THE RICHARD NIXONLIBRARY & BIRTHPLACE FOUNDATION

Transcripts of Newly Released White House Tapes

February 25, 1999

9:00 a.m. (EST)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. NIXON FOUNDATION COMMENTARY ON NEW SEGMENTS 5

A) Introduction: A Tale of Three “Break-Ins” 5

B) The CIA and Watergate 9C) The Overthrow & Murder of President Diem of South Vietnam

14D) The Pentagon Spy in the Nixon White House 27E) The Huston Plan

31F) Ambassadorial Appointments 34

II. TRANSCRIPT SEGMENTS36

A) Advisory Note 36B) Summary 36C) Segments 38

Conversation #

504-15-(2) 38534-2-(6) 38534-5-(1) 38534-5-(5) 39534-12-(1) 39535-4-(5) 39537-4-(1) 39561-12-(1) 40274-44-(2) 40576-6-(1) 40576-6-(2) 40576-6-(4) 40576-6-(6) 41576-6-(7) 41576-6-(10) 41576-6-(12) 43587-7-(1) 43306-14-(2) 44

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306-14-(3) 4422-6-(1) 4422-28-(1) 44685-2-(1) 44688-18-(3) 45692-7-(1) 45712-6-(3) 45344-6-(1) 45745-2-(1) 46745-2-(3) 46746-3-(1) 47768-4-(1) 47374-3-(1) 47420-11-(1) 47421-22-(1) 48424-10-(1) 48876-5-(1) 49876-5-(2) 49876-5-(3) 49876-5-(4) 49880-24-(1) 50430-23-(1) 50432-1-(5) 50906-12-(1) 50906-24-(1) 5146-2-(1) 5146-23-(1) 5246-66-(1) 5446-75-(1) 5446-77-(1) 5746-88-(1) 5746-166-(1) 57165-15-(3) 58167-10-(1) 58434-9-(3) 59435-23-(5) 59435-40-(1) 59436-3-(1) 60436-5-(1) 60437-3-(2) 60438-22-(1) 60438-32-(1) 61440-27-(3) 61911-1-(1) 61911-26-(1) 62913-3-(1) 62

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914-8-(1) 62916-11-(1) 62916-11-(2) 63916-16-(1) 63917-2-(6) 63917-5-(1) 64917-20-(1) 64917-28-(1) 64917-33-(3) 65917-44-(1) 65919-3-(1) 65919-9-(1) 66918-6-(2) 66918-14-(1) 66919-11-(1) 66919-11-(2) 67919-14-(1) 67919-21-(3) 67920-3-(1) 68920-9-(1) 68920-13-(1) 68921-3-(1) 69921-3-(2) 70921-21-(2) 70923-5-(2) 71928-12-(2) 71929-8-(1) 7139-106-(1) 71168-11-(1) 71441-23-(4) 72443-6-(1) 72445-6-(1) 72933-3-(3) 72946-6-(5) 73949-6-(2) 73949-11-(2) 73

III. PRESS RELEASE75

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IV. I: NIXON FOUNDATION COMMENTARY ON NEW SEGMENTS

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

RN: President NixonHRH: H. R. “Bob” HaldemanJDE: John D. EhrlichmanHK: Henry A. KissingerRZ: Ronald L. ZieglerCWC: Charles W. ColsonPMF: Peter M. FlaniganJM: John N. MitchellCMacG: Clark MacGregorHP: Henry E. PetersenAH: Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr.JFB: J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.LH: Lawrence M. Higby

OO: Oval OfficeWHT: White House TelephoneEOB: Executive Office Building

Advisory note on transcripts:

Transcribing White House tapes is difficult, time-consuming work. Many errors exist in transcripts made and used by the Senate Select Committee on Watergate, the special prosecutor, and the White House as well as in transcripts published since. The National Archives takes up to 100 hours to transcribe an hour of recorded conversation. The transcripts in our report are accurate to the best of our ability. Anyone who finds what he or she believes to be an error should send an e-mail to John H. Taylor (blueheart@compuserve.com) . We will check the tape and post a correction on our web site if warranted.

A) INTRODUCTION: A TALE OF THREE “BREAK-INS”

Commentary: These new tapes, transcripts of which appear in section II (below), underscore the profound national security dimension of Watergate as well as its roots in the Vietnam War. Indeed any objective analysis of the record of Watergate, including these new segments and President Nixon’s other actions and statements about Watergate, depends upon what the record really shows about a central event of both Vietnam and Watergate: The question of when the President first learned of the break-in by the so-called White House Plumbers at the offices of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in Los Angeles in September 1971 following Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers to the newspapers.

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Ellsberg is the former Pentagon hawk – an architect of the Vietnam War for the Johnson Administration – who committed the largest leak of classified documents during wartime in American history. The Plumbers, in turn, were a small group of White House aides who were assembled following Ellsberg’s leak and soon became concerned that the Pentagon Papers contained information that could damage national security. They proposed a covert examination of his psychiatric records because they thought they might learn more about his intentions and connections. The mission was evidently approved by Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, although the record suggests Ehrlichman might have thought the Plumbers would find some means short of a burglary. President Nixon said in his memoirs, “I do not believe I was told about the break-in at the time, but it is clear that it was at least in part an outgrowth of my sense of urgency about discrediting what Ellsberg had done and finding out what he might do next. Given the temper of those tense and bitter times and the peril I perceived, I cannot say that had I been informed of it beforehand, I would have automatically considered it unprecedented, unwarranted, or unthinkable....Today the break-in at Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office seems wrong and excessive. But I do not accept that it was as wrong or excessive as what Daniel Ellsberg did, and I still believe that it is a tragedy of circumstances that [White House aide] Bud Krogh and John Ehrlichman went to jail and Daniel Ellsberg went free.”

One way to understand why such a maneuver even seemed conceivable to White House aides is to imagine the worries and passions Ellsberg had unleashed among them by his action. Millions of young Americans had put their lives on the line in Vietnam. The war had become the most divisive issue in the United States since the Civil War. President Nixon was withdrawing U.S. forces while negotiating for peace at Paris and working to strengthen South Vietnam so it could defend itself against the Soviet-supported North Vietnamese regime without American troops. Ellsberg’s actions, in the President’s view, hurt the chances for peace and risked U.S. and South Vietnamese lives. The media, which for institutional reasons as well of reasons of principle are generally pro-leak and pro-leaker, have tended to view Ellsberg as a hero. To a wartime commander-in-chief and his aides, he seemed to be someone who, evidently through his act of personal expiation, put his own needs and principles ahead of the lives of his fellow Americans.

To suggest an analogy, what if President Roosevelt’s aides had learned during World War II that a disgruntled pacifist holdover from the Hoover Administration had recently left the government with copies of pre-war cable traffic between Tokyo and Washington and had given them to the newspapers, which published them? Would the Government have been entitled to learn more about the individual’s intentions, even if it took covert means? Would we have thought substantially less of President Roosevelt or his aides if they had taken such covert action? Those most appalled by the analogy may well be those who do not believe World War II and Vietnam were morally equivalent. It is certainly true that Ellsberg’s action resonated more sympathetically with the prevailing antiwar Zeitgeist on the left and in the media than would an equivalent act during World War II. But for President Nixon to get a far shake in the court of history, historians will at least have to appreciate his right to his point of view about the war, including his

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profound sense of obligation to the men and women with their lives on the line. Watergate -- which grew out America’s argument with itself over Vietnam -- should be viewed through this prism as well.

So what did the President know about the Ellsberg break-in, and when did he know it?

Tapes released in 1996 show that Ehrlichman himself told the President soon after the September 1971 break-in, “We had one little operation. It’s been aborted out in Los Angeles which, I think, is better you don’t know about.” Having just been offered “plausible deniability” and been told in any event that the mission had been aborted, the President asked no questions. There is no evidence that the President learned such an operation had actually been completed until March 19, 1973, when the tapes show that he was told about it by John Dean. The President expresses astonishment, tells Dean he had not know about it, and later dictates a diary entry referring to the burglary as “somewhat ridiculous.” On a May 1973 tape, the President’s former chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, tells the President that he has just checked with Ehrlichman and been told that RN didn’t learn about the Ellsberg break-in until February or March of that year, confirming the President’s assertion to Dean and the information in his diary. Much later, Ehrlichman said that he had told the President about it during a walk on the beach in San Clemente in July 1972, but the former President said that he didn’t remember such a conversation. If it had occurred, why would Ehrlichman have misinformed the President, through Haldeman, in May 1973?

Both the tapes and RN’s memoirs show that during 1973-74 and after leaving office he agonized about whether he had known about or ordered the break-in, finally concluding that he had not. What provoked him to contemplate the possibility? Nothing, perhaps, except a former commander-in-chief’s recollection of the rage he had felt at Ellsberg for endangering American lives.

On the Ellsberg episode hangs much of history’s current, and we believe skewed, understanding of Watergate. The conventional wisdom is that President Nixon ordered a cover-up of the Watergate burglary in June 1972 in large part because he didn’t want the FBI investigation to expose the illegal activities of the Plumbers. But if he didn’t know about the Ellsberg break-in, then he would have had nothing to want to cover up regarding the Plumbers. The tapes from 1972 show that the President urged his aides over and over again not to cover-up the Watergate burglary. But he also expresses the view that the FBI should not let its investigation stray into national security areas. When Haldeman reminds the President on June 30, 1972 that the Watergate burglars had ties to the Plumbers, he replies, “You mean in the Pentagon Papers? What the hell is the matter with that?” When Haldeman says that the FBI has already been told by aide Chuck Colson that Hunt had worked for the White House prior to Watergate on other matters, by which he must have meant the Plumbers, the President expresses no concern. This point bears emphasis: By June 30 President Nixon knows that the FBI has been told “the straight truth,” in Haldeman’s words, about Hunt’s prior work for the White House. If

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RN was concerned about the FBI learning of illegal Plumbers’ activities, he never says so on any tape.

The importance Nixon critics attach to the Ellsberg break-in is clear from the mishandling of the taped record by historian Stanley Kutler in his 1997 book Abuse of Power. Although the tapes he transcribed and partially published contained no evidence linking the President to the Ellsberg break-in, he edited a July 19, 1972 discussion between the President and Colson to make it appear that they were discussing the Ellsberg break-in (which, again, the President apparently did not know about in 1972) rather than the Watergate break-in. A misleading editorial comment by Kutler that preceded the transcript (Kutler, p. 98) compounds the confusion. Criticized for these manipulations in a March 1998 article in the American Spectator by Nixon Library director John H. Taylor, Kutler changed his editorial comment in the 1998 paperback edition of Abuse of Power to make the distinction between the two break-ins clear, but he did not correct the transcript. This is important, because the material Kutler erased, insofar as his readers were concerned, shows the President and Colson discussing whether a prosecutor or grand jury would be able to use Hunt’s work for the Plumbers against him. Bear in mind that the President already knows Colson has told the FBI “the straight truth” about Hunt’s work at the White House. In short, their discussion is not about cover-up. It is two attorneys (RN and Colson) talking desultorily about a judgement call that might fall to a prosecutor against the backdrop of the President’s moral obligation to prevent the investigation of an illegal political burglary from intruding upon his efforts to keep reporters from learning state secrets during a time of war, dissent, and unprecedented geostrategic change.

When asked by a reporter in February 1998 about the charge that he had altered the record to attempt to make a case against the President on the Ellsberg break-in, Kutler said, “I never did it. Richard Nixon knew, and the tapes I discuss in my book prove it.” Kutler did do it, and the tapes do not prove what he wrote and said they prove about what RN knew. As a consequence, Richard Nixon is entitled to an objective reading of the Watergate tapes in which he is not assumed to be plotting a cover-up of Plumbers’ illegality. If one reads them with his mind-set – that the Watergate burglary should not be covered up but that the investigation should be limited by national security considerations – his role appears far different that in conventional interpretations that don’t give him the benefit of the doubt as he grappled with the strategic, tactical, and political complexities of trying to end America’s longest war with honor.

To counter the argument that there is no evidence the President knew in advance about either the Watergate or Ellsberg break-ins, critics are wont to state that it really doesn’t matter since the tapes do show an angry President ordering a break-in at the Brookings Institution in the aftermath of the Ellsberg leak to see if it had been involved. No such break-in occurred. The President probably assumed his aides would not undertake it. The week he gave the order, 21 Americans died in Vietnam under his command. In a ceremony that week in the Oval Office, he presented the Medal of Honor to seven Americans who had risked their lives in Vietnam. Again, anyone who does not understand Richard Nixon’s anger during that moment of his Presidency should imagine

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another President during another war responsible for the lives of hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform and faced by an act as reckless and disruptive (in the White House’s view) as Ellsberg’s.

NOTE: All references to deletions in the following excerpts refer to deletions by the National Archives.

B) THE CIA AND WATERGATE

534-5 7/1/71Between 10:28 and 11:49 am. OO.RN, HRH, CWC, JDE.[Segment 5]

CWC describes the background of E. Howard Hunt.CWC: He spent 20 years in the CIA overthrowing governments.

587-7 10/8/71Between 10:58 and 11:06 am. OO.RN, JDE.

No indication in log of the subject matter of the conversation before the deleted segment begins.JDE: Helms is scared to death of this guy Hunt that we’ve got working for us, because he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and Helms is a bureaucrat first, and he’s protecting that bureau. I was pressed very hard by him, in a very low-key, skillful way, to give him all sorts of commitments and protections. And I ducked them all. I (?).RN: The way I’d (handle?) it it simply say, “Look. You and I will talk before anything in done. I think that’s fair and (?).JDE: But examine this: suppose we get all the Diem stuff and supposing there’s something we can really hang Teddy or the Kennedy clan with. I’m going to want to put that in Colson’s hands.RN: Yep.JDE: And we’re going to really run with it.

Commentary: The National Archives’ questionable definition of segments such as this as relating to a Presidential “abuse of power” goes to the heart of the often overlooked connection between Vietnam and Watergate. As we will note in section C below, the overthrow and assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam was a critical juncture in deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam. If Senator Ted Kennedy planned to run against President Nixon the following year and if Nixon Administration policies in Vietnam were to be an issue, were the American people entitled to know the details of the Kennedy Administration’s actions?

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688-18 3/18/72Between 1:24 and 3:40 pm. OO.RN, CWC, Manolo Sanchez.Segment 3:

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt’s contacts with Dita Beard, concerning ITT case.CWC: He’s [E. Howard Hunt] the fellow who broke all the stuff about Castro’s sex life, when they tried to smear him.RN: Oh.CWC: He’s quite a guy, and he’s -RN: Castro did have a sex life.CWC: Sure, and he broke it.

745-2 6/30/72Between 4:30 and 6:19 pm. OO.RN, HRH, CMacG.

Segment 1:

HRH: The real problem we deal with though, from a governmental viewpoint, has nothing to do with politics at all - is that lines from these people lead to places that we don’t want led to.RN: That’s right.HRH: That the government doesn’t want led to. And -RN: The CIA, (for starters?).HRH: And the investigatory people are on to those lines, and don’t know that they cut in - they don’t know where one thing crosses the other.RN: The trouble is, frankly, the Helms (shop?) does not want the - this thing followed (in?). We just won’t say anything further about it, because it could very well involve (at least?) - could very well involve some anti-Castro activities.

Commentary: This conversation between the President and his chief of staff occurs a week after their so-called “smoking-gun” conversation of June 23. In that conversation, they had discussed both the political and national security implications of Watergate. The President was concerned that the Watergate break-in had occurred because his campaign chief, John Mitchell, was distracted by family troubles. Working through Haldeman, White House counsel John Dean had presented the fateful idea of asking the CIA to pressure the FBI to limit the Watergate investigation, and the President concurred on the basis of the assurance Dean had offered that Mitchell had endorsed it. In other words, Dean was telling President Nixon that his friend, John Mitchell, had asked for help. (Some writers have since claimed that Dean actually had not spoken to Mitchell.) In early July, when the FBI complained about the pressure, RN, clearly realizing that the architects of the Watergate break-in would have to pay the price even if

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they included Mitchell, told the FBI to go ahead with a complete investigation. The record shows that the President’s brief effort to affect the purely political dimension of Watergate was motivated not by a desire to protect himself or anyone in the White House but to protect a longtime friend whom he had pressured to come to Washington in 1969 as his first attorney general. This “vast cover-up” -- as it was described by CBS News in its recent obituary of John Ehrlichman -- lasted less than two weeks.

In this new segment of a June 30 conversation, Haldeman explains how, politics aside, the investigation could intrude upon areas the government as a whole did not want drawn in – a clear reference to national security. RN, long preoccupied with the Bay of Pigs and the CIA and certain that the agency was still sensitive about the failed invasion of Cuba in 1961, added a Bay of Pigs twist. When the fact that the White House had asked the CIA to pressure the FBI first became public in May 1973, the President acknowledged authorizing it for national security reasons. When the “smoking gun” transcript as released in August 1974 showed that there had been a political dimension as well, the resulting firestorm led to the President’s decision to resign. But as this tape and others show, he had not lied, as his critics claim, when he said he was concerned about national security.

While there is no evidence that President Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in advance, the Clinton White House has recently been the source of some confusion on the point. In a reply to Ken Starr’s impeachment finding in 1998, President Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, wrote that RN had used the CIA “to thwart a major criminal investigation by the [FBI] of a crime in which he was involved... [emphasis added].”

906-12 4/27/734:41 pm - 5:00 pm. OO.RN, HRH, RZ.

