The Haldeman Diaries Inside The Nixon White House

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Inside the Nixon

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Introduction and Afterword by Stephen E. Amnros

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'For anyone interested in modern American politics, H. R.

Bob' Haldeman's diaries covering his four and a half
years as President Richard M. Nixon's Chief of Staff is a
priceless document. It puts the reader within the inner-
most circle of power. It gives new information and pro-
vides new insights and perspectives on all the major and
many of the minor events of the period. Because it is all
true, and because readers know the players, it makes
for gripping reading, better than the best political

novel "
—Stephen E. Ambrose, from his introduction
(Continued on back cover)
"It is probable H. R. Haldeman never told all he knew

about Nixon's role, the Watergate cover-up, or the
Administration's abusive tactics against its political ene-
mies," wrote Newsweek upon Haldeman's death on

November "He takes [those] secrets and what-
12, 1993. —
—
ever else he knew to final judgment."
But not all he knew, nor all the secrets. When Haldeman
died, he left behind a profound legacy that few knew exist-
ed —four years, three months of diaries, which he wrote and
dictated every day that he was Chief of Staff for President
Richard Nixon. These diaries, never before published, offer
a fascinating portrait of an era and a White House that still
haunt American history and politics to this day.
With keen observations and complete frankness, this

record, written forHaldeman alone, reflects an unvarnished
view of the triumphs and tragedy of those years. Here is a riv-
eting portrait of that period's more celebrated events — the
Cambodia bombings, the Kent State killings, the ground-
breaking Russia and China trips, the 1972 election campaign,
the Vietnam peace negotiations, the power struggles of the
White House staff, the manipulations and headaches caused
by Henry Kissinger, the beginning of the fall of Spiro
Agnew, and, especially, the Watergate scandal — written
exactly as they happened and reported in astonishing detail.
More important, here is a fresh view of RicN rd Nixon, by
the man who knew him best.
Nixon, who was the biggest star of !\;\ o vo drama, is
revealed more intimately than we have evw seen him
(Contmmd im hack flap)
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The
Haldeman
Diaries
The
Haldeman
Diaries
INSIDE THE NIXON
WHITE HOUSE
HI Haldeman
Introduction and afterword by Stephen E. Ambrose
G.P. Putnam's Sons

New York
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Publishers Since 1838
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 1994 by The Haldeman Family Trust

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haldeman, H. R. (Harry R.), 1926-1993

The Haldeman diaries / H.R. Haldeman.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-399-13962-1
1. United States —
Politics and government —
1969-1974. 2. Nixon,
Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913- —
Friends and associates.
3. Haldeman, H. R. (Harry R.), 1926-1993 —Diaries.
E855.H35 1994
973.924—dc20 94-5541
CIP
Book design by H. Roberts
Printed in the United States of America

4 5 6 7 8 9 10
This book is printed on acid-free paper.

To Bob's family
who always came first in his heart
and who, each in his own way,
contributed to bringing this publication to fruition.
In Appreciation
There is no way that this project could have been completed without the
invaluable assistance and contribution of Scott Klososky, who worked both

with Bob in organizing, reviewing, and editing an incredible amount of
material and with me in bringing the raw manuscript to publication.
Jo Haldeman
Contents
Prefatory Note xi
The Nixon White House,

January 21, 1969-April 30, 1973 XV
Ambrose
Introduction by Stephen E. 1
Foreword by H. R. Haldeman 14
1969
First Quarter: January-March 17
Second Quarter: April-June 47
Third Quarter: July-September 69
Fourth Quarter: October-December 93
1970
1971
1972
1973
Last Month: April 622
Afterword by Stephen E. Ambrose 677

Final Note 683
Index 685
Prefatory Note
"Until he has been a part of a cause larger
than himself, no man is truly whole."
Richard M. Nixon
Inaugural Address, January 1969
Handwritten by President Nixon at my request and presented to Bob upon the

commencement of his White House tenure, this quotation hangs today on the
wall of Bob's Santa Barbara office. Without question, serving as Assistant to
the President and White House Chief of Staff gave Bob the opportunity to
participate in "a cause larger than himself."
Before moving to Washington, Bob and I discussed his new role and the
total dedication to the President it would require. We knew that this commit-
ment would put a strain on our marriage and on the family, but we also
recognized the great privilege and opportunity the experience would provide.
As anticipated, Bob and President Nixon did have an intense one-on-one
working relationship, although they were never personal friends.
During his years in the Nixon Administration, Bob kept a personal daily
record of the events in which he was involved. After 12- and 14-hour work-
days, he would return home and faithfully chronicle his observations. At first
he wrote the entries in longhand; later, he switched to dictating, and I would
hear the steady drone of his voice coming from his den late each night.
At the time, Bob had no intention of ever publishing these accounts. He
considered them as a potential resource for historians and scholars of the
Nixon Presidency. It was not until long after he left the White House that he
even had the material transcribed.
At Bob's request I read the diaries for the first time just last year (1993)
and found them very interesting for a number of reasons. For the most part,
the daily entries are much longer than I expected. Bob was a great note-taker;
however, recording each day's events in detail was particularly tedious work
for him. He was unusually self-disciplined, as is evidenced by these accounts.
Despite the volume of material produced, Bob made no attempt to docu-
ment the entire fabric of the Nixon Presidency. He wrote from the perspective
of Chief of Staff; consequently, his diary covers solely, and fully, his experience
in that role. Therefore, even personality issues, such as the ongoing conflict
x i
xii PREFATORY NOTE
between Rogers and Henry Kissinger, are covered in detail, even though
Bill
discussing other individuals was not characteristic of Bob. When a particular

issue consumed his time, it consumed his journal pages as well.
was revealing to read how often Bob expressed his opinion on matters
It
of foreign and domestic policy. He usually described himself as a "sounding

board" and avoided playing an active role in the policy-making process.
Surprisingly, very little direct mention is made of Bob's organization of
the White House staffing system. Wanting to maximize the efficiency of his
operation, Bob studiously researched the job of Chief of Staff and the staff
structures of previous presidents. I know that he was very proud of his system
and continuously worked on perfecting it.

There is a dramatic difference between the postinaugural attitudes of 1969
and 1973. Bob's early entries are fresh and naive, with a feeling of expectation
and excitement of the first term. In contrast, despite the tremendous election
victory of 1972, the later entries reveal a tired and negative attitude, com-
pounded by an uncooperative Congress and press, the President's absorption
with the reorganization of the Executive Branch, and the growing effect of
Watergate.
Indeed, Watergate slowly crept into the journal entries until it was all-
consuming. It was poignant for me to see Bob document his own diminishing
involvement with the President. This culminated in his entry of April 30, 1973,
describing President Nixon's last awkward telephone call which followed his
televised speech announcing Bob's resignation:
[The President] said to me: you're a strong man, you've got to keep the
faith, you're going to win this, God bless you. Then he asked me ... if
I could do some checking around on reaction to the speech and . . . I said

no, I don't think I could. He realized that was the case. . . .
These are some of my observations in reading the 1,521 entries in the full
text. Each reader will have his or her own reactions, and noted historian
Stephen Ambrose has shared his theories in his introduction. Bob was pleased
to know that Mr. Ambrose had agreed to contribute to the book; however, he
did not have a chance to see his material, and I feel that he would not have
agreed with a number of Mr. Ambrose's conclusions. Bob had planned both
to write an afterword and to do a promotional tour. These were to have
provided forums for him to explain some of the controversial issues touched
on in his diaries. Unfortunately, he did not have the opportunity to do either.
Twenty years after he left the White House, Bob decided to review the
transcripts of his records. He realized then their historical value as an unprece-
dented account of the inner workings of the office of the President of the
United States and became committed to their publication. He was working
full-time on this project up until one month before his death. At that time
contract negotiations were almost complete for the publication of the diaries
both in their entirety on CD-ROM and in a condensed book version. He was
PREFATORY NOTE xiii
excited about the undertaking, and I deeply regret that he did not live to see
the end result.

On November 12, 1993, my life was shattered by the unexpected death of
my husband of almost forty-five years. Suddenly, among much unfinished
business, I was leftwith the decision of whether to pursue his commitment to
the journal or to withdraw from the contract negotiations. My unsure emo-
tional state made me question taking the project onto my own shoulders. As
Bob knew only too well, I always had deep-seated reservations about "reveal-
ing" more inside stories of the Nixon White House. I was also sensitive to the
diary's effect on individuals for whom Bob had great admiration the Presi- —
dent, Bill Rogers, and Henry Kissinger, among others. On a more personal
level,our children and I were not anxious to reopen old wounds.
On the other hand, there were strong mitigating factors which favored
proceeding with the project. First and foremost was Bob's belief in his commit-
ment and his request to me to continue where he had to leave off. Second was
the historical value of the material. Third was the desire to give a full, an-
notated presentation of the diaries, rather than having them released by others
in a piecemeal or out-of-context format.
At first, my immediate personal loss overwhelmed any other interests and
my heart was not in the project. However, in taking it on, I became involved
in the process of editing and worked diligently with the editors at Putnam's to
produce a balanced condensation for the book version which fairly represents
the substance of the full text.
Watergate, however, is the one topic which is included in its entirety in the
book. There may be less the reader would expect, but this
on the subject than
unimportance to Bob and the President rather than
reflects its initial relative
any editing. Not a single reference to Watergate has been omitted.
There is no doubt that Watergate was a very humbling experience for
— —
Bob, which he accepted as he did all challenges as a means to grow and to
acknowledge the positive. While the pinnacle of his life was his service in the
White House, the nadir was his time served in Lompoc Federal Prison. The
testimony of Bob's true nature is that he handled each with equal fortitude and
saw each as an equally challenging opportunity.
Regrettably, H. R. Haldeman was someone most Americans knew only
through his limited exposure in the media. In reality, Bob was a businessman
who had a wide range of interests outside of politics. He was especially inter-
ested in young people and held a number of positions in the field of education:
President of the UCLA Alumni Association, Regent of the University of
California, and Trustee of the Coro Foundation, among others. At the request
of the Disney family, he was the first Chairman of the California Institute of
the Arts. He entered politics not as a career, but for a limited time and purpose.
He accepted the position of Chief of Staff because he felt it provided him with
the opportunity to put his management skills to use in serving Richard Nixon
and his country. Throughout his career, he was actively involved in serving
both the community and our church.
xiv PREFATORY NOTE
I was married to a remarkable man, whose devotion, integrity, and

strength of character I will always treasure. As father to our four children and
"Grandpa" to our five grandchildren, he stood solidly at the head of a close-
knit family.
My husband lived and died "truly whole."
Jo Haldeman
Santa Barbara
February 1994
The Nixon White House
JANUARY 21, 1969 — APRIL 30, 1973
The Cabinet
Spiro — Vice President, January 1973, to October
Agnew 10, 1973
Winton (Red) Blount — Postmaster General, January 22, 1969, to July 1,
1971
Peter Brennan — Secretary of Labor, February 2, 1973, to March 1975
Earl Butz— Secretary of Agriculture, December 1971, to November 1976

2,
John Connally — Secretary of Treasury, February 1971, to June 1971;

11,
later ran the Democrats for Nixon during 1972 campaign
Fred Dent —
Secretary of Commerce, February 2, 1973, to May 1975; for-
merly White House Political Coordinator
Bob Finch — Secretary of HEW, January 22, 1969, to June 23, 1970; later
stayed on as Counselor to the President until 1972
Clifford Hardin — Secretary of Agriculture, January 22, 1969, to November

11, 1971
Walter Hickel — Secretary of Interior, January 24, 1969, to November 25,

1970
James Hodgson — Secretary of Labor, July 2, 1970, to February 1973; for-

merly Undersecretary of Labor
David Kennedy — Secretary of Treasury, January 22, 1969, to February 1,
1971; later Ambassador-at-Large; Ambassador to NATO

Richard Kleindienst —
Attorney General, June 12, 1972, to April 3, 1973;
formerly Deputy Attorney General Department of Justice
Melvin Laird — Secretary of Defense, January 22, 1969, to February 1973
John Mitchell — Attorney General, January 22, 1969 to June 1972; later
chairman of the CRP
Rogers Morton —
Secretary of Interior, January 29, 1971, to June 1975;
formerly Congressman from Maryland
Pete Peterson — Secretary of Commerce, February 21, 1972, to February

1973; formerly Assistant to the President for Foreign Economic Policy
xv
xvi H.R. HALDEMAN
Elliot Richardson — Secretary of HEW, June 24, 1970, to February 1973;

Secretary of Defense, February 1973 to May 1973; Attorney General,
May 25, 1973, to October 20, 1973; formerly Undersecretary of State,
State Department
Bill — Secretary of
Rogers January
State, 1969, to September
22, 1973 3,
George Romney — Secretary of HUD, January 1969, to February 1973

22,
George Shultz — Secretary of Labor, January 1969, to July

22, 1970; 1,
Director of OMB, July 1970 to June 1972; Secretary of Treasury, June 12,
1972, to May 1974
Maurice Stans — Secretary of Commerce, January 22, 1969, to February

1972; later finance committee for the CRP
John Volpe — Secretary of Transportation, January 22, 1969, to February
1973
Caspar Weinberger —
Secretary of HEW, February 12, 1973, to August
1975; formerly Deputy Director of the OMB, then Director
Staff and Other Administrative Personnel

Roy Ash — Head of the President's Advisory Council on Executive Organi-
zation
Pat Buchanan — Assistant to the President; speechwriter

Arthur Burns — Counselor to the President, economics
Alex Butterfield — Deputy Assistant to the President; aide to H. R. Halde-

man
Dwight Chapin — Deputy Assistant to the President; appointments secre-
tary
Kenneth Cole — Haldeman Ehrlichman

staff aide; later staff
Chuck Colson — Special Counsel to the President

John Dean — Counsel to the President
Lee DuBridge — Science Advisor; State Department

later
John Ehrlichman — Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs

Peter Flanigan — Presidential Advisor on International Trade
Leonard Garment — Counsel to the President

Patrick Gray — Acting FBI Director
THE HALDEMAN DIARIES xvii
Erwin Griswold — General

Solicitor
Alexander Haig — NSC Deputy; 1972 Vice-Chief of Army Staff,
H. R. Haldeman — Chief of Staff
Bryce Harlow — Counselor to the President

Political
Larry Higby — Assistant to H. R. Haldeman
J.Edgar Hoover — Director of the FBI
General (Don) Hughes — Head of Ad Hoc Interagency Group Concerning

POWs
Howard Hunt — Consultant the White House
to
Herbert Kalmbach — President's personal attorney; campaign fund-raiser
James Keogh — Assistant to the President; speechwriter
Henry Kissinger — Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Herb Klein — Director of Communications

Egil (Bud) Krogh, — Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic
Jr.
Affairs
Gordon Liddy — General Counsel of the CRP

Clark MacGregor — Congressional chairman
liaison; of the CRP after
Mitchell
Jeb Magruder — Haldeman aide; Deputy Director of White House Commu-

nications; Deputy Campaign Director, CRP
Frederick Malek— White House reelection-campaign leader

aide;
Mike Mansfield — Senate Majority Leader

Paul McCracken — Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors
Admiral Thomas Moorer — Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Patrick Moynihan — Director of the Urban Affairs Council; White House

Counselor
Lyn Nofziger — Director of Communications for RNC; Director of Reelec-

tion Committee in California
Ray — Assistant to the President; speechwriter

Price
Safire — Assistant to the President; speechwriter

Bill
Manolo Sanchez — President's valet

xviii H.R. HALDEMAN
John Scali — Senior Consultant on Foreign Affairs; U.S. Ambassador to the

U.N.
Hugh — Senate Minority Leader

Scott
General Brent Scowcroft — NSC Deputy; replaced Haig
Gordon Strachan — Haldeman aide /General Counsel of the USIA

BillTimmons — Chief of White House to Congress
liaison
Dr. Walter Tkach — White House Physician
Rose Woods — President's personal secretary

Ron Ziegler — Press Secretary to the President
Family and Friends

Robert Abplanalp
Walter Annenberg
Ed Cox — Son-in-law
David Eisenhower — Son-in-law
Billy Graham
Don Nixon — Brother
Ed Nixon — Brother
Julie Nixon (Eisenhower) — Daughter
Pat Nixon — Richard Nixon's wife
Tricia Nixon (Cox) — Daughter
Bebe Rebozo
The
Haldeman
Diaries
Introduction
by Stephen E. Ambrose
For anyone interested in modern American H. R. "Bob" Haldeman's

politics,
diary covering his four and a half years as President Richard M. Nixon's Chief
of Staff is a priceless document. It puts the reader within the innermost circle
of power. It gives new information and provides new insights and perspectives
on all and many of the minor events of the period January 1969 to
the major
May it is all true, and because readers know the players (Nixon,
1973. Because
Henry Kissinger, John Mitchell, John Ehrlichman, John Connally, Ross
Perot, George Bush, Ron Ziegler, Pat Buchanan, and so many more), it makes
for gripping reading, better than the best political novel.
We know what is going to happen, but of course Haldeman doesn't, so
the tension builds as we
see Kent State coming in the wake of the Cambodian
incursion or Nixon and Kissinger sweating it out as the United States bombs
Hanoi and mines Haiphong Harbor on the eve of the 1972 Moscow Summit.
Will the Soviets cancel or not? The unfolding of Watergate, from the ho-hum
attitude within the Administration at its inception to the crisis of April 1973
that led to Haldeman's resignation, is absolutely absorbing.
This is a unique document. No other Presidential chief of staff has gone
to such lengths to make a record in anything approaching such detail. No
other Presidential chief of staff spent as much time with his boss, or was so
deeply involved in discussions and decision-making about such a wide range
of subjects. So this diary is exactly what Robert Rutland told Haldeman it
would be, when he urged Haldeman to make it (see Haldeman's foreword):
"An invaluable asset to historians and scholars of the future."
Dwight Eisenhower's press secretary, James Hagerty, kept a diary for the
first couple of years of his term, and it is a valuable document for historians,
but it is not as extensive or informative as Haldeman's. General Andrew

Goodpaster, Staff Secretary to Eisenhower, kept notes on private conversa-
tions and conferences Eisenhower had in the Oval Office that were extensive
and invaluable, but Goodpaster wasn't present when the subject was politics
H.R. HALDEMAN
or domestic policy. Sherman Adams, the first of the modern chiefs of staff in
the White House, was important to Eisenhower, but nowhere near as critical
to the President as Haldeman was to Nixon. And none of Haldeman's prede-
cessors or successors as chief of staff worked for a president who was involved
in such high drama or low skulduggery.
This is politics at its cutting edge, tough as nails. When American Jews
boycotted French President Pompidou during a visit to New York because the
French had sold some jet fighter planes to the Arabs, and Mayor John Lindsay
and Governor Nelson Rockefeller joined the boycott, Nixon was embarrassed
and furious. He struck back by postponing an arms shipment to Israel and by
telling Kissinger to tell American Jewish leaders to "go talk to Lindsay and
Rockefeller about whether they can provide arms for Israel." We see Nixon tell
the IRS to start doing audits on Democratic campaign contributors; Nixon
manipulating George Wallace both before and after he was shot, using money
and IRS threats to keep Wallace out of the 1972 race; Nixon helping McGov-
ern win the 1972 Democratic nomination by putting out fake polls showing
McGovern doing well in trial heats; Nixon in October 1972 making "the
interesting point" (as Haldeman put it) "that after the election we will have
awesome power with no discipline, that is, there won't be another election
—
coming up to discipline us," so all of Nixon's enemies Democrats, bureau-
crats, reporters, publishers, television networks, and so on —
had better brace
themselves.
We American politics at the most practical level. In 1970 Nixon had
see
a welfare reform program called the Family Assistance Plan. He told Halde-
man "to be sure it's killed by Democrats and that we make big play for it, but
don't let it pass, can't afford it."
And we
see bureaucratic infighting and turf battles at the most petty level;
Haldeman's diaries are filled with stories about the struggle between Henry
Kissinger and Secretary of State William Rogers for power and influence.
Haldeman writes: "P realizes K basically is jealous of any idea not his own,
and he just can't swallow the apparent early success of the Middle East plan
[in 1970] because it is Rogers'. In fact, he's probably actually trying to make
it fail for just this reason."
Kissinger made Haldeman's life miserable with his constant complaining
and his if Rogers wasn't fired. Haldeman called
continuous threats to resign
his bluffon a number of occasions, best of all on December 7, 1971, a couple
of months before the historic trip to China. "I talked again with Henry and
played it a little brutally by saying that if he was going to announce his
resignation in December, he should resign in December. He couldn't just
announce it and then hang on, and he said, oh no, he couldn't do that because
he couldn't leave the P alone to go to China, and I said you couldn't go to
China with him having announced your resignation." Kissinger folded.
—
The old Nixon is here, on every page the hatred and jealousy of the
Kennedy family, the contempt for bureaucrats, liberals, professors, the edu-
cated, and others, the obsession with Alger Hiss, the amazing memory. In
THE HALDEMAN DIARIES
January 1972 Nixon had Haldeman bring him a copy of a book by H. G. Wells
"and found a devastating quote about the military mind and the fact that it
is by definition mediocre because nobody with any real intellectual talent
would submit himself to the military career." The President added, "Of course
Wells has the feeling that the solution to all problems is education for every-
one, and that's a terrible idea, especially for women, says the P."
Obviously the P said things to Haldeman he said to no one else. On
another occasion, Nixon got into "a sort of a long philosophical thing, making
the point that ... in this period of our history, the leaders and the educated
class are decadent. Whenever you ask for patriotic support, they all run away.
The college types, the professors, the So he concludes the more a
elite, etc.
person is educated, he becomes brighter in the head and weaker in the spine.
When you have to call on the nation to be strong, on such things as drugs,
crime, defense, the educated people and the leader class no longer has any
character, and you can't count on them. We can only turn for support to the
non-educated people."
One more preview. Here is Nixon, musing to Haldeman about American
youth. "We should be understanding of upper- and middle-class parents be-
cause they really do have great problems with their kids because they've been
given so much. It's a mistake to think that the way to greatness is to make it
easy to get there. ... He said we must not destroy the character of children by
permissiveness, permissiveness that denies the child the opportunity to look in
a mirror and finally realize that the problem is me, not my teachers, not the
war, not the environment, but me."
Nixon's private views on the Republican Party were as scathing as were
those of two of his predecessors as Republican presidents, Theodore Roosevelt
and Dwight Eisenhower. TR abandoned the party as hopeless in 1912 and ran
against President William Howard Taft as the candidate of the Progressive
Party. Ike indulged himself in the fantasy of cutting loose from the Old Guard
of the Republican Party and forming a new party, made up of moderate
Republicans and Southern Democrats. Nixon, too, liked Southern Democrats
—
more than he did most Republicans John Connally most of all. Haldeman's
diaries make crystal clear what was only sensed before Nixon regarded Con-—
nally as "the best man in the country," the only one who was fit to follow him
into the White House. Nixon was constantly hatching schemes to get Connally
the vice-presidential nomination for 1972. He tried to persuade Spiro Agnew
to resign before the convention so that he could appoint Connally. It is
amazing how completely Nixon trusted and admired Connally. After 1970, at
virtually every critical moment Nixon told Haldeman to check with Connally
for his advice —
on economic matters, political and Vietnam War crises, rela-
tions with China and the Soviet Union, everything.
Nixon told Haldeman that after the election he wanted to "move to build
a new party, the Independent Conservative Party, or something of that sort,
that would bring in a coalition of Southern Democrats and other conservative
Democrats along with the middle-road Republicans. By structuring it right, we
—
H.R. HALDEMAN
could develop a new majority party under a new name. Get control of the
Congress without an election, simply by the realignment, and make a truly
historic change in the entire American political structure."
In the 1972 campaign, Nixon rarely used the word "Republican," nor did
he go out of his way to campaign for Republican candidates —a fact that
caused the Republicans to complain bitterly, and a fact Nixon denied. The day
after the election, which he won in a landslide while the Republicans lost both
the House and Haldeman his concern that
Senate, he vindictively expressed to
he get the party before it got him. (A disastrous decision; when the crunch
came in Watergate, precious few Republicans were ready to come to Nixon's
defense.)
Nixon's well-known hostility toward the media is highlighted here by
casual and spontaneous comments to Haldeman, such as: "The White House
press is totally dedicated to screwing us rather than getting the facts and
He hated leaks, yet as Haldeman records he was the all-time
reporting them."
He hated The New York Times and The Washington Post and
master leaker.
CBS-TV and PBS and a host of others, but above all he hated Time magazine
(which over the course of his political career has had him on its cover almost
fifty more than any other individual).
times, far
All his political life, Nixon complained about the double standard of
American reporters. When Time failed to select him as Man of the Year in
1969, Haldeman recorded that Nixon commented that "it was the first time
they haven't selected the P in his first year. [I] checked and this is not true. They
didn't pick DDE until 1959. They did pick FDR, HST, JFK, and LB J in their
first years."
So far as Haldeman was concerned, that Time had picked every Demo-
cratic president in his first year, but not Ike or Dick, proved the double
standard.
Nixon was terribly worried that Time might name Kissinger Man of the
—
Year he said it would be very bad for Henry. (In 1972 Time named Kissinger
and Nixon as Men of the Year. Having to share the honor infuriated Nixon
and probably Kissinger as well.)
In January 1972 Time columnist Hugh Sidey remarked that the President
had too much access to television, which made it difficult for other candidates.
"The P's reaction," Haldeman wrote, "was that we ought to explore the
question of whether Sidey ever deplored Nixon's problem for eight years while
he was out of office. When he traveled around the world alone with his
briefcase, got no coverage, a lot less than even Scoop Jackson gets now, and
did Sidey at that time complain about Kennedy dominating news? Did he
argue for equal time for the Republicans?"
The President found it easy to feel sorry for himself, for the battles he had
media always out to get him. In one
to fight, alone, without support, with the
White House interview, a president said, "That is the press's fault, too, damn
it. I have fought more damn battles here for more things than any president
has in 20 years and not gotten one damn bit of credit from the knee-jerk
. . .
liberal press, and I am sick and tired of it. . . . You get no credit around here
for fighting and bleeding."
That is vintage Nixon, but it was not Nixon speaking — it was President
Bill Clinton, in a 1993 Rolling Stone interview. That Clinton sounded so much
like Nixon makes an obvious point, but it needs to be added that not all
presidents feel that way. Certainly Roosevelt didn't, nor Truman, nor
Kennedy, nor Eisenhower. At his last press conference as president, Eisen-
hower was asked if he felt the press had been fair to him over the past eight
years. Ike laughed and replied, "Well, when you come down to it, I don't see
that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?" (When I quoted that
line to Haldeman in 1988, he almost choked. He absolutely refused to take the
remark seriously.)
If most presidents feel put upon by the press, all presidents indulge
themselves in self-pity. One day Eisenhower cleared an afternoon
in 1955,
schedule so he could play golf, only to have a rainstorm come on. Standing at
the window in the Oval Office, watching the rain, he told his secretary, Ann
Whitman, that sometimes he felt so sorry for himself he could just cry. Halde-
man records the day in 1970 that Nixon wanted to go to a good restaurant for
lunch, only to have Kissinger talk him out of it and instead have a working
lunch at the White House. "The P then sulked about never gets to do anything
fun that he wants to do, always has to do what's right."
All presidents feel frustration. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt once
remarked that the President of the United States is simultaneously the stron-
gest and the weakest of all national leaders. The strongest because he is
Commander in Chief and has the power to destroy the world at his fingertips,
a characteristic of the Presidency that is constantly present in Haldeman's
diaries, either right up front with "Nixon the mad bomber" (as Nixon some-
times called himself) or implied in every sentence describing dealings with the
Chinese and Soviet leaders. The weakest because the House controls the
money, the Senate controls the treaties, the Congress as a whole has the power
to make war, the next election is always just around the corner, the bureauc-
racy is always there, and so on.
Shortly before Eisenhower's Inaugural, Harry Truman gave a warning:
"Poor Ike," he said. "He'll sit here and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And
nothing will happen. It won't be at all like the army." Nixon could fill in the
details. He couldn't get the FBI to do some investigating for him because J.
Edgar Hoover was getting cold feet in his old age. He couldn't get the IRS to
spy on the Democrats. He couldn't get the CIA to do his bidding. (The
smoking gun that did Nixon in was his order to the CIA to tell the FBI to back
off the Watergate investigation —
an order the CIA refused to carry out.) He
couldn't get the military to go all out in Vietnam. And so on.
Nixon wanted to start a New American Revolution. It would include
welfare reform, more power to the states, less to the federal government,
energy independence, national health care, education reform, and more.
Haldeman recorded Nixon's pessimism about his chances for success: "There
—
6 H.R. HALDEMAN
are only 537 elected officials here. All the other people are career diplomats and
career bureaucrats who you can't get rid of and who you can't change. The
enemy, then, is the invisible bureaucracy, the self-perpetuating people that are
not elected and that blatantly brag that they'll be here, and are not going to
change regardless of who comes in and out. They'll bury the new recommenda-
tions under a mountain of paperwork."
Oh, how those bureaucrats drove him up the wall. At a 1971 Cabinet
meeting, Nixon declared that the people in the Civil Service "are out to get us.
This is true of all administrations, but it's worse now, and it's strange because
I've been much more permissive than any other P. . . . 96% of the bureaucracy
are against us, they're bastards who are here to screw us."
At that meeting, Nixon "You've got to realize the press aren't
also said,
news or in screwing me." For
interested in liking you, they're only interested in
his part, Nixon was concerned with manipulating the reporters. He was ob-
sessed with the coverage he received, and thus spent a great deal of his time
—
and therefore Haldeman's focusing on the Presidential image. "Mystique is
more important than content," he told Haldeman. The PR was always more
important than the policy. Politicians did not use the word "spin" in Nixon's
day, but Nixon was an active practitioner of the spin (but not the first: JFK
and LBJ were spinners of the worst sort). Nixon was continually urging
Haldeman to get the press to cover his courage, his warmth, his depth, his
human side. In this regard I am reminded of a comment Ann Whitman, Ike's
secretary, once made about then Vice President Nixon to the effect that Nixon
spent too much time trying to act like a nice guy instead of just being one.
The President was frequently influenced by what he read, one time latch-
ing on to a theory that it was a waste of time to sleep. Haldeman has an entry
in February 1969 that speaks to the point. Nixon, he wrote, was "fascinated
by [White House physician Dr. Walter] Tkach's report of people who need no
sleep at all. Hates to waste the time. Feels that people take breaks to avoid
. . .
the problems and decision, not because they need rest. Thinks you have to be
'up,' not relaxed, to function best. He's thought a lot about this and is pretty
firm in his views."
When Henry Kissinger reported that peace was at hand in Vietnam
(erroneously as it turned out), Nixon invited Haldeman to join in a celebration
dinner. "The P told Manolo [his houseman] to bring the good wine, his '57
Lafite-Rothschild, or whatever it is. To be served to everyone. Usually it's just
served to the P, and the rest of us have some California Beaulieu Vineyard
stuff."
The Haldeman and anecdotes, but
diaries are replete with such incidents
and funny as they usually are, they are not what
revealing as they often are,
makes the document so compelling and important. Haldeman covers the
major events of a tumultuous time. The walk on the moon. Vietnamization.
Chappaquiddick. The Vietnam Moratorium. My Lai. Senate rejection of the
nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme
Court. The Cambodian incursion and Kent State. The invasion of Laos. The
Pentagon Papers. The China trip. The 1972 North Vietnamese offensive. The
bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. The Moscow Summit
and SALT I. The 1972 election.
On these and all other issues and events, Haldeman portrays Nixon at
work, doing what he did all his life, being a politician and statesman. Halde-
man's long account of the August 1971 meetings at Camp David, where Nixon
decided to impose a wage-and-price freeze and to take the United States off the
gold standard, is a classic piece of reporting that shows Nixon at his very best.
So too the accounts of Nixon in China and Nixon at the Moscow Summit.
All are integral to the diaries. On all of them, Haldeman adds to what we
know. And there is so much more here. I've already written a three-volume life
of Nixon, using nearly 1 ,000 pages to describe the period covered in Halde-
—
man's diaries and I'd like the opportunity to write another entire book on the
basis of what is revealed in the diaries. But the raw diaries themselves are better
than anything I or any other historian could produce.
A few words on the Nixon-Haldeman relationship are in order. "From
now on," Nixon told his Cabinet in 1971, "Haldeman is the lord high execu-
tioner. Don't you come whining to me when he tells you to do something. He
will do it because I asked him to and you're to carry it out."
Bob Haldeman was not only the Chief of Staff closest to his President, he
was also the most powerful. First of all, he played an active role in policymak-
ing. He denied it, but it was so, not only with regard to politics, but in military
and foreign policy as well. He urged the President to bomb Hanoi in the spring
of 1972, for example, and to go into Cambodia in the spring of 1970.
Second, more than any other person more — so even than Rebozo, or Pat
Nixon, or Julie, or Tricia Nixon, or David Eisenhower — Haldeman was the
one Nixon could talk to about any subject. About his personal taxes. About
opening to China. About the nature of the American family. About screwing
his political enemies. About making sure John Connally would be his succes-
sor. About anything.
This was because Haldeman was completely trustworthy. He did not leak
to the press, or to Ehrlichman, or to Kissinger. What Nixon told him stayed
—
with him until now, with the publication of his diaries.
Third, Haldeman was completely devoted to the President. Not to Nixon
personally so much as to the Office of the President. He never forgot that his
job was to make it possible for Nixon to work as effectively as possible. He
could be ruthless in meeting his responsibilities; he had no soft curves; he was
all sharp edges and corners. He was rough on his subordinates, just as Nixon
could be very rough on him. Though Haldeman was often praised for his
no one ever thought to praise him for his humanity, and he wanted
efficiency,
it He was tough enough to stand up to the slurs and pounding that
that way.
went with the job of being the President's son of a bitch, the man who would
have to say no to requests to see the President or for other favors far more
often than he would be able to say yes.
Nixon once said that Haldeman's job was to be "the gatekeeper of the
8 H.R. HALDEMAN
Oval Office." He certainly was that. Haldeman's diaries are replete with in-
stances of his telling Agnew or a governor or a Cabinet member that he could
not see the President. Haldeman kept the President's schedule —an immensely
difficult job for any chief of staff, especially so for Nixon's, as Nixon was often
changing his mind about whom he would see, where he would go, when he
would depart, what group he would speak to, which state or city he wanted to
visit next.
Haldeman was also the chief hand-holder. Almost every day, certainly at
least every week, he had to reassure Henry Kissinger that the President really
did love him and appreciate him and couldn't get along without him and
would someday fire Bill Rogers.
Haldeman was always available. Seven days a week. In the 1,561 days he
served as Chief of Staff, he was with the President all but twenty or so of those
—
days and in telephone contact with him on most of the twenty days.
Haldeman was with Nixon, often just the two of them, for more time than
any other human being. It was not unusual for them to have a working lunch
together, and sometimes dinner. Haldeman attended almost any State dinner
he wanted (more often than not dining in the housekeeper's office to avoid the
dinner conversation). He was ordinarily the first person Nixon saw in the
morning, the one he talked to before bed.
last
But it was a working relationship. There was not the slightest hint
strictly
of friendship. Haldeman had managed Nixon's 1962 campaign for governor of

