman: Let them scream the about repression and all that stuff.

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: And just--”we've just got to not worry about it.

President Nixon: That's right. Oh, and it's just a Washington issue anyway.

Haldeman: It sure is.

President Nixon: Go right after it. Go after it and say, --œWell, we want to check these loopholes, and they're all worried about--”--œ

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

Dean: The other thing is you could always increase your compliance program at that point.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Dean: The compliance program has never been fully implemented.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Dean: Just happens that a lot of Democrats get caught in the compliance program.

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: We'll pull a lot of Republicans too and just don't look at those after we pull them.

President Nixon: Well, we'll pick the Republicans, for Christ sakes. [Unclear] just do as you say [unclear] but boy are we just going to do it.

Haldeman: We're pulling Republicans now, for Christ's sake.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: As [John] Connally^∇ points out, we have no qualms about investigating Billy Graham^∇--”

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: --”and Dr. [Kenneth] Riland and all these people, you know.3 It's--”

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: It's . . .

President Nixon: Well, they're going to get some. We've just got to do it though, but you've got to kick Walter's ass out first and get a man in there.

Haldeman: I think that's right, isn't it?

Dean: Johnnie has been a disappointment.

President Nixon: Well, he's going to be out. He's finished. He's finished November 8, believe me. Out.

Dean: I don't--”there's not a dime's worth of difference between Randy Thrower and Johnnie Walters.4

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Dean: As far as response to the White House.

Haldeman: We've just got to get a guy with guts in there, don't we?

Dean: Yeah. He's a nice guy but he sure just can't get what we need. Except, except--”

Haldeman: We've got to get--”

President Nixon: [Unclear] only one with an appointment, correct? He must have more than one [unclear].

Dean: There are some--”not Presidential appointments, but there are secretarial, secretary of [the] treasury had a number of appointments as well as the--”

Haldeman: At his pleasure.

Dean: At his pleasure, right.

President Nixon: Well, secretary of the treasury, get a hold of [George] Shultz^∇ now? Shultz has to know. No, he's got to know that the resignations of everybody--”the point is, I want there to be no holdovers left. The whole goddamn bunch go out. And if he doesn't do it, he's out of the secretary of the treasury. Now, that's the way it's going to be played. Now, that's the point, you see. Now, we--”they always get around this thing and say, --œWell, the White House can't appoint--”--œwell, goddamn it, the secretary, those jobs. We're not going to have a secretary to the treasury who doesn't do what we say. Absolutely, every goddamn one, and if George doesn't want [unclear] that's too bad.

Haldeman: Well, that's just the point--”

President Nixon: It's going to be a rough game.

Haldeman: That's the point where if George, you know, and anybody, gets upset, say, --œWell, by God, we'll leave and pull the string on you, you know-- and say, --œthis is why I'm leaving,-- let them do it.

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: Let him go out and say the White House forced him out because he wouldn't give names to people, or something.

President Nixon: That's right. That's right. That's right.

Dean: Now, I would [unclear]--”

Haldeman: We've got to have a different attitude.

Dean: --”that they're done quickly because it seems sometimes when we wait on these things--”

President Nixon: Yeah.

Dean: --”we get locked in and they don't happen.

Haldeman: Sure.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: Well, the excuse of waiting was that we, you know, we don't have a guy to fill it. That doesn't make any difference either, now. We can leave it empty.

President Nixon: That's right.

Haldeman: We can leave the whole goddamn government empty.

President Nixon: And we're going to.

Haldeman: It wouldn't hurt the world one bit.

President Nixon: That's good. That's good. Including embassies, everything else, just out they go, state department, clean then out,

Haldeman: Let [unclear] run them for a while.

President Nixon: That's right. That's right. They all go.

Dean: That's an exciting concept.

Haldeman: Oh, it sure is. [laughter] Well, [unclear] say, it'll set this country--”it'll be so positive--”

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: --”that this country will say --œMy God, finally.--

President Nixon: --œFinally somebody is cleaning house.-- That's right.

• 1. Vernon --œMike-- Acree was Assistant Commissioner of the IRS.
• 2. Johnnie M. Walters was Commissioner of the IRS.
• 3. Dr. Kenneth Riland was Nixon's personal physician.
• 4. Randolph W. Thrower was Commissioner of the IRS from 1969 to 1971.

