Nixon Ehrlichman Watergate Break-In July 19 1972

A discussion by President Nixon and one of his aides, John Ehrlichman, on containing the possible scandal around the Watergate burglary that took place a month earlier.

Audio file can be found at nixonlibrary.gov:
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape747/747-014.mp3

Video with transcript is on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH5Sk9-qTLQ

JULY 19, 1972: THE PRESIDENT AND EHRLICHMAN, 12:45-1:51 P.M., OVAL OFFICE

Ehrlichman offers an update on Watergate and suggests that Jeb Magruder "take the slide." Nixon says that he will "take care" of Magruder "afterwards." The President invokes the Alger Hiss case to warn of the dangers of lying and covering up. "If you cover up, you're going to get caught," he said. Both men warily discuss Hunt's involvement. Ehrlichman, despite later pleas of ignorance, is aware of, even actively involved with, John Dean's role in running the cover-up. The cover-up theme pervades the conversation. Ehrlichman presses for implicating Mitchell, but the President is reluctant. Ehrlichman laments the "disloyal" men in the U.S. Attorney's office and the FBI who continue to push the investigation.

36:23-42:26

SEGMENT ONE

NIXON
Give me an update on Watergate, where it now stands? What's the next move?

EHRLICHMAN
Well, I don’t know, I talked to [John] Dean this morning, and Bob talked to Mitchell. I don’t know what transpired there, but he sent Dean over to talk to Mitchell, and there’s something cooking this morning, and I haven’t been in on it. So, I don't know what the latest is. My conclusion is, from yesterday...Dean came out to the airplane and briefed us after you all left, and my conclusion is that this whole scenario that they had dreamed up that was going to preserve Magruder is not going to work.

NIXON
Yeah.

EHRLICHMAN
And Magruder is probably going to have to take the slide.

NIXON
How’s he going to slide?

EHRLICHMAN
Well, he’s just going to have to take whatever lumps come. He’ll have to take responsibility for the thing...they’re not going to be able to contrive a story that indicates that he didn’t know what was going on. But I think that’s what Dean’s working on this morning.

NIXON
Did he know?

EHRLICHMAN
Oh, yeah! Oh, Lord yes! He’s in it with both feet.

NIXON
If he can’t contrive a story, then, you know, I’d like to see this thing work out, but I’ve been through these.  If he can’t tell the story, . . .But the worst thing a guy can do, there are two things, each is bad: One is to lie, and the other one is to cover up.

EHRLICHMAN
Yup.

NIXON
If you cover it up, you're going to get caught.

EHRLICHMAN
Yup.

NIXON
And if you lie, you’re going to be guilty of perjury. Now, basically, that was the whole story of the Hiss case.

EHRLICHMAN
Yup.

NIXON
It was the story of the five percenters and the rest. It’s a hell of a God damn thing. I hate to see it, but let me say, we’ll take care of Magruder immediately afterwards. In his case it would be easy as pie, it’d be a case of [unclear], if you could keep these files, you could treat him like these Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and, I mean, you could just give amnesty to all of ’em.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, we’ll do our best to lay that foundation, but as I say, I think Bob and Dean will have a better feel for this a little later, after they talk to Mitchell, see where we are. That fellow Caddy [Douglas Caddy, counsel for the Watergate burglars], the lawyer, who wouldn't answer questions because it was privileged communications, refused to answer...judge cited him for contempt. He appealed it to the local court of appeals, they affirmed the trial judge, and he's now answering questions. As far as I know.

NIXON
That's probably what's breaking it up.

EHRLICHMAN
Could well be.

NIXON
Who is Caddy the lawyer for?

EHRLICHMAN
Caddy is a thirty-seven year old lawyer who is very active in the YAFs, the very conservative Young Americans [for Freedom]-

NIXON
Who does he represent?