California, yet after a decade of the most intimate association, Nixon did not
know how many children Haldeman had. At their last meeting, at Camp
David on April 29, 1973, when Nixon told Haldeman he would have to resign,
Haldeman records: "The P was in terrible shape. Shook hands with me, which
is the first time he's ever done that."
Nixon needed Haldeman not just during working hours. He would call at
any time — —
midnight, two a.m., four a.m. to discuss the reaction to a speech,
a personnel problem, the latest poll, a television program, anything.
Haldeman could match Nixon's almost superhuman energy level, as these
diaries demonstrate beyond all doubt. Haldeman put in long days, very often
followed by long evenings. Yet before going to bed on every one of the 1,561
days he served, he wrote or (after December 2, 1970) dictated an entry for his
diary.Sometimes they were as long as ten or more typewritten pages. He based

the dictation on his handwritten notes taken during the day, and on his
memory. It was a simply incredible accomplishment.
The most dramatic setting for a dictation came on May 24, 1972. Halde-
man was in Moscow for the Summit. He had hardly slept for three days. His
bedroom, like all rooms in the American quarters, was bugged, so he went to
the President's car, parked in the yard of the Kremlin, to dictate an entry
covering the past three days.
As Haldeman relates in his foreword, he was the one who classified his
journal Top Secret. That led to the National Security Council doing a review
and removing so-called sensitive national-security-related material. Haldeman
states that only a small amount was deleted, and I have no reason not to
believe him, but I also have no way of knowing how much was involved, nor
how important it was.
In the version of the diaries on May 20, 1971, most of which was
full text
removed, Haldeman explains an annotation: "The deleted material covers P's

briefing of the Cabinet on the SALT announcement. He reviewed the history
leading up to the agreement, explained the deadlock that had held it up for
some time, outlined in detail the Soviet opposition, all in a great deal of detail.
The deletion runs for 9Vi minutes on my recorded tape because I made exten-
sive notes, sensing the historic importance of this background —but, unfortu-
nately, I am prohibited from passing it along."
For the by the government is worse than
historian, this kind of censorship
frustrating, it is Haldeman's entry concerns events of a quarter-
infuriating.
century ago, a treaty long since ratified with a government that no longer
exists, about arms-limitation agreements that have long since given way to
arms-reduction agreements that render the SALT I treaty completely out-of-

date. Yet somehow it would hurt national security to make the record availa-
ble to the public. (These deletions appear in the full text, and are commented
on by Haldeman in the foreword.)
The first thing to notice when reading the Watergate material is that when
Haldeman made these entries, no one except Haldeman's assistant Alexander
Butterfield, a couple of Secret Service technicians, Haldeman, and Nixon knew
that there was a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office, the Cabinet
Room, Nixon's Executive Office Building (EOB) office, and on the telephones
in the Oval and EOB offices, the Lincoln Sitting Room at the White House,
and on the office phone at Camp David.
In February 1971 Nixon ordered Haldeman to set up the system, secretly.
The President had earlier told Haldeman to remove the less-complex system he
had inherited from Johnson, then changed his mind. Nixon wrote in his
memoirs that he intended to use the tapes to prepare the memoirs and to
protect himself from "revisionist histories."
Because the taping system existed, and because Haldeman and Nixon
were the only men in the conversations who knew a tape was running, every-
thing Haldeman and Nixon say could be suspect. Were they speaking the
truth? Or for the record? To explore options? Or to provide protection for
themselves? Haldeman toldme in 1988 that he often forgot the system was in
place; as proof he pointed out that he certainly would not have said some of
the things he did say after the Watergate break-in had he remembered. Thanks
to these diaries, readers can judge for themselves.
Haldeman's first entry on the break-in, June 18, 1972, shows that he did
not know in advance about the scheme to bug the Democratic National
Committee office and that if he wasn't exactly shocked, he was disapproving
of the break-in. The next conversation between Haldeman and Nixon about
the break-in came on June 20. This was the conversation that contains the
—
1 H.R. HALDEMAN
infamous 18 ^-minute gap on the Watergate tapes. In his diary entry, Halde-
man relates what was said. He made his remarks on the basis of his handwrit-
ten notes made during the conversation, notes made on a yellow legal pad. I've
studied those notes in the Nixon and can attest
Presidential Materials Project
that Haldeman's diary entry corresponds exactly with the notes he kept that
morning. The point being that there was little that was sinister in the conversa-
tion. (Who erased that tape remains a mystery. Al Haig said it was done by
"some sinister force." Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, said she did it,
accidentally. Haldeman told me years later that Nixon might have done it
inadvertently, which Nixon has always denied.)
Haldeman's June 20 entry needs to be read with great care. It is in the
second paragraph that he describes his conversation with the President. In the
first paragraph, Haldeman begins in the fifth sentence to describe a meeting
with Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, and
Nixon's counsel, John Dean. Nixon was not present. It was in this conversa-
tion that the cover-up began: "The conclusion was hope the
that we've got to
FBI doesn't go beyond the necessary in developing evidence and that we can
keep a lid on that as well as keeping all the characters involved from getting
carried away with any unnecessary testimony."
At this stage, Nixon felt that to some degree Watergate could be redi-
rected to his advantage. On June 21 he told Haldeman, "Every time we have
a leak in our organization we should charge that we're being bugged. Even if
you plant one and discover it."
On June 23, Haldeman and Ehrlichman told the CIA to tell the FBI that
the bugging was a CIA operation and the FBI should back off. "We talked to
[CIA Deputy Director Vernon] Walters and had that worked out."* They had
started down the slippery slope; from here on there was no turning back. But
as the entries make clear, the President's aides felt they had little if anything
to fear. In mid-August, Billy Graham reported —
and Haldeman recorded
that Lyndon Johnson "laughed about it [Watergate], said it won't hurt a bit."
So the two smartest politicians in the country, Nixon and Johnson, agreed that
Watergate wasn't going anywhere. If those two agreed, why should Haldeman
worry?
And Watergate never became an issue in the campaign, and Nixon was
triumphantly re-elected, but he failed to bring Congress along with him, and
after "peace is at hand" and then the Christmas bombing, and after the various
dirty tricks in the campaign, the Democrats were determined to use their
control of Congress to get Nixon.
Nixon's move to is to me the most tantalizing item in the
head them off
diaries. On January Nixon told Haldeman to go to Johnson aide
11, 1973,
George Christian to get him to "get LBJ to use his influence to turn off the Hill
investigation." Nixon wanted Haldeman to bring Connally in on the effort to
However, the CIA refused to do as instructed, i.e., tell the FBI to stay away from the case
because of CIA involvement.
THE HALDEMAN DIARIES 1 1
get Johnson Democrats in the Congress to back off. Nixon was

to get the
threatening that Johnson did not kill the Congressional investigations into
if
the 1972 campaign, he would reveal that Johnson had bugged Nixon's airplane
in the 1968 campaign and put out some revelations about contributors to
Hubert Humphrey's campaign.
Johnson heard about the prospective blackmail, and on January 12
Haldeman records that Johnson "got very hot and called Deke [DeLoach of
the FBI], and said to him that if the Nixon people are going to play with this
that he would release ." and at this point the diaries contain a notation:
. .
"deleted material —national security." (This is the only place in the book
where an example is given of a deletion by the NSC during the Carter Adminis-
tration.)
Eight days later Nixon was inaugurated for his second term. Ten days
later Johnson died of a heart attack. What Johnson had on Nixon I suppose
we never know.
will
On February 7, the Senate voted 70-to-0 to establish a seven-member
select committee to investigate Watergate and related activities in the 1972
campaign. Chairman Sam Ervin and the other Democrats turned back Repub-
lican attempts to broaden the inquiry to include the 1968 campaign.
Over February and March, Nixon spent an increasing amount of time on
Watergate; by April the scandal and cover-up were taking virtually all his
—
time and thus Haldeman's. Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman struggled to
wiggle out of the net, first relying on and then against John Dean. They were
like three men in a rubber boat, with no rudder, no paddle, no motor, no sail,
in the middle of the Atlantic, with a storm bearing down on them, discussing
their options.
They had no options. Haldeman's diary entries make this crystal clear.
They try one scenario after another, only to realize that nothing could with-
stand the slightest scrutiny. They were powerless. They were trapped.
Some highlights. On March 24 Haldeman records that at Nixon's instruc-
tion he called Bill Rogers "to raise the question with him first of where he feels
we now stand in the public eye and second what his advice is on our general
Watergate approach." What intense satisfaction this must have been for Ro-
gers. After all the humiliation the Nixon White House had caused him over the
preceding four years, now they turn to him to ask, "What do we do?"
Rogers told them the truth, that now that the case was in the courts, and
the FBI was investigating, and the Senate was investigating, they were being
besieged by "the forces of righteousness." Rogers forthrightly added, "The
real problem on this is what's been done after the event, not the Watergate
event itself."
It is all here — the money for the burglars, for their bosses Howard Hunt
and Gordon Liddy, the destruction of evidence by Pat Gray, Acting Director
of the FBI, the made-up stories to the grand jury, John Dean's desertion and
threat to appear before the Ervin Committee.
Ehrlichman wanted to "destroy Dean." Nixon commented that "there's
12 H.R. HALDEMAN
no sense in aggravating Dean." Ehrlichman's response was that Dean would

force a resolution of impeachment "on the ground that the P committed a
crime and there's no other legal process available." Nixon thought it could
never come to that.
It come to Haldeman and Ehrlichman, as it was obvious
might, however,
the Ervin Committee wanted some big trophy. Nixon swore he would never
throw them overboard. Toward the end of the first week of April, Nixon told
Ehrlichman, "Haldeman is more important to me than Adams was to Ike. For
example, the K situation, which only he can handle. I can handle the rest,
probably, but I can't do that. So protecting Haldeman ... is a major considera-
tion. He is the P's closest confidant and we can't let him be tarred as a dirty
. . .
SOB."
Kissinger weighed in. Haldeman P does let me down or
writes, "If the
does let the situation develop to the point where have to get out, he (Kiss-
I
inger) too will leave because he would refuse to serve in a White House that
would permit such a thing to happen."
On April 9, for the first time since the system was set up, Nixon talked to
Haldeman about the taping apparatus. "Had a long discussion about the
monitoring facilities in his offices and he wants them all taken out. But then
he later changed his mind and said to leave them in on a switch basis. He's
obviously concerned about having everything covered and wants to set up
some kind of limited means of coverage."
On April 18, as the pressure for a Haldeman resignation mounted, "The
P had me in at eight o'clock this morning. Said that if this thing goes the way
it might, and I have to leave, he wants me to take all the office material from
his— —ah machinery there and hold it for the library [meaning the prospective
Nixon Presidential Library]."
On
April 25 the tapes came to the fore. Dean was preparing to testify.
"What would you fellows answer," Nixon asked Haldeman and Ehrlichman
anxiously, "if Dean testifies that there was a discussion in which I said Hunt's
lawyer had to get paid off?" When the tapes were eventually made public, they
did in fact include the President's asking about the options regarding a payoff.
Haldeman volunteered to review the tape of that meeting. He did — the
first time, so far as I can tell, Nixon had listened to a
that either he or
—
tape and returned to report that it wasn't too bad. He was putting the best
possible face on what was in fact a smoking gun, digging up sentences that
Nixon could use to exonerate himself. The best of these, the one Haldeman
emphasized, was Nixon's statement with regard to clemency for Hunt and the
others, "But that would be wrong."
Nixon latched on to that. "That's not bad," he said enthusiastically.
But Nixon knew he had told Dean he could get a million dollars for Hunt,
that the problem wasn't getting the money but finding a way to get it to Hunt.
He asked Haldeman how he would answer that one.
Haldeman suggested that Nixon was just feeling Dean out, trying alterna-
tives, "You ask people questions on the basis of ... to try

exploring options.
and seewhat direction they're going."
Nixon brightened up. "It's his word against the President's."
Then he grew worried. "I hope to God he didn't have a tape recorder in
his pocket." (On at least two dozen occasions thereafter, Nixon anxiously
asked Haldeman to reassure him that Dean didn't have a hidden recorder.)
Back to "would be wrong." Nixon worried that perhaps he had said
"wrong" about the timing of clemency, not about the promise of clemency or
the million dollars in hush money. (History has recorded that indeed he had.)
Haldeman, who had just listened to the tape, inexplicably replied, "No,
you said getting the money was wrong."
That is also what Haldeman told the Ervin Committee when he testified.
When the tape was finally made available, it was that inexplicable answer that
got Haldeman his conviction for perjury.
I have gone into this in some detail to give readers an opportunity to
check Haldeman's diaries against the critical parts of the actual transcript of
the conversation (on the Watergate tapes made public in 1974) he summarizes
in his entry for April 25.
In his April 26 entryHaldeman said that "The question he [Nixon] has is,
did the P Dean to do anything? And the answer is no." This
at that time order
is a quibble, to say the least. Twelve times Nixon told Dean the hush money
had to be paid to Hunt. The next day it was paid (via John Mitchell). But it
was technically true that Nixon did not order Dean personally to pay over the
money.
Later, "[Nixon] questioned me Dean had any basis to
again on whether
feel that P to go out and get the money and I said
he'd been instructed by the
no. That wasn't the case." Haldeman did not add that what the P had said was
he knew where he could get the money and in the process was not doing Nixon
a favor.
By this time it hardly mattered. Nixon had decided to try to save himself
by tossing Haldeman and Ehrlichman overboard. He had them come up to
Camp David. Haldeman's account of the firing is moving, revealing, infuriat-
ing, sad, maudlin, and pure Nixon. With that entry, the diaries come to an end.
Foreword
by H. R. Haldeman
With the inauguration of Richard Nixon as the 37th President of the United
States, I became Assistant to the President and White House Chief of Staff.
Little did I realize that this would lead me into a major role in the most
controversial, tragic, and least understood Presidency in the history of our
country.
I did sense that this would be a momentous period in my life and that the
Nixon Presidency would be a significant one. I knew that I would be at the very
—
eye of the storm for the next four years with all the challenges and opportuni-
ties of being integrally involved in virtually every decision and act of the
President.
When my appointment White House was announced, Robert Rut-
to the
land, a close personal friend and eminent Presidential scholar, urged me to
record faithfully in a journal the major events of each day and my thoughts
regarding them. He believed that this had never been done by someone work-
ing so closely with the President. At the least, my "diaries" would provide a
fascinating account for my children and grandchildren; more importantly,
they could prove to be an invaluable asset to historians and scholars.
Not fully realizing what this would involve, I decided that the commit-
ment was worth the effort, and for the next four years and three months, I did
maintain a daily diary. wrote in a bound journal; later, I switched
Initially, I
to dictating onto cassettes. was not an easy assignment, and it required a

It
tremendous amount of self-discipline to sit down every night and record the
major actions and thoughts of a long day.
For safekeeping, as each journal book and tape cassette was completed,
I marked it "Top Secret" and placed it in a safe in the office of the White House
Staff Secretary. These recordings were not read or heard by anyone, including
me, until well after I had left Washington.
On April 30, 1973, as the Watergate crisis mounted daily, the President
14
announced my resignation as Chief of Staff. When I arrived at my office the

next morning, found that it had been secured by the FBI, with orders that
I
I could enter only under their surveillance. I was not permitted to remove
—
anything including whatever I brought in with me. This order even applied
to my personal papers, files, and diaries.
After seven years of legal action, the diaries finally were admitted to be my
personal property; however, they had to remain in the custody of the National
Archives, where they had been stored upon removal from the White House
safe. A negotiated settlement with the Archives resulted in my being provided
copies of each handwritten journal book and oral cassette in return for my
"giving" the originals to the Archives (which was a little ironic, since they
already had them under lock and key).
Because I unofficially marked the diaries Top Secret, they had to be
reviewed by the National Security Council for classified national security
material. Before I could receive my copies, all entries deemed "sensitive" were
deleted. Once in my possession, the copies of the journals and tapes were put
aside, and I did nothing with them until almost twenty years after my resigna-
tion, when I had them transcribed.
The diaries are my personal record of each day's amazing array of events,
conversations, decisions, and actions: an admixture of enormously important
and incredibly insignificant matters with which the President, and I, dealt each
day. The people involved are intelligent, hardworking and, at times, very
human.
As a daily documentation, the diaries "tell it like it is" without benefit of
hindsight or foreknowledge. Recorded are my thoughts at the time. Included
are actions I would now prefer had not been taken, conversations I would now
like to forget or disavow, and opinions with which I now strongly disagree. In
the interest of historical accuracy, the content remains unchanged from the
day it was written.
Since I now deeply believe that my diaries do, in fact, provide valuable
insights for historians, journalists, and scholars, as well as the general public,
I have decided to make them public. The full text of the diaries is almost
750,000 words and is a little too much is an
for the average reader. There
enormous amount of and ephemera, and the sheer bulk is
repetition, trivia,
unmanageable. Therefore, I have looked for entries which I consider the most
significant, insightful, colorful, or simply the most representative of life in the
Nixon White House, to produce this book. Nothing has been deleted to hide
the truth, painful as it sometimes is. For instance, although the book repre-
sents only about 40 percent of the full text, it includes virtually every word I
wrote about Watergate. Where appropriate for clarification, I have added
annotations. These appear in boxes or italics to distinguish them from the
original text.
For historians and those who wish to pursue the subject further, I have
also used the technology of CD-ROM to publish the diaries in their entirety,
16 H.R. HALDEMAN
fully indexed and cross-referenced. The availability of the full text on CD-
ROM should answer any questions or doubts as to its accuracy or the fairness
of the account.
When I
originally wrote the diaries, I used initials and acronyms wherever
With the exception of the President (P), Henry Kissinger (K), John
possible.
Ehrlichman (E) and defined acronyms, these shorthand abbreviations have
been spelled out in the transcribed text. There are instances, however, when
first names are used.
In these pages, the reader is given an overall view of the White House and
the Nixon Presidency as seen and felt by the one person who was with the
President far more than anyone else during his first term, and who was in-
volved on a broader and deeper basis in all respects. It is my strong hope that
this book will, once and for all, put those years into perspective.
1969
FIRST QUARTER: JANUARY-MARCH
After the election victory in November 1968, the Nixon Campaign Organi-
zation wound down its business and was immediately replaced by the Nixon
Transition Organization, based at the Pierre Hotel in New York. At that
point we had which to conceive, construct, and imple-
seventy-five days in
ment the entire initial plan for staffing and operating the Executive Office
of the President of the United States, which had to take over full operation
at noon on January 21, 1969. This task was completed, to the best of our
abilities, by January 18. It was time to move to Washington, D.C., and get
ready to take on the job ahead. My diaries begin on that day.
Saturday, January 18, 1969
I arrived last night from New York via Presidential Jet Star with all my bags
—
and boxes. Met the family at the Statler-Hilton all here for the Inaugural.
Today went house-hunting with (my wife) Jo and settled pretty much on
Spring Valley, where Nixon had told us to go. Dinner at Trader Vic's, saw
Billy Graham, who had been at the White House last night with LBJ. Johnson
told him the Nixon Cabinet was the best in history, with HEW Secretary
Robert Finch and Secretary of State William Rogers the stars. He had met and
talked with each one separately.
Then to the gala —a disaster!
Sunday, January 19, 1969

Another day of house-hunting, this time with the family and in a White House
car. Nixon arrived late afternoon. Concert at Constitution Hall, great success.
1 7
1 8 H.R. HALDEMAN
Nixon looked great, thoroughly enjoyed every minute. A great feeling among
the gathering crowds. All the old Nixon troops, the new Administration offi-
cials, etc. Lots of last-minute "getting ready" at the White House so we can
move in with minimum disturbance. Things appear to be pretty well set, all
plans working out reasonably well. Larry Higby (my personal assistant) really
snowed with office assignments, equipment, phones, etc. Tough job for a
23-year old, he's doing great. Rose Woods (RN's longtime personal secretary)
said she cried all the way in from Andrews AFB, crowds along the streets,
triumphal return vs. departure eight years ago.
Monday, January 20, 1969, The Inaugural

Great excitement at the Capitol, Jo and I sat on the platform, first row behind
the Cabinet in front of the diplomatic corps. Cold, but no rain. Family all
down in front under TV stand.
Most outstanding moment: fanfare, Nixon and Pat Nixon come to top of
steps, stand at attention for musical salute. Expression on his face was unfor-
gettable, this was the time! He had arrived, he was in full command, someone
said he felt he saw rays coming from his eyes. Great ovation. Then slowly,
dignified, down the steps to the front of the platform.
Ceremony very good, address outstanding. So many quotable lines, it will
be used over and over. Then "Hail to the Chief" for The President, almost
impossible to believe.
Then to Room 206 for signing the first official papers. P, Mrs. Nixon,
John Ehrlichman (Counsel to the P), Secret Service and clerk. Nominations
for Cabinet and UN. No one had a pen so he used my Pentel to sign them all.
Awkward, no one knew what to say. P very pensive, quiet, drinking cup of
coffee.
Then luncheon, P with Inaugural Committee, we with Cabinet. Secretary
of State William Rogers asked Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans to say
grace.
The parade, P exuberant, reacting to bows, bands, floats, greeting VIP's
in stand. Very cold.
Then to White House —
offices pretty well set up. P to family reception in
Mansion. P called me on the phone, I urged him to come to West Wing to see
his office, fires in fireplaces. That intrigued him, paused, asked like a little kid
"Is the dog there?" (reference to Irish Setter we gave him, not here yet).
The six Inaugural Balls, carried through in fine form. Good witty
speeches, very enthusiastic, friendly, P obviously relishing it all.
And to the White House for the first night.
Tuesday, January 21, 1969

The first day on the job, pretty hectic, family all came to the White House.
Staff reception. P and Mrs. Nixon down grand staircase, "Hail to the
Chief" at the landing. Marine Band in hall, into East Room for brief remarks.
Back to the office, papers to get ready. E and I in with P for an hour,
general discussion before swearing in of staff.
Staff swearing in by Chief Justice Warren. P brief informal remarks,
mainly directed to families of staff. Then lunch with Jo and kids in the Mess
(the White House Staff Mess, a dining facility for the senior staff and their
guests). Good-bye, family back to California.
At end of day P decided to see his office in EOB, so we headed over with
no notice. First took swing through West Wing. Higby led EOB tour. P agreed
on the old Vice President's office, after looking it all over and checking out the
old (LBJ's Consumer Affairs Advisor) Betty Furness corner office. Took tour
through first floor, chatted with staff that were still there (7:00).
The Old Executive Office Building (EOB) is right across a narrow closed
drive from the West Wing of the White House. P had decided he wanted to
have a separate office in that building as a hideaway working office where
he would not be interrupted by the constant activity in and around the West
Wing and the Oval Office. This tour was to select the specific office suite he
would use, and the one he picked was right at the top of the entry stairs and
easily accessible. He used this office a great deal for working alone and for
small private meetings with staff members, as contrasted to his use of the
Oval Office for ceremonial and official meetings.
Wednesday, January 22, 1969

The day started with the Cabinet swearing-in, in the East Room, coffee at 7:30,
ceremony at 8:00. 1 didn't go. Then the first Cabinet meeting at 8:30. P told me
at last minute I should attend. Plan was for me to stay out of these, but he felt
I had to be there. I was called on for several administrative items near the end.
P roared in right on time, announced by Appointments Secretary Dwight

Chapin. Took immediate command, and started on the agenda full tilt with no
nonsense. The Governors distinguished themselves by their compulsion to
talk, whether or not they had anything to say.
There were several former state governors in the new Cabinet: George
Romney of Michigan, John Volpe of Massachusetts, and Walter Hickel of
Alaska, and they all seemed to have trouble adjusting to their new status as
members of the Cabinet instead of chief executive officers.
I was in with P for an hour in the afternoon on myriad of general items,

mainly details. He used the little office for a while. I don't think he liked it.
20 H.R. HALDEMAN
There was a small office next to the Oval Office along a short corridor
connecting the Oval Office to the office I originally used before moving to
my permanent corner office. This short corridor also had a bathroom for
the P, and a small cubbyhole from which a steward operated to provide
coffee and refreshments for the Oval Office.
Teddy White saw him for an hour, for the final session (concerning
White's current book on the making of the President). Then I spent another half
hour getting papers signed. Our staff system is working remarkably well, the
staff work is in on time and usually right. Ken Cole (Staff Secretary, responsi-
ble/or all paperwork and follow-through) is doing a very fine job. Chapin has
yet to get on top of his role, but he's not blowing anything.
This morning I had a fire in my fireplace, and it was a disaster! The
chimney didn't draw, and smoke poured into the office. They had to break
through years of accumulated paint to get my windows open. Rose was furi-
ous, smoke all through the West Wing. Fortunately, I went to the Cabinet
meeting and missed it all. Pat Buchanan (Presidential speechwriter) had his
first meeting with P this afternoon, and discovered when he left after an hour
session about press and TV briefings that his fly was open.
Thursday, January 23, 1969
Our first morning staff meeting with P. Bryce Harlow (Assistant to the P for
Congressional Liaison) and E for about 45 minutes. Mainly about schedule
and general operations. P still getting the feel of the whole thing, but remark-
ably well adjusted.
For the P, as well as for all of us, life in the White House was like entering
an entire new world, although he had been on the periphery for eight years
during his Vice Presidency. He stepped right into the role of president with
great ease, but it was still a totally different position from that of VP. There
were lots of new things to learn every day, and he clearly enjoyed the
process.
Then the first meeting of the Urban Affairs Council and the first major
breakdown of the staff system. Council Director Daniel Patrick Moynihan
wanted the P to sign an Executive Order creating the Council, with pictures,
etc. But he didn't pre-staff the order so we ended up with the Council members
cooling their heels in the Cabinet Room, while E calmly reviewed the order
before approving it for the P.
THE HALDEMAN DIARIES 21
Friday, January 24, 1969

Interior Secretary Walter Hickel sworn in finally. P had some very good gags.
All his own notes. Meeting with Harlow and E, added (Special Advisor to the
President Arthur) Burns and Paul McCracken (Chairman of the Council of
Economic Advisors) about procedures for developing programs. Agreed Burns
would develop directives to implement his program points by the departments.
Also need a Presidential message to Congress about reorganization authority
renewal. P ordered all of us to read Burns' book tonight. Very determined to
get things moving —
wants action. Burns is great, has good effect on P.
Economic Policy group meeting delayed by E, who was held up at the
Mansion with Mrs. Nixon, and was late to P's office to review two executive
orders, one holding up a CAB route case (major impact, first big decision, E
sat on couch in Oval Office imperturbably reviewing the papers while P,
determined to be at Economic Policy meeting on time, fidgeted) and the other
formalizing the Economic Council, which became the Cabinet Committee on
Economic Policy. The order had been drawn at the last minute because this
Committee wanted same status as Urban Affairs and they had an executive
order.
P ready tomorrow, but worried about the White House bar-
for haircut
ber, wanted to know
he really did LBJ and JFK, did he really have full
if
instructions from the P's California barber, etc. Finally set appointment for
3:00 Saturday.
P came up with
the idea of a writer type in each major meeting to do a
memo for hison the tone and flavor of the meeting, and to consult about
file
what to say to press and how to get follow-up mileage.

Wants all ambassadors to resign (as a means of making all posts available
for new Nixon appointees).
Discussed procedure for press-conference preparation. (Briefing) book to
P 6:00 Sunday.
Six and a half hours of NSC (National Security Council) with break for lunch.
The first haircut turned out fine. P says Martini is the best barber yet. I took
huge stack of letters down to barbershop (located in the basement of the West
Wing of the White House, just down the hall from the Situation Room), he
signed during haircut, after callingHarlow to ask how to sign letter to Con-
gress (RN, Dick or Richard Nixon). Liked the barber so much he invited him
to church tomorrow.
President received beautiful silver cigarette box from Bob Gray. Presiden-
tial sealand name on top, date on front, plays "Hail to the Chief" when lid
lifted, most appropriate! Flap in the early morning about Mississippi tor-
nadoes. President called me at breakfast, wanted some action. We released a

22 H.R. HALDEMAN
statement and I called the Governor to tell of President's concern. Can't

declare a disaster because requirements not met.
P wandered into my office and around to others to see what everyone was
doing. Stopped by Press Secretary Ron Ziegler's office on way up from haircut,
during briefing,P spoke to press, said he'd had his first press conference as VP
in thisroom, so maybe Ziegler will be president some day.
P met my new Deputy Assistant, Alex Butterfield, briefly, for first time.
Rather awkward. Will take time to develop.
(National Security Advisor Henry) Kissinger was very enthusiastic about
the way P handled the NSC, K is really impressed with overall performance,
and surprised!