See if his phone is bugged or something

Extracted from Conversation 689-005.

Earlier that day, President Nixon had visited New York and attended several events designed to focus on the theme of the administration’s “total war” on drug addiction. He had returned to Washington at 1:35 P.M.1

President Nixon: Otherwise, Ron’s [Ziegler^∇] up there now, and he, when [unclear] the election committee [unclear] problem for them. But if it’s here in the White House he’s got to answer it, doesn’t he?

Bob Haldeman^∇: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: Boy, he’s a good soldier, you know. He’s smart as hell, too. He knows exactly what questions these sons-of-bitches will ask.

Pause.
 
Haldeman: Well, talk to him.

Pause.

President Nixon: Maybe I’m wrong. But do you have a better answer?

Haldeman: No, just except that you route it through here, and that’s—

President Nixon: All right.

Haldeman: Because if you move it over there, [unclear] is compensated. What he’s doing he can’t use the White House  [unclear]. If you do it in the White House [unclear] one thing [unclear] and then you have to use private funding to do what we’re now doing at government expense.

President Nixon: Oh, you can still use it.

Scraping of chairs and extraneous room noise.

President Nixon: [Unclear] and see if his phone is bugged or something. Could you do that?

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: See—I’m concerned about that [unclear] but I—that damn [Walter] Annenberg-[Arthur] Watson sttory is a—has to be from the inside [unclear].2

• 1. James M. Markham, “President Calls for ‘Total War’ on U.S. Addiction,” New York Times, 21 March 1972, p.1.
• 2. In referring to Walter Annenberg and Arthur Watson, Nixon is presumably correcting himself having momentarily confused the two. Both were ambassadors; Annenberg was the Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Watson was the Ambassador to France. At the time of this conversation, Watson was the subject of a minor scandal based on information that could plausibly have been leaked from within the administration. Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson had accused Watson of getting “gloriously drunk” and inappropriate behavior on a plane flight from London to Washington on 9 March. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) had called for an investigation of reports that The topic was considered particularly delicate because Watson was playing a central role in negotiations in Paris with the Chinese. Jack Anderson, “Ambassador Watson’s Playboy Ways,” Washington Post, 16 March 1972, p.A1; “Sen. Church Seeks Probe of U.S. Envoy,” Washington Post, 18 March 1972, p.A4. Several days later, Secretary of State William Rogers conceded that some of the allegations about the incident were correct. Murray Marder, “Allegation on Watson Conceded,” Washington Post, 23 March 1972, p.A3.

The Taping System Logistics

Too many nice guys

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this transcript appeared in Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, (New York: Free Press, 1997), pp.112ff

The original conversation number is 760-009.

President Nixon: What in the name of God are we doing on this score? What are we doing about the financial contributors? Now, those lists are maintained there. Are we looking over [George] McGovern^∇’s financial contributors? Are we looking over the financial contributors to the Democratic National Committee? Are we running their income tax returns, or is the Justice Department checking to see whether or not there’s any antitrust suits? Do we have anything going on any of these things?

Bob Haldeman^∇: Not as far as I know.

President Nixon: We have—we better forget the goddamn campaign right this minute, not tomorrow, but now. That’s what concerns me. We have all this power and we aren’t using it. Now, what the Christ is the matter? In other words, what I’m really saying is this: I think we’ve got to get it out. Now, I’m just thinking about, for example, if there’s information on Larry O’Brien. If there is, I wouldn’t wait. I’d worry the sons of bitches now, because after they select somebody else, it’s irrelevant, even though he’s still in the campaign. It’s much more relevant now that then they drop him because . . . see what I mean?

Haldeman: Yeah, well, but what—

President Nixon: What could you get out on him?

John Ehrlichman^∇: That’s not—

Haldeman: I don’t know. But—

President Nixon: You’ve got the facts. Did they check the other side of the facts? What is being done? Who is doing this full-time? That’s what I’d like to know. Who is running the IRS? Who is running over to the Justice Department and so forth? What I meant is, with all the agencies of government, what in the name of God are we doing about the McGovern contributors?

Ehrlichman: I—the short answer to your question is “nothing.” And . . .