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt and other defendants. HRH: Keeping them [Hunt and other defendants] quiet on a national-security matter -RN: Yes, we (can't?) do that.

Commentary: This conversation occurred two days before the President asked for the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. It is unclear what national security matter was being discussed.

438-22 5/17/734:08 pm - 4:34 pm. EOB.

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RN, AH.AH discusses Richard M. Helms’s talk of resigning as ambassador to Iran.

RN: Helms?AH: Oh my God, he’s (?) step down.RN: Did you reassure him (?) thinking of resigning?

Later, discussing Richard M. Helms:AH: He said, I reassured the President on several occasions-RN: He should say that. Of course, he should state: Ellsberg was involved in matters that affected the CIA, our operations abroad, our relations with foreign countries-AH: (?) wasn’t - (it was?) (?) papers’s delivery like, to the Soviet embassy, for Christ’s sake-RN: Christ.AH: (?).RN: And it was our responsibility to find out.

Commentary: The President and his chief of staff, Alexander Haig, discuss the nature of the Administration’s concern about Ellsberg’s massive leak.

918-14 5/15/739:59 am - 10:45 am. OO.RN, HP.

Discussion of Ellsberg break-in.HP: In October 1972, we had some questions to put to the CIA, because we were dissatisfied. First, we anticipated that the defense was going to be that this was all a CIA operation, and we had to be prepared, whic-RN: (?) the whole point.HP: Especially the Cubans.RN: (?) about this.HP: Yes sir.RN: I’ll be damned.HP: And we were trying to prepare for that, in anticipation of the trial, and were dissatisfied with some of the answers the CIA had given and we had them over - Larry [Lawrence] Houston (CIA counsel, now deceased) and what have you - and they gave us some documents which indicated contacts with CIA, and they arranged identification and (camera?) and what have you.RN: But not (?).HP: (?) much earlier. But they furnished the identity and this was the identity they had used and what have you.

Commentary: This is one of a number of new segments that hints at CIA concerns about Watergate related to its own operations.

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168-11 6/2/73Between 10:54 and 11:13 am. WHT.RN, HRH.

Discussion of FBI concern about possible CIA involvement in Watergate.HRH: And there’s another fact which nobody’s paid any attention to, but which I’m going to get out publicly somewhere along the line, which is supposed to be a secret, but it’s in the secret testimony, is that the CIA did formally request the FBI not to invest- not to interrogate two people, because they were afraid it would lead to other covert activities. There was that proof of merit of our case.RN: What two?HRH: I don’t know. Two guys I never heard of. They weren’t Watergate people, but they were involved in some way, or peripherally involved, and the CIA formally requested they not be interrogated, and they weren’t.RN: Hmm. HRH: So there was a reason for the concern, and the CIA was concerned, and that’s - there’s something more to this still at the CIA, than what’s come out.RN: This is a mixed bag.

Commentary: Following his resignation as chief of staff, Haldeman tells the President that the CIA itself had wanted the Watergate investigation limited. The CIA presumably cleared this segment for release, so perhaps it would also reveal whether Haldeman’s statement is true and, if so, who the individuals were and why the FBI might have wanted to talk to them about Watergate.

441-23 6/5/735:29 pm - 7:14 pm. EOB.RN, JFB.[Segment 4]

Discussion of Archibald Cox’s reported plan for a blanket indictment of a number of defendants on one count of obstruction of justice, as related to JFB by “friends of mine in that office.”JFB: He’s thinking of (getting?) the general counsel of the CIA [Lawrence Houston] (in this?)

Commentary: We stress that the tape is unclear. But had the Watergate prosecutor contemplated indicting the CIA’s top lawyer?

C) THE OVERTHROW AND MURDER OF PRESIDENT DIEM OF SOUTH VIETNAM

Commentary: A number of the new segments contain President Nixon’s views regarding the events surrounding the overthrow of the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963, and the subsequent violent death of Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. In the restored material, the President discusses what he

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considered the complicity of members of the administration of President Kennedy in the fall of the Diem regime and the death of the brothers. It is unclear why the National Archives believes the segments constitute evidence of a Presidential “abuse of power.”

A chronology of the major events which the President and others discuss follows.

May 7, 1954 - The stronghold of Dien Bien Phu falls, ending 7 1/2 years of warfare between French troops and Ho Chi Minh’s Vietminh, who now control the northern part of Vietnam. The country is temporarily divided at the 17th Parallel, with Bao Dai in control of the south.

June 16, 1954 - Ngo Dinh Diem becomes premier in Bao Dai’s government in South Vietnam.

July 21, 1954 - The Geneva Conference issues its Final Declaration on Vietnam, which provides for general elections to be held throughout Vietnam, supervised by an international commission, in July 1956, to be followed by a permanent political settlement in the country. The United States, represented by Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, issues a statement declining to join in the Final Declaration and making a unilateral declaration that the people of the State of Viet-Nam (governing the southern part of Vietnam) “are entitled to determine their own future.”

July 22, 1954 - Premier Diem announces that the State of Viet-Nam declines to sign the Final Declaration, stating: “We cannot recognize the seizure by Soviet China - through its satellite the Vietminh - of over half of our national territory.”

February 1, 1955 - With the ratification of the SEATO Treaty by the Senate, the United States affirms its obligation to assist “the free territory of the state of Vietnam” in resisting armed attack.

July 16, 1955 - With the support of the United States, Premier Diem affirms that his government will not take part in the Vietnam-wide elections specified in the Geneva Conference’s Final Declaration, on the grounds that “we remain skeptical concerning the possibility of fulfilling the conditions of free elections in the North.”

October 1955 - Ngo Dinh Diem defeats Bao Dai in a referendum and becomes President of the Republic of Vietnam.

June 1956 - In a speech before the American Friends of Vietnam, Sen. John F. Kennedy states: “If we are not the parents of little Vietnam, then surely we are the godparents. We presided at its birth, we gave assistance to its life, we have helped to shape its future[...] This is our offspring - we cannot abandon it, we cannot ignore its needs.”

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May 1957 - President Diem tours America. By now he has won the friendship and admiration of such widely differing individuals as Francis Cardinal Spellman, Justice William O. Douglas, Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, and Vice President. Nixon.

January 1959 - The Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party in Hanoi decides on an all-out policy of promoting “armed struggle” in South Vietnam.

November 1960 - An attempted military coup against Diem fails. Following this event, Ngo Dinh Nhu, President Diem’s brother and advisor, takes an increasingly active part in supervising activities to counter subversion.

December 1960 - With the active backing of the North Vietnamese Government, the National Liberation Front (NLF) and its military arm, the Vietcong, are set up in the south.

January 20, 1961 - From the inaugural address of President John F. Kennedy:“To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our

word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom[...]”

December 7, 1961 - In a letter to President Kennedy, President Diem requests further assistance in the fight against communist subversion of his nation. Throughout his period in office, President Diem made it clear that he did not want American combat troops but needed, instead, military advisors and counterinsurgents who could train South Vietnamese troops to defend their own nation.

December 14, 1961 - President Kennedy, replying to President Diem, states: “[...] we are prepared to help the Republic of Vietnam to protect its people and to preserve its independence. We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort [...]”

December 1962 - By the end of the year, Vietcong forces have begun launching ground-to-air attacks against U.S. helicopters, as well as stepping up attacks against American advisors. By the end of the year, 11,500 U.S. military personnel are in Vietnam, compared to 2646 the previous January. 109 Americans have been killed or wounded in the country, compared to 14 in 1961.

December 3, 1962 - Roger Hilsman, Jr., the chief of the State Department’s intelligence bureau, sends a research memo to Secretary of State Dean Rusk taking issue with President Diem’s optimistic evaluation of his nation’s military situation and warning: “The possibility of a coup at any time cannot be excluded[....] Under most of the foreseeable circumstances involving a coup, the role of the US would be extremely important[...] The US could be helpful in achieving agreement among the coup leaders as to who should head the government and in restoring the momentum of the government’s counterinsurgency effort.”

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December 12, 1962 - The President, asked about progress in Vietnam at a press conference, replies: “[...] we don’t see the end of the tunnel, but I must say I don’t think it is darker than a year ago, and in some ways lighter.”

December 31, 1962 - President Kennedy and Sen. Mike Mansfield (who had known Diem for decades) meet in Palm Beach to discuss a report the Senator had completed on Dec. 18 about his recent visit to South Vietnam. In the report, Mansfield, while noting that President Diem is patriotic, diligent, and personally incorruptible, comments that his brother, while intellectually capable, lacked a public following and was widely distrusted. Mansfield also warns of increased use of North Vietnamese forces, and, after outlining several steps for increased military effectiveness, warns: “[...]if these remedies do not work, it is difficult to conceive of alternatives, with the possible exception of a truly massive commitment of American military personnel and other resources - in short going to war fully ourselves against the guerrillas - and the establishment of some form of neocolonial rule in South Vietnam.” According to Sen. Mansfield in a subsequent interview by Richard Reeves (see the latter’s President Kennedy [Simon & Schuster, 1993]), the President, visibly upset, asked: “You expect me to believe this?” and when Mansfield replied affirmatively, commented: “This isn’t what my people are telling me.” [President Kennedy, pp. 443-444]

January 2, 1963 - Under the supervision of Col. John Paul Vann (the subject of Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie), 1200 South Vietnamese troops, accompanied by American advisors, attack a Vietcong radio transmitter in the Mekong Delta. Owing to confusion about the location of the transmitter, the Vietcong defenders, after killing 61 South Vietnamese and three Americans, escape with comparatively few casualties. Roger Hilsman of the State Department, recently returned from a fact-finding visit in Vietnam where he was accompanied by Michael Forrestal of the National Security Council, characterizes the action to the President as “a stunning defeat.” In a memo soon after, Hilsman and Forrestal, while optimistic about the general progress of the war, contend that “Diem’s reluctance to delegate [power] is alienating the middle and higher level officials[...]”

January 17, 1963 - Life publishes a photo essay, “We Wade Deeper Into Jungle War.”

January 25, 1963 - Hilsman and Forrestal, in a report to the President, criticize Gen. Paul Harkins and Ambassador. to South Vietnam Frederick Nolting (the latter one of Diem’s strongest supporters), suggest that Ngo Dinh Nhu is an irrational drug addict, question Diem’s hold on reality, and comment: “More vigor is needed in getting Diem to do what we want.” The report suggests that Nolting be replaced as ambassador.

May 12, 1963 - An interview with Ngo Dinh Nhu by Warren Unna appears in the Sunday Washington Post, in which Nhu states: “South Vietnam would like to see half of the 12,000 to 13,000 American military stationed here leave the country.”

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May 22, 1963 - Asked about Nhu’s statement at a press conference, the President comments: “[...]we are hopeful the situation in South Vietnam would permit some withdrawal in any case by the end of the year, but we can’t possibly make that judgement at the present time[...].”

Late May 1963 - Under the leadership of Vietnamese Buddhist leader Tri Quang (who, in turn, is in contact with the North Vietnamese Buddhist community, which was being manipulated by communist Hanoi), Buddhists stage further protests in Hue and Saigon.

June 11, 1963 - Several American reporters and photographers are advised by their Buddhist sources that a protest parade against Diem is to be staged at a busy Saigon intersection. When the media arrive, they find Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc sitting on a pillow. After fellow monks soak him with gasoline, he wordlessly lights a match and ignites himself. He burns for ten minutes (while the monks hand reporters a statement from him asking President Diem to “enforce a policy of religious equality”) before his corpse hits the street. Within hours a dramatic photo of the scene is being sent around the world by the AP. The next morning, the President, seeing the photo on the front pages of a half-dozen papers, exclaims to his brother Robert, “Jesus Christ!” echoing the words of many other Americans. President Diem seals off the Buddhist pagodas in Saigon behind barricades and places them under guard to prevent further immolations.

In Washington, Averell Harriman of the State Department, who frequently

consults with Hilsman and Forrestal, sends a telegram to William Trueheart, the deputy chief of mission in Saigon, commenting: “While there is no change in US policy supporting Diem, we want [Vice President Nguyen] Tho to know that in event situation arises [....] where Diem definitely unable to act as president[...]we would want to back Tho as constitutional successor[....]We would have to tell Tho that if word leaked we would flatly deny.” [Reeves, President Kennedy, pp. 516-519.]

June 12, 1963 - Following steady criticism from anti-Diem reporters in print and State Department officials in private, Ambassador to South Vietnam Frederick Nolting, President Diem’s foremost supporter among American officials, asks the President to be relieved to attend to family matters in the United States. Some days later, the President asks Secretary of State Dean Rusk to unofficially sound out Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. about his interest in the ambassadorship. Lodge replies affirmatively and visits the President in the White House, where the latter tells him that “the Diem government seems to be in its terminal phase.” [Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 526] At the time, President Kennedy, who told British reporter Henry Brandon in the 1950s that “foreign policy is for the experts,” is concentrating his time on dealing with the Birmingham, Ala., civil rights protests, and preparations for the nuclear test-ban treaty.

July 1963 - Madame Nhu makes further statements which, quoted in stories from American reporters, make a further negative impact on public opinion. Meanwhile, Buddhists monks continued to immolate themselves, with further deaths. Asked by a

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reporter about the ethics of the encouraging young monks to kill themselves, Tri Quang remarks: “In a revolution, many things must be done.” [Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (Arbor House, 1985), p. 67.]

August 15. 1963 - President Kennedy meets for the last time with Ambassador Lodge before the latter’s posting to Saigon. Citing the photograph of the Buddhist monk’s immolation, the President tells Lodge to take personal charge of all press relations. By way of illustration, he gives Lodge a report on the US press in Saigon by Assistant Secretary of State (and former journalist) Robert Manning after a visit, which states of the 12 fulltime US correspondents in Vietnam: “[they] reflect unanimous bitterness toward, and contempt for, the Diem regime. They unanimously maintain that our Vietnam policy cannot succeed unless the Diem regime (cum family) is replaced.” The President further advises Lodge to see what he can do to persuade President Diem to force his brother and Madame Nhu out of power, and indicates to Lodge that no action is to be taken to thwart a military coup if Diem does not so act. [Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 559]

Later that day, the President reads a memo on Vietnam from Sen. Mansfield, warning of “costs in men and money which could go as least as high as those in Korea” and suggesting a symbolic withdrawal of a percentage of advisors in Vietnam, “to make clear that we mean business when we say that there are some circumstances in which this commitment will be discontinued.” [Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 556-557]

August 21, 1963 - Vietnamese Special Forces under the supervision of Nhu, and trained by the CIA for covert operations, seize 12 Buddhist pagodas (out of 4,776 nationwide) and arrest 1400 Buddhist monks and nuns. Thirty people die in unrest surrounding the seizure of a pagoda in Hue.

At the time of the seizures, Ambassador Lodge is in Tokyo, still en route to Saigon. In Honolulu, Lodge had met with Nolting and Hilsman. In an Oral History now at the Kennedy Library, Lodge stated that he told Hilsman: “You can’t have the police knocking on the door at three o’clock in the morning, taking sixteen and seventeen-year-old girls to camps outside of town[...] without laying the basis for assassination.” [Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 559.]

During the flight across the Pacific, Lodge had found himself next to the late Eugene Burdick (co-author of The Ugly American, set in “Sarkhan,” a nation strongly resembling South Vietnam), who urged the Ambassador: “Don’t trust the people in the Embassy” - many of whom were vehemently anti-Diem. [Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 558.]

August 22, 1963 - Ambassador Lodge arrives in Saigon. Meanwhile, the South Vietnamese Ambassador to the U.S. (Madame Nhu’s father) resigns, and prominent U.S. clerics take out newspaper ads protesting U.S. support of Diem. Students disrupt classes in South Vietnamese universities.

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August 24, 1963 - As the front page of the Washington Post, with a headline “POWER SHIFT TO NHU SEEN IN VIET-NAM,” rolls off the presses, Hilsman finishes drafting a cable to Ambassador Lodge. This reads, in part:

“[...] [C]lear that Nhu has maneuvered himself into commanding position. U.S. Government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in Nhu’s hands. Diem must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu and his coterie[...]

“If, in spite of all your efforts, Diem remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved.

“[...]We wish to give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove Nhus, but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implication that we can no longer support Diem. You may also tell appropriate military commanders we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown central government mechanism [....]”

At the time the cable (DEPTEL 243) is drafted, on Saturday, neither the President nor the top Cabinet members concerned with Vietnam are in Washington.

Averell Harriman, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, approves the cable. Hilsman takes the cable to George Ball of the State Department and Gen. Victor Krulak, who are at the Chevy Chase (Md.) Club. Hilsman asks them to sign off for their superiors, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Maxwell Taylor. Ball, subsequently a leading “dove” (who stated in 1983 that Vietnam “was probably the greatest single error America made in its national history”), personally approves the cable but declines to sign off for Rusk. Krulak declines to sign off and goes to locate Taylor.

The cable is sent to President Kennedy in Hyannisport, who is reviewing preparations for the Civil Rights March to occur in Washington the following Wednesday. The President approves the cable, providing approval comes from his senior advisors. (All those subsequently contacted, most of whom have misgivings about its contents, are told of the President’s approval.)

Rusk approves the cable. Richard Helms, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, approves the cable in the absence of Director of Central Intelligence John McCone, who is out of town. Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, approves the cable in the absence of Secretary of Defense McNamara. Taylor, who is inclined to oppose the course of action suggested in the cable, does not see it until Gilpatric forwards it to him at 11 pm Saturday night, when the cable is already being forwarded to Saigon. (In a 1964 Oral History, now in the Kennedy Library, Robert Kennedy states that it was the President’s understanding that the cable was not to be sent until it had been seen and approved by the appropriate figures from State, Defense, and the Joint Chiefs.) [Robert McNamara, In Retrospect (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. 52-55; see also Reeves, President Kennedy, p. 567.]