The first White House church services. Very, very impressive. People all
seated in East Room at 10:45, organist playing. Then piano solo. Then Mrs.
Nixon, Tricia, and Mrs. Graham entered from front of room, all stood. A
little more music. Then President and Billy Graham and soloist George Bev-
erly Shea entered. All stood. President to rostrum for brief opening remarks.
Graham conducted service. Lots of kids. White House phone operators.
Most of Cabinet. Short reception in State dining room after — coffee, juice,
and rolls.
Chapin and Alex and I took tour of mansion in the afternoon when
President and family went out for a short drive.
In the evening I took the briefing book to President in his bedroom. He
was sitting by the fire with papers all around, doing his homework.
Monday, January 27, 1969

The first press conference. Staff group met at 7:30 in CabinetRoom (Buchanan
arrived late, and then sat in the P's chair). I presided. Two hours of discussion,
developed an opening statement (which he did not use) and added seven or
Q&A's to the book. Small group (E, Harlow, chief speechwriter Jim
eight
Keogh and K) met with P at 9:30. Supposed to be a half hour but they stayed
until time for press conference.
P very tense at opening, but loosened up and did great job. Excellent
reaction from all sides.
President changed his schedule and went early to the Pentagon, had lunch
with Defense Secretary Mel Laird before briefing.
Formal by Dean of Diplomatic Corps, Sevilla-Sacassa. His entrance
call
was Stood at rigid attention in doorway of Oval Office, clicked his

hysterical.
heels, boomed out "Mr. President!" then went rigid again, with all chins
trembling. Stood that way until P moved forward and broke the spell. Then
came in with big abrazo.
Long discussion about Europe trip plans. P feels must go early before
Vietnam problems set in and Paris talks bog down. Didn't like the picture of
himself that's all over the Defense Department. Too severe.
Pushing for action, wants a barrage of messages to Congress, one a day

for 20 days. Wants a plan of what we'll be doing. Wants decision on whether
to give State of Union, or not. Advisors divided.
Wants people meeting with him to bring their staff people in with them
when appropriate. Wants Chapin to send the girls in with messages, etc., so he
sees more people on the staff more often.
Still loves every minute, and shows it all the time.
Brought the new dog in for a preview visit. P pretty awkward about how
to handle him, basically embarrassed.

Formally presented the new dog, King Timahoe, in Rose Garden after Leaders
Meetings, they all watched. Rose and I brought Tim up to P, press all there.
Lots of gags about picking him up by the ears (as LBJ once did with his
beagle), housebroken, etc. P explained Irish origin of name.
Visit to the House of Representatives. First, small group in Speaker's
office, then on to the floor, long ovation, then members lined up to shake
hands.
Meeting with Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Glenn Seaborg,
who is very concerned about report about new discovery that nuclear bomb
can be made much more easily than had been believed. No one knows this yet,
Seaborg has only told members of the AEC. Could have enormous effect on
world power balance if smaller nations find out, because would give them
potential for nuclear capability without need for stockpile of uranium, etc., as
previously believed. Also long discussion about Plowshare and peaceful use of
atom. P very interested in this, asked lot of questions. Wants to go forward fast
on peaceful uses.

Staff meeting, mainly concerned with getting out reaction to Inaugural. P
wants PR staff to read incoming mail and get a feel of what the people think
and what they react to. Is afraid they (PR staff) are too much influenced by
the columnists, should read and react to people, not columns. Don't get out
of touch. White House provides almost total isolation from the real world.
Need to know what moves and concerns the average guy. Must not be over-
balanced by Washington reaction.
Furious when he discovered there are two prayer breakfasts tomorrow.
Long tirade about self-promoters, etc.
Had Tim in the office, both of them pretty nervous.
24 H.R. HALDEMAN
King Timahoe, an Irish setter, was a gift from the White House staff. It took
Nixon and Tim quite a while to adjust to their new life together. Neither one
was quite sure how to handle a dog in the Oval Office, but it all worked out
well.
Disaster of the day was a leak by Communications Director Herb Klein

about the European trip, made the headlines in the Star tonight. Came out
of a backgrounder breakfast. Herb, of course, denies the quote. Strangely, P
not too upset even though he's been very concerned about keeping the trip a
secret.
Visited the Senate, and the State Department. Both great successes ac-
cording to all reports.
Busy day, the two prayer breakfasts first. (Bob Finch said P was best he had
ever seen him. I told the P later, and he laughed it off, said he had just given
them some "church stufT'.) Then the astronauts for a picture and announce-
ment of (former astronaut) Frank Borman's goodwill tour. Then a CIA-State
meeting. Then appointments, K, Max Fisher (wants to be head of Jewish
relations and handle that whole area), Science Advisor Lee DuBridge with
heads of National Science Foundations (they were ecstatic afterward and
especially impressed with P's understanding and genuine interest).
Finally got Alex in for several sessions. P pretty awkward with stranger
there, but tried to cover it up. He's not very good at that.
P really handles new people well, i.e., the NSF group. Knows just how to
lead them on and establish rapport. Build their interest.
This skill in handling new groups is in stark contrast to his awkwardness,

mentioned above, in having a stranger sit in on meetings with others. One
of many interesting contrasts in Nixon's nature.

Staff meeting with Ehrlichman and Alex. President called me in about the
day's schedule. Upset about visit to reconstruction site. President did recon-
struction site visit (great press) and trip to Pentagon, returning at noon. Had
long session about schedule and called Kissinger and me in. Started by shifting
schedule and personnel responsibilities regarding State from Kissinger to me,
to get Kissinger out of trivia. Lots of problems today. President takes them on
one by one, no sweat.
Great show as three ambassadors arrive to present credentials, troops
along South Drive, trumpeters fanfare from balcony. P went out on porch to
watch departure. Had Tim in the office, can't get him to come over by P's desk,
he's trying dog biscuits, no use.
Long session with Harlow
to schedule meetings with congressmen and
senators. Pgroping to find orderly schedule plan that he likes. Also
still
covered some appointment problems, reviewed mail signing procedure, he

goes back and forth on how much mail he wants to do. Problems with Rose,
not in on things, and the Pat Nixon staff bitching.
Diplomatic reception in the Mansion at 9:00, white tie. P's entrance
spectacular. All guests in East Room. Color guard goes up to second floor,
precedes P and Mrs. Nixon down stairs and into Cross Hall with band playing
processional. P like a little kid, or a wooden soldier, arms stiff, trying not to
look as tickled as he obviously was. Stands behind colors in Cross Hall, is
announced, "Hail to the Chief," follows colors into and through East Room
to Green Room, where he receives. P really ate it up, as at all ceremonies. He
loves being P!
Saturday, February 1, 1969

NSC this morning. Then a session with K about the (upcoming) trip to
Europe.
Session in afternoon with K and Harlow, mainly about ambassadors
and key appointments. Upset by press reports that he's not changing people,
especially in State. Ordered me to have resignations of all non-career ambas-
sadors and all LBJ political appointees on his desk Monday. Said he'll write
them and "accept the resignation with pleasure." Feels we haven't done
enough to get in good new people that are ours. He's right. Problem is need
to deal with Democratic Congress, and P isn't tough enough with his Cabi-
net officers. Won't make them fire incumbents and /or take our political rec-
ommendations. Ehrlichman now in charge of this, we'll see how he can
produce.
Included me in stag dinner at Mansion, 8:00 black tie. Bebe Rebozo,
Hobe Lewis, Jimmy Crosby, Bob Abplanalp, Bob Finch. Tour of second floor
after dinner conducted by P. Gave all historical highlights, thoroughly enjoyed
himself. Remarked tonight is "just our close friends —
all six of them."
At the dinner P frequently returned to the subject of thoughtfulness and

appreciation toward the "little people," i.e., house staff, drivers, etc. Great
contrast from the LBJ family, who gave rise to all kinds of tales about their
terrible arrogance.
26 H.R. HALDEMAN
This point on the LBJ family reflects constant comments we heard from all
levels of the permanent White House staff people regarding the way they felt
they were treated during the Johnson years.
Talked about astronauts' comment that the mood of the White House
was so different, that they felt really uncomfortable when there with LBJ. He
(Johnson) was in a "black mood."
Sunday, February 2, 1969

Church at the White House. Bigger crowd. P added 100 seats. Includes House
and Senate leaders and White House drivers and guards.
P came over to office after lunch, cleared up papers, called me in to talk
about Key Biscayne plans, Bebe there too. He wants to go down this coming
weekend, but only two days available unless we can clear Monday. Also wants
to go the following weeks. Then immediately starts trying to think up excuses
and covers. He's constitutionally unable to say he's taking time off, has to
appear he's working. Said, though, that LBJ told him he spent one year of his
five in office at the ranch. Also DDE (Eisenhower ) told him to take time off.
He just can't bring himself to do it. We'll keep trying. Then he starts worrying
about whether Ziegler has gotten out the story of how hard he's been working,
long hours, etc.
Nixon felt that he should not ever appear to be taking time off from the job
for relaxation or rest. We were therefore required to provide evidence of
constant ongoing activity on the P's part, and in most cases there was
almost constant activity because of the P's preoccupation with his work.
This viewpoint did change somewhat over time as more and more people
advised him of the necessity of not working all the time.
Monday, February 3, 1969

P called tonight very upset by column quoting Klein that we'll be relying
heavily on polls. This problem is always with us. P most anxious to avoid any
appearance of being like LBJ.

P backed off on his threat to Rogers to accept all ambassador resignations
(non-career) today. Did sign a few, put off the rest. Has E working directly
with Rogers, and making some progress.
Still trying to get Tim by his desk, dog biscuits are starting to work. P
decided to use the pool today for the first time, and had me get him a size 36
bathing and a bathing cap because the barber told him the chlorine was
suit,
bad for his hair. We got three of each. Also had Chapin's office get a supply
of dog bones and a water dish, etc.
Tuesday, February 4, 1969

Day started with a problem. He thought a tape from his house dictating
machine was blank, but it turned out to be all right.
Concern about oil quota and Maine free port. Wants to get it out of
Hickel's hands and back to White House.
Decided after talk with CIA Director Richard Helms to visit CIA as well
as AEC. Feels agency and department visits have been very productive.
Amazed no president has done it before (except for official ceremonies).
Also, got to tossing dog biscuits around the office for Tim. One hit the
grandfather clock.
Strange problem with Agnew, who's hired LBJ's top advance man as an
administrative assistant. No one seems to be able to dissuade him, the guy has
turned out to be a total spy, has all the inside poop, etc.
Wednesday, February 5, 1969

Afternoon free for preparation for press conference. P couldn't get right to
work on it though, came into my office, then to Rose's, to try on six pairs of
new shoes. Got the briefing book at 2:00 and started to work about 3:00. Left
for dinner at 6:30, back at 8:10, still there when I left at 10:45.
E and I had knock-down with VP, about his staff and office facilities.
Hard to get anywhere. Afraid we made things worse, and that it will have to
go to P. VP has no concept of P's view of how he should handle the role, and
I don't think he ever will. Real problem about his hiring LBJ advance man. He
sees no reason not to, and apparently intends to buck us all the way.
P also upset because VP got into act at legislative Leaders Meeting and
sided with Congressmen vs. Postmaster Red Blount and the P. (P planned to
take the Post Office out of politics and turn it into a nonpartisan corporation.
Just doesn't get it yet.
Thursday, February 6, 1969

Morning preparation for 11:00 press conference. Another coup. Big concern
about ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile program). Laird had halted program,
announcement in press (leak), but had not discussed with President or NSC,
and had not included this fact in his departmental Q & A material. President
got a question on it and had to toe-dance it, which he did very well, but not
very happy about it afterward.
Met with Pennsylvania Governor Shafer, who came in loaded with two
huge color pictures for P to sign. Had a bundle of things he wanted, and got
28 H.R. HALDEMAN
most. P very inclined to agree with whatever these guys propose, may become
an enormous problem. Someone has got to be in all meetings, if only to
shortstop Presidential commitments.
Met with Congressman Teague about Santa Barbara oil in the ocean. (P)
overreacted again, ordered troops, stop drilling, pull out all stops. Called John
Mitchell and asked him to "bend the law" to permit Hickel to order halt (it
was done).
Friday, February 7, 1969

The day yet for sheer volume of activity. All before 5:00, when we took
busiest
off for KeyBiscayne. Left by helicopter from White House back lawn, pretty
exciting. Poor Tim scared to death. Called me in near end of plane trip to say he
wanted no special cars flown to Europe, and the Secret Service detail cut way
down. Doesn't want to look overprotected. I spent the day getting decks cleared
for Key Biscayne trip. Had long lunch meeting with Ken Cole and Larry about
operation of our group. Problem is how to keep work, people, and calls away
from me and handled by others, and how to avoid the feeling or the fact that
people can't get to me. Also need to improve our internal communication.

Key Biscayne, beautiful weather and almost a day off! Spent the day relaxing,
went out for a short boat ride, says he slept two hours last night and another
two hours on the beach today. P very relaxed, great humor. Impressed by fresh
flowers in all rooms of his house, realized need for this kind of weekend off,
and especially the need for sleep.
President signed his first bill today, House Joint Resolution 414 appro-
priating extra funds for ex-Federal employees. I kept the pen. We won't
announce it until tomorrow because Ziegler has "the lid on" for today.

(At Key Biscayne) Bebe called to say P wanted me and Dr. Walter Tkach
( White House physician) to join them for dinner at 9:00, but I was to come
over then (7:00) to go over some things.
Drinks until almost 10:00, when we ate. Then cigars and coffee in living
room, and talk until midnight. Discussion of daily schedule for P. He's inter-
ested in working out best plan, his primary goal to eliminate as much sleeping
time as possible. Agreed to try daily nap after lunch, plus swim, sauna, sun
lamp and osteopath at 5:30. Doesn't think it will work.
Fascinated by Tkach report of people who need no sleep at all. Hates to
waste the time. Acutely aware of the necessity of being sharp all the time.
Feels, though, that people take breaks to avoid the problems and decision,
not because they need rest. Thinks you have to be "up," not relaxed, to
function best. He's thought a lot about this and is pretty firm in his views.
States no feeling of value of vacation or rest, but realizes that he probably
has to have it.

Usual bits and pieces in the morning meeting. Problems with signals on his
Menzies dinner last night. Served just champagne when should have had
cocktails, 12 in black tie. Also was in family dining room upstairs, so Pat
Nixon and Tricia trapped in their bedrooms. Wants the best decorator to do
EOB office, etc.
Another pretty heavy day, but some time to kill at the end; he wandered
into my office as Larry and I were talking and fireplace was backing up and
smoking. Asked me to take him to K's office, we walked in, startled the
secretaries and interrupted K conference with the German Ambassador. P
joined them. Late night for me, stacks of paperwork, talked with Alex about
system. Have to work it out.

P Moynihan, Finch, Burns, Harlow, and me in at end of day for long
called
discussion ofOEO (Office of Economic Opportunity ) and welfare. Did master-
ful job of forcing them to move to direct action instead of studies. Will
announce next week moving Job Corps to Labor and Head Start to HEW.
Determined to show action, be different. At one point Burns said "just one
word of caution," P quickly said "not too many!"
Each morning K and I start with breakfast to rework schedule and plans for
(upcoming European) trip. Quite a project.
P told me to have (Presidential Assistant Robert) Ellsworth seated next
to Rogers at dinner so Bob could make some hay about NATO. Plan is to
appoint him ambassador. I talked Rogers into it yesterday, but he's not really
sold on it.
I spent another day haranguing Cabinet officers about firing people. Went
pretty well. Also got most of backlog cleaned up. Have started evening staff
meetings with my crew, soon as the P leaves for his swim. Should help. Will
try to set routine, and then get P to let me use the pool, massage, sauna, and
sun lamp.

P pushing at staff meeting for plans to get things rolling. Wants weekly
program with plan for major event every day, especially now a major legisla-
tive proposal every day. Game plans instead of reaction.
)
30 H.R. HALDEMAN
More discussion of Presidential action about campus disorders. Feels

Congress will overreact, and we should get the jump with our own plan.
Later, family, Julie and David, Tricia and Pat Nixon, all came over to
office, P discussed decor, etc., lots of advice, all conflicting.
Big item was meeting planned for Monday with the Soviet Ambassador (Dob-
rynin). Problem arose because P wanted me to call Rogers and tell him of
meeting, but that Ambassador and P would be alone. I did, Rogers objected,
feeling P should never meet alone with an ambassador, urged a State Depart-
ment reporter sit in. Back and forth, K disturbed because Ambassador has
something of great significance to tell P, but if done with State man there word
will get out and P will lose control. Decided I should sit in, Rogers said OK,
but ridiculous. Ended up State man and K will both sit in, but P will see
Ambassador alone for a few minutes first, and will get the dope in written
form. K determined P should get word on Soviet intentions direct so he knows
he can act on it. May be a big break on the Middle East. K feels very
important. (In fact, at the meeting, Dobrynin did indicate a willingness to move
ahead on several fronts. Soon, K and Dobrynin had set up a private channel for
meetings.

P at Camp David this morning. We met with Williamsburg people about
redecorating West Wing. They're very interested, and P wants them to go
ahead. Idea would be to get good authentic reproductions in all staff offices,
antiques in Oval Office. Redo Fish Room, Cabinet Room, etc. Also debated
whether to change my office with Dwight's. Hard to decide which is best.
On return P came to office to work on briefing books. After getting them
all spread out, and his briefcases open on the back table, he called me inand
said good picture possibility. So we called
we should have thought of this as a
in photographers. He had from Camp David about story in
called me earlier
New York Times saying Secret Service was shipping bulletproof cars to
Europe. He has ordered no cars to be sent, and was upset. Later had E come
in (just home last night from Europe) to discuss this. John talked him into
using our Secret Service cars with communications, but not the bulletproof
ones. He's determined not to create image of oversecurity.
P came back to office after dinner, walked into my office, sat down, and
chatted about California summer White House possibility, P very interested.
Also the Williamsburg decorator idea, he thinks it's great and says to go
ahead.
I left at 8:30, P still in office poring over briefing books. This week will be
a tough one because he'll really want to concentrate on getting ready. Glad I'll
be gone.

Lot of talk about demonstrations on the trip. P wants E to hold backgrounder,
and explain we expect them, but are determined not to let a few dissidents get
in the way of the imperative need to communicate.

P still wants to do something about campus disorders problem. Said to have
(conservative speechwriter Pat) Buchanan work on it independently of (Presi-
dential Speechwriter Ray) Price, who's doing radio address. Also very anxious
to get out letters about Job Corps and Head Start to (Labor Secretary George)
Shultz and Finch to demand changes. Kept returning to these points during the
day and into the evening.
Also got cranking on political problem. He's obviously concerned about
reports (especially Buchanan's) that conservatives and the South are unhappy.
Also he's annoyed by constant right-wing bitching, with never a positive
alternative. Ordered me to assemble a political group and really hit them to
start defending us, including Buchanan, ( White House aide John) Sears, Har-
low, E, (Legislative Liaison Assistant Bill) Timmons, (Legislative Liaison
Assistant Ken) BeLieu, Ellsworth, (Political Affairs Assistant Harry) Dent,
(Cabinet Secretary John) Whitaker, Ziegler, Klein, (Staff Assistant Bud) Wil-
kinson. Will meet tomorrow morning.
P planning Duke Ellington's
dinner for birthday, wants to have "all the
jazz greats, like —
Guy Lombardo" oh well!
P wants me to hold regular staff meetings like Sherman Adams did, feels
we need the participation level raised in the staff. Probably right, but I hate to
do it.
P came into my office in the evening to chat about the California residence
possibility. He's very interested and I think he'll go ahead.
P pushing hard for student statement, decided finally to release a letter to

(Notre Dame President) Father Hesburgh. Also annoyed that positive Repub-
lican response unit in Congress is not working. No good reaction to OEO
move, electoral reform, etc. Harlow slipping on this.
P spent most of the day on the briefing books again. I had to interrupt a
number of times with things to be signed. Noticed one time that the book he
was diligently studying was a hardware catalogue open to the section on
shower heads.
Cloud on the horizon. DDE having problems with intestine. They were
going to operate, but decided not to, because they are afraid he'd die on the
table. Talked to P, he decided we'll abort the (Europe) trip if and when
anything happens. Truman also has been ill, but is apparently OK now.
32 H.R. HALDEMAN
Have everything pretty well cleared up for departure tomorrow. Looks as

if I'll have a fairly free ride on the trip. Others have everything under control.

The high point of the daywas Haldeman's disaster. The P's helicopter was
scheduled to depart the White House lawn at 7:28 for Andrews then depar- —
ture ceremonies —then take off at 8:00. 1 ordered a car for 7:00 since we (staff)
were due White House at 7:20. Set my clock for 6:30 and went to bed.
at
In the morning my signal phone rang and woke me up from a dead sleep.
It was the garage asking if I still wanted my car to stand by. I looked at the
—
clock it was 7:30. 1 frantically leaped up, still in a daze, and started throwing
clothes on. The phone rang again at 7:31. (Military Assistant) Don Hughes
from the helicopter asking where I was. Told him I couldn't make it for at least
five minutes and to go ahead without me. He said he'd send another helicopter
—
back for me in five minutes.
I finished dressing, slapped on some shaving cream and gave a quick
once-over with the razor, ran down to the car, and headed for the White
House. En route, driver said they had an escort ready to drive me out to
Andrews, we checked on radio to confirm helicopter and canceled escort. It
—
was snowing slushy type.
As the car drove up the South Drive, the helicopter was just landing on
the lawn. I jumped out, ran to helicopter, the door opened, Marine saluted, I
sat down, door closed, we took off. Fastest helicopter takeoff I've ever seen.
Barreled to Andrews, landed by Air Force One, Honor guard was just dispers-
ing. P was aboard. I ran up rear ramp into P's cabin, they closed the door, and
we took off. Airborne at 7:58, less than a half hour from when my phone first
rang. Naturally, everyone was in great state of glee, although all were most
understanding. P just said good morning as I walked through his cabin.
P worked all the way, mostly alone, a little with K and Rogers. K very
impressed with P's complete grasp and understanding of briefing materials and
the fact he had drawn his own conclusions —
contrary to those in briefings.
Arrived Brussels precisely on time at 9:00. King Baudouin and many
dignitaries on hand. Fairly large crowd of students (?) on roof of terminal
chanting in French. We thought they were unfriendly at first, especially when
they kept chanting all through National Anthem. But they stopped when King
and P spoke, and cheered both. Then they reviewed the troops.
At the end of the line of troops a lovely white tent had been erected for
the VIP reception. After return to hotel, P went to bed but not to sleep. Staff
stayed up working on schedule and speeches and cards for tomorrow. As I
walked out of Hughes' room at about 2:15 AM, P opened his door across the
hall, in his pajamas, and asked me to get the speaking copy of his address to
NATO tomorrow. I just happened to have it in my hand, having just picked

it up from Rose, and handed it to him forthwith, which dumbfounded him. He
stayed up, sitting in bed working, until well after 3:00 AM, as I took in several
schedules, etc., that he wanted.
Monday, February 24, 1969 — Brussels
I slept in, the P left at 9:00 for NATO. I guess it went well, although K felt he
was too verbose in his responses. He stayed Vi hour beyond scheduled time, so
was late for Tomb and Palace. (A wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier and an "intimate" lunch with the King and Queen and 100 others)
I went to airport with K and (my travel secretary, Elmer) Juanich for a
special meeting in plane (only secure area). Very interesting discussion about
important future possibility —can't be identified until later.
This meeting on Air Force One, parked at the Brussels airport, was so secret
at the time that was afraid to say anything more than the above entry, even
I
in this highly secretand protected diary. At the meeting K, his deputy, Al

Haig, and a Pentagon planning officer worked out guidelines for a proposed
plan for bombing North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. P had de-
cided on the plane to Belgium to order this bombing as a response to the
North Vietnamese countrywide offensive that they launched the day before
we left. I was not normally a participant in this sort of meeting, especially
in these early days of the Administration —but in this case I attended in
place of the P because it was felt he could not attend himself without
attracting attention — and he and K wanted someone present other than the
military planners.
Then departure ceremonies at the airport and we're off for London, with
the lost time made up.
Arrived on time at Heathrow, met by Prime Minister Wilson and military
honors.P left direct from airport with Prime Minister to Chequers for dinner.
Too foggy to use helicopters so had to drive.
Beautiful hotel accommodations. Real old-fashioned elegance. Lovely
suites, huge bathrooms with directly overhead showers, monstrous tubs,
heated towel racks, bidets, Great service and real style. I am in part of the
etc.
P's suite, with a separate hallway, bedroom, sitting room, and bath. Great!
Feels like we're in an armed camp. Threats of demonstrations in Gros-
venor Square have brought out more police than even New York produces,
many of them on horses, all unarmed. Group of us, with State Department
officials, had dinner in hotel dining room, then went out to scout demonstra-
tions. Pathetically small and ineffectual group, contained in a little square,

totally surrounded by police who outnumber them at least 50-1. They are
34 H.R. HALDEMAN
shouting and will be a real problem for sleeping if they keep it up. This is going
to be a problem from here on, I guess.
P arrived about an hour late (from dinner with Prime Minister Wilson),
got into the hotel with no problem, and the demonstrators all dispersed. Now
we're left with just armies of cops.
He called me in to review the trip so far, was in his pajamas. Made point
that two major purposes of trip are: 1) to establish with the free world leaders
a clear picture of Nixon as the leader and 2) to present to people of United
States the clear picture of Nixon as free world leader and so accepted. Thus far
he's sure accomplishing this in fine fashion.
The next several dayssaw a whirlwind of meetings and ceremonies with

British leaders in London, German leaders in Bonn, and Italian leaders in
Rome. All went well at all official stops, the crowds were enthusiastic, and
we were little troubled by demonstrators for the rest of the trip. At one stop
in Berlin, for instance, my diary notes "The antidemonstrations never
materialized. Perhaps because of the huge numbers of police. There was one
group of Maoists (we were told) with anti-war signs and somewhere some-
one threw a brick that hit Dan Rather. But this was really insignificant
against the overall day."
The highlight of the trip was our visit to Paris.
Friday, February 28, 1969— Paris

Arrived in midaftemoon. De Gaulle very cordial. Greeted P in English which
is very unusual. Usual ceremonies, only the French do it with more style. De
Gaulle, in welcoming speech, referred to his people's and his personal pleasure
with the statesman the American people had selected as their leader. P re-
sponded with very warm words, about American relations with France and
ended with "Vive la France." De Gaulle started to applaud at English version,
then waited for translation.
On drive in from airport, many police, as everywhere, all roads completely
cleared in both directions, kind of eerie. Huge motorcycle escort. A few people
along the way, but not many. Went Quai D'Orsay, beautiful palace
directly to
and lovely quarters. I have a corner room, blue cloth walls, white and gold
trim, huge room, high ceilings, great chandelier. Bathroom is also a corner
with huge windows. Big bathtub with rack holding sponge, Chanel soap, and
thermometer. Really luxurious living. Also an array of French cigarettes and
a beautiful leather holder with Cuban cigars.
Arc de Triomphe. While waiting for depar-
Left shortly after arrival for
ture (US Ambassador to France, and Kennedy brother-in-law) Sargent Shriver
introduced me to Foreign Minister Couve de Murville, and we had quite a
chat. Drive down Champs Elysees was disappointing to me, not very many
people, and even less enthusiasm. Quite a contrast to Berlin, and even to
Rome. A few hecklers along the way, the police really pounced on them.
Barricades on all streets and lots of police.
Ceremony Arc went well, usual routine. Then P went to meet with de
at
Gaulle. E and went to Embassy to do some business, then back to Quai.
I
Apparently meetings went well, P in great spirits when he returned.

Tonight may well have been his finest hour. At de Gaulle's dinner, the
General's toast was warm, eloquent, and way beyond the need of protocol.
The P's response was absolutely superb. He really built up France and de
Gaulle in beautiful style. I was seated next to Madame Billotte, wife of the
General who was de Gaulle's Chief of Staff during the war. She said at the end
of dinner that she felt we had seen the making of history tonight, and she was
quite overcome and most sincere. It would appear that at least a giant step has
been taken toward the principal goal of this trip.
The dinner was the best of all. The French seem to handle things the best
of any country we've visited. Eighty-eight were at the one long table, small
orchestra in the wings for dinner music. All guests at their places, then de
Gaulle and P made their entrance with music playing. Very impressive.
Before dinner we assembled in the salon. The two Presidents came into the
next room, we went in one by one, announced with title, to meet them, then
into next room for drinks, champagne, port or martinis. After dinner they first
served liqueurs, then trays of orange juice and grapefruit juice, then cham-
pagne. Only two hors d'oeuvres before dinner and those very skimpy (there
were none in Italy or Germany).
Beautiful palace courtyard entrance, guards with swords at salute, red
carpet up steps, etc. I sat between Mme. Billotte (above) and Mme. Lucet, wife
of the Ambassador to the United States. Both spoke perfect English, but I had
an interpreter (pretty young girl) who sat behind me all through dinner and —
before and after. Would have sure helped last night in Rome.
Saturday, March 1, 1969

We left the Quai by motorcade (after breakfast in State Dining Room) for
Versailles. All the roads en route completely closed off in both directions, and
uniformed guards at attention every fifty yards, the entire way. Also many
plainclothesmen along the route and scattered back through the woods, espe-
cially in Bois de Bologne.
Arrived at Le Grand Trianon, met at steps by de Gaulle. He and P went
right in to start their talks.
P didn't get back to the Quai until after 6:00, so put in a nine hour
working day, before the U.S. State Dinner at the Residence. Then left at 7:45
for the dinner. K says that talks went extremely well and that our mission is
accomplished.
The big issue now is the Berlin blockade. They lowered the gate, and so
we are now sending extra convoys down the autobahn at an increasing rate to
36 H.R. HALDEMAN
call their bluff. We are prepared to fight our way through if necessary. Four
convoys got through today and we're sending eight tomorrow, and then 100 +
vehicles on Monday. The point is to build up our average daily volume, so if
there is a civilian blockade, we'll have a higher level of allowable military traffic
which we feel they will not try to cut off.
The East Germans had threatened a new Berlin crisis if the West Germans
held an election for their new President in West Berlin. The Soviets refused
to allow the East Germans to create a crisis, however, so they basically
made a pain of themselves by blocking the autobahn and conducting joint
maneuvers on the border. They also stopped some shipments from going
across the border, calling them "military goods."
As for the future possibility referred to in Brussels, it has had to be called

off because State will not accept responsibility, and risk otherwise is too great.
K very disappointed.
This refers to the plan for bombing Cambodia which was developed at the
Brussels airport. While it was, at this point, called off, it was later imple-
mented.
Dinner at the Residence worked out pretty well, but there were too many
people (about 80) for the house to handle comfortably. Toasts were again very
warm and considered very significant. De had increased
Gaulle said this visit
his admiration of P — if watch Eunice Shriver

that were possible. Interesting to
last night and tonight, she obviously hates seeing Nixon as President. She
talked to herself and winced all through the toasts, both nights, and must have
been thinking back to JFK. His visit here was all ceremony and no substance.
But it was a great show and made an indelible impression. Tomorrow we leave
for Rome (a meeting with the Pope), then home.
Sunday, March 2, 1969

( After fascinating morning meeting with the Pope and Vatican staff members),
trip home was uneventful. P slept a little but spent most of the time talking to
Rogers and staff. Some of us tried the bunks, they're pretty good.
Colorful arrival ceremonies at Andrews, with Cabinet, Congress leaders,
troops, etc.Poor Agnew slipped on the icy runway during troop review and
smashed his nose. Then went on TV to introduce P with huge cut on nose
bleeding profusely. Then helicopter to White House.
Couple of sidebars: K's great delight in finally "one-upping" Hughes by
asking him during troop review at Paris if his "bag of gold" got on the plane
all right. K's reaction to announcement of Apollo shot tomorrow, "Well, I'm
not going." K's note to Ziegler at some meeting that said, "Don't worry,
they're taking the speakers in alphabetical order." Henry swings from very
tense to very funny. He's getting into the swing of things pretty well.
Wednesday, March 5, 1969

Long staff E and Harlow and Alex this morning because P
meeting with
involved with NSC. Decided on some major changes in operations. Will start
daily staff meetings of all top staff, for a half hour in morning, to see if we can
solve communication problem. Probably will shift fairly quickly to Monday,
Wednesday, Friday. Also agreed we need a czar for domestic like K in national
security and decided it should be E. Now have to implement.
Spent lot of time with P as he floundered through the day. Letdown from
trip and press conference has set in. NSC was about all he could handle, he
canceled a couple of appointments. Was rambling on about lots of trivia,
wants Lincoln portrait over fireplace instead of Washington, discussed plans

for EOB office, staff odds and ends.
Came up with idea of going to Manchester, New Hampshire, on March
12, anniversary of New Hampshire primary.
Still worried about PR side, thinks we need another man to propagandize
while Ziegler handles straight briefings.
Got great telegrams reacting to press conference last night. But thinks we
don't adequately get out the story.
Good meeting with Rogers Morton. Pepped the P up with his enthusiasm.
He needed it. Decided to walk around at EOB, see people. Dropped by Klein's
offices and the writer group. Looked at his space again, and said to go ahead
with plans for redecorating.
Friday, March 7, 1969

P presented his first Congressional Medals of Honor today. Ceremony in the
East Room, with the Marine Band, families, etc. He did a marvelous job of
personalizing the presentation, and broke from the script to have the families
each come up for a picture afterward.