President Nixon: We aren’t. Boy, they’re doing it to us.

Ehrlichman: No question. No question on it.

President Nixon: And it’s never happened that way before.

Ehrlichman: I could give you—

President Nixon: [Lyndon] Johnson screwed everybody. [Unclear.] And when we were out, in [19]52, the Truman people were kicking the hell out of me.

Ehrlichman: Sure.

President Nixon: In [19]62 they kicked the hell out of me. In 1960 the bureaucracy leaks up on my visit with [Nikita] Khrushchev. The—our—the Eisenhower [administration] bureaucracy. Now, that the—part of the problem is the bureaucracy, but part of the problem’s our own goddamn fault! There must be something that we can do.

Ehrlichman: I don’t disagree with that at all.

President Nixon: Now, where’s [Tom Charles] Huston^∇? Is he around? Can we enlist him or anybody to do this kind of work? I think the trouble is we have too many nice guys around [chuckling] who just want to do the right thing.

Ehrlichman: Well, it’s very interesting—

Haldeman: Well, we tried to do it and failed, really. Isn’t that . . ?

Ehrlichman: We’ve got a guy who’s a pluperfect bastard. He’s a loyalist, he’s a fanatic loyalist in the IRS. And . . .

President Nixon: He’s with us?

Ehrlichman: One—He’s our guy. One Treasury secretary after another, starting with [David] Kennedy, [John] Connally^∇, now [George] Shultz^∇, has said, “Oh, Jesus, can’t you get this guy out of there? Can’t you just take him out of this? He’s making all kinds of trouble for us. He’s too partisan. He’s too, he’s too”—

President Nixon: Well, one thing about Shultz is that Shultz is not long for this life, in my opinion, because he’s not being political enough. I don’t care how nice a guy he is. I don’t care how good an economist he is. We can’t have this bullshit.

Ehrlichman: Well, the interesting thing is, that as political a guy as Connally played the same tune. And—

President Nixon: I know. Connally was sitting on top of it not knowing the bureaucracy.

Haldeman: Oh, Connally knew the bureaucracy up one side and down the other. Connally wouldn’t play it. And he played it off as a problem with the IRS commissioner and all that, but that wasn’t . . .

President Nixon: Well, this guy…

Haldeman: He had the lid on it. And Connally was playing—I’ll tell you, I’ll bet you Connally has got plenty of IRS files.

President Nixon: Took them with him, huh?

Haldeman: Yeah. Because he spent a lot of time studying the sensitive reports.

President Nixon: Probably. Probably. I wouldn’t be surprised and so forth and so on. All right, another aspect—

Haldeman: He has a lot of friends in the soup.

President Nixon: What, if anything, have we done on the Democratic candidate? I mean, for example, on McGovern, on this income thing, on [Lawrence] O’Brien? Have we done anything further on that, Bob?

Haldeman: I don’t—not to my knowledge. And the problem that we’ve had, as I understand it, going back to the [19]70 and [19]71 period when there were efforts made to do this, is--

President Nixon: If we get caught.

Haldeman: If we get caught. That every—that they come back with the thing of, “We can’t pull a file because there’s got to be a reason to pull a file.” And you’ve got to—we did pull files, anyway, but that gets flagged at the district office or something like that.

President Nixon: Yeah, [unclear].

Haldeman: Well, he runs out and tells—

President Nixon: That’s IRS, OK. Then is there any other agency of the government [unclear]?

Haldeman: [Unclear.]

President Nixon: What is the goddamn Justice Department doing? Can’t we investigate people? Is there anything we can do?

Haldeman: Yes.

President Nixon: Anything?

Ehrlichman: And it’s kind of interesting, the problem that you have with this.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: I sent to the department of defense for McGovern’s service [unclear: jacket / stack] because I was curious about what his bombing experience had been and that kind of stuff.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: And I got it. But Jesus, the grief I took in getting it is unbelievable. Carl Wallace called me from [Melvin] Laird^∇’s office and . . . . Finally, the way I got it was that Dave Young went over there and he has contacts as a result of the [Daniel] Ellsberg^∇ case and some other cases, and he went in and got it for me and brought it over here. But guys like Laird, like Shultz, like [Richard] Kleindienst^∇, are just touchy as hell about cooperating with us on this kind of thing.

