Nixon Haldeman Haig Conversation May 11 1973 (original)

Transcript of a conversation between Richard Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, and Al Haig.

Introduction and majority of the transcript taken from Stanley Kutler's Abuse of Power.

Audio is taken from two files, at these URLs:

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape916/916-019a.mp3

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape916/916-019b.mp3

Audio accompanied by transcript is on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrK4BmY0MA8

MAY 11, 1973: THE PRESIDENT, HALDEMAN, AND HAIG, 12:53-2:02 PM, OVAL OFFICE

In the just-concluded conversation, Haig warned the President that it was inadvisable for him to see Haldeman. But Haig lacked the power to prevent it and Haldeman arrives to see Nixon. The conversation appears to reinforce Haig's command. Nixon and Haldeman review their "story." Nixon covers himself regarding the plumbers. The two maintain they did not concoct the fake CIA cover story; they do acknowledge their intent to limit the Watergate investigation for fear it might unveil other White House activities. Nixon insists that Buzhardt understand "that the purpose of that talk had nothing to do with not pursuing the Watergate burglary. It had to do with not getting into the national security aspects." Passionately, Nixon adds: "I want him to believe." Nixon continues to worry about Ehrlichman's loyalty, Haldeman says he did not know Dean dealt with Walters. In effect, Haig now has full knowledge of the cover-up and is part of the new one to conceal the old.

NIXON
Robert, how are you, boy? I'm glad to see you...Uh, I wondered if you've got this fill in on this latest flap, uh-

HALDEMAN
Yeah.

NIXON
Just, just talked to Buzhardt....We want to keep Al a little bit away from it...On-on the situation, let me say first that it was a Buzhardt thing - trust him completely. He's alright for now. He's on our side here in on this...[James] Schlesinger has called [General Vernon] Walters back from a trip so that he would be available to discuss this matter [the CIA's role in Watergate] with [Henry] Petersen, you know...In fact, there was a discussion between Walters and [Acting FBI Director L. Patrick] Gray about possible CIA cover and/or involvement in this matter...Apparently, Walters had several memcoms that he has made. Fortunately, he's a loyal fellow and brought them back; they're in the White House at the present time, including the memcom of the meeting when Helms...-Helms, you, Ehrlichman, Dean - at which point that the, uh, discussion was there were - where some of the discussion was the effect that Walters ought to do what he could to - that, that - this Watergate is-getting-out-of-hand thing...[T]he main thing I wanted to tell you, I want to talk to you about is this so...when you and John will be asked about it,...you will be on track in terms of what the story really is. The story is that they - that Hunt had been with the CIA - our story is that he had done some national security work -

HALDEMAN
Right.

NIXON
The story is that you didn't know what the situation is and that's why you asked this guy here, but you at no time ever suggested to Walters that Walters should, uh - and basically - put out a cover story that it was the CIA business. And set Gray to go along those lines...Now Walters is like a rock...

(withdrawn, natsec)

Walters is going to say that what happened was that he met here and that he was asked to talk to Gray and he did talk to Gray about this matter, but determined there ws no CIA involvement....[T]hese memcoms are mostly Dean hammering him over and over and over again - Goddamnit, you've got to do something about getting (unintelligible) CIA cover-up of this thing. Now, as I told Al - I'll say this again - points up the Dean thing. But, the point that I make,...I'll sit on them [the memcoms] till hell freezes over....[T]he point is-

HALDEMAN
What do we do about Helms?

NIXON
....What was the conversation with Helms about?

HALDEMAN
It was about the problem of these people being former CIA people. The question of whether there was any CIA involvement - we didn't know.

NIXON
If you were asking that question, you were raising problems.

HALDEMAN
We raised our questions. We were raising the concern - I forget why, but Bay of Pigs came into this. It was a concern making the point to Helms - if this - if these people are drawn out. See we had a concern at that time with Helms, Hunt, and Liddy,...and the Cubans.

NIXON
Yeah, well, John - Bob - just be sure that you and John [Ehrlichman] talk exactly that way....