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August 25, 1963 - Lodge sends his reply, which is forwarded to the President in Hyannisport:

“Believe that chances of Diem’s meeting our demands is virtually nil[...]

“Therefore, propose we go straight to Generals with our demands, without informing Diem. Would tell them we prepared have Diem without Nhus but it is in effect up to them whether to keep him.”

Ball, Harriman and Hilsman reply with an unsigned cable marked “TOP SECRET”:

“Suggest Ambassador decide best means getting word to generals.”

August 26, 1963 - At 8 am Saigon time, the Voice of America’s Vietnam service broadcasts the following in English and Vietnamese, cleared by Hilsman.

“From Washington. High American officials blame police, headed by President Diem’s brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, for anti-Buddhist actions in the Vietnam Republic. The officials say Vietnam military leaders are not, repeat not, responsibile for last week’s attacks against pagodas[...]

“The officials indicate the U.S. may sharply reduce its aid to Vietnam unless President Diem gets rid of secret police officials responsible for the attacks.”

Following a protest from Ambassador Lodge, the second paragraph is removed from subsequnet broadcasts. Later that day, back in Washington, the President asks for an explanation of how DEPTEL 243 was processed and sent. Though the President states, “This shit has got to stop,” after hearing the details, he and his Vietnam advisors decide not to rescind the cable.

August 27, 1963 - By now, CIA personnel in Saigon have contacted Vietnamese generals about the contents of DEPTEL 243. Later that day, the President meets with Ambassador Nolting, who warns that there is no turning back from a coup if immediate action is not taken to countermand it. The President asks for more information, but does not reverse course.

November 1, 1963 - A group of South Vietnamese generals led by Duong Van “Big” Minh overthrow the government of President Diem.

November 2, 1963 - President Kennedy receives a cable from Amb. Lodge informing him of the murder of Ngo Dinh Diem and Ngo Dinh Nhu.

Over the years, some Kennedy Administration officials have argued that Lodge acted on his own. But the record shows that President Kennedy had an acute sense of the centrality of the White House role as well as a sense of ambivalence about the process

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and outcome. Dictating a diary entry on November 4, 1963 (the tape, released just last year, is at the Kennedy Library), the President said, “[DEPTEL 243] was badly drafted[...] I should not have given my consent to it without a roundtable conference in which McNamara and Taylor could have presented their views. While we did redress that balance in later wires, that first wire encouraged Lodge along a course to which he was, in any case, inclined.”

534-5 7/1/71Between 10:28 and 11:49 am. OO.RN, HRH, CWC, JDE.

[Segment 1]During a discussion of CWC’s views on what the Pentagon Papers indicate

regarding the Diem matter:RN: Diem (?), murder of Diem - Kennedy decided to go forward and got us involved, and it shows that Kennedy was the one who got us in the damn war - we got the Kennedys in this thing now.

Commentary: Imagine President Nixon’s point of view. The instant he had completed the oath of office he had become responsible for the lives of 540,000 young Americans sent to Indochina by his two predecessors. Certain that South Vietnam would fall to the communists if the United States withdrew precipitately, he decided upon a policy of gradual U.S. withdrawal so he could reach an equitable peace at Paris and prepare the South Vietnamese to defend themselves. While attempting to solve this problem, he is contending at home with the anti-war movement (which the record shows prompted North Vietnam to drag its feet at Paris); with Kennedy-era architects of the war who now criticized his policy for ending it; and now with a Johnson-era hawk, Daniel Ellsberg, who could indulge in the luxury of changing his mind. It is hardly surprising that RN’s thoughts turned to the deepening of U.S. responsibility for South Vietnam that followed Diem’s ouster, and to the architects of the policy.

561-12 8/11/71Between 1:01 and 1:30 pm. OO.RN, CWC.

During a discussion of possible Congressional hearings in the wake of the Pentagon Papers’ release:CWC: Can you imagine Averell Harriman before that committee, explaining why he didn’t get Diem out of Vietnam when he had the chance, and kept him in a church where he was vulnerable? (?).RN: I want that out. (?). I want him before the committee.CWC: (?), I’m very anxious to see (?). You were quoted, too.RN: Oh yes, I said that he was murdered, that they murder-CWC: You made some marvelous statements, that were (?).RN: (?). I knew what the bastards were up to.

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576-6 9/18/71Between 12:07 and 2:05 pm. OO.RN, JM, JDE, HRH, CWC.

[Segment 2] Discussion of Diem.

JDE: Was Big Minh implicated? Was John Paul Vann implicated? Who is John Paul Vann? Who are these (?) figures? What does Averell Harriman (?). What was Lodge’s role? There’s a Sunday-supplement series in that.(10 sec National Security deletion)[Segment 4] RN: We’ve got all these people who were involved in this - and they’re all, in one way or another, involved in the assassination of Diem.[Segment 7]RN: The Diem incident is perhaps the best (ground?) to (apply?), because it involves Harriman, who is Muskie’s advisor, and it involves Kennedy.[Segment 10]HRH: We’ve got (?) - what we’ve got is (?).JM: All of our people in the Senate can pick up that thing and say - here, look what was said, it’s in all these documents, they’re in the committee.RN: I predicted they would not use it. (?) the liberal press - they don’t want that Diem incident talked about.JDE: How about a Senator charging that the CIA is holding [Lucien] Conein under wraps, and then our coming forth and saying, “No, that’s contrary to our policy. He’s free to talk.”RN: Would it do any good?JDE: And then, all of a sudden, he’s available.HRH: Don’t release him right away. Hold it up for (?).JDE: (?) around, and make them want it.CWC: (?) his background, his connections.JDE: (?) we figure - mystery man, we can do this - all that stuff.RN: What Senator would ever bite that one?CWC: Oh, I think he could find-RN: Goldwater?CWC: Brock, Taft -RN: Yeah, make a major speech. Because they have opened the (portholes?), they have opened the (battlehatches?)

Commentary: The President had served in the Navy during World War II. His apparent use of an old nautical metaphor is a reminder of his acute understanding of the political agendas of the Democratic architects of the Vietnam war who had turned dove after handing it over to a Republican President.

344-6 6/20/72Between 4:35 and 5:25 pm. OO.

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RN, HRH.RN: (?). It should be. Because over there, (?) the reason I need that basically I need that, is for foreign visitors (?). Walters - a real help, (?).(Deletion made, noted as “unintelligible”)HRH: It doesn’t involve the (?), I don’t think. He [E. Howard Hunt?] was in on the Diem thing.RN: Oh yeah.HRH: See, Hunt was the guy who (?) Colson.(Deletion made, noted as “unintelligible”)

Commentary: Here the President is reminded that Hunt had worked for Chuck Colson at the White House. Previously released tapes show that 10 days later Haldeman told the President that Colson had told the FBI “the straight truth” about Hunt’s work. The President expresses no concern.

374-3 10/25/72Between 4:40 and 5:16 pm. EOB.RN, CWC.

During a discussion of articles criticizing the Administration in the Washington Post:RN: The way we handled the North Vietnamese, we’ll handle them [the Post].

Commentary: It is unclear why NARA withheld this segment from the 1996 release. The log suggests its listeners think the segment is about Diem.

421-22 3/28/738:45 am - 9:00 am. EOB.RN, HRH.[Segment 1]

Discussion of declassification.RN: And did you get the word (?) on the declassification of everything over ten years? That’s got to move fast. And not only (?) but the other one’s important - on the Bay of Pigs. Just get the damn thing out, will you? That’s going to be quite a story - a few little morsels. Do you agree?HRH: Yeah.RN: Also gets into the Diem murder and the whole Diem thing. Now the war is over and we’re not going to take Henry’s crap. Henry’s a little bit involved in that himself, that’s why he doesn’t want some of it declassified. But I was thinking of that. I think the recollection of (?) is (?). I don’t know.

46-23 5/13/7310:09 pm - 10:43 pm. WHT.RN, AH.

Discussion of the Pentagon Papers.

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RN: They know this son of a bitch [Ellsberg] stole documents.AH: Sure.RN: Put them out against the law, violated the law, endangered - and really did, you know, despite what [McGeorge?] Bundy and those assholes said. Al, let me ask you one point that I want you to take an awful hard look at, and don’t ask Henry about it. AH: Right, sir.RN: This - I think we should just declassify everything going back - everything that’s ten years old, and declassify the whole Bay of Pigs, plus the Diem thing. Goddammit, you know, that’s - that can only be helpful. Now you say, “Well, it’ll stir things up in Vietnam.” The hell with it. You don’t like that, huh?AH: I’m not sure, sir. I think it’s a thing that should be considered. It’s not one that I could be very -RN: Well, we have guys working on it who are just professionals, but doggone it, I’d like to do it, because - look, I have not looked at the Bay of Pigs stuff, but I know there’s stuff in there that makes Bundy look like a godddamn - uh, you know, terrible, you know. The messages that went back and forth, you know. Lodge will not be - will not look good, but- AH: He’d look very bad.RN: But goddammit, you know what happened is, they set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the murder of Diem.AH: Oh, there’s no question about that. None. Never has been.RN: Well, it’s-AH: In fact, you knoow, the Vice President’s aide was there. He was Lodge’s assistant. I talked to him some years ago about that.RN: What’d he say?AH: He said, “My God, the poor guy called Lodge on the phone, and said, ‘they’re going to kill me, for God’s sake send some Marine guards up here, just as a manifestation of continued support.’”RN: You see, that’s the point, is - talking about offensives, this is a good juicy thing to get out. This isn’t going to hurt us in Vietnam, it really isn’t. I just want somebody other than a technician to look at that, you know?AH: Yes.RN: I mean, that was what Hunt was looking into, you know, and screwed it up. But the point is, there’s a hell of a record there. Now, somebody - have you got some trusted person that can look at that goddamn thing, and let’s declassify it. It’s ten years old, huh?AH: Yes, I can get somebody to do it.RN: See, the Pentagon Papers are out, for Christ’s sake. That’s after this. The Pentagon Papers are after-AH: That’s right. There’s an awful lot in the Pentagon Papers covering it. But it’s-RN: But you see here, we are sitting here wondering what happened. Now, let’s let the Cliffords - well, not the Cliffords, but certainly McNamara doesn’t look good on this-AH: No.RN: And Bundy looks terrible. Bobby Kennedy looks terrible. Jack Kennedy looks terrible. You know, he was up at Hyannisport, you know.

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AH: I don’t think anybody came out of that one with clean hands. There were some that were very strongly opposed. But they had no voice.RN: That’s right. But the point is, just let it lay. The public is entitled to know. If they want to (play?) this business of, you know - that’s the way I feel about it.AH: Well, I think it’s certainly not something that we should dismiss.RN: Well, you could put a strong fellow. Buzhardt’s so damn busy, perhaps he shouldn’t do it, but - have you got some man, some trusted person that you could - you know, the work’s been done. They’ve go a little committee and some bright little guy’s been working on it who sent me a report, was very, very inadequate because, you know, he was going by the numbers and all that. Rehnquist started it, you know.AH: He did?RN: He was first man and then I said, “Now goddammit, I want the facts out.” I didn’t - I just wanted them out, just to get the record out, with - that was when the Pentagon Papers - I said, “For Christ’s sakes, what is the record on what went on then? I mean, the public is entitled to know.”AH: That’s right, because what you end up with is a very distorted view of what really happened.RN: Right.AH: And of course, that’s true with respect to a number of incidents portrayed in the Pentagon Papers.RN: Yeah. But you see, you could stop.AH: (?) accurately.RN: My point is, this is 1973, so you would say, everything ten years old is declassified.AH: Yes.RN: See my point.AH: Right, sir.(39 second National Security deletion - listed on log as 34 seconds)AH: Ah-RN: Oh yes, he knew.AH: (?) right thing to do, and it’s proved to be the right thing to do.RN: Yeah.AH: But you know, the goddamn libs would bleed all over the place about that.RN: Well, maybe they will. But you know, a little controversy about things like that isn’t bad. You see, your thought earlier very much appealed to me. Have some controversy. Not just about - whether we have oil going to Libya, but about things like - that people are really interested in.AH: That’s right. Well, we - this is one of the things we’re working on today.. Now, not self-defeating controversy, we don’t want anything that-RN: Oh, I know.AH: That gives us unnecessary problems. But matters of keen interest that are-RN: Mmm-mm.AH: Good in public debate. And get these guys’ minds off this thing.RN: Just, it’s not getting their minds off this thing, Al, it’s getting their minds on the unbelievably incompetent way that these clowns handled the Bay of Pigs. Now, that damn thing’s got to come out. Now, that was a horrible thing. I mean-AH: (?) one.

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RN: What Chester Bowles did, you know - leaked it out in order to stop it.AH: Right.RN: What Adlai Stevenson did. Jesus Christ, that ought to be out.AH: Yeah, yeah. A lot of - I don’t know where - there’s one report that really lays it out, and that’s Max Taylor’s report. There were, I think, only three copies made, but it was just (?).RN: Well, let’s see it and if it’s - you know, take a few risks. The point is, you know, we’re in a hell of a public relations battle, and by God, we can win it.AH: I think we can win it, and I think we’re going to start winning it. I think it’s just - we’re very close to the time. We’re going to have a little bit of a circus here at the end of the week.RN: Oh, yes.AH: And - but that’s - people are going to get damn tired of that very quick.RN: Yeah, well maybe.

Commentary: While the President understandably and correctly believed that pent-up antiwar sentiment in the Democratic Congress was fueling the Watergate fires, both the Senate Select Committee on Watergate and the House Judiciary Committee declined to include the actions and abuses of prior administrations, even when they had to do with Vietnam, in their investigations. As the President says, he doesn’t just want to get people’s minds off of Watergate; he wants them to concentrate on prior administrations as well. One may disagree with his view, but it is odd indeed to have his view presented to the public as evidence of a Presidential “abuse of power.”

913-3 5/8/735:16 pm - 5:42 pm. OO.RN, RZ.

Discussion of a 1967 press conference in which RN had discussed the overthrow of Diem. RZ: The time you made the comment in your press conference [on the Diem overthrow] - you didn’t base it on the cable?RN: No, no. I was basing it on the book by Marguerite Higgins [Our Vietnam Nightmare] and other books written at the time. And another book, Kennedy’s 12 Greatest Mistakes [actually Kennedy’s 13 Mistakes in the White House, by Malcolm Smith]. No one questions-RZ: Kennedy complicity in the overthrow and murder.RN: Of course not. Hell, he pulled the plug on him, but it had nothing to do with that (?).

D) THE PENTAGON SPY IN THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE

Commentary: In the spring of 1970, Charles S. Radford, who had served in the U.S. Navy for over seven years, graduated from the Admiral’s Writer School with the

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rank of Yeoman. His first posting after graduation was as administrative assistant to Adm. Rembrandt C. Robinson, at that time head of the liason office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of the tasks of the liason office was to facilitate the flow of information between the National Security Council (NSC), and the Pentagon. Yeoman Radford soon was working at an office at the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB).

In the fall of that year, according to Yeoman Radford’s later testimony, Robinson informed the yeoman that he was to pass on any useful information learned at his office to the admiral. Radford construed this order to mean all documents that came across his path, and soon was photocopying thousands of pages of material, including policy papers, minutes of confidential meetings, memoranda and other materials from the NSC, much of it highly classified.

This material, accumulated and passed by Radford to Robinson and the latter’s successor, Adm. Robert O. Welander, during late 1970 and almost all of 1971, included materials concerning the most important and, at that time, most secret initiatives of the NSC, including the Nixon Administration’s preliminary contacts with the People’s Republic of China, Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) negotiations, contacts with the Soviet Union regarding detente, and the Paris peace talks to conclude the Vietnam War.

For example, during this time, Yeoman Radford accompanied Dr. Henry A. Kissinger on his trip to Pakistan in July 1971 that resulted in Kissinger’s successfully arranging the President’s trip to China the following year. Although the yeoman did not accompany Dr. Kissinger on his secret trip to China, he had considerable access to Kissinger’s documents, including the notes of a meeting with Chou En-lai, and conveyed this information back to his superior. He also had access to NSC materials concerning the position of the United States in the conflict between Pakistan and India over East Pakistan, later the independent nation of Bangladesh, that erupted in late 1971.

In the first days of December 1971, the Nixon Administration took measures to ensure that India did not militarily defeat Pakistan in the conflict. This tilt to Pakistan provoked considerable controversy. In the midst of this turmoil, on December 14, Jack Anderson, in his newspaper column, printed Pentagon documents that had been available to Yeoman Radford at his NSC office. Among the classified documents Anderson quoted were:

a) A memorandum from. Welander to Haig, dated Dec. 10, 1971, that detailed the movements of the USS Enterprise in the Indian Ocean;

b) The minutes of the Dec. 3, 1971 meeting of the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG);

c) a Joint Chiefs of Staff memo concerning the Dec. 4, 1971 WSAG meeting;

d) two State Department cables from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

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The first memo, from Welander to Haig, had been known to be in the hands of five people -- Welander, Haig, Kissinger, Radford, and an aide to Haig.