E and I to P's (in Key Biscayne) long two hour talk on his personal
at 10:00,
finances, the California property, and a few brief notes on business. K called
me early in great distress because Rogers had reversed United States policy in
his talk with Dobrynin yesterday. K feels it is disastrous and is really upset, but
will spend today developing recovery plan and come down tomorrow to see P.
K feels the policy question is so serious that if continued he'll have to leave.
Can't preside over destruction of Saigon government. Feels we have great
38 H.R. HALDEMAN
chance to take hard line and Rogers gave it away. Spent rest of the day in the
sun and sailing. Tough.
K felt that Rogers had given Dobrynin the stance that the U.S. wasn't fully
backing the Thieu government, by alluding that we would stop the private
talks with the North Vietnamese. K also felt this would lead to the destruc-
tion of Saigon, and was against current policy.
K called to say had canceled Sunday strike(the Cambodia bombing) and

(Deputy Defense Secretary David) Packard very disturbed, wanted to call P,
feels we're wrong, should go ahead. K will figure out recommendation and call
P this afternoon. Rogers still opposed and he reflects establishment press view.
K feels better to be clobbered now by Times etc. if it will help end war sooner.
He thinks it will. Rogers is right about immediate reaction, but not for long
haul. Have to do it before starting private talks.
Monday, March 10, 1969

Still in Key Biscayne. K came down this morning to meet with P. K and I had
talk first.He is still very upset about the Rogers /Dobrynin meeting because he
feels Rogers, in reversing our policy about private talks with North Vietnam
about political matters as well as military, has seriously jeopardized our nego-
tiating ability and our chance toend the war. Especially bad because it follows
right on their shelling of Saigon, and at a time when Soviets are in trouble with
China at the border.
I suggested he try to turn this to advantage by a maneuver designed to
totally confuse the Soviets, and he thinks this may be possible. K agreed not
to raise with P the question of his leaving. The matter
hand has to be settled
at
on its merits, then if he loses he's got that one additional move. Real problem
is his conviction that Rogers' self-interest is so paramount that he can't ade-
quately serve the P. K suggests only solution is Rogers in as Chief

to put
Justice. Too bad this situation exists. I feel K is and don't know
basically right,
how he'll handle it to his own satisfaction, but there must be a way.
Tuesday, March 11, 1969

Well, the first crisis appears to be building. ABM decision will be tough.
P felt that the construction of an system was a

antiballistic missile defense
arms control talks. The
crucial bargaining chip in the forthcoming Soviet
doves hated it, though, and many moderates were disturbed by the cost. It
was shaping up to be a real donnybrook.
He has to go ahead from defense viewpoint but pressure against is enor-

mous and growing under great pressure. DuBridge was in today to argue
scientist's viewpoint that small increase in defense doesn't justify huge expendi-
ture and popular and political risk. Harlow has advised P that Congressional
passage is in real doubt, and will require all-out battle on part of P. Question
whether he's really willing and ready to fight.
P urged me to cut schedule back as much as possible to give him time to
talk with key individuals, instead of meetings and trivia. He's realized it's
tough. Plans now for a Friday morning press conference to announce decision.
Even canceled NSC
tomorrow. Part of problem is Congressional recep-
for
working time.
tions every night that cut into
Hard for P to stay on the big issues, he keeps hacking away at PR
concerns, especially in the domestic program area. Moynihan points out that
he can 't have a Domestic Program. Not any money available, and politically
impossible anyway. Better just to try to get rid of the things that don't work,
and try to build up the few that do.

Big flap about proposed Ambassador to Canada. Turned out to be a guy P had
met in '67 in Argentina. He was Ambassador there, and Nixon stayed at
residence, he left anti-Nixon literature and Herblock cartoons on bedstand. So
now P has blocked this appointment, or any, for this guy. Shows how things
can come back to haunt you.
Thursday, March 13, 1969

Started out badly. P overslept and didn't get into the office until after 9:30.
Immediately buzzed for me to raise hell because the press conference briefing
book (due at the Residence at 8:00 last night) had not arrived, but was on his
office desk. I had blown it by going out to dinner with Higby before Buchanan
brought over the book. Pat just left it on my desk, assuming I'd be back, and
it was still there in the morning. I explained to P. Then he discovered he had
10:00 appointment with (AFLGeorge Meany (which he thought
President)
had been canceled). Then there was the problem of the Labor Manpower
statement which he refused to approve and ordered rewritten, with hardly any
time left. Then he had to meet with Laird (just back from Vietnam) and put
out a wire to the astronauts (after deciding not to phone them). All this when
he thought he was going to have the day free to prepare.
When this was finally all done, about 12:45, he buzzed and told me he was
not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. We left him alone. Did go in once to
give him Bryce's message from DDE (Bryce had been summoned to the hospital)
that he totally disapproved of ABM and urged no deployment. This after I'd
been chewed out in the morning for giving him (Special Consultant Len)
Garment's anti-ABM memo (didn't want arguments after decision made).
40 H.R. HALDEMAN
I had a key staff meeting in the afternoon to "game plan" the whole ABM
reaction program. Assigned contacts, etc. Fascinating to see scope of what we
have to cover to lay adequate groundwork for using our support and blunting
the opposition. Tension fairly high as everyone realizes explosive potential of
the whole issue. I think if we handle it right we'll come out OK, but this is
clearly the first tough test. P is concerned and edgy, but I'll bet he brings it off
well, although it will be a pretty unpopular decision.

Today was ABM day, finally! P started with bipartisan Leaders Meetings to
give them the background. Then an hour of preparation, then the press confer-
ence at noon. P had heavy afternoon of appointments and was obviously
pleased with his performance. The tension of the last few days was gone and
he was really relaxed and cheery. At one point I got in for fifteen minutes to
check quickly on a couple of items, and in that period he signed at least 20 to
25 commissions, nominations, etc., and talked to five congressmen to thank
them for their ABM
support, and approved the whole plan for the California
trip. Really amazing what he can accomplish when he really cranks, vs. the
usual time-wasting. And he was great on the phone, hitting exactly the right
point with each guy.

Another day off, more or less. Took Jo to White House Church Service, then
some time in West Wing with the Williamsburg people about decorating. Then
off for a more house-hunting before the ladies' replay of the Gridiron.
little
Then from White House for surprise birthday party for Pat Nixon.
there to
Beautiful party, she was really surprised. Made grand entrance with family to
what she thought was stag party. Had all the close friends, receiving line,
dinner at round tables in State dining room. Highlight was Singing Strings
during dessert, then toasts. As P started first toast after cake came in, Pat said,
"Wait until I blow out the candles." Tricia and Julie arranged, and it worked
out very well!

St. Patrick's Day. Received Irish Ambassador in Roosevelt Room.
Historic day. K's "Operation Breakfast" finally came off at 2:00 PM our
time.
This was the working title for the Cambodian bombing operation that had
been set up at the airport in Brussels, then turned on and off several times
in view of new developments. The final decision was made at a meeting in

the Oval Office Sunday afternoon, after the church service
K really excited, as was P. Early reports only that it was underway.

Still can't get a P statement about campus problems put together. Widely
varying views within staff. Also great confusion in trying to get volunteer
program squared away. Poor E has to untangle all this and Arthur Burns is
now driving him nuts, as he did me (and still does).

K's "Operation Breakfast" a great success. He came beaming in with report,
very productive. A
more secondaries than had been expected. Confirmed
lot
early intelligence. Probably no reaction for a few days, if ever.
Tough (posthumous) Medal of Honor ceremony when a mother broke
down, and so did everyone else. Apparently P closed formal remarks with
typical Nixon very personal remark that did it. Hughes had to come into my
office to recover. P furious with press for taking pictures of her.

P had tried to start his "clear policy today, but we had to load
Wednesday"
in a batch of appointments morning. Afternoon was clear. Problem with
this
giving the P free time is that he hauls me in for hours on end, about four total
today. Lots of little details, and the two always present big ones, and ABM
budget. Plans to hit the Cabinet hard tomorrow on budget after (Budget
Director Robert) Mayo's briefing, P will call executive session and really push
for cuts. He's particularly bothered by Finch, because he's apparently not
cutting at all.most of the others are at least trying.
Feels
Romney wants appointment, but P won't see him until
really stirred up,
his volunteer program is fully worked out. Poor E has to handle and George
ain't easy. Is reaching the crisis stage, with threats of quitting, etc.
Long discussion about ABM battle plans. P feels we aren't really orga-
nized to push it through. Wants a complete plan. He's right!
Then on to need for a domestic program, the other of the week's big three
problems. E promises the raw material for review on the plane to California,
but I think we're a long ways from what P wants, i.e., a specific legislative
program. According to Moynihan, this is neither feasible nor desirable, time

now to consolidate, not to innovate. But Congress pressures (and the colum-
nists) for action, and P reacts.
Planning to take more time off, per the last advice from DDE. Hope he
does it.
42 H.R. HALDEMAN
Cabinet meeting, mainly to hit them on the budget. First a long briefing and
discussion about ABM. Laird briefed, then P got into quite a dialog with
various members. He went a bit far in his desire to convince them that we have
very valid reasons for the decision and revealed a lot of highly classified
information about pictures. I interrupted and pointed out the nature of the
material.
It was sometimes a problem for P to sort out in his own mind the various
levels of classification of the information he received. This was perfectly
understandable because he was the constant recipient of all sorts of infor-
mation from all sorts of sources. Much of it was classified material, and
much of that was classified at the highest level of secrecy. When P got into
a heated or intense discussion of some issue, he occasionally used highly
classified material to make his point, without realizing that his audience at
the moment was not cleared for this level of secrecy. This, in effect, declassi-
fied the material, much to the consternation of the "keepers of the flame"
of national security.
Main thrust was that we have to have real military superiority and defense
as a base for negotiations. P stated flatly that war will be over by next year,
but that it must be understood that next four to five months will be very tough
because we have to take public position that outlook is tough, while we
etc.,
negotiate in private. Rogers said his answer to criticism that we have no

planned strategy is that we do have one and that it is that we will not tell
anyone what it is. Based on position that the only productive negotiations are
the private ones, and as soon as we tell anyone about them, they're not private.
Still a stir about Domestic Program. Not organized right yet. Burns and
Moynihan both feel strongly that P not putting enough time or attention on
this and that nothing will be settled until he does. I think they're right. This
morning he flatly rejected Head Start and Job Corps proposals without even
really reading them. Just wants them changed —
or preferably abolished.
P comments to Cabinet, about the need for military strength as a basis for
successful negotiating, the intellectuals are all opposed to this approach, "It's
only us nonintellectuals who understand what the game is all about."

Trudeau arrived via the "inclement alternate" because of rain. (Inclement
alternate refers to having to use the North Portico of the White House for State
arrivals instead of the South Lawn.) P had called me at home three or four
times last night about assignments for State dinner, to change from round
tables to "E" (formation).
Doctors say DDE failing fast, probably go today or tomorrow. Family
has been called to hospital. Tricia and Julie are going to go over.
A few periods of sort of spare time. He called me in and just kind of
chatted. Complained in a way about some speech material, but in a very
understanding way. Pretty mellow. As he left in the evening, he said, "Well, I
have to go rest a little before tonight's ordeal (the State dinner). " Actually I
think he'll really enjoy it.
Flap with Chapin over lousy staffing of proposal for P to drop by NAB
meeting tomorrow. I overreacted as usual, but we do need to tighten up.

5:00 meeting with Devine's dissident GOP congressmen (Samuel L. Devine
was a conservative Republican congressman from Ohio). P opened with 35
minute oration on the office, emphasized priorities, first, settle the war; second,
establish law and order; third, stop inflation and settle the economy. Said P
must concentrate on these, can't worry about all the little side issues. Pointed
out that if these settled, all else will be well, if not, nothing will be well. Got
into long discussion of OEO and poverty war, determined to change it, and so
committed.
E and had a knockdown with Arthur Burns at lunch. Pretty bitter
I
discussion, didn't settle the problem of getting a domestic program. Burns

still
determined to run the show, but it's obvious he can't manage. Tough one for
John. P later said again E has to ride herd on this, because Arthur will never
get it done. We're at a period of internal dissension. Bryce is worn to a frazzle
and so is Burns. John and I are probably pushing too hard, as a result of P
pushing on us. Need to get back together, but hard to do when everyone is
tired and edgy.

This was the day Dwight Eisenhower died.
The morning was occupied with details and an NSC meeting. The after-
noon had been left clear for personal time. P had me in quite a while before
NSC, mainly on wanting to take stronger action on obscenity. Wants to move
ahead with Justice on strong program, fast. Even decided he'd go to a play in
New York where they take off clothes, and get up and walk out, to dramatize
his feeling.
After NSC, at about 12:20, he went into Oval Office with Mel Laird.
12:25, had just stepped out into the hall, ran into Tkach who said DDE had
1
died. The two of us went into the Oval Office through the hall door. I went on
in. P was at his desk, Laird in chair at the side. Laird started to say something,
44 H.R. HALDEMAN
P asked if P told him. Both were quiet for a

he'd heard Tkach, he hadn't.
minute. Then P some funeral details. He then got up, said
started talking about
to have Rogers, Harlow and K come in, then stood looking out the window.
I told Chapin to get the others. P then started to cry, just standing there. Then
he walked slowly, still crying, into the little hall, stood there and sobbed, said
"He was such a strong man," went into little office for a few minutes. Then
came back into Oval Office, others were there by then, standing awkwardly. P
still had tears, and red eyes, talked with them aimlessly then sat on the edge
of the desk, half crying and described in detail his last visit to DDE. Harlow
commented on how DDE has seen all his checkpoints, the nomination, the
election, the wedding (of David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon), the Inaugural,
the P's success and John's (his son's) appointment as Ambassador. So he
could go freely now. Rogers by now also has tears.
Things then turned to plans and arrangements. P decided to go right to
hospital to see Mrs. Eisenhower. Then found Pat Nixon had not been told, so
he called her. Also talked to Tricia. Asked others in room to go with him to
hospital. Had to wait until public announcement, Then we left. I rode
at 12:45.
in staff car. Pat Nixon and Tricia with P. Some people on streets, but most
didn't know yet.
At the hospital I stayed downstairs and used the time on the phone about
arrangements. Set up details about timing, plan for Camp David this after-
noon, guests for funeral, etc.
I rode with Nixons on the way back. Pat Nixon strongly opposed going
to Camp David, but P firm and had me argue for it. Swung Tricia over. Not
Mrs. Nixon!
Back at White House all regrouped in Oval Office for further discussion
about foreign visitors, and overall plans. Some confusion, but all pretty well
organized. No way to know how many coming.
Interesting sidelight, before going to hospital had to sign proclamation,
etc.: Debate about which day for official mourning. P had previously decided
on Sunday. Others argued for Monday. So I changed the proclamation after

he had signed it, and had him initial the change.
Also we decided, and P approved, to let employees off for balance of day.
Later found there's a law that prohibits P giving time off in honor of death of
former government official. Got around it (after the fact) by using basis that
DDE is five-star general and died in office since it is a permanent rank. So
we're legal.
At Camp David, P took me into Aspen (cabin at Camp David) for brief
tour.
This was my first of what were to become many visits to the Presidential
retreat at Camp David in the Catoctin mountains of Maryland. Weekends
at Camp David became a regular presidential routine when we were in
Washington. This beautiful, rustic facility is a Navy base, with all the
needed communications and services backup for the P, and was an ideal
spot for the P and his family to relax or work in comfortable quiet and
seclusion. It also turned out to be a great place for the senior staff to work
uninterrupted by the many diversions that inevitably arose at the White
House.
Asked to have barber brought up (on chopper with Bebe). Then settled
down, and I left for my cabin.
He called me over to give him the texts of the proclamation, etc. Talked
for a few minutes about arrangements. He was in sport jacket, sitting by the
big window. Fire crackling.
He called Julie, at the White House, to ask about time of TV specials.
Mrs. Eisenhower was there and came on phone. Thought P was in his office.
When Camp David, she said that was Ike's favorite spot in
he said he was at
the world and she was so glad the P was there. P explained he was working on
eulogy, and wanted to get away. They had a fairly long and good chat, which
obviously affected him emotionally.

The first Eisenhower funeral day. Dawned bright and sunny at Camp David.
Chapin and I took long walk after breakfast around whole camp perimeter.
Brisk, cold, a little snow left from last night. Lots of exercise (bowled four lines
yesterday afternoon with Chapin and Chuck Larson and the Camp Com-
mander). Then Chapin and I had a long talk about operations, people, etc.
P slept fairly late, then worked with Ray (Price). Feeling better but still
obviously under the weather. Chopper back at 1:00. Brief spell in office.
Left in P motorcade at 2:45 for National Cathedral, streets cleared, light
snow, dreary. People all along way. Impressive ceremony to bring casket out
of cathedral into hearse. I rode in second car behind P, with Tkach and Ziegler.
Ahead of P were 15 Eisenhower family cars. Motorcade back to Washington
Monument, stopped there to change to caisson. Lots of people on all the
streets. No great sadness, mainly appeared to be curious. Lots of cameras.
Impressed by many who saluted P car as it passed (flags on bumpers, with
black streamers above). Constitution Avenue was jammed for cortege route.
Someone really screwed up on schedule, ended up one and a half hours
late. Allowed no time for getting into and out of cars, and motorcade was a
mile long, all the heads of state, Cabinet, etc. Arrived at Capitol for another
impressive ceremony as casket carried up steps. Great hymn, 21 gun salute,
poor bearers had tough job on steps.
P very good on eulogy in rotunda. Read it (had called me this morning
to be sure he had lighted podium). Hughes said he broke down in hall after
leaving rotunda. The whole thing has been pretty tough on him, topped by not
feeling well.
46 H.R. HALDEMAN

The second Eisenhower funeral day. The day of mourning. General de
official
Gaulle arrived at ten for his appointment. Semiformal arrival, no troops on the
drive or trumpets, just a cordon at the diplomatic entrance. The P met the car
at the driveway, they posed for pictures briefly, de Gaulle gave the signal to
move, and they went in for the meeting. It lasted almost an hour, was sched-
uled for a half hour. Just barely got de Gaulle out the drive before (King)
Baudouin (of Belgium) arrived.
Same arrival ceremony for the King, and in for his meeting. Both of these
scheduled today because they can't stay until tomorrow.
Then on to the funeral. Picked up casket at Capitol, with full honors,
drove to Cathedral, full honors, good service, back out, full honors, to Union
Station, full honors, and on to train. P had no part except to move along, at
the back of the motorcade. I again rode in staff car. I was right there at every
step of the way.
Back to White House just in time for reception. We did a good job of
organizing and it went very well. P received heads of all delegations, about an
hour, then went upstairs for private meetings with key people who aren't
coming in tomorrow. Mme. Ky was spectacular in purple outfit; Russian
Marshall equally so in his uniform with rows and rows of ribbons. De Gaulle
came and was first through the line. He stayed until the P went upstairs, but
left that instant. Stickler for the "right" thing. Battle of striped pants went on,
State Department-types wore theirs, P didn't.

P pretty tired, but in good mood. Taking all this in stride. Tomorrow will
be tough.
SECOND QUARTER: APRIL-JUNE
Tuesday, April 1, 1969

Chiefs of State day. P came in late, and buzzed. E and I went in, reviewed quite
a few things right up to 10:00 when the first visitor was due. P spent the whole
day main heads of state that were here for the funeral.
until 6:30 seeing the
E came was due then at house for dinner with Don Nixon
in at 7:00 (P
and his daughter), to report on problems with Don Nixon. Don Kendall had
spent half the day on this. Don Nixon still holding out for more dough, plus
extracurricular earnings and fees.
Don Kendall, head of PepsiCo, had agreed to provide suitable employment

for the P's brother, Don Nixon, as a favor to P. As has often been the case,
the P's brother found it difficult to live in the limelight and shadow of his
brother and Kendall was trying to help alleviate this problem.
Wednesday through Sunday, April 2-6, 1969

Palm Springs and Key Biscayne. No contact with P for the entire period. E
covered through Friday night, Harlow through the weekend. Good break. P
had whole family down for the weekend. Big domestic policy meeting Friday,
apparently quite successful.
This was the Easter period, and a chance for P to get to Florida for a few
days of needed rest. I took advantage of the opportunity to join my family,
who were still in California. They did not move to Washington until after
the end of the school year in June.
47
48 H.R. HALDEMAN
Monday, April 7, 1969

Wants to write off the senators that oppose ABM, i.e., Percy (Illinois),
Goodell (New York), (already written off Javits) and Congressman Mac
Mathias. E suggests way to "get" Percy is not to let him be chairman of his
housing foundation.
Press trying to build up idea of internal feud: E vs. me. Hard to sell, but
Evans and Novak giving it a try, to great glee of some White House Staff. I
think we'll shake down into better defined roles, but don't feel that is really
necessary. We have excellent rapport now and move in and out of overlapping
areas with no real problem.
Long session tonight with Larry and Chapin about Haldeman image.
They're concerned by Evans and Novak, and other adverse publicity, feel we
need to get our line out, and that I have to move more into public eye. Problem
is to define first the exact view we want They had some good ideas,
to project.
had put in a lot of time and thought. Also working on general
Bill Safire
do need to
suggestions. Probably do something to avoid letting the "von
Haldeman" concept become firmly entrenched.

Biggest challenge at the moment is the ABM. Apparently P has decided not to
fight all-out. Strange. He told me in some detail of the importance of not
getting too overinvolved in each day-to-day problem. Should not feel each
issue is life-or-death matter, need long range perspective. All on staff feel battle
is vital, and should not drop to P's idea of letting us lose in Senate and then
winning in conference. They feel this is first battle of '72, vs. Teddy Kennedy,
and we must win. So I've set up project groups with Alex as coordinator. Main
trouble at the moment is Bill Rogers' constant public undercutting of Adminis-
tration position, and unclear line. We'll see what we can do.
Wednesday, April 9, 1969

NSC this morning. P arrived late at office, 8:40, and E and I went right in as
he came in the door. He looked annoyed, said hehad some things to do, so
be brief, then we couldn't get the meeting to end.
Some discussion of ABM battle, and question of best platform for P. He
feels strongly that the press conference is overall the most effective, and a set
speech to an audience at a banquet is the least. The "5:00 Group" basically

agreed.
The "5:00 Group" was an informal collection of staff members who met on
a regular basis to review general PR matters and make recommendations
for action.
We had quite a discussion at staff meeting about ABM, and Alex is trying
hard to get battle plan set and going.
Late afternoon P called me in, kind of rambling, he'd spent a lot of time
clearing up paperwork and had read Buchanan's memos about party needs,
and wanted some actions taken as a result. Then E came in and there was some
general discussion. We went into Cabinet Room to look at jewelry giveaway
samples.
One of the peculiar customs in the Oval Office is for the P to give his visitors
souvenir mementos of their meeting. These range from ballpoint pens im-
printed with the Presidential seal and /or signature to fairly elaborate pieces
of jewelry, i.e., bracelets, tie clips, etc.
A constant source of amusement for the staff was the P's awkwardness
in making these presentations, which required him to go around to the front
side of his desk to get the desired item from a drawer. He clearly never felt
at ease in this process.

Lot of appointments and meetings. Went to Pan American Union for OAS
meeting, brief speech. Decided as we drove away to go see the cherry blossoms
at Jefferson Basin. Good touch. P and Pat Nixon got out of car and strolled
along the path. Really surprised the tourists and the police. We only had one
escort car, they had to radio for reinforcements, including the mounted park
police, who galloped alongside the car.
P finally has agreed to need for policy to stay on top of public attitudes.
Wants a quick reading now, overall and on specific issues. Will work out a plan
with Derge, via the RNC (Republican National Committee).
David Derge was the poll taker used by the WH, with funding by the RNC,
to provide ongoing polling data as requested by the P. As noted above, it
took some persuasion to convince P of the importance of getting this
information on a regular continuing basis in order to keep in close touch
with general public reaction to ongoing events.
ABM this afternoon, P has committed now to fighting

planning meeting
the fight, and work on individual senators where needed. Plan was okay
will
with him, but needs a lot more work.
Have agreed to put (former advance man and scheduler Nick) Ruwe in
overall charge of White House social events. Should help pull this together.
50 H.R. HALDEMAN
P had long session with bipartisan Congressional big 8 about budget,

which goes up tomorrow. Released domestic message today. Not nearly the
reaction we'd hoped for, at least initially.
K about to launch another project. Started last Friday with program of
mining Haiphong to look tough. K meeting tonight with Dobrynin to say
we'll take only one more try at settlement, then will have to move. Putting
two month deadline on results. Really tough move. K very impressed with
P's guts in making this hard decision. Also P sent really tough memo today
to Laird and Rogers, about need to back Administrative position and im-
portance of loyalty to decision once made. Again K surprised he'd take this
hard line.
K so pleased with his plan, like the earlier one, that he can't resist telling
someone outside his shop, so he goes over it with me.
An unexpected crisis started on this day. North Korean jets shot down one
of our Navy reconnaissance planes, with 31 men aboard. The plane had
been outside their territorial waters, so we were plainly being tested. But
how to respond?
Koreans shot down our plane, gave K a big issue for the day. He wants
to the airfield where the MIGs came from. P agrees, thinks we need to
bomb
show strong reaction. K also worried that this louses up our mining operation
temporarily, because it will look like reaction to this.
Cabinet meeting, with wives for first time in history. Pretty dull session
until P's windup for a half hour at the end. He followed the budget presenta-
tion and did superb job of explaining to wives what their husbands had to go
through, and in the process, what a load he has to carry. Then gave his pitch
about patience on Vietnam. Did say hoped we would have it over in a few
months. Indicates he has some real faith in K's plan. About civil rights and
equal opportunity, P said don't expect any credit for what you do, or any real
PR gains, just do what is right and forget it. Also he warned them press would
attempt to build up stories of internal divisions, etc. Said must keep perspec-
tive and don't worry about it.

The plane shot down by Korea dominated the day. P had NSC in the morning,
followed by long session with K, Laird and Rogers. Later in afternoon another
with the same, plus General Wheeler. Trying to decide on United States course
of action. P almost has to retaliate in some fairly strong fashion.
Thursday, April 17, 1969

Main thrust is on the Korean incident. Building up to first really major
decision, whether to retaliate. K told me after meeting with P that we would
bomb the North Korean airfield at noon on Monday, and move in four
carriers, plus a lot of other strength. He's uptight on this, Rogers opposing as
usual. K furious because Rogers doesn't openly oppose, just stalls for time
then takes steps to make strike impossible, i.e., refer to UN.
Fascinating problem. Only two viable alternatives. Bomb airfield or not
retaliate but continue reconnaissance flights but with fighter cover, or, of
course, do nothing but protest. Argument for bombing is show of real Nixon
strength, especially to Soviets. Problems are public and world reaction, and
possible danger of opening a Korean ground war or air battle. Will be a very
strong move, dangerous, but potentially very productive toward ending Viet-
nam. Would sure back up K's earlier conversation this week.
(Later), as I was getting in the shower, K called to talk about Korea, and
make sure he had my opinion accurately. I'm for the strike, but with the caveat
that we have to know what we'll do, and be willing to do it, if the North
Koreans counterattack South Korea by air, or open up a ground attack.
We talked over the alternatives again. This is really tough for K, because
the risk level is enormous and he is the principal proponent. He feels strongly
that a major show of strength and overreaction for the first time in many years
by a United States P would have an enormous effect abroad, and would
mobilize great support here. But it would sure lose the doves and might screw
up the ABM battle.
Friday, April 18, 1969

K in to go over Korean plans. Then buzzed me in again, long chat about Korea
mainly, exploring alternatives, weighing risks. He's determined to make a big
positive move, but not convinced this is the best time and place for us. Knows
that if we don't retaliate in Korea we'll have to either find another similar
incident in three to four weeks, or go with Operation Lunch (the planned
follow-up to Operation Breakfast, the initial bombing program) in Cambodia.
Feels relative gains and risks may balance better for us there. No decision, but
I'd bet now against Korea strike, reversal of last night's view.
Saturday, April 19, 1969
P came in late, canceled K and NSC group because decision

meeting with
already made, not to go ahead with Korean plan, primarily because all his
advisers are opposed. K called me at home early in morning to discuss this, and
his general concern that P had been let down, and thus had failed to make a
strong decision at opportune time. But K had also come to the conclusion P
could not go ahead.
52 H.R. HALDEMAN
(P) had me in for quite a while in the morning, just to talk. Reviewed
decision and reasons. Real problem was second war, which public
risk of
wouldn't buy. Also felt reaction to incident was so mild that people didn't
want, or expect hard retaliation.
Decision now to go ahead on Cambodia on Tuesday to provide necessary
show to Soviets to back up K's talk with them.
P well recognizes K's thesis that a really strong overt act on part of P is
essential to galvanize people into overcoming slothfulness and detachment
arising from general moral decay. K feels this was ideal time and place, P
concerned that it's not. That an act related to ending Vietnam war will be
better accepted than one that risks another land war, which this does. E took
this view and P said, "So you've sold out to the doves too."
It's been a tough period, and P has moved with total command and
self-assurance, while thoroughly canvassing and probing alternatives. I think

he's now fortified to move very strongly on next incident, and has learned a lot
from this one about our weaknesses. Especially in area of lack of military
contingency planning and readiness, i.e., we couldn't strike back for five days
because we didn't have enough force available, and no plan.
K also really fed up because military had no plan and spent all the
decision time arguing what planes to use, in interservice rivalry, and Rogers
spent Friday morning lining up a golf date for Friday afternoon. K also
plans to force whole range of contingency plans. So some good has come out
of it.
P rather surprised by first wave of telegrams after press conference. They

were strongly disapproving of his lack of positive steps to retaliate.
Sunday, April 20, 1969

Left for Camp David yesterday afternoon. P invited Mitchells to dinner at
Aspen and movie later.
the rest of us for Saw
Dr. Zhivago. Strange to sit in
room with leader of free world and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces and
watch the pictures of the Russian revolution, Army overthrow, etc. We all had
the same thought.

Several discussions about how to handle Cabinet officers. Volpe wants regular
monthly appointment (also wanted Secret Service protection) and Agnew
wants regular weekly appointment. P says we have to have a Sherman Adams
(Eisenhower's Chief of Staff) to handle this and keep them away from him, so
E and I are it, divided, I take big four, he takes rest. P said he can see why all
presidents want to be left alone. The routine baloney really bores him and
annoys him.
Decided Burns should explain to Agnew how the Vice Presidency
works.