President Nixon: Goddamn it, they want win the election.

Ehrlichman: They’re scared of their asses, is what they’re scared of. They don’t want to read their—

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: They don’t want to read their names in the paper. And that’s the whole name of this game. Now Abe Fortas played this game.

President Nixon: [Unclear] find out about Shultz.

Ehrlichman: Abe Fortas played this game, and before he left his service with [Lyndon] Johnson, he salted a lot of bright young guys into IRS, into the Justice Department, and into the Treasury. And there are still Fortas guys in there—

President Nixon: Yeah. Watch them.

Ehrlichman: —that are sealed in. And this is part of our problem, because the minute you go near one of these file cabinets—

Haldeman: Lyndon Johnson knows that we found that out.

Ehlichman: Yep.

President Nixon: Let me say one thing that we can do, certainly. As I told you, I—and I—people don’t think I meant it. But [Fred] Malek has got to have, or his successor—have got to have that list of every stinking son of a bitch that we appointed. Did we appoint [Phillip S. “Sam”] Hughes, for example?1

Haldeman: No.

Ehrlichman: No, that’s the General Accounting Office.

Haldeman: We let Hughes go.

Ehrlichman: Sam Hughes?

President Nixon: No.

Haldeman: We let him go from the Budget Bureau.

Ehrlichman: The guy that’s doing this fund business?

President Nixon: [Unclear] fund.

Haldeman: Yeah, that’s the guy.

Ehrlichman: We fired him out of the Bureau of the Budget.

Haldeman: He’s the guy who used to be the Budget Bureau guy that we let go. He retired. We treated him very nicely on his retirement thing so that he would get his proper retirement pay or something, and now he’s come back into the service [unclear].

Ehrlichman: Elmer Staats hired him.

President Nixon: Well, Elmer Staats is [unclear].

Unclear, short exchange.

President Nixon: [Unclear] Bryce Harlow.

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: Bryce Harlow’s judgment on that sort of thing isn’t worth shit.

Haldeman: That was one we fought and lost.

President Nixon: I think some of us did—

• 1. Phillip S. Hughes was director of the Office of Federal Elections, a watchdog agency within the General Accounting Office. Hughes had ordered an investigation into the financial records of the Committee for the Reelection of the President (CREEP). Newspapers that morning had carried stories related to the issue. See, for example, Robert M. Smith, “G.O.P. Aide Denies He Quit Vote Unit Because of F.B.I. Visit,” New York Times, 3 August 1972, p.18. Hughes was also investigating links between the donation of $25,000 to CREEP and the Watergate break-in. “$25,000 Donor to G.O.P. Got Federal Bank Charter,” New York Times, 26 August 1972, p.10.

You could get a million dollars

This is another excerpt from the conversation often referred to as the "Cancer on the Presidency" conversation; another excerpt is available here. An earlier version of this transcript appeared in Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, pp.247-57.

John Dean^∇: Where are the soft spots on this? Well, first of all, there’s the problem of the continued blackmail—

President Nixon: Right.

Dean: --which will not only go on now, it’ll go on when these people are in prison, and it will compound the obstruction-of-justice situation. It’ll cost money. It’s dangerous. Nobody, nothing--people around here are not pros at this sort of thing. This is the sort of thing Mafia people can do: washing money, getting clean money, and things like that. We just don’t know about those things, because we’re not used to, you know, we’re not criminals. We're not used to dealing in that business. It's a--

President Nixon: That's right.

Dean: It’s a tough thing to know how to do.

President Nixon: Maybe we can’t even do that.

Dean: That’s right. It’s a real problem as to whether we could even do it. Plus, there’s a real problem in raising money. [John] Mitchell^∇ has been working on raising some money, feeling he’s got, you know, he’s got—he’s one of the ones with the most to lose. But there’s no denying the fact that the White House and [John] Ehrlichman^∇, [Bob] Haldeman^∇, and Dean are involved in some of the early money decisions. 

President Nixon: How much money do you need?

Dean: I would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years.

Short pause.

President Nixon: We could get that.

Dean: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: If you—on the money, if you need the money, I mean, you could get the money fairly easily.

Dean: Well, I think that we’re--

President Nixon: What I meant is, you could get a million dollars. And you could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten.