Welander and Haig both were inclined to think that Radford, who had met Anderson’s parents during a mission to India and who had subsequently been introduced to the columnist in the fall of 1970 when Anderson’s parents visited Washington, was the source for the documents quoted in Anderson’s column. (Radford and Anderson are Mormons, a fact which some of the investigators seemed to regard as significant. However, they belonged to different Mormon wards and met only in a social setting. It should also be noted that Radford’s political views, as articulated to subsequent interviewers, were highly conservative and differed considerably from Anderson’s.)

Haig contacted White House domestic affairs advisor John D. Ehrlichman, who, in turn, assigned David R. Young, who was in charge of the White House investigative unit to locate leaks (the Plumbers), to determine the source for Anderson’s column. White House aide Bud Krogh worked with Young on the matter. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, W. Donald Stewart, under the supervision of J. Fred Buzhardt (then general counsel at the Department of Defense and later counsel to the President), began an investigation in collaboration with Young.

In the beginning, Radford was suspected of leaking material to Anderson that had been used in columns in the spring of 1971, as well as the December 14 column, but it turned out that another source was responsible for the earlier leaks. The White House and Pentagon investigators concentrated on Radford’s access to the documents.

On December 16, 1971, Young and Stewart conducted a preliminary interrogation of Yeoman Radford. The yeoman was then asked to take a polygraph test. When asked if he had passed information to Jack Anderson, Yeoman Radford denied that he had given information to Anderson or any member of the press - and has so denied ever since (most recently when being interviewed for the article “Tale Of The Shadow Chaser” by Richard Lamb, George, Oct. 1998). But when asked, “Have you ever furnished classified documents to uncleared persons?” Radford paused, then answered in the affirmative. In subsequent interrogations by Stewart and Young, Radford gradually unveiled the extent of the materials he had examined and copied, and related that he had passed the materials to Robinson and Welander. When questioned by Ehrlichman, Welander acknowledged receiving documents from Radford and sending them to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Robinson acknowledged receiving one set of papers from the yeoman. Moorer acknowledged that the documents had reached him, but stated that he did not know that they had been obtained surreptitiously.

The attitudes of those with involved in the investigation varied considerably. Stewart later described how he told his wife: “This is a goddamned Seven Days In May,” referring to the book and movie on a military takeover of the U.S. government. Haig, though upset at the leak to Jack Anderson, later said of the transfer of papers to the Joint

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Chiefs: “I can only call it bureaucratic espionage [which often] goes on in the halls of the Pentagon. There’s nothing evil about it.” Ehrlichman was concerned, too, although not to the same extent as Stewart or indeed Kissinger.

In his memoirs President Nixon makes clear that he was “disturbed - although not perhaps really surprised - that the [Joint Chiefs of Staff] was spying on the White House. But I was, frankly, very reluctant to pursue this aspect of the case because I knew that if it were explored, like so many other sensitive matters it would wind up being leaked to the media where it would be completely distorted, and we would end up doing damage to the military at a time when it was already under heavy attack.”

The President also notes that, while “the circumstantial evidence that [Radford] provided information to Anderson was convincing,” it was not established beyond doubt that Radford was Anderson’s source. Subsequent writers on the subject have debated at length whether Radford was the source for the column - an important issue for some Watergate writers who argued that if the yeoman was not the source, the real source would be a strong candidate to be the source, or one of the sources, for the Washington Post’s Watergate stories.

In the wake of the investigation, Radford was transferred from Washington to the Pacific Northwest, his native region; he now resides in Washington State. Robinson ultimately was transferred to duty in Vietnam and died in a helicopter crash in 1972. Welander was transferred to sea duty. Moorer continued as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman until 1974 and now is retired.

The new segments being released by NARA in which the India-Pakistan matter is discussed date from 1973. References to “leaks” and a lie-detector test confirm that the Moorer-Radford affair is under discussion. At the time the affair was not known to the general public, and the President is clearly concerned about the impact that revelation of the matter might make on U.S. national security overall.

Toward the end of 1973, the affair was brought to the attention of Sens. Sam J. Ervin and Sen. Howard Baker of the Senate Watergate Committee, and Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, but remained under wraps for a while. Finally, in January 1974, Seymour Hersh of the New York Times published articles on the matter and knowledge of it became public.

It is unclear why the National Archives believes these conversations constitute evidence of a Presidential “abuse of power.”

167-10 5/20/7312:26 pm - 12:54 pm. WHT.RN, HRH.

Discussion of lie-detector tests administered to control leaks.RN: In fact, the India-Pakistan one, that’s the way it was broken.

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HRH: Yep.RN: Although that’s one we’ve got to bury forever.HRH: Yep.RN: Because of the (chiefs?). [Joint Chiefs of Staff?]

434-9 5/9/736:35 pm - 8:26 pm. EOB.RN, JFB, AH.

Discussion of what may be in RN or HRH’s papers. RN notes that his papers are to be privileged; “they’re not Haldeman’s papers.”RN: There’s another reason for that too. Ehrlichman was involved in a hell of a lot of national-security stuff. (?) can’t (break into?) that. For example, Ehrlichman had an investigation (?) India and Pakistan. (?) You know how the (?).JFB: (?) a damn hot topic.RN: You know where that goes. And we cannot allow that to get out. (?). But I’ve got it. That’s my point. You see, Al? And we can’t break in on that. So on the papers - I want you to know, that’s the one (line?) where I don’t care if the press says I’m hiding everything. By God, I’m not going to let the Presidential papers (out?).

916-11 5/11/73Between 9:19 and 10:10 am. OO.RN, AH.[Segment 2]AH: My understanding was that they were destroyed at the direction of the Director. The tapes themselves and the memos.RN: When was this?AH: About the time of the Supreme Court ruling.RN: And after that we did India and Pakistan. Who the hell did India and Pakistan? Not Hunt?AH: I don’t know. I wasn’t - see that’s - we were not in that. I don’t know what happened. John [Ehrlichman?] ran all that.RN: Oh, that’s right. It just involved the NSC.AH: Yeah, well I (knew of no?) attempt. I wasn’t aware that they did an attempt, I think it was probably them.RN: Oh, the lie-detector test.

E) THE HUSTON PLAN

Commentary: The Huston Plan was formally known as the Interagency Intelligence Report. Prepared by representatives of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency and approved by the directors of all three agencies, it called for more efficient efforts to gather intelligence about foreign threats to U.S. security and such internal threats as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers. President Nixon approved the proposals in July 1970 but withdrew his consent five days later after the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, objected, evidently to protect his turf.

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The public learned of the Huston Plan in May 1973 after former White House counsel John Dean gave a copy to Watergate prosecutors as he bargained for immunity. Devised in the atmosphere of often violent dissent that characterized the Vietnam years, the plan -- emerging as it did from the dynamics of Watergate -- was an object of sharp partisan criticism. Democratic Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Senate Watergate committee, condemned the measures as “Gestapo tactics.” Like so much of the rhetoric of the era, Ervin’s charge was both overly alarmist and, in view of the policies of prior administrations his committee chose not to address, hypocritical. As President Nixon wrote in his memoirs, “The irony of the controversy over the Huston Plan did not become apparent until a 1975 investigation revealed that the investigative techniques it would have involved had not only been carried out long before I approved the plan but continued to be carried out after I had rescinded my approval of it.” The new tape segments show the President grasping for details about a matter which he had evidently long before put in the back of his mind.

There are likely a variety of views on the Huston Plan. But it is not clear why the National Archives considers these discussions of it evidence of a Presidential “abuse of power.”

920-3 5/16/73Between 4:55 and 5:22 pm. OO.RN, AH, JFB.

Discussion of the Huston Plan.RN: Let’s see - remember, this is a classified document. My view is, if they start leaking the goddamn document, and we go on the attack - the leaking of classified documents - in other words, make a case about the - again, about the Pentagon -

Later:JFB: Now, I’m fairly sure NSA (?).RN: What is the NSA- what kind of action do they do?JFB: I don’t know the specifics.RN: (?).JFB: They pick up communications stuff, they don’t actually tap (?), taping.RN: Anything the NSA did is totally defensible. JFB: I think it’s defensible, but I think that they move into a broader category with respect to domestic affairs.RN: Right, meaning, picking up by - what do you mean, (you talk too much?). Electronic surveillance?JFB: Targeting - yes sir - targeting US citizens’ conversations that were on international circuits. RN: Doing so because of their concern about their being involved in violence?JFB: Yes sir.

920-9 5/16/735:39 pm - before 5:53 pm. OO.RN, JFB.

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Discussion of the Huston Plan.RN: DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] says that - thinks it was terminated?JFB: They think it was terminated. And they told me independently from Huston that they think the approval was recalled, and that’s what Huston said. Now we’re going to check this thoroughly with NSA, and the reason it’s important is because if you remember they were the most aggressive group to go forward.RN: NSA.JFB: NSA. And I think they were the only ones to (?).RN: NSA probably did something, the electronic work.

Later:RN: But when we get down, for example, to the break-in, the Chilean embassy - that thing was a part of the burglars’ plan, as a cover. Those assholes are trying to have a cover - or a CIA cover. I think Dean concocted that.JFB: I think Dean concocted it.

Commentary: This is the only reference of which we are aware to a John Dean or CIA cover story involving the Chilean Embassy.

920-13 5/16/738:45 pm - before 9:33 pm. OO.RN, AH, JFB.

JFB discussed Lou Tordella’s notes on Huston Plan.JFB: They never quite got a handle on it until Pat Gray was appointed.RN: Shit.JFB: No, we didn’t have a problem on it, but we came close. We came close. Pat went out to visit NSA, and took four of his assistant with him, and he told Lou Tordella, “I understand we used to do things with you that were very helpful.”

Later, discussing FBI cooperation with NSA:JFB: Pat was putting back together the assets.RN: (?) told you this?JFB: Tordella told me this. (?). It went about to three weeks, Pat trying to reassemble the assets, since this was 1967.

Later, discussing JFB’s conversation with HRH about the domestic surveillance plan.JFB: And I talked to Bob again, and Bob just doesn’t remember.RN: I know.AH: They were talking about a thing that (were?) done in 1960-JDB: 1967.AH: Up til ‘67.JFB: Yeah, they were done up until 1967.AH: (laughs)RN: And the question was whether we should renew things that were done til ‘67.JFB: That’s correct.RN: And we (?).

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JFB: We had one (increment?), Mr. President, in that document that wasn’t previously done.RN: What was that?JFB: Well, it was most not recently - not as recently as ‘67, and that was a black job - a black-bag job on internal security targets. Now, we both know how that system works.RN: That wasn’t done when we were in.JFB: No sir.RN: Thank God.JFB: Was not done then. But we both know how that system works.RN: I know how-JFB: And how, in the early days, Hoover participated.RN: Yeah.JFB: In the later days I know, just from dealing with the-RN: Thank God you weren’t here.

921-3 5/17/738:44 am - 9:36 am. OO.RN, JFB.[Segment 1]

Discussion of Huston Plan.RN: What the CIA-JFB: They’re checking but they don’t think anyone did that - the word came to me independently from DIA that some of the people knew the plan was no go. I suspect it was Bennett [who got a call]. Bennett’s in Korea and I haven’t been able to reach him. I think it would probably have been a directive because he was (?).RN: He’s a general?JFB: Yes sir, a four-star general.

Later, on whether Lou Tordella would keep notes on conversations:JFB: I don’t know - I wouldn’t be surprised if they [NSA] tapes the conversations going in and out of there. I don’t think they would admit it.RN: No, they shouldn’t.JFB: Even to me. But I had the definite impression.RN: I think Hoover taped all his conversations.JFB: I think it’s a common practice in town.RN: Sure, but they never have to use it. And shouldn’t.

Later, discussing termination of Huston Plan.JFB: General [Richard] Stilwell was there at the time, and he said it did not - never, when they got the word, he doesn’t remember precisely where.RN: But they must have made notes on that, Fred, they must have.JFB: Whoever did the (?) may know.RN: They’re a (starry-eyed?) bunch.JFB: There are (75,000?) people there.

F) AMBASSADORIAL APPOINTMENTS

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535-4 7/2/71Between 9:15 and 10:39 am. OO.RN, HRH, CWC, PMF.

Discussion of ambassadorial appointments.PMF: We have a fellow in Austria [John F. Humes] who’s doing a good job, as is the guy in Finland - Val Peterson’s apparently doing a good job - but he was a damn big contributor. (?) we don’t have (?) Brussels. I understand that-RN: We want to give that to that fellow who wants to contribute a quarter of a million - that fellow who was in the previous Administration.PMF: Raymond Guest.RN: Guest. Probably dumb as hell, but he’ll be all right.

PMF notes that his parents and uncle know Guest.RN: Understand, that’s only if he gives a quarter-million.PMF: Australia, I understand, you’re holding for Cooper.RN: Cooper? That deal is off.

Commentary: While the late Raymond Guest was indeed a contributor to President Nixon’s campaign, he did not receive an ambassadorial appointment. The Nixon estate suggested that the National Archives withhold the reference in deference to the Guest family, but the agency refused. In any event, the correlation between Presidents’ contributors and non-career ambassadorial appointments neither began nor ended with the Nixon Administration. For instance, correspondent Philip Terzian of the Providence Journal said during a November 1997 Washington Week in Review segment about Nixon White House ambassadorships, “I must say, the price of an ambassadorship has not kept pace with inflation. [Clinton appointee] Larry Lawrence got Switzerland for – What? – $300,000.”

Commentary by Robert W. Nedelkoff and John H. Taylor.

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II. TRANSCRIPT SEGMENTS

A) ADVISORY NOTE

Transcribing White House tapes is difficult, time-consuming work. Many errors exist in transcripts made and used by the Senate Select Committee on Watergate, the special prosecutor, and the White House as well as in transcripts published since. The National Archives takes up to 100 hours to transcribe an hour of recorded conversation. The transcripts in our report are accurate to the best of our ability. Anyone who finds what he or she believes to be an error should send an e-mail to John H. Taylor (blueheart@compuserve.com). We will check the tape and post a correction on our web site if warranted.

************************************************************************NOTE: Because of the time limitations and the inability of NARA to fulfill our request to have copies of the relevant segments sent to Yorba Linda by Wednesday, it was not possible to include complete transcripts of portions of several segments. They are segment numbers 535-4-(5) (Page 39), 745-2-(3) (Page 46), 917-33-(3) (Page 65),929-8-(1) (page 71). The content of the segments is summarized below on the indicated pages. We will add the transcripts to our web site no later than Monday, March 1.************************************************************************

B) SUMMARY

This report concerns deletions from segments of the White House recordings of 1971 to 1973 which were previously categorized as concerning the abuse of governmental power. These deletions, for the most part, were made for national security reasons, according to the previously released Abuse of Governmental Power tape subject log. Since then, a number of deletions and portions of deleted material have been declassified and are to be released to the public, and noted in the Federal Register, on February 25, 1999.

The previously deleted material, with very few exceptions, fall into one or more of the following categories:

1) Segments concerning the Central Intelligence Agency and its personnel (including Amb. Richard M. Helms, Director of Central Intelligence from 1966 to 1973, and the late Lawrence Houston, longtime General Counsel of the CIA) which do not concern matters involving the CIA covered in other categories (such as segments concerning the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem or the Bay of Pigs action).

2) Segments concerning President Nixon’s views regarding the events surrounding the overthrow of the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963, and the subsequent violent death of Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu.

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In the restored material, the President discusses what he considered the complicity of members of the administration of President John F. Kennedy in the fall of the Diem regime and the death of the brothers.

3) Segments concerning the Bay of Pigs action in 1961. In the restored material, the President discusses what he considered the Kennedy administration’s failure to adequately support the anti-Castro Cuban insurgents who landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in April 1961.

4) Segments concerning what the President describes as a national-security matter involving the nations of India and Pakistan, which the President thought could be brought to public notice in the course of the investigation of the Watergate burglary and related events. These references evidently concern what is now referred to, in books and articles about the Nixon Admistration and Watergate, as “the Moorer-Radford affair.”

5) Segments concerning E. Howard Hunt, and his employment by the Central Intelligence Agency.

6) Segments concerning the memorandum proposing interagency coordination of domestic intelligence submitted by White House aide Tom Charles Huston to the President in 1970, but not implemented, and subsequently called “the Huston plan.”

7) Segments in which the President and others speculate on the contents of a box of documents, reportedly including materials of a national-security nature, in the custody of John W. Dean III.

8) Segments concerning the wiretapping of Henry Brandon, longtime Washington correspondent of the London Sunday Times, at the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Brandon, who died in 1993, discusses the wiretaps in his book Special Relationships (Atheneum, 1988).

9) Segments concerning ambassadorial appointments.10) Segments not within the above categories.A listing and transcription of the deleted segments follows. The conversation

number and the date are given in boldface; the speakers are identified; and the subject of the conversation just preceding the deleted material is noted.

Where a conversation is noted as taking place “between” one time and another, this means that the Tape Subject Log of the Nixon Presidential Materials Staff states that the conversation took place “at an unknown time” in that duration; that is, the conversation may or may not have lasted the full duration between the times noted. Where “between” is not used, the conversation is noted on the Subject Log as having begun and ended at the specified times.

In these transcripts, every reference to a deletion, in parentheses, denotes a deletion made by the National Archives, which appears in the tape subject log.

Words in italicized brackets identify persons and events referred to in a conversation. Words in bold-face italics constitute the Nixon Library reviewer’s summary of the conversation that immediately precedes or follows the previously deleted segment. Words in plain italics are transcribed conversations that put in context the previously deleted material, where necessary.

The notation (?) is used where the words in the segment did not prove intelligible even after several listenings. Where a word is somewhat indistinct but is most likely the word identified, the word is enclosed in parentheses and followed by a question mark.