To Camp David and J. Edgar Hoover as guests. All of us at
at 4:00, Mitchell
Aspen and movie. Talk centered around all the bad guys "they"
for dinner
have infiltrated into everywhere, especially State. Hoover full of hair-raising
reports about all this, plus terrible problem in the courts, etc. He is a real
lobbyist, and never quits. And never hesitates to chop everyone else in the
process.
VP called just before dinner and said had to talk to P. He took the call.
Later called me into bedroom to report, furious, that all he wanted was some
guy to be Director of Space Council. May turn out to be the straw that breaks
the camel's back. He just has no sensitivity, or judgment about his relationship
with P. After movie we were walking home and P called me back, again to
ponder the Agnew problem, and that of general area of Cabinet relationships.
He's not really sure how to handle. His instinct is to be very distant and
unavailable, but people tell him he needs more contact and this bothers him,
because he thinks he may be handling wrong. Real problem is that none of
them except Mitchell really knows how to relate to him.

Got into a deep discussion of welfare, trying to think out the Family Security
decision, with E and me (welfare reform had been one ofP's campaign issues).
P emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really
the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appear-
ing to. Problem with overall welfare plan is that it forces poor whites into same
position as blacks. Feels we have to get rid of the veil of hypocrisy and guilt
and face reality.
Pointed out that there has never in history been an adequate black nation,
and they are the only race of which this is true. Says Africa is hopeless, the
worst there is Liberia, which we built.

A day full of little appointments, but still quite a little free time in between,
especially during the noon break. Called me in several times to talk about
position about student disorders. Became clear he was toying with the idea of
using this as the subject of his Chamber of Commerce appearance this after-
noon. He was completely disenchanted with the suggested remarks prepared
for him, so felt he had to do his own, and has been anxious to speak out again
about students, because things have gotten much worse and more widespread
since his last statement.
Net result was that during noon break he tried out his ideas on me, I made
some suggestions, and he hit it hard at the Chamber of Commerce. Great
success with the audience, and P got a tremendous reception. Made very clear
54 H.R. HALDEMAN
case, government must not get into running institutions, students have right
and need to express dissent and we should listen; but they have no right to use
force, disrupt campus, threaten violence and carry weapons. When they do
this, faculty, administration, and trustees (my addition) must have backbone
to stand up against this kind of action. Afterwards he was quite pleased. Had
taken the press by complete surprise, and got terrific coverage. Had a long talk
about it in office, trying to analyze whether this is a good technique. It was.
Tonight was the Duke Ellington seventieth birthday dinner at the White
House. Unbelievable. High point was Duke's sister, who came down the stairs
with him and the Nixons, in long flowing blonde hair. Duke kissed all the men
twice, on each cheek (mother's kiss) as they went through the receiving line.
Party ended after 2:00 AM.
Wednesday, May 7, 1969

I ended up with six pages of notes on follow-up for Defense luncheon, Arthur
Burns' latest problem, some ambassador possibilities, Mrs. Doyle (an interior
decorator hired by Pat Nixon), the need to investigate foundations (he's fas-
cinated by the Fortas case, has found from Mitchell that he not only took
$20,000 fee, but signed contract for $20,000 for life and his wife after that,
shocking), possible appearance at Building Union meeting next week.
The previous June, LBJ had nominated Associate Justice Abe Fortas as
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Shortly thereafter, various financial
and potential conflict-of-interest problems surfaced, and the nomination
was withdrawn. Fortas would soon resign from the Court.
Huge Burns flap because he didn't get in to see P about two sentences in
''hunger message." E kept him out so he came to me, then wrote long memo
to P. Feels if he can't get in when he wants to he'll have to quit. No more need
for him.
Sunday, May 11, 1969

Rockefeller was late for his meeting, so I went over at 10:00 for yesterday's
canceled Schedule Meeting. Nothing very important, but P had obviously been
doing a lot of general thinking about planning his time. Feels we haven't
adequately weighed priorities in each week's schedule (problem is, we do, but
then he cuts schedule up by changes, and we get screwed up while trying to
regroup).
Has decided to go with peace plan announcement on Wednesday evening,
either as statement, or press conference. K all stirred up because he thinks
Hanoi may be folding, has had some feelers. Also problem because Rogers
wants to announce the peace plan, instead of P, also wants to modify.
We are canceling all possible schedule through Wednesday to allow time
for preparation. He's really preoccupied with this. Hope it works.
Came back to DC from Key Biscayne on the Airborne Command Post,
and they staged a briefing and a test exercise. Pretty scary. They went through
the whole intelligence and operational briefings, with interruptions, etc., to
make it realistic.
The Airborne Command Post is a Top Secret aircraft facility, which is on

constant ready standby for the use of the P in case of a national emergency
requiring his immediate evacuation from Washington. It is fully equipped
with everything P needs conduct his official business and to function as

to
Commander in Chief, and can stay in the air for a relatively unlimited
period by refueling in air.
Fascinating plane, with command room setup, all kinds of communica-

tions, display boards, rear projection, etc. Took P a while to get into the thing
(his mind was on the peace plan), but he finally did, and was quite interested.
Asked a lot of questions about our nuclear capability and kill results. Obvi-
ously worries about the lightly tossed-about millions of deaths.
Tuesday, May 13, 1969

Another supposedly clear day. Started with GOP leaders, mainly about the
draft message sent up today (should do some good with students); then UAC
(Urban Affairs Council) had Ralph Abernathy (President of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference). Pretty ridiculous. He brought six, or eight,
of his cohorts and read a long list of demands. Tried to trap P into meeting
with the rest of his group, or ordering Cabinet officers to do so. No luck. P
handled beautifully. Abernathy went out and stabbed us on TV. Proved again
there's no use dealing honestly with these people. They obviously want con-
frontation, no solutions.
Despite the best of intentions, these efforts at establishing communications

with the black leadership were rarely successful. They usually ended up, as
this one did, with the black leaders using the White House forum as a
platform to attack the P and his policies. The meetings themselves tended
more to confrontation than communication. This was unfortunate.
56 H.R. HALDEMAN
Rest of day pretty clear. Very relaxed at 5:30 called E and me in. Great
humor, quips etc. Think he feels this is a good week, with some strong news
stories, especially Vietnam peace plan for tomorrow. He'll read the speech. Lot
of discussion about network time, we wanted 10:00, they wanted to give 8:30.
We won. P feels we should take best possible. Haven't asked up to now. I
agree. Pretty fed up with blacks and their hopeless attitude.

The Big Speech on Vietnam
P holed up at the Residence all day, in the Lincoln sitting room, working
—
on the speech. Called over three times in the morning to say he wasn't
coming over, in early afternoon to say he wanted small steaks served at the
breakfast tomorrow because "they don't do eggs very well," and in the late
afternoon to be sure I had solved the problem of the podium light. (I assured
him I had, but later discovered it was still totally inadequate.)
P met with the bipartisan leaders about the speech, in the treaty room. He
had a call during the meeting from Chief Justice Warren (I assume about
Fortas), who said it was urgent. So P came out of meeting to return the call.
A little later a letter arrived from Warren. Can only assume it's the Fortas
resignation.
K did briefings all afternoon about the speech. They did some good with
the commentators. He realized by late today, though, that we had made a
mistake in trying to make a major diplomatic move, requiring checking with
other governments, etc., in theform of a TV speech. Instead should have done
a paper, gotten it cleared, etc., and sent it. Then go on TV to explain it, instead
of presenting it there. Whole thing was too complex with too many nuances
that are totally unintelligible to the ordinary guy.
The basic proposal was for the major part of foreign troops — both U.S.
all
and North Vietnamese — to withdraw from South Vietnam within one year
after a signed agreement. An international group would supervise the pro-
cess.
Staff meeting this morning was mainly about reaction to Abernathy

yesterday. We were had, and now they all realize it. Hope a lesson is
learned.
Lunch with E about treachery in the State Department. Reports show
all kinds of staffing skullduggery at end of last Administration. We have to
figure out a way to get on top of this. Obviously it's all over, not just in
State.
i **
Thursday, May 15, 1969

Interesting day after the speech. Started with Armed Forces /Defense break-
fast. All top brass and civilians. P gave spectacular speech about America's
commitment and world role, and need for true patriotism, etc. Really cranked
'em up. Great consternation, because it wasn't recorded.

Then the Fortas resignation broke, and poor Ziegler was in huge flap
between releases from the Court, etc. P really discouraged by whole affair.
Then Cabinet/ NSC meeting. P had all key people speak about last night's
speech. All high in praise for the speech and its importance. P wrapped up with
a semireplay of the breakfast speech, with more detail on the "why" of Viet-
nam position. Was great, got long ovation (as at breakfast). Then said "I
didn't mean to make a speech to the Cabinet. I wasted that one, and I don't
have many."
K and I both feel last night's TV would have been much better if he'd used
the morning speech and done the diplomatic stuff by a white paper. But K feels
he had to do this one this way, and that in the process he really became his own
man in foreign policy.
Discussion about plan for Ohio State speech. Decided to cancel on basis
of strong recommendation from John Mitchell and concern of Secret Service
about demonstration. Will use plan of having Vietnam President Thieu and
Vietnam people come to meet P in California that day and drop OSU.
Friday, May 16, 1969

P in great mood, coasting through a hectic day of bits and pieces types of
appointments: session with Mitchell about Court and getting Fortas matter
settled.Book closed as far as P concerned, but Justice and Congress to go
ahead with full investigation. P feels (there is) probably much more than has
been revealed.
(Session with) Ross Perot about his ideas on student conference this
summer, good guys and key government officials to try to find positive an-
swers for a change, and on his buying $50 million worth of TV time to
present our story in prime time. Discussion about format, town meeting,
telethon, panel, etc. P anxious to do something, not sure what. Perot the
same. P pretty reluctant on student idea but said to go ahead, have to try
some risks.
Saturday, May 17, 1969

Expected a late start, but P came in at 8:00 raring to go. Had me in for long
session about pages and pages of little scraps of notes, some must have been
accumulated for months.
Had read Hoover's report on bad guys in State and Defense, ordered a
58 H.R. HALDEMAN
few specific ones to be fired or transferred. Wants to get some follow-up on

anti-ABM Senators who spoke for Vietnam speech, distressed that this had
not been programmed (he's putting a lot of thought against ABM battle). Very
anxious to follow up fast on Fortas, be sure our story out clearly to avoid
Jewish establishment and press reaction, because they are horribly embar-
rassed and backed against the wall. We acted very responsibly, but aren't
getting credit for it.
Had some ideas for decorating the Oval Office, led to a little more discus-
sion about Mrs. Doyle. Afraid we just have to go with her, I won't buck Pat
Nixon.
Definitely decided to scratch Ohio State, meet Thieu at Midway. Wants
me to handle notifications. Wants receptions in California and Hawaii to show
public support.
Presented two Congressional Medals in full militaryceremony on South
Lawn. Very impressive. Then he went back out to shake hands with crowd.
Then kept me in office (almost missed chopper) to go over some more things
before leaving for Saratoga. Demonstrations on Saratoga for Armed Forces
Day were spectacular. First we reviewed fleet by air, then landed on Saratoga.
Had firepower demonstration. Launched all kinds of jets, fighters, bombers,
tankers, and intelligence. Chopper from there to Camp David for the night.

At Camp David. Slept late. Worked for a while after breakfast, then to pool
for sun, swim, lunch TV of Apollo X launch.
Interrupted by word P was ready
to leave. Chopper back to White House. P into office and buzzed me in for two
hours. First concern was White House staff. He'd been doing a lot of thinking
about feeling that we don't do an adequate job of selling our story. Feels
Ziegler is a superb mechanic, but not a designer. He had read all the Sunday
papers pretty thoroughly and found just what he had expected and had pre-
dicted to K, all comments about his speech were either neutral, or negative.
Not one line about the fact that 98% of the foreign press had acclaimed the
speech, or the strong positive reaction in Congress. Makes point that if JFK
had made the speech they would have all been ecstatic. (Afraid a good part of
this is a fact of life, but I'm sure we could do a lot better.)
Real problem, as he says, is that we don't have a real PR operator, at a
very high level, who really works at this all day, every day. (Herb) Klein and
(Bud) Wilkinson are both very inadequate, and not in enough.
P is reading Patton's book and quoted point that a successful commander
has to have leadership and be a superb mechanic, but most important be
ruthless in analyzing his staff and throwing out the people that are not up to
it. Another quote, that there are more tired division commanders than there
are tired divisions, and all tired men are pessimists.

Overall, we just haven't done an adequate job of building up the P, even
though the press has been generally good. The accurate story of how hard he
works, etc., is not getting out, i.e., about how he wrote his speech. He says the
staff are all doing as well as they can, considering their limitations.
He wants E, K and me to try to figure this all out. Says we are the only
people on the staff smart and strong enough to do it. Would like to have
Mitchell involved also, but feels he's too involved.Hope we can do something.
Thinking about schedule, he feels he should be more aloof, inaccessible,
mysterious, i.e., de Gaulle feels overexposure detracts from impact. Shouldn't
be too chummy, etc.
Monday, May 19, 1969

Has decided to announce Thieu meeting tomorrow at 10:00, after some debate
about coordinating with Thieu. Discussion about procedures, especially about
notifying Ohio State, etc. Strange turn of events. Now the big news will be the
important meeting, when actually the whole thing came about as an idea for
a way to get out of Ohio State because of planned disorders. Will go to Hawaii
Saturday, June 7, Midway for meeting June 8 and back to Hawaii. Return to
DC nonstop on Monday.
Also has decided on Chief Justice and will announce on Thursday (assum-
ing he'll accept). Even E was caught by surprise. I figure it will be Warren
Burger. E agrees.
Lots more talk about schedule and staff and the problem. E and I dis-
cussed reason behind this new obsession, both feel he senses end of the easy
going and is getting ready to deal with adversities, both internal and external,
plus bad press coming up. Is really pushing staff reassessment and more
thorough planning of his time.
I think we're in a new phase, or just closing out the first phase. Have really
finished the shakedown cruise, now ready to tighten up and handle the big
stuff. This seems to be his feeling, and the reason for the intro-analysis. Will
probably be some pulling and tugging in the staff. We have a lot of people we
could do without. Need to reevaluate the real role of the White House staff.
Now try to do too much instead of catalyzing, prodding, inspiring, checking

others.
Big flap with Arthur Burns onAID (Agency for International Develop-
ment) this K. Resulted in necessity to postpone bill to Congress until
time vs.
fully staffed. Burns completely end runs the system, but this time K was the
reason. His staff system is in bad shape, just not getting the work out, but P
doesn't know it, still thinks they're superb.

Announced the Thieu meeting at Midway
morning. P really furious be-
this
cause Washington Post had leaked the story, especially because our agreement
60 H.R. HALDEMAN
with Vietnam was for simultaneous release. He said he hadn't reacted to other
leaks, but this endangered national security and was serious.
He's now banned White House communication: with the Times (for their
editorial yesterday about the Nixon Foundation related to the Fortas Case
and for their coverage on the Cambodian bombings); the St. Louis Press
Democrat (for Ottenad's inside story on Administration problems, pure
phony); and The Washington Post (for today's leak). Says won't tell Ziegler or
anyone his plan about Chief Justice announcement, to avoid leak.
As last few days, had me in for several long talks ranging over personnel
and PR, more of the process of getting ready for what's to come. He's in a very
introspective kind of mood. Mad for a little while this morning, then right
back on course. Same line of discussion about need for really strong overall PR
man, and the TV problem.
While home writing this at 10:00 he just called me back to office "to go
over a few things." He was there when I left, but I didn't check out.
It's now midnight, just returned from an absolutely fascinating two
hours with the P in the Oval Office. Walked in, he was pacing the floor in
blue velvet smoking jacket puffing on a cigar. Said he'd decided to really
dramatize the Chief Justice announcement. Move it up from Thursday to
Wednesday, and do it in East Room with whole Cabinet, on live TV at 3:00.
Have to announce to press at 11:00. I suggested 7:00 for prime time. P
agreed. We talked on and on about the new Chief Justice, the plan for an-
nouncing, etc. Called Mitchell at the Iranian Embassy to have him come in
first thing in the morning to discuss plan. He'll have to speed up his tax and
security checks, but says he can. Once again, P comes up with the right
answer, after we all struggle with it.
He rambled on about the kind of Justice Burger will be, etc. Had me bring
in Who Who, and read his, as well as Burger's. Just wanted to sit and talk,
's
like thegood old days when he was picking a VP and a Cabinet. Also went over
the Klein, etc. stuff, the need for a TV man, etc. And the plans for building up
the Thieu meeting, and hope for a major announcement at the end. Hope it all
works out.

Chief Justice day, and a very strange day. I spent almost the entire day on the
Chief Justice announcement. It worked out very well, following basically the
plan P and I worked out last night.
Lots of discussions in P's office on various details. A real project to pull
everything together. Had to let networks know by 1:00 at latest to get set up
by met with Burger at noon, and didn't call me until just before
7:00. Mitchell
1:00. Barely made it. Used all the troops, had (TV aide) Roger Ailes down to
produce (He blew things pretty well, mistimed "Hail to the Chief," forgot the
flags on the podium, etc. Probably would have done better without him, but
CBS producer was a real nervous type). In general, staging was excellent, P
very good, also Burger. We had to whip up a biography during the afternoon,
Buchanan did it by phone interview.
Main coup was that it was really a complete secret until actually an-
nounced. Pretty hard to do in this business. We told no one on the staff, and
press got no leads. Sneaked Burger and his family in through the Treasury
Building tunnel, so no one saw them at White House gates. Brought Cabinet
into East Room on live TV, then family, then P and Burger.
P zinged Fortas pretty well by saying Burger was above reproach in
business and personal. Burger zinged political appointees pretty well by saying
what an honor P had bestowed on all sitting judges. We did a good job of
pre-programming, and it worked. Wires are loaded with favorable comments.
Now we'll see if the papers will carry them.
about need to understand press and especially New York
P, in talking
Times, said "I know our guyswill say Bob Semple {of the Times) is a nice
guy, and Kosygin is probably kind to his mother, but all that is totally irrele-
vant."

The Minnesota Concert Band played this morning in the Rose Garden. A
remarkable event. They had just returned from a cultural exchange tour of
Russia, so the Soviet Ambassador was invited. Great concert, and impressive
kids, all rose and clapped enthusiastically when P came out, and all sang Alma
Mater with genuine feeling and enthusiasm. P very impressed, felt there may
be some hope for our kids after all.
To Camp David midafternoon, with Bebe and Pat Nixon. P bowled 204
and was really pleased. Best he's ever done, by far. The new ball helped.
Dinner at Aspen. Movie was Man for All Seasons. Would have been great,
but projectionist screwed up again, with the topper of getting the reels in the
wrong order. Poor guy was panic-stricken.

Flap about Midway trip because Thieu is on coming to Hawaii after
insisting
the meeting, which blows the reason for going to Midway. P says he won't go
to Hawaii, will fly direct to Midway instead. Have to work something out. K
says Thieu has a girl in Honolulu and that's the problem.

Long meeting in Cabinet room this morning with group of young GOP con-
gressmen, who have been out talking to students at colleges. P called me in to
listen, I had planned to skip it. Also had K come in. K
sent me a note saying
"These fellows sound just like the French aristocracy two years before the
revolution." And they did. They take the radicals at face value, vastly overrate
62 H.R. HALDEMAN
their influence. Only George Bush seemed to understand their desire for con-
frontation, not solution.
Monday, June 2, 1969

Decided late in afternoon to have K go to Texas and brief LBJ on his way to
California. Picked up phone and called LBJ to set up. We've been trying to get
him to call for two weeks. He waited until he had something to offer in return
for ABM support. (He'll also send Harlow to cover ABM status.)
This is fairly typical strategy — to hold off on a contact requesting something

like ABM support until he could open with a positive report, or offer. The
old political game of "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."
Tuesday, June 3, 1969

Big flap about Okinawa leak in New York Times. Rick Smith had complete
and accurate story about contents of an NSC decision memorandum (regard-
ing negotiations with the Japanese about Okinawa). P really upset because of
jeopardy to national security. Had me Cushman, Richardson, and Laird,
call
have them get complete internal report on who had access etc. (I had to make
the calls from Air Force One en route to South Dakota.)
Long talk with K about his leaks. E and I had breakfast with him and
advised him to move out the suspect people. He later told P this is what he's
doing. Set up detailed plan for tapping all suspects, not carried out. (Not then,
but it later would be.)
Left White House at noon for trip. Used the remodeled Air Force One.
Tricia, Julie, David, and Mrs. Nixon all along. New configuration is great.
Puts press way Chopper to Mundt
in back, allows staff privacy. Dedication,
over plowed "Hi Nixon." Smalltown crowd, solid Americans,
field that said
good but not wild reception. One heckler, and the crowd was going to beat him
up until police saved him. Motorcade with big crowds and lot of bands along
the street. Then to Colorado Springs. Good airport arrival, lots of "fence-
working."
Problem on release of speech. P called me at dinner and said to hold until
9:00 AM. Ziegler unreachable, so I told Jerry Warren. Ziegler had promised
10:00 PM, agonized all night, finally we agreed on 6:00 AM, and overrode P's
order.
Lot of discussion on plane about security problems. P really concerned,
issuing all kinds of orders, hope we won't have to follow.
A couple of examples in this day illustrate a challenge I faced frequently

which was to decide whether or not to follow a specific Presidential order.
I sometimes decided not to, on the basis that it was not an order that was
really intended to be carried out, but rather a letting off of steam, or that
it was clearly not in the P's interest that it be carried out. Usually I later
informed P that the order had not been followed, and he usually agreed that
was the right decision. There were times, however, when he intentionally
would end-run me with an order to someone else who he felt would do his
bidding when I wouldn't.
Wednesday, June 4, 1969

Air Force Academy speech, defending military. Pretty controversial. P didn't
like Don Hughes functioning as personal aide, in hotel, crowds, etc.Had me
in plane on way to California to discuss in detail. Also feels he did too much
at the airport fence. Wants better coordination between speechwriters and
advance crew. Should have had TV man along. Speech and Academy show
very good.
Decided no more NSC meetings. Result of leak. Can't trust to papers.
Will make decisions privately with K.
Lot of discussion on plane about broad distribution of Air Force speech.
Feels it will do a lot of good. Wants whole NASA and Defense apparatus to
promote it.
New security flap about troop withdrawal story leak. (The Washington
—
Star had reported that we had decided to begin troop withdrawal we 'd promised
Thieu it would be announced jointly.) Had me call all departments again, this
time to say we know someone gave a backgrounder, wants report on who. Of
course all denied it. Then wanted more detailed push on NSC Okinawa investi-
gation. By evening was really mad. Kept calling me from San Clemente house
with new orders to investigate. K advised me not to go too far. Would be
counterproductive, so I ignored some of the orders. Still called Richardson and
Laird several times.
Thursday, June 5, 1969

At the practice Summer White House at the Newporter. P arrived early and
beat E and me there for the staff meeting. Gave orders he is not to be given
cables anymore, wants them retyped.
Long lecture how reporters get their stories. But he had
about leaks and
reallysimmered down from last night, and it was good I followed K's advice.
Firm orders, all New York Times reporters off limit, to punish the institution.
Also had us get reports on leaks from OEP and VP about Okinawa leak.
64 H.R. HALDEMAN
Saturday, June 7, 1969

Left thing in morning for Honolulu. Few sessions en route with the P, just
first
littleodds and ends. Then he took a long nap. Lousy airport arrival. Chopper
to hotel. Meeting of the Midway delegation at hotel. P moved it up an hour,
confused everyone. Took Rose to dinner at Trader Vic's. Terrible! Poor P tried
to get family out to dinner but Tricia wouldn't go. Julie and David did. Family
had room service.
Sunday, June 8, 1969

The Midway Conference. Flew out in morning, whole delegation on Air Force
One. Meetings all the way. Good Morn-
operation there. All went as planned.
ing conference.Announcement of troop withdrawal ( of approximately 25,000
men). Complete surprise to press corps, as to timing and amount. Then formal
group session in afternoon. P in great form. Obviously enjoyed whole deal.
Rose, E, Chapin, and I went swimming at great beach. Farewell ceremonies
and back to Honolulu.

Back to the White House. P had canceled all of morning schedule for no
apparent reason. Spent most of the day buzzing me in for odds and ends. In
good do some long-range planning. Several long sessions with
spirits, trying to
K. Lots of follow-up type projects for me. Back and forth on press conference
plans. Will do one on Thursday evening. Feels he should go for prime time and
get maximum audience, prohibit networks from selecting just the parts they
want for the news.
This was a very key element in our generalPR strategy. It was based on the
fact that ifP did a public event to make an important statement, or an-
nouncement, it would be covered by the TV networks, but only a small and
highly selective portion would actually get on the air. If he did a press
conference or special event, with the request for live TV coverage, the
networks generally complied, and the result was a much better and more
complete presentation from the P's standpoint. Also, since these were live
events, all the networks carried them at the same time, forcing a large
portion of the TV audience to watch, since there was no network alterna-
tive.
This tactic also made it possible for us to force coverage in prime time
by scheduling the event at whatever time we wanted it to air. After a while,
the networks got smart and quit providing simultaneous coverage on all
three, but it was great while it lasted.
Worried about K's overreaction to leaks in his office.

Decided to expand (Israeli Prime Minister) Golda Meir dinner and make
some hay with Jewish community and congressmen who need Jewish support.
Rose's idea.
Press conference day. P stayed at residence all day. Came out at 5:45 to greet
the First Lady on return from her trip. Called over frequently on specific
questions, number of Vietnamese killed, number of Negroes in America, etc.
Rather startling answers on some Vietnam questions. Said he hoped to
beat ( LBJ Secretary of Defense) Clark Clifford's goal on withdrawals (all out
by end of next year); there would be more withdrawals this summer, decision
in August; he wasn't "wedded" to Thieu regime; he was not opposed to a
cease-fire, etc. Also said we'd like to start SALT talks July 21 and they might
be in Geneva, or Vienna.
All this shook K pretty badly. He feels that it will probably mean collapse
of South Vietnam government in near future and South Viet-
will result in
namese troops fighting us. Thieu will consider it a betrayal, as will all South
East Asia, and it will be interpreted as unilateral withdrawal. K thinks maybe
P has decided to pull out, and is taking this step knowingly. I don't think so.
I feel he just wanted to hit back at Clifford, and overplayed his hand. If this
is the case, K feels we'll have monumental and maybe impossible job in trying
to build around P's statements and reshore up our own previous position. Poor
K gets really shook by these things, and for good reason. He's been pushing
the opposite approach. He's been discouraged deeply the last few days, be-
cause he feels Vietnam plans aren't P knows this and may
working out right.
have reacted. K says we won't know real effect for about two weeks. Tough.
Will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings, his mood was great
today, which usually indicates he's made a big and tough decision, and maybe
he has. I hope not, for K's sake.
P called at home later, riding high, feels he was very effective. Likes prime
time idea.
Friday, June 20, 1969

P couldn't sleep, stayed up late last night calling people about press confer-
ence. Was up early this morning, into office before 7:30. Took Tim and went
for a walk South Grounds, through EOB, and back along Pennsylvania
in the
Ave. In the front entrance of West Lobby, and came into the staff meeting at
8:00, just as we were starting. Really startled the troops!
Pretty routine day of meetings and appointments. I had a session with K,
after he saw P, and he's quite depressed. Feels P has made decision to reverse
the Vietnam plan, and hasn't told K, or discussed with him. Feels P has been
up to something all week. K has modified his view since last night, but is still
66 H.R. HALDEMAN
very worried, mainly because he feels maybe P has lost confidence in him.
Swore me to tell him if this ever happens, in my judgment. He's really quite
insecure, for no reason, I believe.
Yesterday I went through a similar exercise with Harlow, who feels (and
rightly, I fear) that his working relationship with the P has badly deteriorated
and is continuing downhill, and this in turn is eroding his personal friendship.
He knows P well enough to be able to read the signs, and it's hard to try to
convince him otherwise. He's convinced he should leave soon, to prevent
further decline, and I'm not sure I can change his mind. I'll try, on the basis
of his duty to the P and the country. Real trouble is, he's right, and only the
P can change the situation, and then not just by a little quick therapy. He'll
have to bring Bryce back into the real inner councils. And I'm not sure he'll
do it.

Went with the political group on the Sequoia for dinner, VP, Morton, Mitch-
ell, Finch, Harlow, Dent, E, and me. Good meeting, concerned with RNC
progress, Morton's plans and ideas, patronage problems, finally starting to get
solved.
Mitchell told me about Drew Pearson story, via J. Edgar Hoover, when
we got back to hotel.
Hoover had reported Drew Pearson had a report

to Mitchell that columnist
that Ehrlichman, Chapin, and I had attended homosexual parties at a local
Washington hotel. Pearson was checking before running the story. E and I
told Mitchell the report was totally untrue in every respect and implication,
and at Mitchell's suggestion, we agreed to be deposed by the FBI to clear
this up. We did so, as did Chapin, and that was the end of the episode.
Had dinner on the terrace with Jo and Adele, then sat there talking.
I had a small terrace just outside my original office, next to the Oval Office,
—
which I frequently used to get some fresh air and even on occasions like
this one, to have dinner with my wife and her mother.
Looked up to see P in my office, prowling in his smoking jacket. Had me

come in, long talk. He's worried about the surtax.
The P requested an extension of the surtax past its June 30 expiration date.
However, he was receiving opposition both from liberals (who wanted tax
reform) and conservatives (who opposed the increased federal spending
implied by higher taxes).
Especially feels Harlow not really handling Congress right. I told him of
Bryce's real concern that he has lost P's confidence, he aware but doesn't
is
know how to handle. Discussed ways and means of beefing up Bryce's opera-
tion. Have to do it. Talked about possibility of taking Congress on and making
it the issue. May have to if Democrats decide to play straight political obstruc-
tionist game. But then P has to get into '70 battle hard and early and he doesn't
want to (and he shouldn't).
Very introspective and subdued mood. Just sat and talked and pondered.
Realizes problems are coming up, wants to see his way through them, but
doesn't. Not discouraged, just very pensive.
Interesting sidelight. P called me about 9:30 about program for Sunday wor-
ship at White House. First was upset because the rabbi was from New York,
while he had ordered that Senator Scott (of Pennsylvania) select the rabbi.
(Turned out that Finkelstein had been committed before the order.) Then
wanted Scott invited upstairs to coffee before service with rabbi to give him
some political mileage. (Turned out Scott was in Philadelphia for the week and
couldn't come anyway, but was very appreciative.) To get this far I tried to call
Wilkinson, finally got him at football stadium in Atlanta for all-star game. He
didn't know the situation. Said ( Presidential Assistant Peter) Flanigan did. So
I got Pete in New York. He didn't know, said Bud and Atwater did. So I put
a call in to Atwater (James Atwater, Special Assistant to the P). He was out
at a party. Finally got him, but too late, I had already talked to Scott in
Philadelphia.
Next call from P was concern whether Cye Halpern, the only Republican
Jewish Congressman, had been invited. Tried to get Lucy, she was out. Rose
was out. Got Marge and she thought Halpern was invited. Got Timmons, he
had checked list with police, Halpern not on. Talked to Bryce about Scott
matter and Halpern. He didn't know, so we concluded he'd been invited and
declined and I so advised P.
Next call from P was about program. He was afraid they had included the
doxology, which would be an affront to the Rabbi. I tried Atwater again, he
was on way to airport to meet Rabbi, left word out on car radio, never
connected. Called Lucy, she didn't know, but called usher and found doxology
was on program. So she called Sandy Fox and got printers on stand-by to
68 H.R. HALDEMAN
reprint programs tonight. (It was then 11:30 PM). Finally got Atwater at
home, and he said the Rabbi had reviewed the program including the
12:15,
doxology. So we called off the troops at 12:30 and all went to bed. Another day
at the White House.
THIRD QUARTER: JULY-SEPTEMBER
Wednesday, July 2, through Sunday, July 6, 1969

P and E In Key Biscayne, I at Camp David
with Chapin and Higby. Called
frequently with developments. P
on track to come up with big "first six
really
months" story about accomplishments. Hard to put together. Will start to-
morrow at staff meeting.
Monday, July 7, 1969

(Ethiopian Emperor) Haile Selassie arrival at North (Portico) because of rain.
Rough lead article in Newsweek — really cracks P for lack of leadership
and direction. Discussed with him this morning, in regard to his plan for six
months summary battle plan. Clearly we need to reverse the PR trend and get
our own line out. Record is not spectacular, but not nearly as bad as Newsweek
says. We have another flood of legislation and activity coming. Then will put
the heat on Congress to pass some of it. P thinking of moving on Family
Security Plan, originally was going to wait until after surtax and ABM votes.
Now feels we need the domestic momentum and leftward balance before he
leaves for Asian trip.
Problem is to get the positive story of proposals and legislative successes
(haven't lost a vote yet) across to counterbalance press play of negatives. Plus
problem still of right wing Republican unhappiness, because we're not ade-
quately cutting spending, welfare, etc., and they feel we're softening in Viet-
nam.
At the same time, K is discouraged, because his plans for ending war
aren't working fast enough and Rogers and Laird are constantly pushing for
faster and faster withdrawal. K feels this means a "cop out" by next summer,
and that, if we follow that line, we should "cop out" now. He wants to push
69
70 H.R. HALDEMAN
for some escalation, enough to get us a reasonable bargain for a settlement

within six months. Hope he prevails. Big meeting tonight about this on the
Sequoia.
Wednesday, July 9, 1969

NSC and Selassie farewell. Wednesday afternoon off didn't work out, as
activity built on trip planning (on around-the-world trip slated to begin on
July 23) and Senate problem. Ended up with a long session in EOB office
with Quadriad (an unofficial advisory group consisting of the Treasury Secre-
tary, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Director of the Budget
Bureau, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board) about surtax. They, or
some, felt P should go on TV to nation and say must have surtax extension
now, or else he will order $6 billion cut in spending. Harlow also with them.
Also they opposed Family Security or any other spending plan until after
surtax settled. Real question is how essential it really is. Bryce sees it as
absolutely imperative that P win this as a major test of his strength and
urges pulling out all stops and using full prestige. P seems to feel surtax will
eventually pass anyway, and that he can afford to sit out the delay and
accept the tax reforms. Does appear now, however, that there is some chance
of tax actually being defeated.
Thursday, July 10, 1969
Cabinet meeting. P said on phone last night to be sure they stick to agenda,
and don't get into surtax question. He was late to meeting, because of session
with former Secretary of the Treasury Fowler. When he came in, he brought
up the surtax. Gave an overall appraisal of the situation and a great argument
for immediate passage, for Secretaries to use in speeches, etc. Is going to have
a bipartisan Senate group meeting Monday evening, with three former Secre-
taries of the Treasury to put the heat on.
P met with Senator Russell and Senator Long about and surtax. ABM
Tomorrow breakfast with Mansfield. Bryce really pushing for all-out fight,
and discouraged because P won't take it on totally. I think he (P) feels it can
be won without total involvement on his part, and he wants to save as much
equity as he can. Bryce doesn't agree. Real problem is lack of adequate action
by others. All rely on P to carry the main load. He'd be more willing to do so
if he felt all other stops had been pulled out first. Trouble is, they always start
with his part, then add the others instead of vice versa. Bryce's point is that P
ends up having to get in anyway, and that the same effort is far more effective
early than late.
P went bowling at EOB this evening with Julie and David. Julie upset
because her trip to Chicago not well enough planned for TV and interviews,
etc. Now P wants me to supervise all these activities. Rough!
Juliehad an exceptionally good sense of the value of her public activities

and the need to get maximum benefit from them. She was absolutely right
in her criticism —but it is hard to cover all the bases.
Saturday, July 12, 1969
At Camp David. P called me over about1 1:00 and I was there until after 3:00.
In the study at Aspen. Spent most of the time on surtax vs. Family Security
question. Point is, Family Security is for '71, not '70. Long discussion of
strategy, etc. Then into plan for a domestic council with E as head. Then into
long analysis of his daily schedule. Wants more time free, especially at the end
of the day, when he wants to leave office at 6:00. 1 told him he was the problem,
not the schedule, and he agrees. Wants pool converted to bowling alley. Says
he'll use it every night.