Dean: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: I mean, it’s not easy, but it could be done.
 

This is a conspiracy

President Nixon: I talked to [Charles] Colson^∇. I've done a lot of thinking last night, and I'd like to do some more this afternoon and this evening if I don't have to do something on that July 3 thing. I have a feeling that we have a hell of an opportunity here. Now, you won't get that from anybody else here probably, except for, well, Colson who, of course, sees an opportunity in everything. [Unclear.] But here's why: this is a conspiracy, it does involve these people, and they are not on very good ground in many cases. Also, we now have the opportunity really to leak out all these nasty stories that will kill these bastards. I don't know whether you noticed this morning, but even the [New York] Times, to my great surprise, gave a hell of a wallop to the [John F.] Kennedy thing--”Kennedy and [Ngo Dinh] Diem^∇.1  Agreed?

Bob Haldeman^∇: Yep.

President Nixon: Did the--”

Haldeman: So did the [Washington] Post.2

• 1. That morning's New York Times included multiple stories covering Pentagon Papers revelations, especially the contention that, as one of the articles put it, "The Pentagon's secret study of the Vietnam war discloses that President Kennedy knew and approved of plans for the military coup d'etat that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963." "U.S. and Diem's Overthrow: Step by Step," New York Times, 1 July 1971, p.1. See also, "Death Knell for Diem," New York Times, 1 July 1971, p.13; "A Challenge for the U.S.," New York Times, 1 July 1971, p.6; "Diem at the Fulcrum," New York Times, 1 July 1971, p.7; Henrick Smith, "Pentagon Papers: Study Reports Kennedy Made --˜Gamble' Into a --˜Broad Commitment'," New York Times, 1 July 1971, p.1.
• 2. Don Oberdorfer, "U.S. Supported Coup Against Diem," Washington Post, 1 July 1971, p.A1; Murrey Marder, "LBJ Saw de Gaulle as Viet Threat," Washington Post, 1 July 1971, p.A1.

This is the guy who'll get out and tear things up

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this transcript was published as: Washington Special Prosecutor Force Transcripts, pp.9-12

H.R. "Bob" Haldeman^∇: We had [Charles "Chuck"] Colson^∇ make a . . .

President Nixon: Chuck is something else.

Haldeman: Yeah. You know, [Edmund] Muskie sent those oranges down to the veterans-that group on Saturday, I mean.1

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: He didn't go down himself, but he sent oranges.

President Nixon: Did Colson order some oranges for him?

Haldeman: Colson sent oranges out yesterday. [laughs] From Muskie.

President Nixon: Is it out?

Haldeman: I don't know whether it's out yet or not. They'll get it out. [laughs]

President Nixon: He just ordered them?

Haldeman: [laughs] Yeah. An awful lot of cases of oranges. I don't know how the hell he does that stuff, but he . . . It's good, you know, he's been around the District here so long, he has a lot of contacts and he, as a local guy, he can get stuff done here that . . . And he's got no-He's going to get caught in some of those things [unclear].

President Nixon: [Unclear.] Well, he has been caught.

Haldeman: [Unclear] And he has been caught.

President Nixon: It's all right.

Haldeman: But it-he's gotten a lot done that he hasn't been caught at, and he-he gets  those guys, you know, something like that going. [tape whip] [unclear] which is just as well- we've got some stuff that he doesn't know anything about, too, through . . .

President Nixon: [Tom] Huston^∇?

Haldeman: No, through [Dwight] Chapin's crew and, and Ron Walker and the advance men. We've got-we've got-see, our plant's in the . . .

President Nixon: What do you do?

Haldeman: --in the [unclear] some of our guys we've got-what we've got is a guy that nobody, none of us knows except Dwight.

President Nixon: Mm-hmm.

Haldeman: Who is a-and who is just completely removed. There's no contact at all. Who has mobilized a crew of about-I don't know what it is. He's, he's starting to build it now. We're going to use it for the campaign next year.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Haldeman: Yeah.

President Nixon: Are they really any-

Haldeman: This guy's a real conspirator-type, who can sort of-

President Nixon: Like Huston?

Haldeman: Thug type guy. No, he's a stronger guy than Huston. Huston is a stay-in-the-back room-

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: This is the guy who'll get out and tear things up.