HALDEMAN
Yeah. The thing I wonder is that if we ought to look at - one of us ought to look at Walters's memcom, because it would be accurate.

NIXON
It would be accurate - (unintelligible) some of it, he says, well, I, Al, has looked at it. Al believes that some of it would be damaging...Walters said he always aksed, well, does the President approve, wants you to do any of this, and he couldn't get anything in writing from Dean on that. Thank God, thank God that everybody-

HALDEMAN
I don't care about the Walters stuff with Dean, I don't know what Dean's up to....There was concern about Bay of Pigs coming out - you told us, you know, get in Helms on this promptly because Helms - I think you had some knowledge that I didn't know about - that Helms was concerned about some Bay of Pigs stuff at that point in time because Helms blocked at that meeting, and said, well OK, I'm not concerned about the Bay of Pigs because no matter what comes out or something. That's the part I remember clearly is Bay of Pigs stuff.

NIXON
Well, I remember you saying that because CIA people were in this, to get them in....Now, that doesn't bother me - it would only bother me if....Walters were told to go over to Gray and say, look cool your investigation. In fact, here' the problem, and then Congress will understand....The problem with the memcom does not involve you, but it does potentially involve John [Ehrlichman], according to Al....[I]t could...appear that John ws trying to get Walters to talk to Gray to basically make it appear more like that there's more of a national, of a CIA and other kind of a thing....I hope you talk to John...

John should say his only concern was the whole CIA involvement and so forth and wanted to be sure that the - this investigation of Watergate didn't get out, as he put it, didn't get out of hand. John used that term, apparently in the conversation....

HALDEMAN
Getting out of hand had nothing to do with apprehending the Watergate criminals and trying them. Getting out of hand had to do with exactly what's found out-

NIXON
Yeah.

HALDEMAN
-which is we believe all this Pentagon Papers-

NIXON
That's right.

HALDEMAN
-investigation-type set-up, leave the Plumbers operation-type stuff.

[Haig enters.]

NIXON
...I just want to be sure that John [Ehrlichman] doesn't communicate that the President directed him to get Walters to get Gray to turn this off....

HALDEMAN
John would never indicate that.

NIXON
First, it wasn't true.

HALDEMAN
...What the President tells us to do is not - not public - for public consumption.

NIXON
Except that I always preface that by saying...that the President had nothing to do with it. You know what I mean? I can say that I don't have the slightest involvement. But, basically, Bob, I think...we've found the thing you talked to me about the other night, or yesterday. It seems to me that more and more that Dean proves to be the guy, frankly, that's concocting the whole Goddamned story and it's astonishing...

HALDEMAN
Hell, he knew what he doing (unintelligible.)

NIXON
I suggested getting in Walters and Helms...I don't know why I suggested it. You think it is the Bay of Pigs?

HALDEMAN
And that's the only thing I remember really about it was the concern about the Bay of Pigs stuff and Helms-

NIXON
And Helms said he wasn't concerned...[T]here's no problem in this. No, I think we did it just straight arrow on this sort of thing. He assured me there was no problem on the thing.

HALDEMAN
In that meeting, that we had with Helms present and Walters, Ehrlichman did do all the taling so that whatever Walters says would have in the memcom would basically been Ehrlichman. I don't think I said much.

NIXON
That's right. There's nothing to this but - let me say there's nothing on you in it.

HALDEMAN
Well, I'm not - that's not my concern. My concern is how to deal with the implications of each of these. See, I don't worry about - I've got the facts in this. I worry about the implications in each one, cause that's what they like. They don't pay any attention to those facts, you know. The implication of there even being such a meeting poses the problem obviously. But, it's perfectly rationalized, what the hell? It looked like - and the FBI - we were told - I was told by Dean, uh, and I think it was in the papers that the FBI was convinced, for months, that this was a CIA operation....Or, if there were CIA embellishments to it, which was another possibility....That's why I would sure like to look at that memcom, if I can. I would like to see what he implies.