P on the new domestic plan with E in command, although E says
really rolling
he was a bit vague at the domestic group meeting today.
Had a session about planning overall for Apollo XI. P decided to do his
TV from the White House Sunday night, instead of going to Houston or the
Cape (P planned to speak live to the astronauts on the moon). Really a much
better idea; it was Rose's. Met with Frank Borman. P all excited about Sunday
service. We'll have Borman do scriptural reading, same as he did from moon.
Also all cranked up about playing "Star-Spangled Banner" when flag placed
on moon. Borman opposed, because astronauts would lose three minutes at
attention, and possible adverse reaction about overnationalism. P really in-
trigued with his participation in the whole thing.
Now ready to go with Family Security before the trip, pressured by Finch
and Shultz. Will lose a lot of impact, overshadowed by moon shot plus trip.
Much better to wait until the week we get back. Drop it plus, revenue-sharing,
plus Moynihan's ten new cities, and really send Congress home with a bang.
Oh well.
The renamed Family Assistance Plan was a work-for-welfare program. It

expanded Federal aid working poor, as well as the unemployed poor,
to the
but everyone who accepted aid also had to accept work or job training. It
would be expensive to begin with, but gradually the incentive to get better
jobs would take people off the welfare rolls. Or so we hoped.
72 H.R. HALDEMAN
Friday, July 18, 1969

At Camp David, all day and overnight. I slept until 10:00, P until nearly noon.
Great. I was at pool sunning when P called me over to Aspen to talk. I put on
no coat because it
tie, was so hot and humid. He was out on lower terrace, and
we and talked for
sat two hours in the sun. I darn near melted. Was dripping
and had a horrible time trying to take notes.
Went round and round on the plan for announcing domestic program. P
had obviously already thought a lot about it, and had plan pretty well in mind.
Wants E to get a new high-level lawyer to handle the counsel's job and free
John up for domestic. (On July 28, 1969, John Dean accepted this position.)
At Camp David. All slept late again. (My son) Hank and I went up to bowl
around noon, had to leave because P coming. Then he went to pool. Called me
up there, and it was rainy, he sitting under umbrella in trunks. Rain stopped.
Talked for about a half hour. Mainly about his concern that we didn't get out
tax reform word. And wanted action about New York Times editorial about
his moon telecast plans.
Returned to White House at 3:00. P came to office for a while, with E and
Ziegler. Cleaned up the loose ends, schedule details, E's items, etc. Then he
returned to Residence for dinner.
Called me over to tell family about Teddy Kennedy's escapade. Very
strange news coverage as they try to cover up real implications of what hap-
pened. Kennedy, late last night in Martha's Vineyard, drove his car off a
bridge into a pond, left girl in it to drown. She was a former secretary of
Bobby's. Lot of peculiar possibilities, but wires carry no sensationalizing, or
speculation. E has investigators, etc., working on what really happened.
Wants to be sure he doesn't get away with it, but of course no reaction
from us. Real concern is realization of what they'd be doing if it were one of
our people. Obviously (P feels) he was drunk, escaped from car, let her drown,
said nothing until police got to him. Shows fatal flaw in his character, cheated
at school, ran from accident.
Sunday, July 20, 1969

Moon EOB for solo work most of the day. I
landing day, fantastic. P to
worked Back to White House at about 5:00. Some trip
at hotel, packing.
details finalized, a few phone conversations with P in EOB about details for
telecast tonight. P came into office about 8:45, went into little office, because
Oval filled with TV gear and crew. Had me in for discussion of the Teddy
Kennedy matter. Reviewed today's developments. He is very interested in the
whole thing, and feels it marks the end of Teddy. Had E working on investiga-
tion, etc.
Then had Frank Borman what was happening, as the men

in to describe
got ready to leave the LEM Borman, P, and I
(lunar excursion module).
watched on little TV in little office. When Neil (Armstrong) hit the surface, P
clapped and said, "Hooray." He's very much excited by the whole thing. Was
fascinated with watching moon walk, etc. Then went into Oval Office for TV,
and did a great job on split screen with the moon. He wrote his own remarks
instead of using the suggestions. All in all, a great day, and he was very elated
as he left for the house. Julie, David, and Tricia were waiting in the Rose
Garden and walked him home.
He's going to push hard on the Ted Kennedy thing, mainly because he
feels it greatly reduces Teddy's influence in the Senate and may help us on
ABM and surtax, as it takes wind out of opposition's sails. The whole thing
really is very strange, and it will be interesting to see how they maneuver to
cover it up.
P has canceled press trip briefing schedule for tomorrow afternoon, be-
cause moon shot overshadows it. Will do it in Guam Thursday evening in-
stead. Actually much anyway, and will get far better ride and set stage
better
for the trip. We have a rough period ahead, but everyone is ready and eager
and I think it will go well.

Big thing today was a meeting with P, K, E and me. Kept getting put off, finally
started about 5:00 and went for three hours. P outlined his thinking about need
to get into gear. Feels all we have really accomplished in six months is to learn
how to run the place. Need now to establish the mystique of the presidency,
and wants the three of us to function as the hard-core inner circle. Wants us
to zero in on hard-nosed basis and take charge. Feels where we have failed is
where we've temporized.
Main thing is we haven't used the power of the White House, to reward
and punish. Haven't inculcated in all the staff the view that their job is to build
the P, not themselves.
up to his idea of using the word "GO" as the theme, much
All led
impressed by astronauts last night. Means all systems ready, never be in-
decisive, get going, take risks, be exciting. Can't fall into dry rot of just
managing the chaos better. Must use the great power of the office to do
something. Boldness. Now is the time to go. We've organized things, now
use them. Go for broke now, on what's right. If that loses us 1972, I accept
that.
Power of the United States must be used more effectively, at home and
abroad or we go down the drain as a great power. Have already lost the
leadership position we held at end of WW
II, but can regain it, if fast! Looking
for a sense of history and a sense of drama. Wants this group also to concen-
trate and decide on what the P should use his time for.
Usual discussion during the day and at this meeting about Harlow prob-
74 H.R. HALDEMAN
lem. And lots of talk about Ted Kennedy episode. General agreement that it
has killed him as presidential candidate.

Also wants to set up and activate "dirty tricks" —with Buchanan, (Lyn)
Nofziger, (aide Clark) Mollenhoff, Woods, and (Director of Communications
Herb) Klein. Back to the ban on The New York Times. Mainly due to moon
TV editorial, which was uncalled for.
"Dirty tricks" as used here refers to the general political campaign activity
of harassment and needling of the opposition, planting spies in their camp,
etc. In other words, hardball politics.
The New York Times editorial berated the President for "sharing
the stage with the astronauts" and wasting their precious time with his
direct link conversation. It also voiced the opinion that Nixon had very
little to do with the program, giving most of the credit to Kennedy and
Johnson.
And so to our round-the-world journey.
Tuesday, July 22, 1969

All day at the White House in preparation for the trip. P had horrendous
schedule —mainly Congressional— starting with bipartisan leaders breakfast.
Several ABM sessions with senators. A long session with E about work to be
done while P is gone. Flew to San Francisco tonight. Overnight at the St.
Francis, then on tomorrow.

to Johnston Island
P still fascinated with Kennedy case, and covered some things about it
with E also. Had me into his cabin on Air Force One for a good part of the
trip covering details and mainly just chatting.

Landed Johnston Island and transferred to helicopters for trip to the USS
at
Arlington where we stay overnight while steaming to the pickup area (for the
Apollo XI astronauts). We'll leave here by helicopter at 4:40 for the AM
Hornet and the splashdown due at 5:50. Just Bill Rogers, K, Hughes, Borman,
and me with P plus Ziegler and five-man press pool.
Long talk with P at the hotel this morning, mainly about need for cutting
back on expenses and staff.
Thursday and Friday, July 24-25, 1969

We crossed the dateline so one day covers two.
This is the day the men came back from the moon. After a sleepless night
on the Arlington for me (my cabin was next to the radio shack and a banging
door) we were up at 4:00 for 4:40 departure. It was beautiful on the flight deck,
absolutely dark, millions of stars, plus the antenna lights on the ship. Borman
said it looked more like the sky on the back side of the moon than any he had
ever seenon earth. Helicopter left in the dark and flew over the ocean to the
Hornet. Landed and went through quick briefings on the decontamination
setup and the recovery plan. Then waited on the bridge for the capsule to
appear.
It did, in spectacular fashion. We saw the fireball (like a meteor with a tail)
risefrom the horizon and arch through the sky, turning into a red ball, then
disappearing. Waited on bridge an hour or so until we could see the helicopters
over the capsule and raft in the sea. We steamed toward them. Watched the
pickup, first through binoculars, then with naked eye. P was exuberant, really
cranked up, like a little kid. Watched everything, soaked it all up. Showed
everyone his fancy binoculars (actually Don Hughes').
Then the pickup helicopter landed on deck. P ordered band to play
"Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." (The name of the spacecraft was Co-
—
lumbia). Presented gifts in flag plot then down to hangar deck for P chat with
astronauts in quarantine chamber. Great show. He was very excited, personal,
perfect approach. Then prayer and "Star-Spangled Banner." Then "Ruffles
and Flourishes" and "Hail to the Chief," and we left.
Had a short hop to Johnston Island because splashdown closer than
planned. A brief stop there and on to Guam.
Huge crowd at Guam airport, lot of kids. Usual honors. P worked fence
and spoke. Then to quarters. Then the press backgrounder at the Officers
Club.
And so to bed early after lots of lack of sleep. Pretty historic and fascinat-
ing day!
More historic than I knew. P's remarks at that "backgrounder" became

known as the Nixon Doctrine. In the future, he said, we would supply arms
and assistance only to those nations that would supply their own manpower
to defend themselves. No more automatically rushing in our men.
Started the day in Guam by taking notes over the phone of Ted Kennedy's TV
speech while Cole held his phone to the radio in DC. Then got a report and
evaluation from E in New
York. P still very interested. Discussed it with him
on the plane (to Manila), and he still has a lot of theories. Also long talk about
White House staff, the need to shake things up and really get people down to
work. Also need to get rid of some that don't carry their load. His mind very
much on these things instead of the trip.
76 H.R. HALDEMAN
Also concerned about report that I was calling reporters about the
Kennedy case. Feels White House board may be tapped, or operators listen in.

Manila to Djakarta. Woke up
during the night to discover we were in the
middle of a typhoon. Very heavy winds, and rain really pouring down. This
canceled helicopter plans for this morning and created problems as streets
Long flight to Djakarta. Standard arrival, but with
flooded and the river rose.
smaller crowds and even more military control. Dinner was in a pavilion at the
palace. White jacket. Building was not air conditioned, and the heat was
almost unbearable. Everyone dripping wet. Most of the Indonesians, men and
women, had fans and spent all evening fanning themselves. Dinner was pretty
good, French style. Entertainment after dinner in adjoining hall, also very hot,
was superb. The Siamese-type dances with 27-man gamelan, with opening
ceremony including strewing flower petals and serving seeds and cold drinks.
Didn't end until nearly midnight.

Arrived in Bangkok, and rain started as plane door opened. Really poured and
we all were soaked to the skin as we stood in it for the arrival ceremony,
including the King and the P. Rain stopped just as ceremony ended and we
went into building. King and P received diplomatic corps and privy council,
etc. All ladies deep curtsy, men deep bow, to King. He doesn't acknowledge
in any way, looks over their heads. Queen very gracious, smiles and nods at
each one.
Palace, where we are staying, is unbelievable! Dinner of King's was su-
perb. Beautiful hall, the throne room, for head table of sixty. Rest of guests,
about 150, in next Army band played during dinner. Lady singer
room. Thai
entertained after with songscomposed by King. Troops out in front and band
to play national anthems on arrival and departure. Trees all lighted along
route.

The trip to Vietnam. Very exciting, interesting, and worthwhile. Left (Bang-
kok) first thing in morning, by chopper from Palace to airport, then by 970
(the tail number for Air Force One backup) to Tan San Nhut Airport at Saigon.
Flew low over Saigon and could see the little fortifications in triangle shape,
scattered throughout the countryside. No airport ceremonies. Chopper direct
to front lawn of Palace. Good view of city. Huge, crowded, typical of South
East Asia. Big river full of boats.
Ceremonies on arrival at Palace. Thieu and P spoke from front steps and
P decorated some Vietnam soldiers. Then in for private talks. I sat in on the
session with the advisors. Not much accomplished, reviewed the military
situation and public morale and our commitments, etc. Very hot, but not so
bad Most of palace is open-air.
in air conditioned areas.
After talks,P and Thieu made departure statements and then we left by
helicopter for Xi Nam, the base for First Army. Did a tour of the bunkers and
helicopter revetments, by open jeep. Fascinating. P was great with troops.
Pushed away the microphone, got off the stand and moved among the men,
talking to individuals. Made several stops at guard posts, helicopter areas, etc.,
always talking directly to individual men. Really impressed them, the press,
and even General Abrams. Then helicopter back to airport, rejoin Pat Nixon,
who had busy and very successful day at an orphanage, a palace tea, and a
veteran's hospital.
On plane back, P was elated with visit and very much impressed. Gave
quite an emotional charge to me never to let the hippie college-types in to see
him again. He was really taken by the quality and character of the guys he
talked to, and by reaction really fedup with the protesters and peaceniks. Also
some about plans for Domestic Program when we return. This continued
talk
in his room at the Palace when we got back to Bangkok. Had some late reports
on status of the surtax, which keeps going up and down. Hard to keep in touch
because of the time difference.
New Delhi and Lahore followed, but Romania was the high point.
Saturday, August 2, 1969

Lahore to Bucharest and a real day to remember! Left Lahore first thing, long
flight.P really on edge, anticipating Romanian reception. Bucharest welcome
exceeded all expectations. Was really unbelievable. People massed along entire
route except where prohibited. Very enthusiastic, clapped as whole motorcade
went by, threw flowers into P's car, shouted, "Hurrah" and "Nixon," really
spectacular. P elated and really cranked up. Stood up in car with President
Ceausescu almost all the way. Stopped and got out several times, drove the
Romanian security man up the wall.
Guest house is modern building with all kinds of facilities, pool,
beautiful
theater, staff dining room, banquet room, etc. P went by car to State Building
for talks, and returned in driving rain. Huge crowds along the streets both
ways still clapping and cheering. Then out for the dinner, same thing, and then
to reception at 10:30, still crowds. Really great.
On return home P called me down, then K, had on pajamas,
at 11:30,
went out on his huge garden and walked and talked and smoked a cigar for
over an hour. Reviewing the day and its significance. Feels history was made,
the turnout and emotional reaction was enormous and showed the real feeling
of the people under Communist rule. Said the dinner group was reserved, etc.,
78 H.R. HALDEMAN
because they are the officials and they are scared, sitting on a tinder box. Don't
have the guts of their P. P feels Ceausescu is extremely shrewd and bright, and
was very much impressed by him. The talks were apparently most useful. P still
concerned about our PR weakness and afraid we're not adequately getting the
story out. Especially concerned that the significance of story is fully under-
stood and reported.
He on a concrete bench by the lakeside in his garden and expounded
sat
on and it was quite a session. He sees the great historical first of United
all this,
States P here, topped by the fantastic reception of the people, as highly

significant.
Great music at dinner. Three folk bands, singers, mostly Romanian
music.
Sunday, August 3, 1969

Romania. More crowds, clapping, cheering, even early Sunday morning, as we
went out for brief tour of city. Ceausescu decided at last minute to come along.
(Probably aware of crowds.) Streets lined even more heavily, and people
leaning out of all balconies and windows. Really a show. Visited farmers'
market, apartment development, model village. Then back into talks. Then
our luncheon at the guest house which turned out very well. Little hard to talk
through interpreter especially when the other party is the Minister of Defense
and very close-mouthed.
Left immediately after lunch for the airport and the departure ceremonies,
which became quite effusive as the two Presidents ended up with their arms
around each other. Remarkable! President was understandably riding high on
the flight to England. Felt Romania had been a truly historic visit, very
impressed with Ceausescu and feels we have a real opportunity through him
for communication to the Communist world. Still really concerned that we
aren't adequately selling the accomplishments, keeps grinding away on this.
Got heavily into the need for a PR man again.
It was obviously hard for the P to go through this truly spectacular trip
while feeling that the real picture and understanding of it was not getting
through to the American people. A valid concern.
Also some discussion about Domestic Program and the plan for this.
Everyone pretty well pooped on the long flight home, not much accomplished.
Arrival at Andrews with full ceremonies. VP did excellent job in his welcoming
speech. Chopper to White House. Julie and Tricia both very enthusiastic about
the TV coverage etc. Helps. Good crowd, even in the rain.
l sr
Monday, August 4, 1969

Back White House. P came in early about 7:00. P had long meeting with
to the
bipartisan leaders to report on trip. Then had Ted Kennedy into his office.
Told him he understood how tough it was, etc. Said he was surprised to see
how hard the press had been on him, especially because they like him, but have
to realize they are your enemy at heart even if they do like you, because their
prime motivation is the story.
Spent the rest of the day talking to the troops one by one. Harlow in to
recap legislative situation. Basically a victory on surtax. Bad erosion of (Sena-
tor Everett) Dirksen's leadership in the process, because he opposed Adminis-
tration position. Agnew led fight against, which will create some future
problems.
Moynihan for one more go around on the Welfare Program. He's still
sold on it. Pat is great, because he provides the upbeat shot in the arm that the
rest of the staff lacks.
Tuesday, August 5, 1969

At Camp but P called me over at 8:30, no break-
David. Planned to sleep in,
fast, was Mainly on the PR need. Concerned about the

there three hours.
Harris poll, shows huge drop. I checked via Chapin with (pollster George)
Gallup who says it can't be valid. Long harangue on staff spirit, and on and
on with PR. Dinner in the evening with the Cabinet at Aspen. P gave long and
very good report on his trip, explaining all the background and zinging State
for opposing both Vietnam and Romania.
August 6 saw the ABM vote come before the Senate. The result was an even
split, 50 to 50, and so Agnew cast his vote to end the tie, 51 to 50. A
razor-thin margin, but we took it. Meanwhile, in Paris, Henry Kissinger

had begun the top-secret meetings with the North Vietnamese, which would
extend over the next three years.

visit to the Western White House.) San Clemen te. P called fairly early
(P's first
in themorning, was at the office. Was really excited about the setup and the
remarkable job done. Wants to bring the old Cabinet table out for the confer-
ence room. Said this whole project, and his house and landscaping, show the
high level of competence you find here in California, and nowhere else in the
world. Very impressed by executive mess (dining room) and patio.
Called late in the afternoon to be sure we watched Pat Nixon special on
80 H.R. HALDEMAN
TV and called her afterward. Wants to be sure we get good treatment for the
Cabinet officers while here, social stuff plus TV coverage. Very concerned
about lack of coverage in LA Times, especially about no follow-up on Bucha-
rest,or the Domestic Program. Feels strong need to maintain our momentum
while at crest. Reviewed plans for the Astronaut dinner and Johnson visit.
We went down to look things over. It's all beautifully done, Higby de-
serves great credit. The setup should be darn near ideal. P came over. Had me
in for a while, then over to see the house. He's really happy with the whole
setup.

First day at the Western White House. All went well. P in good spirits, arrived
early with Tim. Right to work, long session with Rumsfeld, then Don did press
briefing about OEO reorganization. Not much for me to work on, review
again of (astronaut) dinner plans. Wants Borman to come in and go over it
with him. Worried because Mitchell doesn't have a pool for his little girl.
Wants everyone to be happily situated. Quit around 1 :30 and went back to the
house, trying to set the pattern.

Shultz in for his briefing on manpower. P at work early again, can't get
readjusted to time changes from trip. More detailed discussion of the dinner.
He's determined to have it just right. Tried the ocean, pretty hard to get in
because of rocks, but water is great!
Wednesday, August 13, 1969

The day of the big dinner. Borman in this morning for final plans. Ronald
Reagan also. Dinner was a truly smashing success. P handled emcee role to
perfection. Staging was superb. Dinner and service adequate. Astronauts very
good. Highly emotional and patriotic evening that completely succeeded in
meeting all the P's objectives. Well worth all the work. P called about 1 :30, still
really cranked up.
Thursday, August 14, 1969
Bad night. Went to bed about 2:10, after P's call. Phone rang at 3:30, Bill
Rogers very concerned because P has just called him saying he was not well,
had Tkach there, feared a heart attack and might have to go to hospital. Bill
not sure what to do, I told him to get over to P's house, see what's happening
and call me. He did. Problem is gas, due to overexcitement. Bill and Tkach left
a little after 4:00, both called me from home to say probably all OK. So I ended
up with darn little sleep.
P came into office almostOnly planned schedule was NSC

on time.
meeting, which he attended. Seems to OK,
still some trouble, and looked
feel
sleepy. He spent some time with Borman thanking him for dinner, etc., then
went home, probably for a nap.
Had a reception at Residence for press at 6:00. Worked out fine. Then
down for the day.
Friday, August 15, 1969

Phone rang at 5:00, Tkach saying same problem as night before, at 3:00 again.
Is getting a specialist out to try to cure it. No schedule today. P didn't come
to the office at all. Played golf with Bebe, kids and Bill Rogers. Called in late
afternoon to see what's going on, very relaxed. No problems.

At (speech) writers meeting P discussed whole approach to the future, mainly
in regard to his speech to the National Governors Conference. Question
whether to take on the Democratic Congress. If so, can lay the basis with
speech on all the items he has put before Congress, with no action. P said he's
not about to take on Democrats, but can't say this to (due to) politics. Reason
of course, is that if he didn't win, he'd have an impossible situation for next
two years. Said no president since FDR has gained in Congress in an off-year,
and even FDR in 1934 was just continuation of the tide that swept him in.
Down deep, though, I think he feels he does have a chance to get a Republican
Congress if he ends the war, etc., but won't follow the attack route, at least not
now. Makes sense.
At K, E meeting we talked about Vietnam alternatives. Obvious that we
have to end it in six to nine months, and that the process will be difficult. K
has scenario, now with Mitchell. Feels P has to make total mental commitment
and really be prepared for the heat. I think he realizes this and is getting ready.
This is at least part of the reason for the efforts to build strong nationalism
with space thing, and certainly the reason behind the push for better PR
capability,and also, I think, the reason he's really taking a vacation, to get
ready for what lies ahead. Hope it will do the job.
(Presidential Speechwriter William) Safire came up with his idea for the
New Federalist Papers, to play off New Federalism. To be used as the basis for
knocking down the and zag theory about Nixon, and establish basic theme
zig
for Administration. To be written anonymously, under name of Populus.

Pretty active morning. E and me, then K. Then a meeting with Wallace
Sterling about Bicentennial Commission. Then the new Indian Commissioner,
82 H.R. HALDEMAN
then sixnew ambassadors. Concerned about Ziegler telling press about his
golf, and having them follow him around. Still some freedom and
trying to get
privacy. Also wants aides to find a sandy beach for swimming, unfortunately
the rocks (boulders) on his beach make it almost useless.

Meeting with Ash's Reorganization Group. (P had asked California industrial-
ist Roy Ash to study Executive Branch reorganization. ) Very good session
about their basic approach to Executive Office of President. P was quite

interested and responsive, and seemed to buy his ideas. Did launch into a half
hour sidebar on the whole foreign policy problem of State vs. Defense vs. K.
Called K in to cover this. Hard to figure exactly why, except as filibuster, and
to dazzle them with a little taste of the "big stuff" as they wallowed around in
petty problems. P does seem to recognize, though, the need for a new organiza-
tional approach and buys the idea of a Domestic Policy Council and an Office
of Executive Management. Now have to figure out how to implement the
whole thing. Will break a lot of china, especially at Bureau of Budget because
really cuts across their lines of responsibility. Must be done. P took group on
tour of Residence after meeting. Darn good session overall.

E and Ihad lunch meeting with Ted Braun and Cliff Miller about PR. They
agree with us we should not add a PR staff man, but rather a policy board
using outside counsel, for which they volunteered. Cliff makes a lot of sense
and can be brought into this.
Also a number of meetings and talks about staff reorganization, and I
settled the deal with Jeb Magruder. He'll probably be the staff man for me on
PR, which we'll call "PO" instead, for Presidential Offensive. Need to finalize
a recommended plan for the whole structure, then try to sell it to E. He's the
key at this point and question is whether he'll take on the domestic responsibil-
ity. I think he will, but reluctantly, because he hates to give up his options,
which are numerous at present.

LBJ's birthday. P had personally planned the whole production for today,
from the original idea down to the details of a mariachi band at the helipad.
P and Pat Nixon went out to pad in golf cart to greet them. Mariachis
played Happy Birthday, and all the staff and press were ordered out to sing.
Pat Nixon took the family to the house. P took LBJ to the office for briefing.
Called me in as soon as they got there. LBJ had launched immediately into a
discussion of his problems with adequate staff, funds, GSA snooping and press
leaks, etc. He's really psychopathic. Raved on and on about how humiliating
it all was. (aide to LBJ) Tom Johnson bring all the press clips, official
Had
and went on for 45 minutes. K and E were called in the meantime.
records, etc.,
Fortunately, LBJ knew and approved of my memo ordering support for him,
main complaint was that it isn't being implemented.
He also wove in several times references to his decision not to run, which
he implies was firmly made long before he announced it. Cited examples of
papers he's working on, i.e., his Vietnam troop decisions; his memo to JFK
about moon program feasibility that led to the decision, etc. Is obviously
completely absorbed in writing history the way he wants it to be. Especially
about the war, the bombing pause, etc.
On plane to redwoods he urged P not to listen to the critics, cited mistakes
he had made in this regard. Gave excellent extemporaneous remarks at dedica-
tion ceremony, think he was genuinely and deeply pleased. Setting and cere-
mony were great, whole idea of P's was well worthwhile.
P had me meet with Tom Johnson to work out all the problems, and I
think we can settle it all satisfactorily. They really do have a problem about
mail and declassifying the 32 million pieces of paper. We will provide man-
power through K operation. LBJ makes valid point that our interests are very
much involved, in that there will be many of his papers we will not want made
public, but general interest is, of course, to release as much as possible.
P, in usual stage-managing fashion, completely screwed up the plane
seating arrangements as soon as we were aboard Air Force One. Decided to
reverse family, staff, and VIP locations and had everything in a complete
turmoil. He was cranked up with the whole deal, and I think really enjoyed
having LBJ on his new plane.
(P) talked a about reaction to LBJ and his peculiar concern with costs,
little
etc. Feels he's hypersensitive because of all he has taken down to Texas plus
all the criticism about how much money he's made while President.
Reviewed K's contingency plan for Vietnam tonight. Will be a tough
period ahead if we goto it. K feels strongly that he, E and I, plus Mitchell,
must hang tight and provide the backup. Also feels we need a domestic plan
to go with it, covering actions and reaction here.

E, K, and had long session with Mitchell, primarily about Rogers problem,
I
but also the general situation of Cabinet officers' failure to take the heat, and
to sell the line. Mitchell has agreed to hit Rogers head on, on basis of scenario
from K.
84 H.R. HALDEMAN
Supposedly a day off. Started with continuing flurry of phone calls. Chairman
of Pitney-Bowes, and of the United Fund, was camped at the compound
entrance in long black chauffeured limousine. Would not leave until he saw the
P about doing a TV we had consistently turned
spot for United Fund, which
down for months. Cole tried to get him settled, but failed. So we put it to the
P via E, and he, of course, capitulated, will do the film Monday morning. The
guy ended up sitting in the car four hours, and in the office another hour. E
finally saw him and settled it.
The Western White House operation has worked out sensationally
really
well, but there are now signs of the P starting become restless. I'm amazed
to
it's taken this long. Part of the problem now is that Julie and David have gone
back, so he doesn't have them as diversions. Also he's talking more and more
about operating routine Washington, etc. Nonetheless, it has been great
in
relaxation for him, and forof us and the press. And it will pay dividends.
all
The going will get very tough very fast when we get back, and everyone will
need this reservoir.
Friday, September 5, 1969

Morning meeting of the "group" (Haldeman, Harlow, K, E). Started slow but
P got in gear and roared through all his PR points: need for a PR man; need
to sell Nixon Doctrine as a major breakthrough in foreign policy; need to get
over the importance of Bucharest as rejection of Doctrine of Limited Sover-
eignty; need to show reestablishment of American leadership around the
world; need to use more unconventional approaches; need to work more
closely with the governors, especially the liberal ones; need to realign Congres-
sional liaison and use the guys who are really with us; then a long harangue
about the whole subject of press relations, who to boycott, etc.
Would have gone on and on, but was interrupted by Rogers /Yost meet-
ing, then a photo session, then a haircut, then off for golf with John Mitchell
for his birthday. First, though, another session with E and me. Nothing
special. Changed into golf clothes in the office, after his usual pineapple and
cottage cheese lunch. All quiet through the afternoon.
Sunday, September 7, 1969

The day at Western White House, and all was quiet. P went to church in
last
San Clemente and laid low the rest of the day. Beautiful day. (I) had a long
sail with Chapin. Then packed up. (Everett) Dirksen died, so lots of phone
calls setting things up.