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The following abbreviations are used for the speakers.RN: President NixonHRH: H. R. “Bob” HaldemanJDE: John D. EhrlichmanHK: Henry A. KissingerRZ: Ronald L. ZieglerCWC: Charles W. ColsonPMF: Peter M. FlaniganJM: John N. MitchellCMacG: Clark MacGregorRHF: Robert H. FinchLG: Leonard GarmentHP: Henry E. PetersenAH: Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr.JFB: J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.LH: Lawrence M. Higby

The abbreviations “OO,” “WHT,” and “EOB” are used to designate conversations taking place in the Oval Office of the White House, on the White House telephone lines, or in the President’s Executive Office Building office, respectively.

C) SEGMENTS

504-15 5/27/71Between 5:56 and 6:38 pm. OO.RN, JDE, HRH, HK.[Segment 2]

Following a discussion concerning whether a national security wiretap should be placed on Gerard Smith:HRH: (?) Helms (would?) (?).

534-2 7/1/71Between 8:45 and 9:52 am. OO.RN, HRH, HK.[Segment 2]

During a discussion of the Rand Corporation, a few words, not readily intelligible, have been noted as “declassified in full” in the Subject Log.

534-5 7/1/71Between 10:28 and 11:49 am. OO.RN, HRH, CWC, JDE.[Segment 1]

During a discussion of CWC’s views on what the Pentagon Papers indicate regarding the Diem matter:

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RN: Diem (?), murder of Diem - Kennedy decided to go forward and got us involved, and it shows that Kennedy was the one who got us in the damn war - we got the Kennedys in this thing now.

[Segment 5]CWC describes the background of E. Howard Hunt.

CWC: He spent 20 years in the CIA overthrowing governments.

534-12 7/1/71Between 1:38 and 2:05 pm. OO.RN, HRH.[Segment 1]

During a discussion of possible opposition to extensive declassification of documents:HRH: The CIA will be concerned with methods in intelligence collection.

535-4 7/2/71Between 9:15 and 10:39 am. OO.RN, HRH, CWC, PMF.[Segment 5]

Discussion of ambassadorial appointments.PMF: We have a fellow in Austria [John F. Humes] who’s doing a good job, as is the guy in Finland - Val Peterson’s apparently doing a good job - but he was a damn big contributor. (?) we don’t have (?) Brussels. I understand that-RN: We want to give that to that fellow who wants to contribute a quarter of a million - that fellow who was in the previous Administration.PMF: Raymond Guest.RN: Guest. Probably dumb as hell, but he’ll be all right.

PMF notes that his parents and uncle know Guest.RN: Understand, that’s only if he gives a quarter-million.PMF: Australia, I understand, you’re holding for Cooper.RN: Cooper? That deal is off.

537-4 7/5/71Between 4:28 and 6:15 pm. OO.RN, HRH, RZ.

During a discussion of clearances to be issued to non-governmental contractors.RN: Now he doesn’t have to have a Q clearance [issued to civilians working on Atomic Energy Commission projects]. A Q clearance, you know, is everything.

561-12 8/11/71Between 1:01 and 1:30 pm. OO.RN, CWC.

During a discussion of possible Congressional hearings in the wake of the Pentagon Papers’ release:

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CWC: Can you imagine Averell Harriman before that committee, explaining why he didn’t get Diem out of Vietnam when he had the chance, and kept him in a church where he was vulnerable? (?).RN: I want that out. (?). I want him before the committee.CWC: (?), I’m very anxious to see (?). You were quoted, too.RN: Oh yes, I said that he was murdered, that they murder-CWC: You made some marvelous statements, that were (?).RN: (?). I knew what the bastards were up to.

274-44 9/8/71Between 3:36 and 5:10 pm. EOB.RN, JDE.[Segment 2]

Discussion of JDE’s efforts to review Bay of Pigs, Diem documents.JDE: The assassination - the Diem episode is on ice for the moment, until after the election [in South Vietnam, Oct. 1971].RN: Then we’ll let it go.JDE: We’ll let it go.RN: Believe me, that’s a good one.

576-6 9/18/71Between 12:07 and 2:05 pm. OO.RN, JM, JDE, HRH, CWC.[Segment 1]

Discussion of ambassorships.RN: There are at least 10 people that will contribute between at least a half-million to a million dollars (?), you know.

[Segment 2] Discussion of overthrow of Diem.

JDE: Was Big Minh implicated? Was John Paul Vann implicated? Who is John Paul Vann? Who are these (?) figures? What does Averell Harriman (?). What was Lodge’s role? There’s a Sunday-supplement series in that.(10 sec National Security deletion)

[Segment 4] Discussion of overthrow of Diem.

RN: We’ve got all these people who were involved in this - and they’re all, in one way or another, involved in the assassination of Diem.

[Segment 6]Discussion of overthrow of Diem.

JDE: On the negative side, it exposes the CIA, and the inference will be drawn that that wasn’t just the CIA in former administrations, but that’s the way they still operate.

[Segment 7]

39

Discussion of overthrow of Diem.RN: The Diem incident is perhaps the best (ground?) to (apply?), because it involves Harriman, who is Muskie’s advisor, and it involves Kennedy.

[Segment 10]Discussion of impact of Pentagon Papers.

HRH: We’ve got (?) - what we’ve got is (?).JM: All of our people in the Senate can pick up that thing and say - here, look what was said, it’s in all these documents, they’re in the committee.RN: I predicted they would not use it. (?) the liberal press - they don’t want that Diem incident talked about.JDE: How about a Senator charging that the CIA is holding [Lt. Col. Lucien] Conein under wraps, and then our coming forth and saying, “No, that’s contrary to our policy. He’s free to talk.”RN: Would it do any good?JDE: And then, all of a sudden, he’s available.HRH: Don’t release him right away. Hold it up for (?).JDE: (?) around, and make them want it.CWC: (?) his background, his connections.JDE: (?) we figure - mystery man, we can do this - all that stuff.RN: What Senator would ever bite that one?CWC: Oh, I think he could find-RN: Goldwater?CWC: Brock, Taft -RN: Yeah, make a major speech. Because they have opened the (portholes?), they have opened the (battlehatches?)CWC: Mathias might.RN: Who?JDE: Mathias.RN: But the - (?) very good.CWC: Of course Conein could also (write?) to two or three Senators complaining that he was whisked out of the city, that he was paid money to shut up, and his being muzzled-HRH: (?) a prisoner.JDE: [Richard M.] Helms would have a fit. Helms would have a pluperfect fit.RN: That doesn’t bother me a bit. We owe Helms nothing. He owes us everything - we kept him on. And we’re going to let the CIA take a whipping on this. That doesn’t bother me a bit and I’m not going to hear that argument from Henry or anyone else. This Diem incident’s got to get out. It’s just got to get out.CWC: (?) let’s take the next few weeks to figure out the best spot - get everything in place. JDE: By way of foundation, obviously, we want everything that we can get out of the CIA before we break it off (with?) them. So we’ll turn our guys loose and-RN: Well, let me say first - I want the story of the Diem thing, everything in it - I want it by the end of next week. That’s an order. They will get it to me. I will personally (?) the whole story - I intend to have it - on the Diem incident. Now I (?) at a press conference, (?) get it for us.

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JDE: Now, we anticipate that the President’s assertion may be questioned and therefore he wants the entire file.RN: That’s right. The entire file on the Diem incident.HRH: (?) say it has been questioned, (?) need the files immediately.JDE: There’s some CIA stuff on the Bay of Pigs, apparently, that they will die first before they give us that, I understand.HRH: (?).JDE: There’s also some other stuff, some internal stuff over there -HRH: I bet.JDE: - that we know about, but getting to it is like that big black block in Mecca, you know. RN: Well, you’ve got to get [Lt. Gen. Vernon] Walters in there, or somebody.JDE: If we could just get a friend in the hierarchy over there who would let us in-HRH: [Lt. Gen. Robert] Cushman?JDE: Yeah, but he’s a creature of the Establishment there. Now-HRH: Why the hell can’t he move in now? Goddammit, Cushman’s getting his life’s dream out of us.RN: He’s doing nothing for no-JDE: He’s full of reasons why he can’t do things.HRH: Well, maybe we should come over and say we’ve got some reasons why he can’t do things too.RN: Well, I think the main thing is to speed up the Walters thing. Now Henry [Kissinger] figures he needs Walters for various things, but he really doesn’t now. And there’s not much that can’t be accomplished by somebody else. Walters will play the game if he goes in.HRH: [laughs] (?) over here every afternoon.RN: I consider it a top priority that I want the Diem story. Also on the Bay of Pigs thing, just - I want an order to Helms and Cushman that for my purposes, not for public release, I am to have the Bay of Pigs story. Now that’s an order. And I expect it in one week, or I want his resignation on my desk. Put it as coldly as that. The Bay of Pigs story, the total story. (?). Tell him I know a lot about it myself. But I’ve got to have it - just because I’ll be questioned about it myself, and I want to be able to know what to say. The Bay of Pigs Story and the Diem story. They are to be here.CWC: (Do we got get?) the Cuban Missile Crisis in there or-JDE: That’s not nearly as sexy.RN: The Cuban Missile Crisis (?).HRH: The only part of that that’s not (?).RN: Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis was so badly handled - and everyone knows it. The Bay of Pigs is something else again. It’s the whole folderol - the way it happened, I’ve just go to know. Eisenhower was in it, and then Kennedy fouled it up, and (?) Eisenhower, (?), the CIA - but I’ve got to have it.HRH: Well, you were involved in that too. I mean, you get back to that one. Charges that during the campaign, the whole situation (?).RN: These two questions that have been raised - I must personally handle them. And I want one that he can absolutely vouch for. And I will not brook any opposition on this.

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I’ve screwed around long enough. I’ve told Henry and he has really dropped the ball on this.

[Segment 12] RN reviews history of his request for materials on Diem matter.

RN: I put this request in two years ago that I wanted a story on those three items - the bombing halt, the Bay of Pigs, the Diem murder. Henry’s shop has utterly failed on it.

Later:RN: I want a brief, concise (notes?) on those three instances.JDE: Yes, but rather than concise form - let’s concise it after we get the raw material.RN: Not from Henry’s shop or the CIA.

Later:RN: You can tell Helms that the Bay of Pigs - that I want his (?) on this. This is not for public (?) but in order to protect ourselves in the clinches. The matter is arising - is going to arise, without question, as time goes on, the Cuban thing. And I’m going to have it. With regard to the other thing, you can’t say it, because we want it for public purposes-JDE: Yeah, ah-RN: I mean the Diem thing. (3 second National Security deletion)

Later, during a discussion of the Defense and State Departments, a four-second withdrawal, not readily intelligible, has been marked “declassified in full” on the Subject Log.

587-7 10/8/71Between 10:58 and 11:06 am. OO.RN, JDE.

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt.JDE: Helms is scared to death of this guy Hunt that we’ve got working for us, because he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and Helms is a bureaucrat first, and he’s protecting that bureau. I was pressed very hard by him, in a very low-key, skillful way, to give him all sorts of commitments and protections. And I ducked them all. I (?).RN: The way I’d (handle?) it it simply say, “Look. You and I will talk before anything in done. I think that’s fair and (?).JDE: But examine this: suppose we get all the Diem stuff and supposing there’s something we can really hang Teddy or the Kennedy clan with. I’m going to want to put that in Colson’s hands.RN: Yep.JDE: And we’re going to really run with it.

306-14 11/29/71Between 5:50 and 6:14 pm. EOB.RN, HRH.[Segment 2]

Discussion of ambassadorship for C.V. Whitney.

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RN: Just say that in view of the present temper, he cannot be confirmed for the Spanish thing.

[Segment 3]Discussion of the above topic.

RN: He could never get through - the Spanish would raise hell about it.Later:

HRH: The Spanish government may refuse the (?).RN: Don’t do it.

22-6 3/23/72Between 5:33 and 5:34 pm. WHT.RN, RZ.

Discussion of RZ’s comments at a press briefing on the ITT case and Chile.RZ: They [the State Department] denied it [ITT involvement] but they were cautious on how they dealt with the [Edward M.] Korry statement because they were afraid it might backfire.RN: Why? What did Korry say?RZ: Well, Korry said that he had received instructions to do anything short of a Dominican-type - alleged to have said that.RN: Korry did?RZ: Yeah.RN: How the hell did that get out?RZ: Well, [Jack] Anderson got that from some source. Al Haig is sitting with me now - it was a report contained in an ITT thing.RN: Well, he was - he was instructed to. But he just failed, the son of a bitch. That was his main problem. He should have kept Allende from getting in.RZ: In any event, State has denied it today, and they referred to your comments on Latin America and Chile, so you just refer to that on that one.

22-28 3/27/72Between 11:11 am and 12:04 pm. WHT.HRH, RHF.

Discussion of RHF’s Latin American trip.RHF: (Chile?) was talking about their expropriation problem.

685-2 3/14/72Between 9:03 and 9:51 am. OO.RN, HK.

Discussion of the ITT case.RN: Well, in a (certain?) sense it’s like the ITT thing. (?) the damn thing at all. ITT stock went down 12 points and never recovered, as a result of the trust settlement we imposed on them. But they make it an issue.

688-18 3/18/72Between 1:24 and 3:40 pm. OO.

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RN, CWC, Manolo Sanchez.Segment 3:

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt’s contacts with Dita Beard, concerning ITT case.CWC: He’s [E. Howard Hunt] the fellow who broke all the stuff about Castro’s sex life, when they tried to smear him.RN: Oh.CWC: He’s quite a guy, and he’s -RN: Castro did have a sex life.CWC: Sure, and he broke it.(1 minute 39 second privacy deletion)

692-7 3/23/72Between 5:23 and 6:24 pm. OO.RN, on phone to RZ. (....) indicates point where RZ, unheard, speaks.

Discussion of ITT case.RN: Have you said anything in regard to ITT and Chile?.... Yes - oh, they did. Of course. Korry did? Well (?). ....Oh....Yeah....I know, but he just failed, (the son of a bitch?)....But the State Department can handle it?...

712-6 4/18/72Between 5:03 and 5:32 pm. OO.RN, CMacG.

Discussion of Senate committee hearings on ITT case.CMacG: In fact, Ed [Sen. Edward Gurney]’s very strong on the Vietnam thing.RN: Oh, I know. He’s a hawk.CMacG: Very strong.RN: In fact, he wants to take a (?) off me.

344-6 6/20/72Between 4:35 and 5:25 pm. OO.RN, HRH.

Discussion of Charles W. Colson.RN: (?). It should be. Because over there, (?) the reason I need that basically I need that, is for foreign visitors (?). Walters - a real help, (?).(Deletion made, noted as “unintelligible”)

Later, during discussion of hiring of James McCord by Committee to Re-Elect the President:HRH: It doesn’t involve the (?), I don’t think. He was in on the Diem thing.RN: Oh yeah.HRH: See, Hunt was the guy who (?) Colson.(Deletion made, noted as “unintelligible”)

745-2 6/30/72Between 4:30 and 6:19 pm. OO.RN, HRH, CMacG.

44

[Segment 1]Discussion of involvement of E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy with

Cuban exiles.RN: Because he was involved in the Cuban thing too, you see. This whole thing is a strange bag.HRH: Well, there runs - there’s some lines that run directly into the CIA, which is what they’re concerned about.RN: I see. And that’s why they’re (?).

Later, during discussion of Hunt’s background:HRH: The real problem we deal with though, from a governmental viewpoint, has nothing to do with politics at all - is that lines from these people lead to places that we don’t want led to.RN: That’s right.HRH: That the government doesn’t want led to. And -RN: The CIA, (for starters?).HRH: And the investigatory people are on to those lines, and don’t know that they cut in - they don’t know where one thing crosses the other.RN: The trouble is, frankly, the Helms (shop?) does not want the - this thing followed (in?). We just won’t say anything further about it, because it could very well involve (at least?) - could very well involve some anti-Castro activities.

Discussion of strong anti-McGovern feelings of Cuban exiles. RN notes that if McGovern were to become President “and there were a normalization of relations, one of the conditions would be their return - and so Miami is a hotbed of these activities.”

[Segment 3]RN, HRH.HRH: That’s what they’re going to try to work out. It has the great advantage of (?)-RN or HRH: (?)HRH: I don’t know.RN: I guess he’s going to have to lie about that, you see.HRH: Well, we may be able to turn it off on that basis. That will give him - see, they know there’s other lines involved.RN: But then -HRH: We can get them not to ask about that.RN: On the basis of the CIA.

746-3 7/1/72Between 8:50 and 9:05 am. OO.RN, CWC.

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt’s activities.CWC: He was wanted in a few Latin American countries.

Later, concerning Hunt’s activities:CWC: Gunboat diplomacy through Latin America.

768-4 8/14/72Between 9:55 and 10:42 am. OO.

45

RN, HRH, JM, CMacG.During a discussion of issuing a statement for public relations purposes

concerning allegations of the Committee to Re-elect the President in the Watergate matter, and the use of “a top-flight Washington firm” by the Committee to look in the matter, RN, in the course of a mostly unintelligible sentence, refers to “the Japanese in Hawaii.” This may or may not be the material previously deleted, which, according to the Subject Log, is seven seconds in length.

374-3 10/25/72Between 4:40 and 5:16 pm. EOB.RN, CWC.

During a discussion of articles criticizing the Administration in the Washington Post:RN: The way we handled the North Vietnamese, we’ll handle them [the Post].845-12 1/31/73Between 4:52 and 6:13 pm. OO.RN, John B. Connally.

