Richard Nixon John Ehrlichman IRS Howard Hughes 8/3/1972

Transcript and introduction are from Stanley Kutler's Abuse of Power.

Audio file can be found at (this conversation begins at 18:00 in the file):
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/tape353/353-024.mp3

Link to youtube clip with both audio and transcript:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd-xNzERKSA

AUGUST 3, 1972: THE PRESIDENT AND EHRLICHMAN, 5:00-5:30 P.M.,
EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING

Nixon now is worried about pressing O'Brien's [Democratic National Committee Chairman Larry O'Brien] tax matters for fear it might involve his brother, F. Donald Nixon. Nevertheless, he tells his men to push forward. George Schultz [Secretary of the Treasury], he complains, has a "fantasy" that the IRS should not be used in a political way.

NIXON
...And if they bring up that Goddamn Hughes loan again, we ought to break this over O'Brien's head.

EHRLICHMAN
Well, I wouldn't wait. I'd kind of like to throw a little fear. I'm going to get [George] Schultz tomorrow and sit down and I'm going to ask him to have the IRS go behind that entry in the report we got.

NIXON
Right.

EHRLICHMAN
And call for those returns - a perfectly legitimate thing for him to do. We don't need to appear in it.

NIXON
No. Doesn't he do it because of the Hughes thing?

EHRLICHMAN
It's under investigation.

NIXON
It's under investigation why? Are we investigating Don [Nixon]?

EHRLICHMAN
No, they're investigating John Meyer, they're investigating a guy named [first named unknown] Cleveland, because Hughes bought all his mining claims out in Nevada and there was a big kickback. There was around a $9 million kickback where Hughes actually paid about $9 million more for them than they were worth.

NIXON
Now, the only problem about throwing the Hughes stuff up is you wonder what the Hughes people would say about Don [Nixon].

EHRLICHMAN
Oh, I think we know pretty much everything there is to know about that.

NIXON
Anyway, it's an old story.

EHRLICHMAN
That's it.

NIXON
They'd have a hell of a time.

EHRLICHMAN
We're not going to publish necessarily. We just want O'Brien to quit sleeping nights.

NIXON
How will he get the word?

EHRLICHMAN
He'll get the word, he's going to get an audit. They're going to pull his return, take a look. Here's a payment to [Joe] Napolitan. They call him in for na audit, they say, "What is this? Did you have anything to do with that?" And he's got to get an attorney or an accountant into it.

NIXON
John, the point is, as I told you, in 1961, the first year I ever made any money, when I wrote the damn book [<i>Six Crises</i>], those sons of bitches came up and they went after it: How much did you pay for your house, and all the rest. It was horrible.

EHRLICHMAN
Sure.

NIXON
And I scared the living bejeezuz out of him, because I got the guy on the phone one day and I said, "Now look, I said, you can go ahead and investigate..." They cooled off Goddamn fast.

NIXON
...That's what we're going to do, and just tell George [Schultz] he should do it.

EHRLICHMAN
I will.

NIXON
George has got a fantasy. What is George's - what's he trying to do, say that you can't play politics with IRS?

EHRLICHMAN
I don't know.

NIXON
Or maybe he doesn't understand (unintelligible).

EHRLICHMAN
The way it came out - it didn't come up in this setting at all. It came up, he called me because this young fellow Roger Barth is over there and we've been wanting him to be deputy general counsel of IRS because he'd be in a position to do a lot more. George called up and said, "Geez, I am really having trouble with this. My bureaucracy is really wild about this; this guy is known to be a loyalist and a hard-ass and so on, so I've had a lot of flack." I said, "George, that's the only guy we've got in the whole IRS."

NIXON
Here's bureaucracy. I want to know how many of those people are...appointees. Aren't there several?

EHRLICHMAN
Oh, sure, at the top, six or eight guys.

NIXON
Out with them, every one of those bastards, out now. I think the whole bunch goes out just because of this. Don't you agree?

EHRLICHMAN
Sure, it would be a great move. It would be a marvelous move.

NIXON
...We'll kick their ass out of there.

EHRLICHMAN
We've got four years more.

NIXON
That's right. And they can learn it. It isn't all that difficult. But out their asses go, and then investigate the bastards. They're probably on the take...