This extended stay at the Western White House was an experiment to see
whether it really worked as a way to slow down a little for a while. It
followed closely after the return from the exhausting trip around the world
and lasted for four weeks, which I thought was amazing. It did work well,
but probably extended too long.
One factor that made it feasible was the actual setting up of a working
Western White House on a Navy compound just adjacent to the P's new
residence in San Clemente. All the necessary facilities and backup support
were available and functioned well. Cabinet officers and others who came
out for meetings with the P seemed to greatly enjoy the opportunity.
Monday, September 8, 1969

Back to work. A busy day, early take off for Del Rio, Texas, and joint bridge
dedication with President of Mexico. Hot as Hades, went well. Will never
all
forget the Mexican band's rendition of their national anthem, unbelievably

horrible!Luncheon after, with sensational entertainment. Mariachis, dancers,
rope spinners, etc. Then on to fly over Louisiana and Mississippi flood and
hurricane damage. Landed at Gulfport, great crowd. P really fired up, great
enthusiasm, about 40,000, waited for hours, only one road in.
on the plane en route. Urged us to make the tough staff

Several sessions
moves now. Doing some thinking about the Dirksen eulogy, which reminded
him to worry about the relationship with Ogilvie (the Governor of Illinois, who
would be appointing Dirksen 's successor to the Senate).
Arrived at DC, went to White House to see the new office designs, late at
night. P's office is and yellow. Most dislike it immensely. I

really bright blue
kind of like it for what it is, with the exception of some of the furnishings. It
is at least colorful and controversial now and certainly can't be called dull. My
office is great, but still a lot to do. Desk turned out very well.
So the San Clemente era closes for the year. It was a good idea and
worked out well. Did all of us good to have the changes, especially the P. And
now it's back to the DC operation, but with my family here. The house looks
great, and I do think we'll all greatly enjoy it.
We have a lot of revamping to do now, and I hope the HEHK (Haldeman,
Ehrlichman, Harlow, Kissinger) operation will work out. It should be our best
approach.
Tuesday, September 9, 1969

Back at the White House. A little time to get used to the new decor. Some
problems about lighting and color, etc., but overall a great step forward except
86 H.R. HALDEMAN
for the Oval Office. P says he likes it, and keeps analyzing why. Maybe he really
does. A generally undistinguished day of getting back to work.

The big Vietnam meeting. The key NSC types plus Vietnam Commanders and
Ambassador. Top secret, to lay plan for next troop withdrawal. Also big flap
over 36-hour halt of B-52 raids in South Vietnam. Meeting lasted all morning
in the Cabinet Room, then P had military and (Ambassador Ellsworth) Bun-
ker over to EOB for additional session.
Then back to Oval Office for some general stuff and routine signing. Off
to Camp David at 4:30, with Julie and David plus HEHK.
We had our first Camp David session tonight. It worked out only fairly
well. Problem was too many phone calls, plus a great difficulty in getting to the
point. A lot of meandering. Most of the pre-dinner and a good part of after
was devoted to the Green Beret case. (The Green Berets stood charged with
murdering a Vietnamese who was believed to be a double agent.) A real PR
problem for the P and Administration. Army plans to go ahead with court-
martial which will bring out a lot of secret activity, but worse it will give great
fodder to the antiwar types, which what we don't need as school opens.
is just
Tried to call Admiral McCain to get his view, and Laird found out, and
called K, very upset that we hadn't gone to him instead.
The knew immediately of our attempt to call

fact that Laird apparently
McCain from Camp David gave us something new to worry about. Were
the phones tapped for the Defense Department? Way back
Camp David
J. Edgar Hoover had warned the P and me that
during the transition period,
the Army Signal Corps, who operated the White House Communications
Agency, were known to listen in on supposedly secure phone communica-
tions that they were handling.

Sort of hit the fan this morning as Ziegler came in to say ( Vietnam Vice
President Nguyen Cao) Ky had leaked the troop story in Vietnam (we'd
planned to announce the withdrawal of 35,000 more by December 15). Spent
quite a while with K and E and Ziegler and P trying to work out our approach,
and wording of statement. Decided we had to go today, not let Ky story ride
alone. Problem is in working out the details of the statement. Hard to get the
actual figures squared away in simple, but accurate form. Ky figure of 40,000
is misleading in a way because it refers to authorized troop level, instead of
actual number in country. Now we have to explain, which becomes confusing.
As the day went on K was unable to get a satisfactory statement, so
decided to stay with plan for Tuesday announcement. Moved bipartisan lead-
ers to this afternoon late, and GOP tomorrow morning.
leaders
P canceled a lot of today's appointments and meetings in order to go over
things with K, and to get ready for leaders. It's hard for him to shift from the
current crisis to the relatively meaningless routine type things, and the way out
is just to cancel the latter. Understandable. Actually it works out pretty well
the way we set up the weekly schedule because we leave a lot of time open,
which provides flexibility. A little rough sometimes on those we shift around.
Our system is going to build up gradually. He's dividing more between E
and me, instead of using us interchangeably. Unfortunately E leaves Friday for
a ten-day vacation which will put a major crimp in progress. Harlow seems to
be tracking well and will be valuable, also it will help him to see some of the
rest of the picture besides just Congress.
P called at home to say he wanted to be sure the call he's expecting from
Governor Ogilvie is put right through. Trouble is Ogilvie hasn't called. Proba-
bly will appoint Dirksen successor in next couple of days.
Wednesday, September 17, 1969

Day clear for speech work (for the opening of the UN General Assembly).
Did
add a signing session announcement
for an old-age bill to use as staging for an
of intention to raise Social Security 10%. P especially pleased that we had
analyzed and planned whole event for TV, and did it all on basis of getting
what we wanted on the TV news.
Problem at the UN because podium light is not adequate and they won't
permit us to add anything. Important because he'll read the speech and it will
all be on TV.
P spent all afternoon at EOB working on the speech. K concentrating all

his efforts on the UN speech and the plans for the Foreign Minister meetings
afterward. No major activity about Vietnam, although the withdrawal an-
nouncement yesterday is still reverberating, with lots of interpretations arising
from K's background.
P came back to office in late afternoon, from EOB, and had some points
to cover about staff organization. Think we're making progress.
Also P wanted progress report on plans to convert ( White House indoor)
swimming pool to press facility. He's really determined to go ahead with that,
and it would sure help clean up the West Wing.
Thursday, September 18, 1969
UN Day. P didn't come in to the office. We left at 9:30, to New York. He gave
a very good speech and was very good at reading it (urging the nations to
persuade Hanoi Reaction was pretty lukewarm. They
to negotiate seriously).
did finally stand and clap when he was introduced and came in, but there was
no applause during the speech and they did not stand at the end.
88 H.R. HALDEMAN
Then to the Waldorf for private meetings with Foreign Ministers. Worked
very well on our schedule of 15 and 20 minute appointments. Really had to
hustle. Decided to go to "21" for dinner after our reception. Ran into Zsa Zsa
(Gabor), Gina Lollobrigida, Dorothy Lamour, and Henry Ford. Shook hands
after with crowd waiting in the street. Interesting, because LBJ couldn't even
appear in public in New York. Our reception most friendly and enthusiastic
all through the city, and no anti demonstrators.
I spent the whole flight back with Pat Nixon, about her White House
Preservation Committee, and her staffing thoughts. She's determined to run

her own operation in the East Wing, which is the right approach, but she will
have to have a better staff to do it right. Good first step is her increased interest.
Can build from there.
The White House Social Office and the needed office facilities for the First
Lady's other East Wing of the White
activities are usually located in the
House, and thus the phrase "East Wing" has come to mean the First Lady's
Office (until the Clintons) just as the "West Wing" refers to the President's
offices.
Harlow called in New York to urge P take over Laird's plan to announce
draft cuts. Feels it will be the best news we've put out yet. (Because of the troop
withdrawals, draft calls for November and December had been canceled.) I
talked to P and he agreed, and was very pleased to learn Laird was willing to
do it. So we swung into action and switched Laird's press conference tomor-
row to the White House. Press all intrigued with what's happening. The shift
itself built up interest.
P called K late tonight really upset by the Green Beret announcement of

court-martial, which topped his UN story in the Star headlines. Justifiably
furious with Defense for letting this happen. And feels it's my fault because no
PR control, but K told him I didn't even know about it.
Saturday, September 20, 1969
At Camp David. P slept late. We left at noon. Had to wait awhile on chopper
while they tried to find Vicki (Tricia's dog). Reception in East Room for
student body and College Presidents. P disturbed afterward, felt it was useless,
and that we should not have done it. One kid gave him a lecture on how to be
a good president and start leading the country, this set him off. Another
example, maybe, of our letting the bad guys use us as a forum. We'll see how
the press comes out and how the kids react.
Then he had an appointment with Bob Hope, and after saying yesterday
he could not play golf ever on Saturday, they went off to Burning Tree for the
afternoon.

Some morning appointments, including fairly long session with Mitchell after
a meeting with him and Senator Griffin about Haynsworth appointment.
Appears it may be in some actual trouble.
On August 18 we had nominated Judge Clement Haynsworth of South

Carolina to replace Justice Fortas on the Supreme Court. He was immedi-
ately accused by liberal groups of being "racist" and "anti-labor" and of
having "conflicts of interest."
Minor flap at start of theday because there had been no speech material
prepared for Tricia for her open a museum exhibition.
trip to Philadelphia to
Problem is still almost complete lack of communication between East and
West wings. Hope Stuart's return will resolve this.
P is all of a sudden enamored with use of the Dictaphone and is spewing
out memos by the carload, plus about double the volume of news summary
marginal comments.
He was delighted this morning that pool dismantling was under way, and
worked out a plan with Ziegler and me to take a few press through the whole
new press setup. Ziegler had a long session with P in the late morning and
succeeded in talking him out of his plan to meet a small group of press for a
backgrounder, and instead to have a full press conference Friday. Then P
spent about a half hour telling me how to re-juggle the schedule to accommo-
date it.
After lunch hour he tookUPI reporter Merriman Smith and two others
on complete tour of West Wing, pointing out how awful the lobby, Roosevelt
Room, and West Basement are, then showed how the press setup will work out
in the pool area. They basically bought the idea, and he was absolutely right
in approaching it this way. Now it's a fait accompli except for details.

Big military morning. P had breakfast meeting with Joint Chiefs of Staff to let
them cover their views on military budget cutbacks. First time he's met with
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Called me in once to find out who the Republican senators had elected as
leader, but they hadn't voted yet. A little later Scott was and I went
elected,
inand told P. He was very pleased, feels Hugh (Scott) will be effective leader,
and that he can bring the liberals along, where (Howard) Baker could not
have, and we can hold the conservatives by ourselves.
P spent most of the afternoon at the EOB working on his briefing books
90 H.R. HALDEMAN
for the press conference. Called, as usual, several times about need for more
material on specific questions. Then had a haircut and went over to the
Residence. Called me at home on need to plan weekly outside activity for
Tricia, and concern about Nelson Rockefeller (who was) mad because junior
staff man called him. Can sure jump fast from the monumental to the totally
infinitesimal.
Harlow came up with an approach to the Congressional logjam

interesting
problem. Have P pay personal on (Speaker John) McCormack and
call
Democratic leaders in Speaker's office, to discuss ways and means of getting

things moving. Would be first time this ever done, lay groundwork for later
attack on Democratic Congress, with base of saying have done everything
possible to work with them, but no luck. Also might actually produce some-
thing.
K feels he finally has the Green Beret problem under control. The CIA has
been ordered to refuse to let their men testify as witnesses. (CIA Director
Richard) Helms really dragged his feet, but finally gave in. Now Laird has to
get (Army Secretary Stanley) Resor to cancel the trial for lack of case. Will
be hard to do, but should have been done months ago, the publicity, especially
TV, is damaging. Laird could have closed it up, and said he was doing
really
so, but didn't, in face of Resor determination to go ahead.
Golda Meir dinner tonight, she used her toast to recount all the problems
of the Jews over the centuries, but did really praise P strongly for his under-
standing, listening, during talks today. She got a standing ovation at end of
remarks, without even waiting for the toast.
At Camp David. In afternoon a political session with House and Senate

leaders, Whips and Campaign Chairmen, plus Morton, Dent, Harlow, Nof-
ziger and Buchanan. P in great form, as he cranked them up to get out and
hit hard on the offensive. Then gave them insight into Vietnam plans, long
discussion of October 15 plans and our need for counteraction (antiwar
demonstrators had called for a Vietnam War Moratorium rally in Washington,
DC, that day). Pointed out in Vietnam the enemy misjudges two things, the
time (P still has three years and three months) and the man (he won't be first
President to lose a war). Emphasized importance of the next 60 days (first
said 30), need for unity, have to take the P's assurance that we know what
we're doing.
Regarding October 15, he says they are prolonging the war by this attack,
because our only hope for negotiation is to convince Hanoi we are ready to
stay with it.
kt:

Big review of all our PR activity and follow up on his memos, etc. Said his real
concern is that whole staff is not zeroing in on the big issues and really getting
things done. Says he really feels frustrated, because he knows people disagree
with his orders and just don't carry them out. With others in the office, he
several times cracked that "Your staff never follows up on anything, so of
course this won't be done," etc. Trouble is, he's generally right, and so it's hard
to argue. As Harlow says, all presidents go through periods of "Nobody is
doing anything but me," and I'm sure he really has that feeling to a degree.
Keeps coming back to the October 15 Moratorium Plan, although he says
it doesn't concern him. Told me, secretly, he's thinking of doing a one hour
press conference that night at news time,

to preempt coverage of the day's
activities. Not a Also is interested in the Day of Prayer idea (to show
bad idea!
our sympathy with peace), which I discussed today with Billy Graham. Looks
feasible ifwe move quickly. Need to build leadership. Realizes war support is
more tenuous every day and knows we have to maintain it somehow. Turned
the House hawks loose today, demanding we resume bombing, etc., as a
counter on the right to all the pressure on the left to cop out. K got his Green
Beret trial turned off, with Resor dropping the charges because no CIA wit-
nesses.

Presented Unit Citation to 1st Marines, and used the occasion for an appeal
to national unity behind the war. One more step in the LBJ direction of using
every occasion to plead for support. More of the reaction to the situation
closing in. Not good, but hard to avoid.
Several miscellaneous appointments in the afternoon. A session with K
and E about the Symington hearings problem, on which they had been meeting
most of the day in the Situation Room. Problem is (Washington Post report-
ers) (Walter) Pincus and (Roland) Paul, who have been scooping up secret
data all over the world and leaking it to press plus building big antiadministra-
tion case.
Symington was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee

that was investigating activities at all foreign military bases; Pincus and
Paul learned of secret American involvement in Laos and were making it
public.
Question now is how to avoid having our key people testify, big issue of
executive privilege. Dick Allen had been working on this for months and is
92 H.R. HALDEMAN
really concerned about the possibilities. Mollenhoff also heavily involved and
distressed.
P called tonight, says may cancel Key Biscayne because he has too much
to do, then spent rest of the time trying to figure out something to fill Wednes-
day and Thursday schedule.
FOURTH QUARTER: OCTOBER-DECEMBER
Wednesday, October 1, 1969

Harlow concerned about Haynsworth, as is E, so they were told to work it out
with Mitchell. Bryce recommended to P that the nomination be withdrawn.
Mitchell later persuaded him otherwise.
P had several pages of lists on yellow pad that he checked off as we
covered the ground. Also has been cleaning out all his old briefcases, etc.,
because there are piles of stuff in the out box every day, way beyond what goes
in, some going clear back to the transition period. Hope it eventually all gets
cleaned out.
Thursday, October 2, 1969

Big stir on Haynsworth. P even decided in DC to work on it
to leave Harlow
over weekend. P feels that our Congressionalhave not handled this
staff
adequately. At first had blamed Justice, but meeting today with (Assistant
Attorney General) Rehnquist convinced him they had done their part, but
White House had not. This is not completely fair, because Mitchell has blithely
relied on his reports that everything was OK, while it was falling apart behind
the scenes. Real problem is not the merits of Haynsworth, but a combination
of reaction against the Fortas matter, plus a strong anti-Southern move, plus
pure partisan politics.
Met with Mitchell and group of Congressmen in the morning, and with
some of the NSC later. Then a batch of diplomatic credentials, which we tried
in the Residence in an effort to speed up the process. Did five in less than an
hour, not bad.
93
94 H.R. HALDEMAN
One of the more onerous ceremonial chores of the President in his role as
Chief of State is the protocol requirement that he personally receive the
credentials of each new foreign ambassador upon his posting to the United
States. With some 120 nations recognized by the United States, each with
an Ambassador in Washington, and with each new appointment requiring
a detailed ritual of introductions and niceties, this was a very time-consum-
ing addition to the heavily loaded Presidential schedule.
Richard Nixon viewed this procedure, cherished and expanded by the
Diplomatic Corps, as a complete waste of time. So he sought all kinds of
ways to avoid, or at least curtail it. The first idea was to shift the burden to
the VP, but this was totally unacceptable in the rules of protocol. So we kept
working on ways to speed up the procedure.
the plane (to Florida) he had E, K and me up for long staff session.
On
Still hammering on Haynsworth. Had some ideas on other follow-through
steps. Then a lot of odds and ends, wants General Chapman of Marine Corps
used on TV, change Ambassador to Paris, get Buchanan to blast peaceniks
about Russian and Chinese atom tests, stop use of Harris for departmental
polls, make Rogers and Laird start selling Vietnam policy, need for internal
discipline, etc.
Friday, October 3, 1969

At Key Biscayne.
The Nixon routine on these weekend, and sometimes longer, stays at Key
Biscayne became pretty well established. In the early part of the term, the
President stayed at one of several rented or borrowed houses on the Bay
side of the Key. Later, he bought his own house on the Bay, which was
equipped with a helicopter landing, complete security and communica-
tions facilities, and working and living quarters for the President and his
family.
The senior staff stayed at the Key Biscayne Hotel on the ocean side,
just across the Key from Our facilities at the
the President's residence.
hotel were also equipped for security and communications. We were at all
times reachable by the White House Communications Agency, by either
phone or walkie-talkie (cellular phones had not arrived yet), and so al-
ways directly available to the President and vice versa. The press was
housed at the Sonesta Beach Hotel, about a quarter mile down the beach
from our hotel.
The President generally spent most of his time working alone or
relaxing with his family or Bebe Rebozo. As needed, he had staff people
or invited guests, who were also usually housed at the Key Biscayne
Hotel, come over to his house for working meetings and sometimes for
dinner.
Day dawned bright and clear, hot and humid, after last night's storm. All
quiet through the morning, then P called E and me over for about a two-hour
session at his house. He was in trunks and a sport shirt. Sort of one of those
mystic sessions, which he had obviously thought through ahead of time. Said
for next sixweeks he'd have to concentrate on foreign matters, and we would
have to handle most of the domestic without him. Wants all staff to understand
and wants large free chunks of schedule time to work on Vietnam decisions.
Long general talk about all this. We reviewed our plans and ideas, especially
about need to game-plan Vietnam alternatives and start buildup for whatever
actions he decides to take.
Then had session with K, and he is of course very concerned, we only
feels
have two alternatives, bug out or accelerate, and that we must escalate or P is
lost.He is lost anyway if that fails, which it well may. K still feels main
question whether P can hold the government and the people together for the
is
six months it will take. His contingency plans don't include the domestic
factor. E feels strongly we can and should pre-program several routes on a PR
basis, and start getting ready. It's obvious from the press and dove buildup
that trouble is there, whatever we do.
Monday, October 6, 1969

Several sessions with individual senators and one group, about Haynsworth.
Big blow came this afternoon in letter from (Senator) Bobby Griffin saying he
could not support the appointment. Odd position for the Whip (the party floor
leader in the Senate). I told the P just before his meeting with the group of
senators; he was quite startled since Harlow had assured him earlier of Grif-
fin's support.
Had E, Harlow, and me join him at Executive Office Building at 6:45 for
a one and a half hour discussion of the whole thing. Result was tohave Harlow
talk to Romney and try to get him to return the letter to Griffin and shape him
up. He'll try. Also talked a lot about general handling of senators, etc. P really
disturbed, will destroy Griffin as Whip.
Some good news too. (Selective Service chief Lewis) Hershey is ready to
retire, and to announce it this week. Will help with campuses.
Didn't get home until 8:45, then P called and wanted a research project
about problems other Supreme Court Justices had in getting confirmed. Plans
to use it somehow tomorrow.
96 H.R. HALDEMAN

NSC this morning. Session first with Harlow and E and me about Haynsworth
and odds and ends. Had a bunch of notes from last night's party, as always.
After NSC did the Bicentennial Commission, which we had cranked up as a
TV opportunity to do a high level non-war pitch to the people. Worked out
fairly well but he didn't have enough time to prepare, so rambled and repeated
a bit. Lost some of the potential effectiveness, but still a good idea.
Asked me about news magazines, because Cronkite had mentioned them
last night. I told him just how they had hit us. He reacted very well. Said it was
to be expected, that we had not sold his accomplishments as well as we should

have and had let the Cabinet dissensions get out of hand, but it would have
happened anyway. Main problem is Vietnam, and we've bought nine months,
but can't expect to get any more time. Kept doves at bay this long, now have
to take them on, first Agnew etc., then later the P. Problem is that this does
make it his war.
This was what Pat Moynihan was constantly warning against. From the
start of his Presidency, Nixon focused primarily on Vietnam, recognizing
that it was major challenge. On one hand, he was determined
his overriding
to reach a conclusion of thewar on a basis of "peace with honor" and not
a "cop out" that would result in abandoning South Vietnam and a collapse
of South East Asia along the lines of the "domino theory." On the other
hand, he knew the domestic dissatisfaction with the ongoing "impossible
war" would inevitably increase daily and become more and more unman-
ageable.
He had fully expected that an acceptable, if not totally satisfactory,
solution would be achieved through negotiation within the first six months.
But this was not to be, unfortunately.
Decided today to make Moynihan a Counselor to P, with Cabinet rank.

Really best way to position him. Gets him out of operations, and into free-
wheeling idea-generating, plus working as a prod to all others, good use of
great talent. And it vastly simplifies E's problem in staffing.
Prominent Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan's initial appointment as

Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs and staff head of the Urban
Affairs Council was designed to take full advantage of his expertise and
advice in that field. But it came to involve a great deal of operational
responsibility as well, which was not Pat's real talent.
i
Flap today about TV, when P filmed spots for Cahill and Holton (two
Republican gubernatorial candidates). Al Scott had camera mounted high, and
P knows this is bad angle. So this proved to him we have to have a full time
top level TV man at White House. He called me twice during afternoon, and
twice athome about this. He's right on need for top pro as supervisor, but we'll
never get one to come here full time at any pay. New problem. They never end.

Had me in at lunchtime, long talk about things in general, especially K's
concern about Rogers and his (K's) obsession with total compliance and
perfection, which needs to be modified somehow. (K had talked to me earlier,
maybe we were trying
felt to ease him out, had heard rumors he was leaving
and thinks P has decided finally against his plan for Vietnam.) Then on to
whole Vietnam problem; he still is pondering the course. Does not yet rule out
K's plan as a possibility, but does now feel Laird-Rogers plan is a possibility,
when he did not think so a month ago. Low casualty rate now has changed his
mind. (Also K still thinks Hanoi may negotiate this month.) P discussed the
alternatives, ruled out the dramatic cop-out blaming the dove senators. Said
that would be a great way out for him, but terrible for the country. Worry
about K's plan is that it will take six to eight months, and fears can't hold the
country that long at that level, where he could hold for some period of
withdrawals.
Wants me to work with K and try to keep him on an even keel, and stop
his worrying.
E and I spent most of the afternoon in PR meeting with Cliff Miller,
mainly about Vietnam plans and alternatives. Agreed we have to concentrate
all efforts on maintaining P's credibility, so he can move the people with him
when he is ready to make the overt move on Vietnam.

P met with Democratic House leadership at 5:00, about the Domestic
Program shopping list. Does Senate tomorrow. Decided to drop World Series
visit, bad PR, will do Joint Chiefs of Staff at Camp David instead.
Sidenote: My guess as of today on Vietnam outcome: P will go on

TV November 3, with some prior buildup about major
announcement, and will enumerate all the secret moves he has made
for peace, with names and dates. Point out he's done everything
possible to resolve with Hanoi to no avail. So has ordered Paris talks
ended and brought team home. Will send personal envoy to Hanoi if
they want to talk. Will also announce no further United States
offensive action, and withdrawal of troops in December, about
40,000. And
continuous United States withdrawal until all are out, at
fastest rateSouth Vietnam can handle.
Will then sit tight for two to four weeks to await reaction. If they
98 H.R. HALDEMAN
continue or de-escalate, we withdraw. If they escalate heavily we

lull,
move fast heavy retaliation, mining etc., with this bad faith as
to
basis. Could then probably bring United States opinion around to
support level of fighting to get military victory in three to six months.
We'll see!

Busy and complex day. Private breakfast with Hugh Scott and Attorney
General Mitchell about Haynsworth; long visit with Hubert Humphrey (who
then went out and strongly backed P on the war); a "Congressional half hour"
(a scheduling device we had developed to process a maximum number of brief
visits, or presentations, from congressmen and senators who needed to be able to
say they had met with the President) and a batch of diplomatic credentials; a
meeting with Finch that went on and on into the lunch hour. (I had to
interrupt at end of lunch period to get the "laundry list" message to Congress
OK'd, and the statement about Hershey change); meeting with General Her-
shey to work out his reassignment; then he taped the whole message to Con-
gress for radio; a meeting with K; an hour with Mansfield; then a spell with
me for signing, and out at 7:00.
Called me several times at home, odd range of topics. First wanted 100
wires sent to Hubert commending his support; then a plan to give (Senator
Charles) Goodell (of New York) et al. a going over for their opposition; then
concern about schedule for next week after October 15, not strong enough.
Discussed inflation letter, and he had excellent idea to make it to 1000 leaders,
instead of one man, ask their views, etc. Then do radio speech for housewives.
Then need a major move for Friday, maybe a Rogers press conference (I urged
nothing on Vietnam, rather let mystery build from the Bunker- Wheeler-Lodge
meetings).
He says now he'll announce his November 3 speech (a major televised
address on Vietnam) on Monday, then use that to hold off any other Vietnam
question, i.e., in press conference the following week. I urged him not to say
in the announcement that he would cover all the secret moves, etc., let that be
the opening impact on November 3. He agreed.
Then some discussion of Haynsworth. Then a call about ashtrays for
California press group and some concern that (swimming) pool conversion
isn't moving fast enough. Shows how the Presidential attention can jump from
the momentous to the insignificant.
Saturday, October 11, 1969
Lot of little project stuff and some philosophical discussion in the office. He's
concerned about K's attitude and wants to be sure we keep him upbeat. Can't
let him overreact to each little aberration of Rogers, or Laird. (K argues that
you have to maintain tight discipline on the little things or you can't control
the big ones, P feels you should lose the ones that don't matter and save your
strength and equity for the big battles that really count.) Also feels we have
staff well shaped up now, but must constantly keep on them.
Some planning about overall Vietnam strategy. He's getting into the final
decision stages, and wants to talk through alternatives, will go ahead with
November 3 speech plan, agrees with my recommendation to stay clear of war
from now until then.

Lot of concern about plans for Moratorium Day as it nears and heat builds.
May want P to participate in some way, generally by going to church. His firm
view is to avoid any involvement and to maintain a normal routine on other
activities.
Another long introspective end of the day. I sense a growing

talk at the
intolerance of K's attitudes and habits. He
overreacts and this bothers the P.
Tendency now more and more to keep him out, and K senses this, which builds
up the frustration and accelerates the overreacting. Also K is getting heat for
his staff inefficiency, which is really just his bottlenecking. Maybe my prime
contribution for a while will be to get this straightened out, because he is
extremely valuable and effective and any deterioration would be damaging to

the overall operation.
Tuesday, October 14, 1969

Pre-Moratorium Day. P had Leaders Meeting this morning, main thrust on
tactics for follow-up of message about reforms and priorities, plus Hayns-
worth.
Big deal for the day was arrival of intelligence bulletin at noon reporting
release of a letter by North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong to
American people in support of Moratorium, in very flowery red rhetoric. K
called me and said thought we should get it out. I agreed and we started a
hectic process of deciding how, by whom, etc.
Harlow argued for a Presidential TV appearance to say Hanoi was wrong
and that Moratorium Day demonstrators were not trying to aid the enemy,
but rather to express desire for peace. K strongly opposed this, wants no
involvement of P. E mainly agreed, feels P is positioned right as a result of the
college letter Sunday. (P had written to a Georgetown student that government
policy based on street demonstrations "would destroy the democratic process. ")
P decided he would not get into it, but wanted VP to take it on, to get
maximum possible coverage. So we set him up, had Buchanan do a statement,
frantically got him into a review with P and barely got before the cameras in
time for the evening news. Also cranked up great Congressional action and
even some commentators. Result was we got the coverage, question now is
1 00 H.R. HALDEMAN
whether it helps or hurts. Point is to try to make the innocents see they are
being used, and to blunt the effect of tomorrow. Hard to do much because
momentum is tremendous and broad based.

The Vietnam Moratorium Day, finally here. After weeks of planning, concern,
and discussion. Didn't turn out nearly as bad, or good, as expected. Crowds
were pretty big, but not anywhere near what they might have been. News
media were obsessed with the whole thing, but have been reasonably fair in
pointing out that hundreds of thousands were participating, but millions were
not.
Had Rogers and Laird in after NSCthem in line about
to try to get
Vietnam and November 3 speech. Apparently this uncovered all their prob-
lems with K, because P called me in to discuss it. Says he'll have to bring
Mitchell in more because K can't deal with Rogers and Laird, has problem of
communicating with them, and has become an issue. Wants me to make all this
clear to K, hard to do. Problem is his insistence on perfection and total
adherence to the line in every detail. Also injects himself too much into
everything, between P and Cabinet officers, and they just won't buy it, so he
becomes ineffective even at getting them to do what they already were ready
to do.
P commented that Cabinet members shouldn't have to be told to stay in
line. He thinks back to the DDE days when all staff and Cabinet concentrated
on keeping the P "up" and never came in with a problem without a solution.
Wonder if it was really that way.

The day after Moratorium Day, and a great sigh of relief because it wasn't
nearly as bad as everyone had feared. Great debates rage on the tactics for
the future and analysis of how this one was handled. Basic lines are drawn
on question of whether VP should have used the Dong letter and called for
repudiation. Many feel this was the prime factor in toning the whole thing
down, the others feel it was the final step in coalescing the opposition, as
follow up to P's press conference that he wouldn't be affected in any way.
I talked to P about Rogers' view that he should make a statement about
our pleasure that the demonstration had been peaceful and that it showed
country is for peace.
P got going again on necessity for hard line and no concession to the left.
Yet sees merit of Rogers' view. Moynihan goes much further, and is especially
concerned about the November 15 exercise (when the next Moratorium was
scheduled). We have to start preparing because it may be a real disaster.
Problem is still to separate the good guy dupes from the hard-core organizers.