During a conversation previously made available in the AOGP segments, a 25 second deletion occurs, which was reclassified as a privacy withdrawal. The material remains withdrawn and so can not be transcribed here.

420-11 3/16/73Between 3:00 and 4:47 pm. EOBRN, JDE.

During a discussion of Robert L.Vesco:JDE: This way this will probably end up, he [Vesco] will go to Costa Rica, where he has bought the President.RN: Figueres?JDE: Yeah.RN: The son of a bitch. Well-JDE: They’ve bought him lock, stock and barrel. He’s been writing letters, you know, about Vesco (?).RN: I (?).JDE: Yeah?RN: Yes, for example, the President of Costa Rica - the President is not responding. Right?JDE: Right.RN: I haven’t (?).JDE: Cerny, who is Vesco’s lawyer-RN: Howard Cerny?JDE: Right. Cerny tried to bring the Foreign Minister of Costa Rica in to see me.

421-22 3/28/738:45 am - 9:00 am. EOB.RN, HRH.

Discussion of declassification.

46

RN: And did you get the word (?) on the declassification of everything over ten years? That’s got to move fast. And not only (?) but the other one’s important - on the Bay of Pigs. Just get the damn thing out, will you? That’s going to be quite a story - a few little morsels. Do you agree?HRH: Yeah.RN: Also gets into the Diem murder and the whole Diem thing. Now the war is over and we’re not going to take Henry’s crap. Henry’s a little bit involved in that himself, that’s why he doesn’t want some of it declassified. But I was thinking of that. I think the recollection of (?) is (?). I don’t know.

424-10 3/27/73 6:05 pm - 7:10 pm. EOB.RN, HRH.

RN, discussing how a President uses time, reminisces about an event earlier in his Administration.RN: But it’s over now. That I can’t do. It’s a funny thing. I was thinking of that Friday. I had to make that decision on the Laotian frontline troops, I had to call that crazy asshole Trudeau, I had to talk to him a second time.

Nixon Foundation note: When the Nixon Estate asked NARA to reconsider whether it served anyone’s interests to reveal this comment by a late President of the United States about a former Prime Minister of Canada, NARA replied that the State Department had reviewed and declassified the segment. NARA told the Nixon Estate that this is the sort of remark that tends to be withheld from release at other Presidential libraries but that it needed to be released in this case because, in NARA’s view, it relates to an “abuse of power.”

425-44 4/9/73Between 2:05 and 3:00 pm. EOB.RN, HRH, JDE, LG.[Segment 2]

During this conversation, a withdrawal is listed which has been reclassified as “unintelligible.” Since the material remains withdrawn, there is no transcript.

876-5 3/12/73Between 10:34 am and 12:20 pm. OO.RN, HK, HRH.

Discussion of ambassadorships.[Segment 1]HRH: Do we have to do something with (him?)HK: We promised him Greece.HRH: Yeah, but we have a problem with him.RN: What?HRH: We need to leave [Henry J.] Tasca Greece.RN: That’s right.

47

[Segment 2]Discussion of ambassadorships.

RN: Bob, what did we (?) [John D.J.] Moore?HRH: Huh?RN: He made a big contribution?HRH: Yeah.

[Segment 3]Discussion of ambassadorships.

RN: I don’t see (an?) ambassador’s really got to stay in. If we get [Philip K.]Crowe, (?) some contribution - OK, somebody like Crowe.HRH: Or [John] Olin. See that’s - you’ve got to keep a couple of contributors - [John] Mulcahy.RN: Right. Mulcahy wants to keep the guy.HRH: Mulcahy wants this guy in Ireland.RN: Right (?). That’s much better than them going.HRH: Pappas wants to keep this guy in Greece, (Wilson?) wants his guy in-RN: Well, they are three huge contributors who wouldn’t make it if we named them ambassadors, so that’s great.HRH: We’re better off.HK: And Tasca is doing a great job in Greece.HRH: So there’s no problem.

[Segment 4]Discussion of ambassadorships.

HRH: Did you - did the Tasca thing come up when you - you met [Thomas] Pappas, didn’t you?RN: Oh sure, it came up. I told him what you told (me?) - said (?) Tasca is to go, and I said yes, he’s going to stay. Now, he didn’t insist though. He said (?) that’s fine. He left if open. So if you want to, we can bring Tasca back here. He’d be a hell of an Assistant Secretary for something. Of course, I’ve felt he’d be an awfully good Assistant Secretary for the Sisco job. But I understand State would throw up its hands.HRH: Yes, and so does Henry.RN: Well, Henry doesn’t want a strong man there. Because- he couldn’t do Latin America. Could he do Africa? Hell, he’s been stationed there. Why not make him Assistant Secretary for Africa? His major, real base is economics - and he would do well in the job, Bob, that - He could do extremely well in the [Peter M.] Flanigan job. He’s a highly sophisticated international economist. (?). He’d be a good Assistant Secretary of Africa.HRH: If we pull him out of Greece, there’s the question of who we’d put there.RN: (?).HRH: We’d have to get one that’s satisfactory to Pappas.

880-24 3/15/73Between 5:36 and 6:24 pm. OO.

48

RN, John W. Dean III, Richard A. Moore.Discussion of the President’s answer in a press conference.

RN: Another very important answer in there, which I’m sure that (?) the story they asked about, was infiltration and I said well, (?) except that we had expressed our concern to the North Vietnamese, (?) expressions of concern. But that’s the way to make a threat. But all of them (?) - “Were you threatening?” “No.” “Were you stating a fact?”

430-23 4/25/735:37 pm - 6:45 pm. EOB.RN, HP.

Discussion of Henry Petersen’s investigation, relating to E. Howard Hunt’s activities.HP: Oh, he [Hunt] (has a problem?) in the CIA.RN: (?) investigation.HP: (?).

432-1 4/27/73Between 8:22 and 9:24 pm. EOB.RN, RZ.[Segment 5]

Discussion of whether RN should ask the American people for their support during an upcoming address to the nation.RN: Kennedy doesn’t do that with the Bay of Pigs - “I ask for your support.” Bullshit. He should have done more than that - he should have resigned.

906-12 4/27/734:41 pm - 5:00 pm. OO.RN, HRH, RZ.

Discussion of E. Howard Hunt and other defendants.

HRH: Keeping them [Hunt and other defendants] quiet on a national-security matter -RN: Yes, we (can’t?) do that.

906-24 4/27/73Between 6:49 and 8:04 pm. OO.RN, HRH.[Segment 1]

Discussion of JDE’s activities.RN: But nothing-HRH: -not the Libyan embassy.

46-2 5/11/7312:11 pm - 12:13 pm. WHT.RN, Pierre E. Trudeau.

49

RN: Hello?PT: Mr. President?RN: How are you.PT: Fine. I just got back from vacation earlier this week and I wanted to phone you, to tell you how distressed I was about all this noise that is going on about the Watergate thing.RN: Well -PT: I wanted to tell you that as far as I’m concerned, the people here that I know have - and certainly myself - have great confidence and respect and - I think, amongst politicians, I think we realize how an issue like this can be seized upon and distorted and-RN: Right. Well, how kind of you to call. Let me say that it’s really a deplorable incidence and what it is, is like you know in campaigns, people - your best friends, with the best of intentions - do things they shouldn’t. And then you have to let them go. And it breaks your heart, but that’s the way it happens.PT: Well, exactly. And you’re quite right. The sad thing is, they do it with good intentions.RN: That’s right.PT: And-RN: And this is also such a picayunish damn thing, but it was wrong.PT: Well-RN: But we’ll survive it, Mr. Prime Minister. But your call I will always remember.PT: Well, I certainly never forgot that you called me when I was -RN: Well, we sort of have a union. We politicians have to stick together.PT: Well, that’s the way we’ve got to do it. And I think we see things the right way.RN: Well, I appreciate it. Incidentally, I wanted to tell you Dr. Kissinger just left. He’s going over to see Le Duc Tho. It’ll be announced today in Paris - next week, and as soon as he gets back I’ll have him be sure that you get a report, because I know that your decision on this thing is imminent-PT: (?) yes.RN: And that way, we’ll have a better fix to let you know how the thing is coming. But we do appreciate what you’ve done. And I’ll keep you totally posted on his visit, which will be next Thursday.PT: Well, I certainly appreciate that. Thank you very much, Mr. President.RN: And how good of you to call.PT: Thank you. Bye.

46-23 5/13/7310:09 pm - 10:43 pm. WHT.RN, AH.

Discussion of the Pentagon Papers.RN: They know this son of a bitch [Daniel Ellsberg] stole documents.AH: Sure.RN: Put them out against the law, violated the law, endangered - and really did, you know, despite what Bundy [identified as McGeorge Bundy in Subject Log]and those assholes said. Al, let me ask you one point that I want you to take an awful hard look at, and don’t ask Henry about it.

50

AH: Right, sir.RN: This - I think we should just declassify everything going back - everything that’s ten years old, and declassify the whole Bay of Pigs, plus the Diem thing. Goddammit, you know, that’s - that can only be helpful. Now you say, “Well, it’ll stir things up in Vietnam.” The hell with it. You don’t like that, huh?AH: I’m not sure, sir. I think it’s a thing that should be considered. It’s not one that I could be very -RN: Well, we have guys working on it who are just professionals, but doggone it, I’d like to do it, because - look, I have not looked at the Bay of Pigs stuff, but I know there’s stuff in there that makes Bundy look like a godddamn - uh, you know, terrible, you know. The messages that went back and forth, you know. Lodge will not be - will not look good, but- AH: He’d look very bad.RN: But goddammit, you know what happened is, they set in motion a chain of events which resulted in the murder of Diem.AH: Oh, there’s no question about that. None. Never has been.RN: Well, it’s-AH: In fact, you know, the Vice President’s aide was there. He was [Henry Cabot] Lodge’s assistant. I talked to him some years ago about that.RN: What’d he say?AH: He said, “My God, the poor guy called Lodge on the phone, and said, ‘they’re going to kill me, for God’s sake send some Marine guards up here, just as a manifestation of continued support.’”RN: You see, that’s the point, is - talking about offensives, this is a good juicy thing to get out. This isn’t going to hurt us in Vietnam, it really isn’t. I just want somebody other than a technician to look at that, you know?AH: Yes.RN: I mean, that was what Hunt was looking into, you know, and screwed it up. But the point is, there’s a hell of a record there. Now, somebody - have you got some trusted person that can look at that goodamn thing, and let’s declassify it. It’s ten years old, huh?AH: Yes, I can get somebody to do it.RN: See, the Pentagon Papers are out, for Christ’s sake. That’s after this. The Pentagon Papers are after-AH: That’s right. There’s an awful lot in the Pentagon Papers covering it. But it’s-RN: But you see here, we are sitting here wondering what happened. Now, let’s let the [Clark]Cliffords - well, not the Cliffords, but certainly [Robert S.] McNamara doesn’t look good on this-AH: No.RN: And Bundy looks terrible. Bobby Kennedy looks terrible. Jack Kennedy looks terrible. You know, he was up at Hyannisport, you know.AH: I don’t think anybody came out of that one with clean hands. There were some that were very strongly opposed. But they had no voice.RN: That’s right. But the point is, just let it lay. The public is entitled to know. If they want to (play?) this business of, you know - that’s the way I feel about it.AH: Well, I think it’s certainly not something that we should dismiss.

51

RN: Well, you could put a strong fellow. [J. Fred] Buzhardt’s so damn busy, perhaps he shouldn’t do it, but - have you got some man, some trusted person that you could - you know, the work’s been done. They’ve go a little committee and some bright little guy’s been working on it who - (?) sent me a report, was very, very inadequate because, you know, he was going by the numbers and all that. [William H.] Rehnquist started it, you know.AH: He did?RN: He was first man and then I said, “Now goddammit, I want the facts out.” I didn’t - I just wanted them out, just to get the record out, with - that was when the Pentagon Papers - I said, “For Christ’s sakes, what is the record on what went on then? I mean, the public is entitled to know.”AH: That’s right, because what you end up with is a very distorted view of what really happened.RN: Right.AH: And of course, that’s true with respect to a number of incidents portrayed in the Pentagon Papers.RN: Yeah. But you see, you could stop.AH: (?) accurately.RN: My point is, this is 1973, so you would say, everything ten years old is declassified.AH: Yes.RN: See my point.AH: Right, sir.(39 second National Security deletion - listed on log as 34 seconds)AH: Ah-RN: Oh yes, he knew.AH: (?) right thing to do, and it’s proved to be the right thing to do.RN: Yeah.AH: But you know, the goddamn libs would bleed all over the place about that.RN: Well, maybe they will. But you know, a little controversy about things like that isn’t bad. You see, your thought earlier very much appealed to me. Have some controversy. Not just about - whether we have oil going to Libya, but about things like - that people are really interested in.AH: That’s right. Well, we - this is one of the things we’re working on today.. Now, not self-defeating controversy, we don’t want anything that-RN: Oh, I know.AH: That gives us unnecessary problems. But matters of keen interest that are-RN: Mmm-mm.AH: Good in public debate. And get these guys’ minds off this thing.RN: Just, it’s not getting their minds off this thing, Al, it’s getting their minds on the unbelievably incompetent way that these clowns handled the Bay of Pigs. Now, that damn thing’s got to come out. Now, that was a horrible thing. I mean-AH: (?) one.RN: What Chester Bowles did, you know - leaked it out in order to stop it.AH: Right.RN: What Adlai Stevenson did. Jesus Christ, that ought to be out.

52

AH: Yeah, yeah. A lot of - I don’t know where - there’s one report that really lays it out, and that’s Max Taylor’s report. There were, I think, only three copies made, but it was just (?).RN: Well, let’s see it and if it’s - you know, take a few risks. The point is, you know, we’re in a hell of a public relations battle, and by God, we can win it.AH: I think we can win it, and I think we’re going to start winning it. I think it’s just - we’re very close to the time. We’re going to have a little bit of a circus here at the end of the week.RN: Oh, yes.AH: And - but that’s - people are going to get damn tired of that very quick.RN: Yeah, well maybe.

46-66 5/15/735:01 pm - 5:08 pm. WHT.RN, RZ.

Discussion of reports that John W. Dean III has a box of classified documents obtained during his time in the Administration.RZ: My speculation is that he has this Camp David report, and probably some innocuous code material.RN: Or maybe just his memorandums of his conversations.RZ: Which he may have classified on his own.

46-75 5/16/739:48 am - 9:54 am. WHT.RN, JFB.

Discussion of Dean’s box of documents [identified as “The Huston Plan” in Tape Subject Log].RN: Well, still no report?JFB: Well sir, the court hadn’t turned it over to us, but I did a little snooping last night, and I think I’ve identified the documents.RN: Yeah?JFB: What he has, Mr. President - there was a plan for intelligence gathering, primarily in the domestic area.RN: Yeah.JFB: It was participated in - it was - the Bureau had the primary task - it was participated in by NSA [National Security Agency] and CIA. It described our capacities and limitations in intelligence-RN: Well, what the hell is this? Oh - it’s in the domestic area, so he thinks that’s gonna scare us.JFB: It is - it’s not gonna - it doesn’t relate to the Watergate case in any way.RN: That part doesn’t (?) it?JFB: It’s all of it, Mr. President. All of it is related to this: the 43-page document, plus eight supplementary documents that go with it. They’re all related to the same thing. All-RN: It’s not related to Watergate?JFB: No sir.