EHRLICHMAN
He represented the five guys who got caught the night they were caught, and he was at the police station within minutes after the police brought the prisoners in there. He'd obviously been called by somebody from the outside. Well, I think what had happened is that Hunt was in the neighborhood and when he saw these guys get caught or heard it over the bug, he called Caddy and Caddy went down and tried to arrange the bail and advised them not to talk and so forth. So he's been asked by the grand jury, who called you? And he refused to answer.

NIXON
That would bring Hunt into it.

EHRLICHMAN
That would bring Hunt into it.

NIXON
(unintelligible)

EHRLICHMAN
It would bring Hunt in, it would bring Liddy in, and this guy has an indirect connection to Colson, because he's the attorney for Colson's secretary, who's in the process of getting a divorce. But that's as close as it comes to the White House.

NIXON
Well, I don't think that that's a problem.

EHRLICHMAN
I don't either.

NIXON
It's a divorce.

EHRLICHMAN
No. No, that's not a problem. That's a sort of tangential thing. But he will not, Caddy will not disclose much beyond what was already going to be disclosed, anyway. So it isn't going to add too much to the trouble.

NIXON
He could disclose that - well, the story basically is, so that Magruder, when you say take a slide, he can't plead the fifth.

EHRLICHMAN
No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

NIXON
They'll convict him.

EHRLICHMAN
Oh, they'll convict him by someone else's testimony.

NIXON
So what the hell good does he do pleading the Fifth?

EHRLICHMAN
No. I think he has to go in and say: "Well, I did this and it was a bad thing to do and I got carried away and I feel terrible about it."

NIXON
Well, can't he state it just a little different? He could say he did it, but say it slightly-

EHRLICHMAN
Yes, but it isn't going to change his plea.

NIXON
No, no, no...What I meant is [he should say]....I didn't expect to be this way, and so forth and so on. I said, "just get all the information you can. I mean, I've just got to take the responsibility for it."

EHRLICHMAN
Yeah.

NIXON
I think he could say that. I don't think he should...I think it unfortunate (unintelligible) I required it. That's a problem.

EHRLICHMAN
No, that's kept at the Liddy level if possible. But as I say, I'm operating on too little information this morning. I'll have to get updated.

NIXON
What is the situation, what is the situation on [Henry] Petersen, Kleindienst, and the rest?

EHRLICHMAN
Petersen, pretty good. Kleindienst is one step removed from it. Petersen's been very good with Dean in trying to help to evaluate the thing as it goes along and in keeping Dean informed of the direction that things are going.

NIXON
What the U.S. Attorney is up to, and so forth?

EHRLICHMAN
Yes. And he's managed to keep ahold of the U.S. Attorney better. It's a better situation than it was.

SEGMENT TWO

42:57-55:14

NIXON
...But the important thing is to get the Goddamn thing done.

EHRLICHMAN
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're urging that. We're urging that. I was all over Dean on that last night. It's never going to be any sooner. We've got to get it done as soon as possible so that people have a chance to forget.

NIXON
What did he say?

EHRLICHMAN
He agrees. He agrees with that, and he says they're not dragging their feet in this by any means. He's enlisted on that.

NIXON
Do you mean that the Circuit Court ordered an attorney to testify?

EHRLICHMAN
It surprised me, except that this damn circuit that we've got here, with [Judge David] Bazelon and so on, it surprises me every time they do something.

NIXON
Why didn't he appeal to the Supreme Court?

EHRLICHMAN
Well, he could, I suppose. They don't have to grant certiorari. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

NIXON
But he's now testifying?

EHRLICHMAN
My understanding is that he was going to go in this morning. Now, he may go down there and refuse and take it to the Supreme Court. I don't know. I just don't have those facts.

NIXON
Just so we keep it all in one hat here, it's Dean with you, or Dean with Bob, or both?

EHRLICHMAN
Both.

NIXON
Okay.

EHRLICHMAN
The two of us have been talking to him, more or less together, right along. And we've drawn on Bob's political judgement on this, which has been pretty good.