NIXON
....But, let me tell you, Bob, as I told you yesterday, and I want you to know how much that meeting meant to me in the Lincoln Room last night. I, I've kind of reached a - where you kind of reach low spots sometimes in life....It just was good to talk to you and to know that we had no choice. I don't mind the choice. That is to fight like hell. Finally, we're right, and we're not going to allow this stuff.

HALDEMAN
We can't - we can't. We just can't let those - all this breastbeating - this isn't the worst scandal in history -

NIXON
You're right.

HALDEMAN
-and all this kind of crap. It isn't the worst scandal - it isn't really a scandal.

NIXON
It's broader, but no deeper.

HALDEMAN
It's broader because - because it's unraveling. These are unrelated things, really. Like Krogh's [Plumbers] operation, they tied that into Watergate. Doesn't have a fucking thing to do with Watergate.

NIXON
But neither did Vesco...And here was poor Mitchell and Stans, isn't that a crime?

HALDEMAN
The Grand Jury is terrible...[I]t's a terrible thing to think that you're in a big, dark room with these - these hostile people here and these merciless prosecutors and they tear you up and you - you have no lawyer there. You're all alone and feel like the bull in a bull fight,...there's nobody there that's on your side and you're accused of something. You don't know what you're being accused of.

NIXON
....It could be terribly jeopardizing whatever's in this memcom, indicating that we were - the memcom's not going to get out, I can assure you. It'll be burned first but, uh-

HALDEMAN
Don't worry.

NIXON
....But John must not indicate that the President said set up cover with the CIA. Bob, we never talked about a fake cover with the CIA. We never told Pat Gray this or that. We, frankly, did not know. You know that.

HALDEMAN
Well, that's right. I think that John raised the question of whether there was a CIA involvement - whether this running, unravelling - this did pose a problem for the CIA....Incidentally, you've got a strange thing there with [former CIA Deputy Director] Bob Cushman too....Cushman today is filing a sworn affidavit that says that Ehrlichman called him on July 7th [1971] and told him to provide the CIA support for Hunt and Liddy...Ehrlichman says he did not make that call. And, when Cushman first recalled that Ehrlichman did or even talked to him and said Bob, I didn't make that call. And Bob [Cushman] said well somebody from the White House did. I thought it was you - that it was you or Dean or somebody from the White House did. I thought it was you - that it was you or Dean or somebody who called me and that was the way that was left....

NIXON
Yeah.

HALDEMAN
And, so Cushman wrote him about it, as I understood it from John. This says I did not - I do not recall that it was you who called me. I know that there was a phone call. Now, at least today, but had sworn an affidavit saying Ehrlichman was involved, I think. I don't know.

NIXON
But, uh, has John sworn to the contrary?

HALDEMAN
Probably...

NIXON
...When I heard, uh - when I was informed of this thing afterwards, the CIA was in the thing. I told, uh, Bob [Haldeman] to meet with Helms and Walters to find out - is that true?

HALDEMAN
Yes, sir.

HAIG
And that's exactly the way it should be.

NIXON
And I remember, I said, yep, find out what the hell the score is. And we didn't know, we didn't know. I thought maybe, Christ, that we were getting a bad rap cause these Cubans and so forth, we didn't know. Believe me, that's how unknowledgealbe I am. I don't think you knew.

HALDEMAN
And, as I said, there was something-

NIXON
All Helms said - Helms, Helms said, that's how it is. This is the meeting when you didn't even mention Helms when you were in before, so I was trying to think I thought you said - there was a meeeting in which Walters, Dean, Ehrlichman, Haldeman-

HALDEMAN
No, no, no. Dean was not there.

NIXON
That's curious because that looks like I ordered Walters, my old friend, over to do some cops and robbers. Do you think I would call Helms into something that I wanted to screw up?

HAIG
Never....

NIXON
And I said - I said to them, my God what the hell, is the situation here? I said if it leads, and I said, because the CIA gets involved or CIA people are involved - we don't want the CIA to be pulled into this <i>Watergate bugging</i>. Now, that basically is where - is that approximately what your recollection is of what I said - or is, Bob?