President Nixon: What do they, what do they do with . . . do they just . . .

Haldeman: They get in and-they were the ones that did the Nixon signs, for instance, when Muskie was in New Hampshire.

President Nixon: Oh, did they?

Haldeman: And, uh . . .

President Nixon: Everybody thought that was great.

Haldeman: They, you know-things of that sort. They-they're-some of that. And then they're going to stir up some of this Vietcong flag business, as-Colson's going to do it through hardhats and legionnaires. What Colson's going do on that, and what I suggested he do-and I think that they can get away with this-do it with the Teamsters. Just ask them to dig up their eight thugs.

President Nixon: How?

Haldeman: Just call-what's-his-name? Fitzsimmons is trying to get-play our game anyway. Is just tell Fitzsimmons-

President Nixon: They've got guys who'll go in and knock their heads off.

Haldeman: Sure. Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that's what they really do. Like the steelworkers have and-except we can't deal with the steelworkers at the moment.

President Nixon: No.

Haldeman: We can deal with the Teamsters. And they, you know, it's the-

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: -regular strikebuster-types and all that and they . . . [tape whip]-types and just send them in and beat the shit out of some of these people. And hope they really hurt 'em, you know what I mean? Go in with some real-smash some noses. [tape whip] some pretty good fights.

President Nixon: I take it you can [unclear] picture of the guy in the [Washington] Post, that the reporter [tape whip] [unclear].

Haldeman: I didn't see it. [Unclear] [tape whip] I must admit, as [Patrick] Buchanan^∇ said in his summary, it's obvious the Post is going for a Pulitzer Prize on their coverage of the thing or something because they're just filling it-

President Nixon: Yeah.

Haldeman: -[unclear] with all these [tape whip] stories and everything else.

• 1. Haldeman is presumably referring to a group of about 600 war protesters who had been arrested and refused to post $10 collateral and were subsequently confined in the Washington Coliseum. National Guardsmen handed out oranges, sandwiches, and cigarettes. See Jim Mann, “Spirit Runs High in Coliseum ‘Jail’,” Washington Post, 5 May 1971, p.A9.

You can't screw around with the IRS

Editors' Note: An earlier version of this transcript was published as Impeachment Inquiry Staff for the House Judiciary Committee, pp.46ff.

President Nixon: Well, I look forward to the time when we have the engines of the Department of Justice and [the] IRS totally under our control after November 7 and then we can do some--”

John Dean^∇: Well, I talked--”

President Nixon: That's what we have to do. You can't screw around [unclear]. I mean, the idea that you horse around with the IRS, my God, even when I was running for Governor, and then of course in '68 when we [unclear] they pulled my file and I had nothing, of course, in income tax, all the time.1

Dean: Mm-hmm.

President Nixon: That's how it's done. What the Christ is the matter with us?

Dean: You know--”

President Nixon: How come we haven't pulled [George] McGovern^∇'s file on his income tax?

Dean: I had a tremendous time trying to get [Henry] Kimmelman's file.2

President Nixon: Well, God damn, they ought to get [unclear].

Dean: [Unclear.] Don't be surprised if George Shultz^∇ comes to see you in the next few days because I made a request of Johnnie Walters.

President Nixon: Yeah.

Dean: After some . . .

President Nixon: On what grounds? You mean George didn't want it? Let him see me. I'll throw him out of the office. No really, here. He's been told that--

Unclear exchange.

Bob Haldeman^∇: [Unclear] Kimmelman's file was to be picked up. [Unclear] picked up.

Dean: It's not Kimmelman now, it's another matter. I've been talking to Murray Chotiner, who's been collecting this [unclear].

President Nixon: Whoever it is, Shultz is to see that any order or list that he gets comes directly. Now that's--”you just be sure to tell him that. Now, I don't want George Shultz ever raising a question like that. He was a [unclear] he should be thrown right out of the office. I didn't. . . I put him over there. He didn't get secretary of treasury because he's got nice blue eyes and not for any other reason. It was a god damn big favor for him to get that job.

• 1. Nixon ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California in the November 1962 elections. He ran successfully for President in November 1968.
• 2. Henry Kimmelman was a large financial backer of McGovern's presidential campaign.