NIXON
It sure is.

EHRLICHMAN
So he and I - Dean called us on the airplane and said he had to talk to us, so we stayed on the airplane after it landed and he came out, and we sat and talked for about an hour and went through all the kinds of stuff that he didn't like to talk about on the phone. He had a long meeting with Petersen yesterday.

NIXON
So it really gets down to Magruder-

EHRLICHMAN
Yes, that's about right.

NIXON
But what does Magruder say, basically?

EHRLICHMAN
Well, he says he wanted to get a lot of information, that he felt he had to have information for a lot of different reasons, that they had a kind of dirty tricks department.

NIXON
The disrupting of the convention.

EHRLICHMAN
Yes.

NIXON
That's a good reason.

EHRLICHMAN
Right.

NIXON
We had these stories.

EHRLICHMAN
Right.

NIXON
Vietnam Veterans Against the War, mention that.

EHRLICHMAN
And that he imposed on Liddy the responsibility for getting it-

NIXON
Also, we had our own security to protect against this ourselves.

EHRLICHMAN
Yes, yes. The problem is that once he starts to talk I don't know how - I don't know what the scope of the, the limitations of the scope of the examination might be.

NIXON
One thing of course I suppose, the main thing is whether he is the one where it stops or whether it goes to Mitchell or Haldeman. Is that it?

EHRLICHMAN
That's it. And this is one of the questions that we raised with Dean last night. Dean said he didn't have any confidence really that Magruder was sufficiently tough and stable to be able to hold the line if he were pressed by adroit interrogators.

NIXON
Do you think Mitchell knew?

EHRLICHMAN
Yeah, I assume so. I don't know that he did. Yeah, I think so...

NIXON
I can't believe that.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, the proofs of this thing were around. There were transcripts of overheard conversations, for instance, and I just have a hunch that - and I don't know this. I don't know this. This may be unfair. But I just have a feeling that Mitchell in his situation saw those transcripts and had to have-

NIXON
Did Bob see them?

EHRLICHMAN
No, no. And I can't find anybody in the White House, including [William] Timmons, that ever did or that ever knew about this operation. As a matter of fact, it's interesting-

NIXON
I would not think that Bob would have known about it because he's too smart.

EHRLICHMAN
Bob and John Dean had a meeting with Mitchell and Magruder and some people about a different operation that was proposed, which they disapproved. And they had a right to feel, as a result of that meeting, that nothing like this was going on. But after this was disapproved, then they went ahead with this other operation without there ever being another meeting involving White House people. but the question of whether Magruder will hold and take the gaff and assume the responsibility and say Mitchell didn't know anything about this is the tough question.

NIXON
Why would he (unintelligible)?

EHRLICHMAN
Well, you know that when you've got a fairly callow guy on the stand and you work on him properly, you can get him to say things that he doesn't intend to say...

NIXON
That it would seem to me to be a...

EHRLICHMAN
I think it's a risk.

NIXON
It's a risk, I agree. But (unintelligible) Magruder on that, just look there's too much rides on this thing, you cannot put John Mitchell in this thing.

EHRLICHMAN


[<i>A mock cross-examination:</i>] "But even notwithstanding that, Mr. Magruder, when such and such a matter came up, you didn't decide that yourself, you checked with Mr. Mitchell?"

NIXON
That's right.

EHRLICHMAN
Well now, let's take this other kind of situation. "When that kind of thing came up, did you do that on your own, or did you check that with Mr. Mitchell?"...."Well, I think I did that on my own." "Well, here's a letter from your file. As a matter of fact, you wrote John Mitchell a memo about that on such a date, didn't you?" "Well, yes, I did." "And that was for the purpose of getting his approval?" "Yes." And you'd go through and you'd just tie him in a web of circumstances. Then you'd say: "Now let's go to this circumstance. Here you were going to send paid spies into the Democratic National Committee and subject your candidate to all kinds of possible exposure, and you want us to believe that you didn't check any of this with Mr. Mitchell, even though these much more minor things, and so on and so forth."