HALDEMAN
And, there was - as I mentioned there's a - in the back of my mind, there is a Bay of Pigs connection in this....

NIXON
Al....Walters and Helms were called for the purpose of seeing that the investigation, ah, delved into Watergate but did not get into the covert operations of the CIA. Other covert operations - I didn't - none of us knew what in the hell they were. Is that basically what the thing is?

HALDEMAN
Yeah, plus we didn't know - I didn't know any specifics but I knew there had been this project with Hunt working on the leak business. The plumbers operation. We didn't want to get into that.

NIXON
That's right.

HALDEMAN
We didn't want to pursue Hunt and Liddy....They have arrested them. They had them there. They had them on the thing. Well, maybe they hadn't yet.

HAIG
You see Walters in his discussion with Gray - uh, keeps hitting upon the fact that some middle/lower White House guy - he's referring not by name to Dean - he's constantly trying to involve the White House in things that will involve the President. And the efforts from that and all that Walters would testify to, would be that Dean was there....

HALDEMAN
I don't believe I had any knowledge from Dean that he was dealing with Walters at all....

NIXON
....I just wonder if there are copies [of Walters' memcoms] bouncing around some place.

HAIG
He said "no," that these are his personal memcoms. Now [Defense Secretary James R.] Schlesinger has seen them and [incoming CIA Director William] Colby has seen them. Schlesinger ordered him this morning to deliver them to Eliot Richardson and to me - copies to each. Thank God, he stopped here first.

NIXON
Yeah.

HALDEMAN
So, they didn't go to Eliot?

HAIG
No, and I called Schlesinger and said (a) they shouldn't because Elliot is not the Attorney General [not yet confirmed].

NIXON
That's right.

HAIG
And (b) we are assessing thesefor national security and what we should do later today - and you finish your coordination with Buzhardt so he's comfortable....

NIXON
Well, hell, we got to keep Colby - if Colby's seen the damn things, he's got to get lined up on this too. How do we do that?...Is Elliot going to want to see the memcom...? Is Elliot going to insist on seeing them?

HAIG
He can't see them because we've got them and they are under executive privilege and they'll stay that way. That's the only thing we can do....It would be damaging now because of the sequence of time. First, you have a big, high-level meeting with Helms and Walters. And, then suddenly these contacts start with Dean who is really a bad guy.

NIXON
And then Dean would say he was ordered to.

HALDEMAN
THe other point the lawyers make, which you just should keep in mind, our lawyers made, and they've been studying - and your guys I'm sure will and come up with the same thing - is the executive privilege is an objective and selective judgment on the part of the President.

HAIG
Right.

HALDEMAN
And it can be made case by case, totally selectively. It can be made paper-by-paper. Obviously, you weaken your case every time you let the bar down at all. You make it harder to keep it up for the next one.

NIXON
....I don't want Buzhardt to have any inclination from just reading that Goddamn paper that what this is bsically a cover-up on the part of - that first paragraph, where it says the President told Haldeman to get the CIA - what did it say to do?

HALDEMAN
Talk to the FBI about not pursuing this further or something to that effect.

NIXON
But Buzhardt understands that the purpose of that talk had nothing to do with not pursuing the Watergate burglary. It had to do with not getting into the national security aspects....

HALDEMAN
That's it, and that's our biggest problem in this case. Every time, on every event it's been the Goddamn implications. And you never get a chance to give the facts....And then they live on the implications....

NIXON
I suppose our loose cannon out there now is Gray....

HAIG
Gray. Gray is a cannon. He's the guy I'm worried about.

HALDEMAN
He's trying to clean himself up.

NIXON
...[W]ell, it doesn't make any difference. We've done everything we could to save him and so forth...Gray apparently, we think, has testified to the effect that he was rodered by the CIA - what is it, Al, that Gray is - what do you hear that he is supposed to have said?...


HAIG
I thought he said that you had discussed this with him and you told him to go on with the investigation....

NIXON
What does it say there about Gray?