53

RN: Are you sure?JFB: No- yes sir. It’s in no way related to Watergate.RN: What in the name of God is this? Why do you think he’s played this game, then?JFB: I have no idea, Mr. President. But we have managed to identify from his remarks - I have found a copy of this thing, at NSA - I just talked to Lou Tordella.RN: You mean, a copy of what, the 43 pages?JFB: A copy of the documents, yes sir.RN: You mean all the documents?JFB: No sir. The 43, but the other, by his own statement, are related, and some are classified.RN: What did you find at NSA? The 43-pager?JFB: Yes sir, I found the 43-pager.RN: What is it? Is it - this is something the President has done or something, or - that isn’t what it is?JFB: No sir. It is an intelligence summary of our own collection capabilities and limitations, and a plan for overcoming our shortfalls.RN: Hmm.JFB: Now, as you know, I frankly think in (the opinion of?) the-RN: There was this-JFB: -intelligence people that this is quite a hot document. In the first place it gives a lot of foreign countries a clear indication of what our capabilities and limitations are, and what we had hoped to do about it.RN: You mean this is in the United States.JFB: Well sir, if - this is how these things operate, this flows over into the United States.RN: No, this basically, though, is a US - is a domestic intelligence, isn’t it?JFB: Well, it’s to get information related to domestic intelligence-(3 second National Security deletion)RN: I see, I see, I see - oh sure.JFB: And as you well know-RN: Oh, hell listen - I remember, there was a meeting held at one point, where I sat in with NSA-JFB: Yes sir. Hoover (took?) the lead in this-RN: Hoover and the rest, and I said, “Look, you’ve got to pull it all together, and get this stuff.” Now look, but now let’s (?) Fred - goddammit, that’s not improper.JFB: It’s not improper but it would be-(8 second National Security deletion)JFB: -all right sir, but you don’t have a worry on the Watergate.RN: Well, thank God.JFB: Henry Petersen is - is all worried about giving us a copy of this sort of stuff, and he was last night, so I got out and started my own snooping.RN: Why shouldn’t he give us this, for Christ’s sakes? On what ground?JFB: He’s worried that it will get back to the defendants, if it’s related. He doesn’t know what it is. I haven’t told him, Mr. President, yet, because I just-RN: And are you sure this is what it is?JFB: I am, sir. The physical description fits precisely. I just asked Lou Tordella to get out his copy and we went throught the precise-

54

RN: But you don’t know what the eight supplementals are.JFB: No, but I know they’re all related, and some (only?) classified. They were apparently in - we don’t know this - after-action reports on how they were doing to make up the difference in our capabilities, and what we were trying to (build?)RN: What kind of capabilities - you mean, capabilities in gathering-JFB: Intelligence collection capabilities.RN: In the United States.JFB: Well, for activities in the United States.(8 second National Security deletion)RN: For the - but the purpose was intelligence in the national security area, I presume.JFB: In the national security area.RN: Sure. God, if we hadn’t done it, we’d have been out of our minds.JFB: That’s true. That’s true, but it’s inconceivable that some guy would carry this thing out, you know.RN: I know. I know.JFB: But he-RN: Well, it’s inconceivable.JFB: They though it would be embarassing, and it would give him a little leverage.RN: Isn’t it inconceivable the judge would not turn it over?JFB: Well I hope - well, the judge is giving it to my man Barteimo, and we will move in on it, and try to suppress the document. Well, I suspect that we’ll have to anticipated, and I’ve so told NSA, and asked them to advise CIA that the document will be compromised, if it goes up to [Sen. Samuel J.] Ervin with all the press - pressure on it, we have to assume there will be leaks on it. (I’ve?) warned intelligence.RN: Well, that’s a good job, Fred. That’s a good job.JFB: Well-RN: At least all of our concerns about the Watergate - I mean, I’d much rather have it be this than Watergate, wouldn’t you?JFB: Yes sir, quite frankly. But at least-RN: You say you’re almost certain in this?JFB: I’ll know in a few minutes. They’re taking their usual time putting this together, so they can give it to us, the information back. But we should-RN: Have you reported to Haig yet?JFB: No sir, I haven’t.RN: Yeah, I’ll give him the report.JFB: OK, fine.RN: Fine. Or do - you want to come down and tell him now?JFB: Well, I’ll be glad to tell him.RN: Because they’re going to call you in your office anyway, aren’t they? Well, you can come down to the Oval Office and Haig will be there.JFB: All right sir.RN: Good.

46-77 5/16/7310:25 am - 10:27 am. WHT.RN, JFB.

55

Concerning a document, apparently thought to be in John Dean’s custody.RN: Relating the whole business of this internal intelligence - well, I can assure you it was done, and it wasn’t very successful, either.JFB: We are moving out, Mr. President, to control this document.RN: Yeah, it should be.JFB: And the Justice Department does have a vault? (?) We are asking the committee to initial the document-RN: Right. JFB: And that it be stored for them at NSA, on their call.RN: Good job, Fred.JFB: Thank you, sir.

46-88 5/16/739:53 pm - 9:59 pm. WHT.RN, RZ.

Discussion of JFB’s conversation with William C. Sullivan about the “Huston Plan.”RN: Now he has proof - Sullivan talked to one fellow, Tartello [Louis W. Tordella] or something like that, who says he did get a call from Sullivan to that effect. He’s trying to find others, of course, who can also confirm it, you see. [Noel] Gayler’s in the middle of the Pacific - we’ll probably bring him back, and [Donald] Bennett. But the point is, you’ve got one we know for sure. But at least Sullivan swears that that’s what happened. Now if we can get him to - Haig thinks he stands up, that’s good.

46-166 5/22/738:28 pm - 8:30 pm. WHT.RN, RZ.

Discussion of declassification.RN: The other point is, which will float back to [Richard M.] Helms, and I want it to get to him - is that I’ve decided to declassify Bay of Pigs, including the information he has furnished to me, and the Diem murder. You understand that?RZ: Right, that’s moving but I’ll do-RN: But I want that to get to him. The President has decided, and it will probably be done this weekend, just want him to be prepared - including the material he gave to me in private. Is that clear?RZ: Yes sir.

165-15 5/12/7312:22 pm - 12:30 pm. WHT.RN, HK.[Segment 3]

Discussion of FBI surveillance of Henry Brandon, longtime Washington correspondent of the London Sunday Times (1916-93).HK: Well, that was Hoover. He considered him a spy.RN: But Henry, I think about a week after we were in , a Brandon report came in to - you know, Hoover used to send them over, he said they-

56

HK: No, no, Brandon was Hoover’s-RN: Hoover’s man. Hell, we never thought he was- we never-HK: No, he-RN: In fact, our relations with him were-HK: Excellent.RN: Yeah. You might even tell Brandon that-HK: Yeah. RN: In the event his name drops.HK: I’ll wait a bit.

167-10 5/20/7312:26 pm - 12:54 pm. WHT.RN, HRH.[Segment 1]

Discussion of lie-detector tests administered to control leaks.RN: In fact, the India-Pakistan one, that’s the way it was broken.HRH: Yep.RN: Although that’s one we’ve got to bury forever.HRH: Yep.RN: Because of the (chiefs?). [Joint Chiefs of Staff?]

433-73 5/8/73Between 6:59 and 7:37 pm. EOB.RN, AH.

During this segment a 29 second withdrawal is listed that has been reclassified as a “Privacy” withdrawal. Since the material remains withdrawn no transcript appears.

434-9 5/9/736:35 pm - 8:26 pm. EOB.RN, JFB, AH.[Segment 3]

Discussion of what may be in RN or HRH’s papers. RN notes that his papers are to be privileged; “they’re not Haldeman’s papers.”RN: There’s another reason for that too. Ehrlichman was involved in a hell of a lot of national-security stuff. (?) can’t (break into?) that. For example, Ehrlichman had an investigation (?) India and Pakistan. (?) You know how the (?).JFB: (?) a damn hot topic.RN: You know where that goes. And we cannot allow that to get out. (?). But I’ve got it. That’s my point. You see, Al? And we can’t break in on that. So on the papers - I want you to know, that’s the one (line?) where I don’t care if the press says I’m hiding everything. By God, I’m not going to let the Presidential papers (out?).

435-23 5/15/73Between 1:38 and 2:45 pm. EOB.RN, RZ, AH.

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[Segment 5]Discussion of release of documents.

RZ: They were handed over.RN: They were classified, but they’re top secret for national security reasons. And therefore they will not be turned over to the committee.RZ: (?) take out the portion.RN: He should say, “I will testify about the unclassified portion, but not with regard to the classified material.”

435-40 5/15/73Between 5:21 and 6:45 pm. EOB.RN, JFB.[Segment 1]

A withdrawal previously listed on the Tape Subject Log has been reclassified as “unintelligible,” and remains withdrawn.

Later, discussing effect of Pentagon Papers.RN: Do you realize we could have had (?) at the [SALT] missile negotiations if our position was known in advance? Do you realize that?

Later, discussing the authority to order wiretaps:RN: And the President could order them.JFB: And the President - well, the President has (?) authority at all.RN: Well, let me say this - the point is, I’m not going to say I authorized (?) Henry Brandon (?).

46-69 5/15/735:45 pm - 6:45 pm. WHT.Doug Parker, JFB.

See 435-40. This telephone conversation occurred toward the end of Mr. Buzhardt’s meeting with the president, and includes a 10 second deletion which has been reclassified as a “Statute” withdrawal. Since the material remains withdrawn no transcript is provided.

436-3 5/14/73Between 12:59 and 1:15 pm. EOB.RN, AH.

Discussion of recent actions of Judge John J. Sirica, concerning Dean’s box of documents.RN: And my guess is the other 43 pages is (?).

436-5 5/14/73Between 1:25 and 2:05 pm. EOB.RN, RZ [RN talked to AH on phone in this meeting].

Discussion of declassification.RN: I want the Diem, and the Bay of Pigs totally declassified, and I want it done in 48 hours. Now you tell Haig that. It’ll drive him up the wall, too. But I want it done. Do

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you understand? This is ten years old! Declassify it. We’ve got a couple of assholes working on this thing. Do you see any reason why it shouldn’t be declassified, Ron?RZ: No, I see no reason.RN: I want them to get off - now, Haig is disturbed because of the ironies involved in the murder of Diem. Now listen, this government murdered him. I know it and you know it too.

437-3 5/16/731:40 pm - 2:00 pm. EOB.RN, RZ.[Segment 2]

RN notes that Dean “may be involved in more than I realize.”RN: That goddamn box of Dean’s - now that’s a (?), it really is. When it comes out - it involved coordination of domestic intelligence, of foreign intelligence - right?RZ: (?) responsibility. FBI (?) concern (?) in the national interest. (?) concern that foreign policy initiatives-

438-22 5/17/734:08 pm - 4:34 pm. EOB.RN, AH.

Discussion of Richard M. Helms.AH: He said, I reassured the President on several occasions-RN: He should say that. Of course, he should state: Ellsberg was involved in matters that affected the CIA, our operations abroad, our relations with foreign countries-AH: (?) wasn’t - (it was?) (?) papers’s delivery like, to the Soviet embassy, for Christ’s sake-RN: Christ.AH: (?).RN: And it was our responsibility to find out.

438-32 5/22/73After 11:38 am - 12:27 pm. EOB.RN, AH, Rose Mary Woods, Marjorie Acker.[Segment 1]

Discussion of a future statement (White Paper) from the President about Watergate.RN (to AH): Let me say, (?) if we went to the point of saying that I authorized the use of anything to achieve a goal-AH: (?).RN: But I’ve got to deny it, Al. There are times, you know, when - Good God - I’d authorize any means to achieve a goal abroad. (I’d authorize?) the breaking-in of embassies and so forth. But I frankly can’t (?) putting it out there. We just can’t say that.

Later, RN, AH discuss contents of White Paper.RN: You see, we’re covering more than [Egil “Bud”] Krogh here. I mean, we’re covering (?) actions, plural. Because goddammit, there are (?) the war, and (?).

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Because, as you well know, we did sit around and we did say, for Christ’s sake get it done. On the other hand, if I said, “The President told his subordinates to use any means necessary” - for Christ’s sakes I can’t say it.

440-27 5/22/73Between 6:05 and 7:10 pm. EOB.RN, AH, RZ, George Bush, Gerald R. Ford, Bryce Harlow, Robert P.Griffin, Hugh Scott, Leslie C. Arends, William E. Timmons.[Segment 3]

Discussion of documents.AH: Those papers referred to overflights (into?) China. My God, do you know what that’d (do?) to our relationship with the Soviet Union? They’d go looking for three things: (?).RN: And we still have it.HS(?): (?) to the American people, and that is (?) our negotiations with China.

911-1 5/3/738:27 am - 8:50 am. OO.RN, HK.

During a discussion of wiretaps:HK: The things I know about from firsthand knowledge, are the taps in ‘69 [of newsmen].RN: See, Brandon was tapped for years, just because Hoover considered him to be a British intelligence - but we didn’t authorize those taps in the first instance.

911-26 5/3/73Between 11:30 and 11:59 am. OO.RN, LG.

Discussion of the public’s attitude toward Watergate.LG: I don’t think anybody will get deeply into collateral issues.RN: Even out in California they’re only interested in the break-in. They aren’t into things with-LG: (?) Soviet officials, and-

913-3 5/8/735:16 pm - 5:42 pm. OO.RN, RZ.

Discussion of a press conference in which RN had commented on the overthrow of Diem. RZ: The time you made the comment in your press conference [on the Diem overthrow] - you didn’t base it on the cable?RN: No, no. I was basing it on the book by Marguerite Higgins [Our Vietnam Nightmare] and other books written at the time. And another book, Kennedy’s 12 Greatest Mistakes [actual title: Kennedy’s 13 Mistakes in the White House, by Malcolm Smith]. No one questions-RZ: Kennedy complicity in the overthrow and murder.

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RN: Of course not. Hell, he pulled the plug on him, but it had nothing to do with that (?).

914-8 5/9/739:40 am - 10:02 am. OO.RN, AH.

Discussion of Pentagon Papers.RN: You and I know the main thing is to keep an iron hand on the papers for national security. And now they’re trying to get at the whole goddamn files, and we’re not going to allow it. Hell, we were trying to stop it. We’re not going to allow it. As you know, that’s too hot, Al. It would really destroy our government. It would - I mean, we get leads all the time. We get stuff on ambassadors, and people (?) in Congress. We know (?).AH: I would just be inconceivable.RN: Just say it’s a national security matter.

916-11 5/11/73Between 9:19 and 10:10 am. OO.RN, AH.

Discussion of J. Edgar Hoover and wiretaps.RN: He [Hoover] tapped Brandon for years, long before I ever got here.AH: Brandon was a double agent.RN: He said this, you know. That’s what Hoover’s thought was, and I don’t know whether he is a British agent.AH: That’s right. I think he is. Hardly any question about it - and maybe worse.RN: But I never saw anything.

[Segment 2]AH: My understanding was that they were destroyed at the direction of the Director. The tapes themselves and the memos.RN: When was this?AH: About the time of the Supreme Court ruling.RN: And after that we did India and Pakistan. Who the hell did India and Pakistan? Not Hunt?AH: I don’t know. I wasn’t - see that’s - we were not in that. I don’t know what happened. John [Ehrlichman] ran all that.RN: Oh, that’s right. It just involved the NSC.AH: Yeah, well I (knew of no?) attempt. I wasn’t aware that they did an attempt, I think it was probably them.RN: Oh, the lie-detector test.

916-16 5/11/7312:07 pm - 12:43 pm. OO.RN’s conversation with Pierre E. Trudeau - same as 46-2. [AH present in OO during conversation].

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917-2 5/14/738:56 pm - 10:50 pm. OO.RN, AH, LH, RZ.[Segment 6]

Discussion of a judge’s order regarding disposition of Dean documents.AH: This is the Dean papers. (?) ordered the papers in Dean’s (?).

Some seconds later:AH: And they’re classified top secret and COMINT [abbreviation for “communications intelligence.” Definition from National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 6, issued Feb. 17, 1972, as quoted in a dictionary of intelligence terms compiled by Leo D. Carl: “The interception and processing of foreign communications passed by radio, wire or other electronic means, and by the processing of foreign encrypted communications, however transmitted.”]RN: What?AH: We don’t even know what’s in the papers.RN: And this COMINT?AH: Communications intelligence intercepted information. (?) a paper that involves highly sensitive communications intelligence.RN: What could that be, do you think?AH: Very hard to know.RN: You don’t think it indicates - intelligence of say, conversations he may have had with me on the phone, or something like that?AH: No, this would have to be something in the normal intelligence system, or it wouldn’t be classified, like-(14 second National Security deletion)

917-5 5/14/7311:00 am - 11:10 am. OO.RN, LH.

RN, LH discuss LH’s search of files to determine whether RN wrote a confidential memo to John Dean. Discussion of Dean documents.LH: This is national security stuff.RN: Has the judge seen it?LH: No. RN: Then how do we know what the content is?LH: Because Dean stood up in court and said - we don’t know what the specific content is. All we know is what the classification is, because Dean stood up in court this morning and indicated that it was marked Top Secret and COMINT.RN: The documents that he had in his file were marked Top Secret and COMINT?LH: Yes sir. Community [sic] Intelligence information.RN: Community Intelligence. Could that be official, or could that be a Hunt operation?LH: Well, I suppose that if Hunt decided to classify it, it probably would be official - I really shouldn’t be the one answering that.

917-20 5/14/7311:42 am - 11:59 am. OO.

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RN, RZ.Discussion of Dean documents.

RN: If they’re intercepts, they must be Hunt intercepts rather than FBI intercepts. If they’re FBI intercepts, I don’t give a shit, because they’re all back at the Bureau. Goddammit, I hope they are FBI intercepts, but he wouldn’t have that. If they’re Hunt intercepts, they cause a problem.

917-28 5/14/7312:25 pm - 12:35 pm. OO.RN, LH.

Discussion of Dean documents.RN: What the hell do you think is in those papers?LH: First of all, the report that he was supposed to be doing at Camp David. Secondly, I think there’s probably some national security documents relating to domestic-slash-foreign intelligence about infiltration efforts ties up - and possibly to demonstrations that took place both earlier and during the convention.RN: But those papers - why would we have any interest?LH: I don’t know.

917-33 5/14/734:15 pm - 4:36 pm. OO.RN, Nelson Rockefeller, Russell W. Peterson, Kenneth R. Cole.[Segment 3]

Discussion of Watergate.RN: (?) I never saw (?) until after the election. When I think of (?). The trouble is they’ve got the investigative power and also they play a few games. But let me say, I want you fellows to be confident of one thing: This office is clean. I don’t say that in any defensive way. I’m simply saying, we were dragged in by the fact that this fellow did this, and that fellow did that - and Christ’s sakes, if I get involved in anything, I do it on a big scale, not stuff like this. In other words, I’ll do it if I can screw the North Vietnamese or the Chinese or the Russians, but not there.NR: Well, it’s just like every time someone goes to a political rally, you don’t know whether some mobster is in the (?). You never know in political life when you’re going to be associated with something a little (?). I have quite a few foreign friends, and they say: Why is the US so excited about this? This is going on all over the world. Why are the Americans so concerned?

RN recounts HK’s recent talk with Leonid Brezhnev, during which Brezhnev asked HK: “The President is such a strong man - why doesn’t he put all these critics away?” RN notes Brezhnev’s lack of understanding of US political process. [This was previously listed in Subject Log as a separate withdrawal].