EHRLICHMAN
He might hang. He might hang on his denial, and again, he might not, depending on how it was done. It wouldn't do it as baldly as that, but, you know, you'd nick away at the edges and you'd finally tear him down.

NIXON
This is Edward Bennett Williams in the private case?

EHRLICHMAN
Yeah. That's where our exposure it seems to me is even greater.

NIXON
What about our delaying tactics there?

EHRLICHMAN
Well...quite good. Quite good.

NIXON
Because delay...I think delay of the deposition...

EHRLICHMAN
They're still working on that. Colson's civil suit was this week, and it's been put off.

NIXON
Put off?

EHRLICHMAN
Judge simply refused to order it. They'd been working with the judge on the timing of this thing...

NIXON
...this week?

EHRLICHMAN
I understand, but it's a friendly judge.

NIXON
Yeah.

EHRLICHMAN
Very friendly judge.

NIXON
They put him off...three months?

EHRLICHMAN
Oh, he just refused to order it. He didn't put it to any date certain.

NIXON
Oh, I see.

EHRLICHMAN
Sooner or later, that's gonna happen.

NIXON
Yeah. Sooner or later, I guess our problems...later is just a little later. The criminal case now, Magruder's side of it, what is the best tactic there?

EHRLICHMAN
The best tactic if we had our way on it would be to let Liddy and Hunt go and hold it there. If Magruder is going to be involved through third party testimony and so on, then the next best tactic would be the one that's been proposed, which is to rationalize a story which doesn't lead to his conviction. That's the thing they're checking out this morning.

NIXON
They didn't think they could-

EHRLICHMAN
Dean's very pessimistic and Henry Petersen's very pessimistic about that washing. There's an internal problem. He says there are disloyal guys in the U.S. Attorney's Office and in the Bureau who are just standing watching this thing and who are going to second-guess any story that you come up with.

NIXON
Right.

EHRLICHMAN
So he said, whatever we come up with has got to be water-tight.

NIXON
That's why the cover-up, the cover-up thing will be - I wonder, I wonder. I don't think it bothers me so much with the cover-up, John, if they hd confessions and convictions of some. That's really what I think is the important thing.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, they'll have not only the five burglars, but they would have the two mystery men, Liddy and Hunt.

NIXON
Both of them will confess.

EHRLICHMAN
They'll have to be convicted. I just don't see any escaping that. And that'll give - that'll give the public a lot of blood, give the Democrats a lot to chew on.

NIXON
Liddy and Hunt doesn't bother me too much...

EHRLICHMAN
Liddy used to be in the White House, you know, he worked here and so on, and so there's some of that.

NIXON
That's right. But that's been already said.

EHRLICHMAN
If we can - if we can - I'm still hopeful that Dean and Mitchell will conclude that the Magruder scenario will work and it'll wash and that there are no extrinsic loose end facts that will impeach it, so that the disloyal guys in the U.S. Attorney's Office don't have anything to get their teeth into...If all you've got are the testimony of Baldwin [burglary team member Alfred Baldwin] or somebody like that, who's an outsider, you may be able to pull it off. But there's no sense in starting it, and then having it disproved. It would be doubly damaging.

NIXON
Oh, yes. Then you've got cover-up and conviction.

EHRLICHMAN
Right.

NIXON
Which is what happened in our investigation so far.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, Dean's been admonished not to contrive a story that's liable not to succeed.

EHRLICHMAN
We're trying to take all the risk out of it. If there's risk that remains, he might as well just go whole-hog.

NIXON
That's right. I must say that I can't see how...

NIXON
...Magruder could stand firm on Mitchell.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, he may want to. But-

NIXON
He may not be tough enough.

EHRLICHMAN
He may not be tough enough. That's my theory...

(BANG sound)