HAIG
This is very good. THis says...[reading from Walters' memcom]: "Any attemptto involve the FBI or CIA in this could only prove the more [enduring?] wound and would achieve nothing. The President then said I should get rid of whoever is involved, no matter how high. Gray replied that that was his recommendation. The President then asked what I thought, and Gray said that my views were the same as his. THe President took it well and thanked Gray..."

NIXON
Can we get Walters to say that?...That's damn good stuff because, frankly, it'll leak out...

HAIG
He's going to be superb.

HALDEMAN
Because Walters is so positive. His recollections are so sharp and so -

HAIG
He's so bright...

NIXON
Well, now, doesn't that hearten you a little about my role, Al?...Would you please mark that for Buzhardt so that he sees that point that I told Gray? Or has he seen it? Or do you think Buzhardt needs to see such things?

HAIG
I am not worried about Buzhardt.

NIXON
Well, I don't care if you're worried. I want him to believe.

HAIG
He believes.

NIXON
Well, be sure to mark that.

HALDEMAN
I think the President means really believe, not just believe him because he wants to.

NIXON
No. Goddamnit, I'm not covering anything up. I want Buzhardt, by God, to read that point. Now that's something that hasn't been written lately. That's something that was written at the time. That's what Pat Gray said and what I said in the covnersation with Gray. Now, Goddamnit, that's my role, and that's what I told everybody in this whole Goddamn shop. YOu know what I mean? I said oh, sure, don't get people involved if they're not involved...Believe me, Al, that shows you how naive we were about it at the time. We actually thought the CIA wa in the Goddamn thing. I must have thought so.

HALDEMAN
Well, the FBI thought so for months.

HAIG
I thought so....

[Haig leaves.]

NIXON
....We didn't order a cover-up by the CIA [<i>chuckles</i>], and you know that.

HALDEMAN
Right.

NIXON
THe more I think of it, I think what happened is that Dean in some way got into this thing and then he started to operate and go into business <i>on his own</i>.

HALDEMAN
Yeah.

NIXON
Or do you agree?

HALDEMAN
I think that must be it, because I don't see what else it could be at this point. That's what all the trails lead to now. And, if that's the case, they'll find this out....

NIXON
....I don't give a damn what happens here, but fight this through to the finish. I mean, they are not after the shit that's out there. They're not after you, they're not after...John Mitchell, they're not after even John Dean or, needless to say, Ehrlichman. WHat they're after is, they're not after me as a person, but they're after what I have stood for and do stand for. That's what they're after. And they're trying to destroy-

HALDEMAN
And that we have to fight.

NIXON
For example, on this national security thing, we have the rocky situation where the sonofabitching thief [Ellsberg] is made a national hero and is going to get off on a mistrial. And the <i>New York Times</i> gets a Pulitzer prize for stealing documents....They're trying to get at us with thieves. <i>What in the name of God have we come to?</i>....

HALDEMAN
THree different things they are after me on.

NIXON
What are they, do you know?

HALDEMAN
One's on this. Oh, one's on the Goddamn [James] Hoffa thing. They want to talk to me about Hoffa.

NIXON
What in the name of Christ are they on the Hoffa thing about?

HALDEMAN
I don't know. I don't know what I did on Hoffa.

NIXON
Well, I gave him the clemency. But that was the recommendation of the Department of Justice...There was no Goddamn question on that. Do you think Dean has said something on that, do you think?

HALDEMAN
Could be.

NIXON
Good. I'm glad they're getting into that [<i>laughs</i>].

HALDEMAN
Then I've got a subpoena to appear in the Federal court in Illinois.

NIXON
What's that about?

HALDEMAN
In the matter of the murder - of the plan to murder several dozen people.

NIXON
On what grounds are they getting you there?

HALDEMAN
The airline crash where Mrs. Hunt died. They apparently have me as a factor in crashing the airplane or something. [<i>Exhales</i>]...

NIXON
Keep the faith.

HALDEMAN
Yes, sir...

NIXON
God.

HALDEMAN
Never worry.