917-44 5/14/736:28 pm - 7:27 pm. OO.RN, AH, RZ.[Segment 1]

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Discussion of Dean documents; AH reports a national security expert, (Barnlow?) is to look at the documents.AH: There’s a high risk to the national security.RN: My guess is it’s his report, which he himself must have classified.AH: He wouldn’t even know the term COMINT?RZ: No.RN: Why do we think that characterizes it?AH: Allegedly, that was how it was described by the judge.

A few seconds later:RN: There may be some of Hunt’s crap in there. I don’t - suppose there is? Goddammit, we ordered a security thing, and Hunt did things. At least he didn’t do any other breaking into anything, other than a psychiatrist’s office, as far as we know.

919-3 5/16/73Between 9:07 and 9:25 am. OO.RN, HK.

Discussion of security risk in release of documents.RN: You know, for example if our position on SALT were to get out, and everything else involved- if it were ever used politically-

Later, discussing wiretaps.RN: The only one I ever saw was the first one on Brandon, and it was a bunch of nothing. They had nothing on Brandon.HK: They had nothing. But Brandon wasn’t ours anyway, it was J. Edgar Hoover’s.RN: I know. He did a lot of taps, thought he was a British intelligence agent. What difference does it make?

919-9 5/16/739:48 am - 9:54 am. OO.RN, JFB.

No explanation of context in Subject Log,, except that the conversation is cross-referenced to 46-75.RN: (?) oh, the (?) - I don’t care what the (forest? or (?) is?)(Followed by three National Security deletions)

918-6 5/15/738:10 am - 8:35 am. OO.RN, RZ.[Segment 2]

Possible contents of Dean’s box.RZ: That 43 pager he wrote, and that COMINT stuff.

918-14 5/15/739:59 am - 10:45 am. OO.RN, HP.[Segment 1]

Discussion of Ellsberg break-in.

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HP: In October 1972, we had some questions to put to the CIA, because we were dissatisfied. First, we anticipated that the defense was going to be that this was all a CIA operation, and we had to be prepared, whic-RN: (?) the whole point.HP: Especially the Cubans.RN: (?) about this.HP: Yes sir.RN: I’ll be damned.HP: And we were trying to prepare for that, in anticipation of the trial, and were dissatisfied with some of the answers the CIA had given and we had them over - Larry [Lawrence] Houston [CIA counsel, now deceased] and what have you - and they gave us some documents which indicated contacts with CIA, and they arranged identification and (camera?) and what have you.RN: But not (?).HP: (?) much earlier. But they furnished the identity and this was the identity they had used and what have you.

919-11 5/16/739:54 am - 10:23 am. OO.RN, AH, JFB.[Segment 1]RN, AH.

Discussion of contents of Dean box.RN: You hear about the Dean papers - he now thinks are foreign and domestic intelligence.

[Segment 2]RN, AH, JFB.

Discussion of Dean’s motive in retaining documents.JFB: They don’t know what the documents are, but that they are related.RN: After all this crap about (?) the Dean documents. Why would he take such a thing out of the White House? To use for blackmail purposes?JFB: I can only assume so. I can only assume he took it for leverage.RN: But Fred - that’s a perfectly proper thing to do?JFB: Oh, was a proper thing to do [spoken ironically].RN: No, what I meant is, just to (?) this up. (?).JFB: Well, you don’t have to defend the doing of it - with some foreign government, and you’ll get a lot of screams about it.RN: Because we knew of the taps on them?JFB: Well, Mr. President, the way the collection operation works - on some in and out line, this foreign collection - what some of the communication companies here use to pick those communications up, that go to the foreign country and back - at this end of the (bolt?) - so actually the tape is here, and it’s then transmitted by the (bale?).RN: But at least that’s one Watergate story that’s-JFB: That’s going to be a dud. (?) NSA participation in anything domestic-RN: Domestic- you mean-

65

JFB: They define it as foreign politics.Later, JFB describes his investigation into what documents Dean could have.

JFB: I went home last night, and I had the guy in here at 7 o’clock this morning, the young major out there. I asked him to find out what kind of document it could be, and he found out that they had participated in (?) of someone in (?) - got a description.

919-14 5/16/7310:25 am - 10:27 am. OO.RN, JFB. [RN on phone to JFB]Same as 46-77 above.

919-21 5/16/7311:49 am - before 12:34 pm. OO.RN, AH.[Segment 3]

Discussion of Dean documents.RN: Weren’t you surprised, though that the damn Dean papers (?) that?AH: No, what I thought they were - thought they were back-channel cables on the Diem, or the Bay of Pigs.

920-3 5/16/73Between 4:55 and 5:22 pm. OO.RN, AH, JFB.

Discussion of the Huston Plan, in which NSA is mentioned.JFB: Now, I’m fairly sure NSA (?).RN: What is the NSA- what kind of action do they do?JFB: I don’t know the specifics.RN: (?).JFB: They pick up communications stuff, they don’t actually tap (?), taping.RN: Anything the NSA did is totally defensible. JFB: I think it’s defensible, but I think that they move into a broader category with respect to domestic affairs.RN: Right, meaning, picking up by - what do you mean, (you talk too much?). Electronic surveillance?JFB: Targeting - yes sir - targeting US citizens’ conversations that were on international circuits. RN: Doing so because of their concern about their being involved in violence?JFB: Yes sir.

920-9 5/16/735:39 pm - before 5:53 pm. OO.RN, JFB.

Discussion of the Huston Plan.RN: DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] says that - thinks it was terminated?JFB: They think it was terminated. And they told me independently from Huston that they think the approval was recalled, and that’s what Huston said. Now we’re going to

66

check this thoroughly with NSA, and the reason it’s important is because if you remember they were the most aggressive group to go forward.RN: NSA.JFB: NSA. And I think they were the only ones to (?).RN: NSA probably did something, the electronic work.

Later, following a discussion of techniques used to counter domestic subversion:RN: But when we get down, for example, to the break-in, the Chilean embassy - that thing was a part of the burglars’ plan, as a cover. Those assholes are trying to have a cover - or a CIA cover. I think Dean concocted that.JFB: I think Dean concocted it.

920-13 5/16/738:45 pm - before 9:33 pm. OO.RN, AH, JFB.

JFB discussed Lou Tordella’s notes on Huston Plan.JFB: They never quite got a handle on it until Pat Gray was appointed [FBI Director].RN: Shit.JFB: No, we didn’t have a problem on it, but we came close. We came close. Pat went out to visit NSA, and took four of his assistants with him, and he told Lou Tordella, “I understand we used to do things with you that were very helpful.”

Later, discussing FBI cooperation with NSA:JFB: Pat was putting back together the assets.RN: (?) told you this?JFB: Tordella told me this. (?). It went about to three weeks, Pat trying to reassemble the assets, since this was 1967.

Later, discussing JFB’s conversation with HRH about the domestic surveillance plan.JFB: And I talked to Bob again, and Bob just doesn’t remember.RN: I know.AH: They were talking about a thing that (were?) done in 1960-JDB: 1967.AH: Up til ‘67.JFB: Yeah, they were done up until 1967.AH: (laughs)RN: And the question was whether we should renew things that were done til ‘67.JFB: That’s correct.RN: And we (?).JFB: We had one (increment?), Mr. President, in that document that wasn’t previously done.RN: What was that?JFB: Well, it was most not recently - not as recently as ‘67, and that was a black job - a black-bag job on internal security targets. Now, we both know how that system works.RN: That wasn’t done when we were in.JFB: No sir.RN: Thank God.

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JFB: Was not done then. But we both know how that system works.RN: I know how-JFB: And how, in the early days, Hoover participated.RN: Yeah.JFB: In the later days I know, just from dealing with the-RN: Thank God you weren’t here.

Later, in a discussion of White House response to possible news stories about Huston Plan, AH suggests bringing in Donald V. Bennett and Noel Gayler to talk to RN.RN: Gayler’s off the subject on this one.JFB: Well, Bennett’s in Korea.AH: Hop him on a plane and have him come homeRN: (Come in?) from Korea. Let’s get it nailed down.

921-3 5/17/738:44 am - 9:36 am. OO.RN, JFB.[Segment 1]

Discussion of Huston Plan.RN: What the CIA-JFB: They’re checking but they don’t think anyone did that - the word came to me independently from DIA that some of the people knew the plan was no go. I suspect it was Bennett [who got a call]. Bennett’s in Korea and I haven’t been able to reach him. I think it would probably have been a directive because he was (?).RN: He’s a general?JFB: Yes sir, a four-star general.

Later, on whether Lou Tordella would keep notes on conversations:JFB: I don’t know - I wouldn’t be surprised if they [NSA] tapes the conversations going in and out of there. I don’t think they would admit it.RN: No, they shouldn’t.JFB: Even to me. But I had the definite impression.RN: I think Hoover taped all his conversations.JFB: I think it’s a common practice in town.RN: Sure, but they never have to use it. And shouldn’t.

Later, discussing the non-implementation of Huston Plan.JFB: General [Richard] Stilwell was there at the time, and he said it did not - never, when they got the word, he doesn’t remember precisely where.RN: But they must have made notes on that, Fred, they must have.JFB: Whoever did the (?) may know.RN: They’re a (starry-eyed?) bunch.JFB: There are (75,000?) people there.

[Segment 2]JFB: But, Mr. President, they [Dean papers] do in fact have a serious impact on national security.RN: I know, (?) on foreign governments.

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921-21 5/17/73Between 12:45 pm - 1:25 pm. OO.RN, AH, RZ.[Segment 2]

Two withdrawn items are reclassified as “Statute” withdrawals in the Subject Log, but remain classified, and are not transcribed here.

Later, during a discussion of Helms’s conversation with JFB.RN: You tell Helms to stand firm.AH: I’ve got a call to him.RN: I said, shit, Good God no. And I said, “as a result of what?” “Because they made a psychiatric study.” I said, “What the hell’s wrong with that?” “Oh, they’re not supposed to be in anything domestic.” I said, “Christ, the Ellsberg case was not just domestic, there were some foreign (things?) you could (?) about.”

923-5 5/19/7311:02 am - before 12:47 pm. OO.RN, RZ, AH.[Segment 2]

In this segment, two withdrawals are listed as having been “declassified in full” but do not appear on the series of cassettes listened to by the Library’s reviewer. The conversations are listed by number in a chart denoting insert [withdrawn item] times and segment times, but no insert time is given and “DOS” appears where the segment time would be noted. The first withdrawal listed on the Subject Log follows a discussion of the Huston Plan; the second concerns Mr. Huston and a “1968 bombing halt study,” according to the Subject Log.

928-12[Segment 2]

This conversation has a withdrawal for which no insert time is given in the AOGP tapes’ time chart, and DOS appears where the segment time would be noted. This material is not on the series of cassettes listened to by the Library’s reviewer. The conversation is not listed in the Tape Subject Log used by the Library’s reviewer.

929-8 5/29/7312:07 pm - 12:11 pm. OO.RN, RZ.

Discussion of WPR’s recent trip to Latin America, and view of Latin American leaders across the ideological spectrum that Watergate is insignificant.

39-106 6/6/731:09 pm - 1:38 pm. WHT.RN, CWC.

SB enters room; see 443-6 below.

168-11 6/2/73

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Between 10:54 and 11:13 am. WHT [at Camp David].RN, HRH.

Discussion of FBI concern about possible CIA involvement.HRH: And there’s another fact which nobody’s paid any attention to, but which I’m going to get out publicly somewhere along the line, which is supposed to be a secret, but it’s in the secret testimony, is that the CIA did formally request the FBI not to invest- not to interrogate two people, because they were afraid it would lead to other covert activities. There was that proof of merit of our case.RN: What two?HRH: I don’t know. Two guys I never heard of. They weren’t Watergate people, but they were involved in some way, or peripherally involved, and the CIA formally requested they not be interrogated, and they weren’t.RN: Hmm. HRH: So there was a reason for the concern, and the CIA was concerned, and that’s - there’s something more to this still at the CIA, than what’s come out.RN: This is a mixed bag.

441-23 6/5/735:29 pm - 7:14 pm. EOB.RN, JFB.[Segment 4]

Discussion of Archibald Cox’s reported plan for a blanket indictment of a number of defendants on one count of obstruction of justice, as related to JFB by “friends of mine in that office.”JFB: He’s thinking of (getting?) the general counsel of the CIA [Lawrence Houston] (in this?)

443-6 6/6/731:05 pm - 1:38 pm. EOB.RN, CWC [on phone], SB.RN: Hello. Just a second.

SB enters.RN (to SB): Did you get to see Colson?SB: I didn’t see him myself. We had a (?) for Tricia at 4 o’clock, sir. She wants to (?) (with Mrs. Nixon?).RN: I’ll (?).

445-6 6/13/73Between 11:45 am - 1:29 pm. EOB.RN, JFB.

RN, JFB review the meetings RN had in February and March 1973. Discussion of 2/27/73 meeting with John Dean:RN: We talked about the Hiss case, talked about the leaks, I mean some of the intelligence things, [Joseph] Kraft, [Henry] Brandon, et cetera.

Later:

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JFB: General [Robert] Cushman [Deputy CIA director] has a problem, because of the fact that he was Hunt’s roommate 15 years ago.RN: His roommate?JFB: Yes.RN: Where, in Europe?JFB: Well, Hunt was a (Marine?). Hunt was working in CIA then, and Cushman was (?).RN: But Hunt was a Marine.JFB: That’s right.RN: Colson (?) as a (fellow?) Marine, always spoke of him highly.JFB: So it turns out that Hunt and Cushman were very well acquainted.

933-3 6/6/73Between 9:01 and 10:03 am. OO.RN, AH.[Segment 3]

Discussion of taps on journalists.RN: They found one, what was his name?AH: They didn’t say, but I think it was Brandon. (?) for years, they know he’s a British spy, (?) tapped him.RN: They think so. Hoover tapped him.

946-6 6/22/73Between 9:45 and 10:28 am. OO.RN, AH, RZ.[Segment 5]

Discussion of RN’s 1968 campaign, and its bugging by the Johnson Administration.RN: Al, they did - you know what they did. They claim, though, at the least level, that all they did was monitor who Agnew called. Now, for Christ’s sakes - who would care whether Agnew called the Dragon Lady [Madame Anna Chennault]?

949-6 7/12/73Between 3:26 and 4:00 pm. OO.RN, AH.[Segment 2]

RN discusses an upcoming conversation with Sen. Sam Ervin, and notes that he plans to speak straightforwardly.RN: That’s the way I talked to Dobrynin four years ago. That’s the way I talked to Chou En-lai.

949-11 7/12/73Between 4:48 and 5:09 pm. OO.RN, HK.[Segment 2]

RN discusses his conversation with Sen. Ervin.RN: It was like the one I had with Dobrynin - remember that?

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HK: Oh yeah.

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III. PRESS RELEASE

73

THE RICHARD NIXON LIBRARY & BIRTHPLACE

NEWLY RELEASED NIXON WHITE HOUSE TAPE TRANSCRIPTSAVAILABLE ON NIXON LIBRARY WEB SITE

AT 9 a.m. (EST) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25

Transcripts of 124 tape-recorded conversations from the Nixon White House,

which comprise the final installment of what the Federal Government calls "abuse of

power" tapes, will be released on the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation

web site (www.nixonfoundation.org) at 9 a.m. (EST) Thursday, February 25. In addition

to transcripts, a separate account including historical commentary will also be available

on the web site.

The Nixon Library web site release will occur simultaneously with the release in

audiotape format at the National Archives and Records Administration facility at College

Park, Maryland. Finding aids, but not transcripts, will be available at College Park.

A total of more than 3,600 hours of tapes will eventually be released. By order of

Congress in 1975, the so-called "abuse of power" tapes had to be released first. These

will be followed by the chronological release of tapes relating to other far-reaching

foreign and domestic policy work of the Nixon Presidency recorded between February

1971 and July 1973, when the system was removed.

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Transcript ReleasePage 2

The February 25 release includes previously classified segments with discussions

concerning the CIA, the assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam in 1963, the

Bay of Pigs, the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the so-called Moorer-Radford affair,

E. Howard Hunt, the Huston Plan, John Dean, Henry Brandon, and ambassadorial

appointments.

About 201 hours of so-called "abuse of power" tapes were released in 1996 after

the Nixon family and estate agreed to the release despite the National Archives' refusal to

comply with a Supreme Court-ordered return of private and personal tape segments.

Under a negotiated segment, the parties agreed that the remaining 3,400 hours of tapes

would be released in chronological segments.

Following this negotiated release, NARA informed the estate in mid-1997 that it

planned to release additional "abuse of power" tapes that had been declassified. The

Nixon estate objected on the basis that NARA should have raised the matter during the

year-long mediation. The estate argued that the new "abuse of power" segments should

be added to the chronological releases. At first, NARA agreed with the Nixon estate's

position. But in late 1998, it decided to go ahead with this release.

MEDIA LOGISTICS SUMMARY:

On Thursday, February 25, Nixon Library representatives will be available beginning at 8 a.m. (EST).

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-- For additional information contact Evie Lazzarino at (714) 993-5075.

-- For interview arrangements with John H. Taylor, executive director of the

Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation and co-executor of the Nixon

Estate, call the Library at (714) 993-5075. Mr. Taylor will be available for

interviews beginning at 8:30 a.m. EST.

-- For transcripts, and transcripts with historical commentary, visit the Nixon

Library web site, www.nixonfoundation.org, beginning at 9 a.m. (EST) on

Thursday, February 25.

-- To fax or e-mail the Nixon Library:Fax: (714) 528-0544e-mail: stedman@nixonfoundation.org

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