The "high prices" radio speech. After several rejections because of non-peo-
ple-type language Safire finally got the inflation speech down to a "high
prices speech." P read it for live radio at 1:00 on all four networks. Then
shot one minute on film for TV news. Made all the papers, all radio cuts live
and replay, and all TV net news. Darn good parlay. Plus we're mailing and
have an intensive follow-up plan for promotion. Did this one right all the
way, for once. P very pleased, though earlier in day he said he wouldn't do
the TV.
At Camp David. P in great mood, had a few things he wanted to cover, then
went over all our stuff. E raised point of need to answer question about P's
attitude towards religion and the role of prayer in his life, using the National
Day of Prayer Wednesday. He agreed, and wants Billy Graham to be there,
then talk to press and explain P's view of this as private personal matter, not
a public function, etc. I talked to Graham and he agreed to do it, but wants
to talk to P first.

Haynsworth press meeting. P stayed at Residencetill late, then had all the
press into Oval Office for briefing on Haynsworth. E says it went very well.
P had, as always, really done his homework, and was on the offensive all the
way.
Met Dobrynin for about an hour this afternoon.
At that meeting, P really blasted him for Soviet intransigence on Vietnam

and other matters.

Big to-do because no staff follow-up on P's Haynsworth press conference
yesterday. Especially bad because (Senator Birch) Bayh hit him for "gutter
and we had no response or counterattack. So I had several head-
politics,"
banging sessions. Just the same old problem. We don't have a built-in auto-
matic reflex action.
E and (his assistant Bud) Krogh and I were in for a while on plans for
the November Moratorium and march. P wants to be sure we don't use too
tight a rein, better to let the nation see what these people really are, and let
1 02 H.R. HALDEMAN
them do their thing, not make martyrs of them or appear to be afraid. He's
right.
P's thinking on this point was would be their own worst

that the marchers
enemies in terms of public reaction, so would be better not to restrain
it
them any more than absolutely necessary; instead, let them show their true
colors on the TV and let the public draw their own conclusions.

John Connally said LBJ had told him to tell P he could reorganize everything
all he wanted, but he had three main problems, 1) press 2) Congress 3) disloyal
people in State and CIA.
Busy day. Started with another of our schools for congressmen, this time on
narcotics. Had Art Linkletter come in to make part of the presentation. E said
itwas very successful. Democratic leaders outdid themselves in jumping on the
bandwagon. P extremely impressed and is now much more "up" on the whole
problem, and fully determined to charge ahead and get something done. (That
is proving to be a very valuable fringe benefit of these sessions.) P now wants
education funds tripled, huge attack on media for going along, exploration of
allways to stop traffic, tie in dope with organized crime, etc.
Fourth draft of Vietnam speech in today. P had no time to review it. Big
problem building, as liberals have (very cleverly) shifted ground away from
blasting P to saying they're with him. The main result is a massive buildup of
hopes for major breakthrough in November 3 speech. Problem is there won't be
one, and the letdown will be tremendous. Obvious they are intentionally
building him up for the biggest possible fall. Even the stock market is soaring up
on peace hopes. Speech will be good and will clearly state the case and would
under normal circumstances be very effective, and probably buy us another
couple of months. Under the present situation, a massive adverse reaction could
conceivably be developed the next day, and built up over ten days into the
November 13-15 demonstrations with horrible results. No real way to stem this
now. White House and Laird are trying to squelch specific speculation, i.e.,
Hugh Scott's call for a unilateral ceasefire, etc., but it doesn't have much effect,
and clear general impression is being created that something big is brewing.
The concern at this pointwas that expectations were being built up so much
that the speech could end up producing a negative reaction that could be
snowballed into developing major momentum for the upcoming demon-

strations.
Sunday, October 26, 1969

About the plans for SALT announcement tomorrow, secret has been well
kept.Rumors just now starting. Big flap between K and Rogers, as to where
and who does briefing. Ended up that Ziegler makes announcement at White
House, then Rogers briefs at State. K very upset, feels he should brief and P
should get all the credit. P pleased with secrecy, but he told Mansfield and
practically told (Senator Gordon) Allott and McCormack. Then can't under-
stand why it leaks.

The K problem came to a head today. P had me in early to review some items,
then got into problem of K vs. State, and especially Rogers, which we had
discussed last week and which K had churned up some more over the weekend
in phone calls with P. As we were talking, K and Ziegler came in for morning
briefing. K got going on State. This time saying he had decided not to force
(Assistant Secretary of State Joe) Sisco to cancel appointment with Dobrynin,
because that would be worse than keeping it, but then went on and on about
what a terrible mistake it was. Then got into Lebanon problem, Israel jets, etc.
Finally P said, "Well that's all for today, have to get to work," and got up and
walked out into his little office. K then said he wanted me in the noon meeting
because he had to get into the Rogers problem with P. I took him into my office
and tried to point out the fallacy of his technique, regardless of merits of case.
I think he saw it a little, at least. P called me in to restate his concern with this
as latest example. Feels K is impairing his usefulness, and is obsessed beyond

reason with this problem. Later P called Mitchell and me in to discuss further,
and asked Mitchell to have a talk with K. Tough one, because there is some
real merit to K's concern about Rogers' loyalty.
Saturday, November 1, 1969

P at Camp David. Called in the afternoon, very relaxed, said well, the "baby's
been born," worked until 4:00 this morning, have final draft (of the Vietnam
speech). K had gone up after meeting with us in the morning. Had been
pleased with direction speech was going yesterday and much more so today.
Says it is really good.
As the scheduled November 3 Vietnam speech day approached, Nixon

spent incredible hours alone finalizing the drafts and intentionally encour-
1 04 H.R. HALDEMAN
aging wide speculation as to what the big announcement would be. There
was great divergence within the top echelons of the Administration as to
how hard or soft a line he should take. His position was always the hard
line —no cop-out, hang tough but negotiate.
Monday, November 3, 1969

The big day. P stayed at Camp David
until 1:00. Arrived at White House
and went right to EOB whole afternoon. Called many times.
office for the
Several shifts in plans about makeup, etc. Called and ordered me to take
personal responsibility for the Oval Office, keep everyone out. Lot of ques-
tions about lighting, only one camera, etc. Did a great job on the air, content
superb, delivery very good, with a few fluffs. Commentary after was mixed.
After telecast, stayed very briefly for photos, then shot out and over to Resi-
dence.
Then started a long night of calls. From 10:15 to 1:15, he was on
phone
and wanting to know what we were doing for
off at least 15-20 times. Started
all-out counterattack (while networks were still commenting). Then asked for
reactions, what did people around the office think? Then broader reaction. By
10:30, phones were ringing off the wall, all staff taking calls, and making
checks around the country, and I reporting every few minutes to P whenever
there was a new item. Got a lot of just ordinary people, and some bigshots.
Then pressure about what is Klein doing to get reaction. Reports on editors
around country. Then orders to get out wires and letters story in morning fast.
Then the New York Times ad idea again. Then hit network management for
biased reports. Then call Rogers and Laird, be sure they know about big
reaction, shore them up. Then get reports from West (by now too late to call
in East). Then a plea, if only do one thing get 100 vicious dirty calls to New
York Times and Washington Post about their editorials (even though no idea
what they'll be).
We had fun pumping the line onto LA TV in the late hours. And big crisis
about getting the telegrams in. Couldn't get the supply line unplugged.
This process of immediate follow-up after a major TV address to the nation

became established routine. It evolved from the President's sense of the
need to know what effect the speech had on both the media and the people.
This was especially true in the case of Vietnam speeches, because the raison
d'etre for them was the need to keep the nation informed as to what he was
doing and why, in order to maintain as strong a level of public support as
possible, and to deflate the opposition as much as possible. These were
essential in order to carry out the ongoing negotiations with any hope of
success.
The plea for "vicious dirty calls" to the papers was to keep pressure on
them from the public in the hope that they would consider the other
viewpoint occasionally.
Tuesday, November 4, 1969

Reaction day, and a spectacular one! Wires pouring in all day as fast as
machines could process them. Piled them all on P desk. He greatly enjoyed
going through them all through the day as the pile steadily grew. Showed his
favorites to all comers. Almost all favorable, and about 43 referred to "quiet
majority" (P's phrase from the speech which would become famous as the "silent
majority.") Bill Hopkins (White House Staff Administrator through many
previous administrations) says biggest telegram response to a president's
speech.
P especially pleased at the reaction from the speech because he succeeded
in moving people to action without demagoguing. His view is that you fire
people up with a tough loud speech, but you win them over and change their
minds only by calm reasoning.
Then the Prince Philip dinner, and the election returns. I came home and
rode herd by phone. Great evening!
P called several times after I'd gone to sleep about follow-up on election
results. Said rather thoughtfully and wistfully, "There probably has never been
a day like this. Here was the press last week that we were in the dumps, lack
of ideas, etc., but now look at things." Started each call with, "It's been quite
a day," and it sure has!
Thursday, November 6, 1969

The euphoria continues. Reaction runs high, even the bad guys have finally
agreed the P scored heavily with the speech and the election results. The worst
the Washington Post could do was complain editorially that he shouldn't have
been so happy about it. Now the telegrams are fading out and the letters
starting, 30,000 today, amazing! Ended up with about 50,000 wires.
Had another talk with Borman today about his role and discussed it
with P. Frank wants to come in, but has personal problems about moving
and money, solution may be to have him work with Perot to set up a new
institution that we can use as an outside arm to do a lot of the PR things,
polling, distribution, mailing lists, etc., that we just can't handle from
within.
P said this afternoon he really needs the weekend off, hasn't slept much
unwind. Said this week
recently, first getting ready for speech, then trying to
brought a greater turn-around in public attitude than at any time since the
Fund Speech in 1952 (the so-called Checkers speech), and interestingly both
1 06 H.R. HALDEMAN
were brought about solely by a solo TV talk to the people, and both by
Nixon.
Had a session with Pat Nixon and Bob Taylor of Secret Service about
Julie's insistence that she not be protected. Hard to work out, but she is really
insistent, can't stand the lack of privacy.

Main concern was to be sure we are maintaining the momentum, and not
Again quoting General Patton about no
letting up. tired divisions, just tired
commanders.
Nixon constantly preached the importance of not letting down in the eu-
phoria of success and the necessity of driving hard to capitalize on it while
it was hot. This seemingly odd attitude prompted K to comment to me once
that Nixon was absolutely superb in dealing with defeat, and terrible in
handling success.

Veterans Day, and focal point for National Unity Week, one of our several
pro-Administration efforts. P observed it by visiting a veterans' hospital,
which came off pretty well, after he called me in before leaving to emphasize
no press coverage and no one to accompany him on ward tour. Feels very
strongly about capitalizing on another's misfortune and just won't do it. Then
he had a full day of general appointments.
Considerable discussion of Buchanan's idea of VP doing a major speech
blasting network commentators. P feels it's a good idea. I discussed it yester-
day with VP and he too is interested, but felt it was a bit abrasive. (Kind of
humorous with all the attention he's getting for his recent "hatchet man"
tactics.) Needs to be said and he's the one to do it.
Ross Perot just called about his United We Stand. Running more ads and
a full TV show, really almost unbelievable. He is really determined and will get
some results. Problem is his total lack of sophistication. But that doesn't stop
him, our real need is to find a way to channel the energy and money produc-
tively. It's an amazing resource.
Apparently this is when Ross Perot started his conception of "United We

Stand," which was resurrected into a major political movement in the
mid-1990s.
Wednesday, November 12, 1969

P really pleased and highly amused by Agnew speech for tomorrow night
(which took on the "unelected elite"). Worked over some changes with Bu-
chanan and couldn't contain his mirth as he thought about it. Will be a
bombshell and the repercussions may be enormous, but it says what people
think.
Had a busy afternoon was supposed to be clear) as P received 17
(it
congressmen, senators, and staff who

had worked the "Support the President"
Resolution through the House and letters through the Senate. Got 300 in
House and at least 58 in Senate, unprecedented support for a P on a divided
and critical issue. P called (Henry Cabot) Lodge in Paris and then talked to
him, on basis of effect this support would have at talks tomorrow when Hanoi
presents its answer to the speech.
P called me in three or four times to discuss his "Evenings at the White
House" idea, which is rapidly becoming an obsession and I can't figure out
why. He insists on getting started with them and is full of specific ideas for
what to do and how. Add diversion at a time like this.
P pushing Harlow on Haynsworth as the vote draws near. While he claims
to want and personal involvement, he keeps asking Bryce
to avoid meetings
who he should see. All this afternoon and
of a sudden he called Mansfield
invited him to breakfast tomorrow morning. He knows it's virtually lost, but
keeps thinking maybe a little more effort will push it over. Not really much
hope, and he's already thinking about how we handle the defeat. Too bad,
because this one was really bobbled by Mitchell and Justice in the early stages,
and to a degree by Harlow.
The (Vietnam) march started tonight at 6:00. No problems at the White

House. Just single file of candle carriers with name placards of war dead. E and
I stayed at White House all night, he in his office, I in the shelter. Not too bad.
Went out and watched them for a while, mostly kids, some very young. Mostly
solemn and quiet, a few kooky types. P not interested, spent two hours at the
bowling alley.
Friday, November 14, 1969

Moon shot day. We left at 8: 15 for Cape Canaveral, arrived in good, solid rain.
Choppered to viewing area, waited in the rain for a half hour, got absolutely
drenched. Saw the shot, but because of low clouds rocket disappeared right
after launch, so not too spectacular. Then back to DC. Sessions on the plane
both ways.
(P) was really pleased with VP talk last night (attacking TV network
newscasters) and feels he's now become a really good property, and we should
1 08 H.R. HALDEMAN
keep building and using him. Wants to be sure we keep riding the Congressio-
nal support story hard. Very anxious to get the New York Times ad run, hitting
them for not carrying support story. Talked with Borman and is all set to have
him go the Perot-route, to build a pro-Administration external organization to
utilize Perot's money and steam for productive purpose. Frank also really hot
on this.
After return, had three solid hours with P Oval Office, since he had no
in
afternoon schedule and wanted to just sit and talk. Covered Christmas plans
for White House social events, wants it to be gay and fun, went through all the
types of functions and people to cover. Discussed California vs. Florida for
after Christmas. General ideas about State of the Union.
( mob grew violent tonight as groups tried to march
Vietnam) march and
on Vietnamese embassy. Police busted it up with tear gas, but they roamed
streets breaking windows, etc. We were in E's office working phones, etc. when
P came in, about 9:00, stayed whole process. Had
until 11:00. Interested in
helpful ideas like using helicopters to blow (The march-
their candles out, etc.
ers were all carrying candles in the night as a dramatic gesture for TV.) Very
relaxed. Said was like watching an old movie, keep thinking something inter-
esting will happen. We stayed overnight again.

Mobe Day. ( We referred to this day as the Mobilization or Mobe Day. ) The big
march turned out to be huge. Official estimate was 250,000. By our photo count,
it was 325,000. Anyway, it was really huge. E, Krogh, and I went out in helicopter
to look it over in the morning, very impressive. Weird around White House
because they have a cordon around two-block area, so no people, cars, or
anything can get by the solid barricade of buses lined up end to end.
More violence in late afternoon as they mobbed Justice. Krogh there, said
tear gas bad in Mitchell's office. Also very strange emotional impact as they
took down American flag and ran up Viet Cong. Whole business is sort of
unreal. They massed at 15th and Pennsylvania after dark and we went out on
North Lawn to see them. No action, all just stood there, facing massive lines
of police, jeeps, etc. Most with gas masks and helmets.
Sunday, November 16, 1969

White House church this morning, then to Redskins game, then to Camp
David for the night.

P at Camp David until noon. Spent most of afternoon with me, about schedule
plans, White House parties, especially for Christmas, a little Mobe postmor-
tern, and dream of having our own monster

his rally, with 500,000, to outdo
them once and for all.

Main area of attention was Haynsworth. Vote now set for Friday. As we go
into the stretch, it all of a sudden appears he might have an outside chance.
Would still be a minor miracle, but it could happen. P
is all set for a loss, and
actually at this point that might well be preferable.Wouldn't lose much, and
if he gets in he'll be a continuing problem. Especially would work out OK if
P can find a good clean conservative Southerner to put in.

The debate on Agnew rages on, with P fully convinced he's right and that
majority will agree. I talked to Stan Blair and told him to tell VP to keep up
the offensive, and to keep speaking, now is major figure in his own right. P
wants him to get maximum exposure right away.

Huge problem late tells me of the VP's speech for tomorrow
today as Ziegler
night, a real blast, not just at TV, now he takes on newspapers, a lot of
individuals and the kids again. Pretty rough, and really does go too far.
Problem is Agnew is determined to give it and won't listen to Ziegler, or Klein.
Blair said, "Only I could turn it off," so I said he should. Now we'll see what
happens. All are at (Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku) Sato dinner tonight.

Day starts deep in the Agnew problem, as we try to decide what position to
take. Finally E, Harlow, and I agreed the original speech would be harmful,
to a substantial degree. So we told P about it (since Blair had made it clear to
me that nothing short of P would cause VP to make any change). P agreed,
after I skimmed through the objectionable area, then said only way to handle
was through whoever had written it. I didn't know. P looked at first page and
said obviously it was Buchanan. He was right. I spent a long time with Pat, but
as the final version came out it didn't do very much good. It still hits very hard,
especially at the New York Times. I did get out the highly personal and
defensive segments.
P made point that Agnew must be cool and calm and never defend against
attacks from a lower level.

Bryce in for last-minute discussion about Haynsworth. Clear that it will be
estimate 54-^6, but might lose one or two more when they know there's
lost,
1 10 H.R. HALDEMAN
no hope. Chapin brought the news in at about 1:30. 55-45. P not at all
disturbed, because had expected it. Did make the point to Harlow that we had
failed to win any of the ones he'd had P really work over.
P called Haynsworth, asked him to stay on bench, and says he will.
In analyzing it, P concludes principal fault is Mitchell's. First for not
having all on assurances from Eastland and
the facts; second, for coasting
Hollings instead of really working (they were assuming we had GOP fully
locked), and keeping Harlow out of it until too late, and failing to see Griffin
and others. Then at the end he overplayed, with excess pressure on some,
which backfired, was too heavy-handed. So we learned something and politi-
cally probably come out ahead.
One Presidential reaction from Haynsworth was to decide to leave Griffin
and Scott out of briefing meeting Tuesday about CBW (chemical-biological
warfare). Will have some big repercussions if he goes through with it. Also
wants me to cover Cabinet officers Finch, Rogers, E and the others, about
don't give anything to the 12 senators who went against us on both ABM and
this one without White House clearance. Wants to play it very tough, and this
I think we should do.

Pretty funny day. P to dentist in morning, then back for meeting on budget
with K, E, and Mayo. But he found out about Ohio State-Michigan game,
and so cut the meeting at 1 :00 to retire to his little office to watch. Wanted to
shift afternoon dentist appointment, but we put a TV in the dentist's office,
and he took a portable radio along, then regrouped with them for about an
hour, then zipped off for Camp David in time to be sure to see start of
SC-UCLA game. So the budget got squeezed in between the dentist and
football on TV.
Also learned Gallup poll tomorrow will show popularity up to 68%,
highest yet, and the Moratorium obviously didn't hurt us.

Have to plan foreign trip to avoid Julie's graduation because of bad guys.
(Like Midway to miss Ohio State graduation last year.)
This last point refers to the scheduling of the Midway meeting with Presi-
dent Thieu of Vietnam to coincide with the Ohio State graduation, which
the P had earlier committed to attend. It was actually earlier this year, not
last year. In both cases, the scheduling process was used to create a conflict
THE HALDEMAN DIARIES 1 1 1
which would provide a reason for not attending an event that would cause
problems because of demonstrators.

Had a surprise session this morning when a free half hour came up and P had
VP over for a chat. Mainly about his forthcoming trip. P wants him to go on
around the world since he'll be halfway at Afghanistan. VP already has itiner-
ary set and very reluctant to change. P told him he should now stop talking
about the media except for some light quips, and said the VP could now talk
about all those things he had been talking about before but no one was
listening, and now they'll listen because he's become a national figure. Sort of
a backhanded compliment, not intended that way. Main point was to get the
VP back on to constructive ground and stop him from riding the media issue
to death. He got the point.
Question of astronauts going to Vietnam came up and P was furious
because NASA said they shouldn't go because of political consequences or
relations with Russia. P ordered that anyone expressing this view be fired
immediately. He is sending Borman over in early December, and wants Arm-
strong to go for Christmas with Bob Hope.
P called tonight, wants me to call a staff meeting tomorrow, to have K
explain significance of recent accomplishments, make point that Johnson
couldn't have gotten NPT (non-proliferation treaty), CBW, Okinawa, and
draft because didn't have the confidence of the people or the world leaders.
Thinks this gives our house liberals something to think about.

Had a session with E, K, and me. Said he had studied budget carefully and had
decided we have to bite the bullet and move hard on a 25% personnel cut. Is
going to work out a plan with Hampton of Civil Service to accomplish this
throughout the departments. Feels we are in a terrible bind on budget and
inflation and that the heart of the problem is personnel, all offices are over-
staffed, especially at theupper levels. Recognized there are some areas that
really can't be cut, but most can.
P comment when K told him of wires from Harvard congratulating on
germ warfare move, "The wires would really pour in from Harvard if I
surrendered the United States to Kosygin."
Thanksgiving, and no word from P. He had a dentist appointment at 8:30, no

advance press notice, and it worked out OK. Then the big White House dinner
1 1 2 H.R. HALDEMAN
for the old folks, which was a great press success. Then the family left for Key
Biscayne. Peace and quiet here.
Monday, December 1, 1969

P concentrated on the "hunger speech," because he'd decided the (Ray) Price
draft was not Then the second try, following his instructions, turned out
right.
to be worse. Price worked on it all night last night, and he and Moynihan both
called today to say it is a disaster, and that P will be booed if he uses it. I passed
this on to P who, by midmorning, had E in with him redoing the whole thing.
So he had E get the latest version to Pat and Ray, and they worked it into an
acceptable, but camel-like, final version. The whole Hunger Conference is a
disaster, due mainly to (nutritionist) Jean Mayer, who is clearly not on our
side.
Tuesday, December 2, 1969

P didn't come in this morning, left right from Residence at 10:00 for Hunger
Conference. Went pretty well, no boos, and adequate though not overwhelm-
ing applause. At least it's done.
Skipped morning budget meeting to have a long session with E and me,
first on miscellany, then got down to the point, concern about speechwriter.
Feels he just doesn't have the right guy. Needs a (Kennedy speechwriter Ted)
Sorensen, a real craftsman who can produce compact, well-organized literate
speech. Says he must have the knack of organizing a structure, making it speak
well (not just read well), add the gimmicks for memorability and emphasis, and
finally give it moving power. Feels our people are all too intellectual and are
ashamed of using the devices and approaches that move people. Need is to
reach folks, not intelligentsia.
Thursday, December 4, 1969

GOP Leadership, and P really rocked them. He started out pretty mad, due to
Haynsworth and the current anti-White House bitching on the Hill. Charged
in and told them Congress was totally irresponsible. That he understood why
they individually had to take certain stands, but that he as P had to be
responsible, and do what is right. When Rhodes said P might have to call a
special session later, P said it will start December 27. Took them all completely
by surprise. When Griffin objected, P said it will start December 26. Was really
tough and they realized it. Both McCormack and Mansfield later responded
favorably, and got right to pushing for action.
Had long session with Perot and Borman about Ross's ideas on outside
support operations. While he wants to remain independent, and has a lot of
project ideas, especially for TV, he's fully willing to support our need of a
highly professional PR operation, and agreed to fund it. Went through his
other ideas and P generally agreed, so we will have Borman go ahead and set
it all up with Perot. Can really be productive if it gets on track.
Friday, December 5, 1969

P came in this morning boiling mad about press and TV story that (Illinois
Senator Charles) Percy had released a letter tying Chuck Robb ( LBJ son-in-
law) to Vietnam atrocities. Wanted Ziegler to blast Percy and demand apol-
ogy, etc. Simmered down a bit as we found facts were not quite so bad, but
tried to call Robb, later got Linda, to express his concern. Had me call Tom
Johnson, and Tom put LBJ on the phone. Got a little rough, because he was
obviously very upset. Did greatly appreciate the P's concern, and wanted us
to be sure and have facts investigated. Wants Robb fully cleared. Implied
strongly he felt it was deliberately and politically motivated. Did say he
didn't want P worrying about his troubles, knows he has enough of his own.
Problem with Congress, especially Republican senators, deepens daily.
Scott seems to go out of his way to take on the White House at every opportu-
nity. P is determined now to hold to his line of the cold shoulder for those who
don't stick with us, and then to work closely with the good guys. Also is ready
to take Congress on, and not cajole them into each vote. Let them vote us
down and then stand on their record.
Saturday, December 6, 1969

P Arkansas for the Texas game. All pleased with his plan to present
to
Presidential plaque to winner as number one team in 100th year of collegiate
football. Great combination of circumstances to make this possible, as final
game of season is between number one and number two teams on national TV.
He did a great job and TV covered it thoroughly, the arrival by helicopter, the
half-time interview in the press box, the plaque presentation to Texas (15-14),
the crowd scene outside the locker room, the consolation visit to the Arkansas
locker room.
Great stuff. Especially at half-time, when P gave thorough analysis of the
game so far, and outlook for second half, which proved 100% accurate. And
some really good stuff in the locker rooms, talking to the players. A real coup
with the sports fans.
Wednesday, December 10, 1969

NSC, on the Middle East. Ran way over time. Then P spent the afternoon at
EOB. Had ( Wilbur) and (Representative John) Byrnes come down to
Mills
discuss tax bill plans for Conference. P was going to tell them he'd veto any
bill that had an increase in personal exemption, but Arthur Burns called me
and said he now felt P could permit an increase, because other factors would
counterbalance the revenue loss. I told him to get memo to P, which he did,
1 1 4 H.R. HALDEMAN
and as a result P didn't take an unfavorable position, much to Harlow's

horror. Real problem is to determine how far P can go in permitting amend-
ments, or whether he'll have to veto bill and get no reform, and kill Social
Security increase.

LBJ day. Came for private breakfast and stayed over two hours. Apparently
went pretty well, mainly because we've more or less ironed out his problems
about pilot project for reviewing his papers and getting the geriatrics home
back on track.
I had meeting with Stans, Dent, and Gleason about setting up our own
funding for backing the good candidates in hot races. A little tricky to handle
outside the RNC (Republican National Committee) but looks pretty
good.
This plan, which was ultimately carried out under the designation of Opera-
tion Townhouse, was to develop a means of raising and allocating cam-
paign fund support for candidates considered to be "good" by the White
House. It came about because there were a number of GOP candidates
coming into the field that were not considered "good," and P felt we should
do what we could to help those who would be most likely to support the
Administration when elected.

Another breakfast, this time McCormack and (Carl) Albert. Then a meet-
ing with POW wives, who really impressed the P. He now has a great inter-
est, amazing what a little personal exposure will do. He now wants all sorts
of action. All this got the morning schedule pretty well screwed up and had
to juggle because of appointments. P pretty upset that we let it get screwed
up. Overlooks fact that he added the breakfast, which was what threw it off.
P wants a big meeting with Rumsfeld, Finch, Shultz plus E, Moynihan, Burns,
Mayo and Nathan about whole area of overlap of OEO, fight it out and decide
where and how to locate all the overlapping programs. A number of items
today put over to that meeting. Feels all agencies proliferate too much, and
should have one department in total charge of each program so everything
clears through one place and there is some degree of control.
P took, as usual, very tough line on cutting, especially in personnel.
Particularly zeroed in on PR people. Also moved hard on cutting the OEO

programs he doesn't like, i.e., Legal Services, Head Start, etc.

Another Vietnam TV announcement day. P came in a little late and started out
with complaint about inadequacy of speech preparation. In this case, K's,
which he says is great on analysis, but turgid. Pretty full morning schedule,
mainly with Quadriad. That started things snapping, because he realized eco-
nomic outlook still bad, so told Mayo to cut all budgets 25% (he's been saying
this for weeks and not really meaning it, but now feels he's really got to push
the cuts as far as possible).
Chatted a lot before lunch, then he ate, gave Rose final changes in speech
draft, thenwent to EOB for the afternoon, while they set up his office for TV.
Came over just in time to go on the air, did a great job, probably his best-read
speech yet, paced slowly and very relaxed and confident. Not great news, is
withdrawing 50,000 more troops. Decided against really big chunk now in
order to save some for spring.
Talking about moves to approach youth. He says to forget it, that if we
are alienating youth it is because we have to, can't give in and coddle them.
We do have to take them on, silence would be approval or at least acquies-
cence.

This afternoon, P lighted the national Christmas tree. Not very anxious to do
it. Cold as the dickens, and windy. Fairly large group of peace demonstrators
in the crowd with Viet Cong flags, etc. Started shouting when P started to
speak, he plowed right ahead, ignoring them, but it was pretty bad. Called me
in as soon as we got back, felt strongly we shouldn't have gone, will either do
it by remote, or not at all, in future years. Feels, and rightly, that President of
United States should not be subjected to this kind of indignity. Problem is

there's really no way to control it, and you can't just stay locked in the office.
Actually he took it pretty well in stride, but it obviously rankled him.
General reaction to speech last night has been very good, but not too
many people saw it because of the early hour. Seems that P has pretty thor-
oughly gotten into the position of calming down the war opposition, killing the
mobilizations and assuring the people that he has a plan and that it's working.
Can probably keep it that way for a while. Problem will be if Viet Cong mounts
a big offensive, or some other turn-around.
K is still cranking on his meetings with the Communists. Tomorrow is the
Romanian emissary, still no clue as to North Vietnamese and
what they, the
the Chinese are up to, but it still looks as if there's some pattern.
Big problem persists on oil import quotas. Have to make some decision,
and can't win. If we do what we should, and what the task force recommends,
™
1 16 H.R. HALDEMAN
we'd apparently end up losing at least a couple of Senate seats, including

George Bush in Texas. Trying to figure out a way to duck the whole thing and
shift it to Congress.

Great political coup! P toured White House offices after buying 150 lbs. of
candy to distribute.

San Clemen te. Long session with P, partly with Ziegler and E. He had a lot of
odds and ends stored up to run through. Set the plans for tomorrow. He'll sign
the Environment Bill which was going to be done next week, so I am having
it flown out tonight by special plane. At one point he thought he'd sign it at
midnight as a special way to start new decade. Fortunately got off that kick.
Big problem on setting time for bill signing was to avoid conflict with any of
the football games on TV. He's really become a total addict.
K also in for a while. Discussed Perot's adventures in trying to get food,
etc., to the POW's. He and
his people have been calling K, E, and Haig all
through the night to ask for various kinds of help. P said, "Well, he's no worse
than the State Department."
P was displeased with Time Man it was the first time they
of Year, said
haven't selected the President in his first Checked and this is not true.
year.
They didn't pick DDE until 1959. They did pick FDR, HST, JFK, and LB J
in their first years. Interesting!
It would appear Democratic president substantially increases

that being a
the chance of being selected by Time in the first year. It was "coincidences"
like this that helped to develop our feeling that it was very difficult to get
a fair shake from the clearly liberal press.
Did a little pushing about our operations, said, "We can't be satisfied with
justdoing well, we have to do better. We have so little time. While you've got
the power, you have to move quickly, especially now when we're up, build a
mythology."
1970
The first week of the year was filled with schedule plans, a trip to Bob
Hope's house in Palm Springs for a meeting on the GI Bill and a few rounds
of golf for the P.

(San Clemente) P all cranked up last night with K about reports that Peace
Corps men were demonstrating against Agnew in Afghanistan. Then today
similar reaction to Stuart Loory story in LA Times about cost of Western
White House. Wants me to move ruthlessly to get him (Loory) removed from
White House. Really mad in the evening, when he called me.
Fairly light day. P and Bebe went for drive and walks along the beach to
the south. First had a session on trivia.
Came up with big plans for having government use Western White House
as year-round conference center when P not here. Wants to have base for
justifying the cost, not really necessary since virtually all the major expendi-
tures have been on government property.

Back to DC. Long sessions in the late morning, going through all his notes,
schedule guidance plans for Western White House government use. Called E
and me up for long session on the plane. Heavy dose of political strategy
review, need to build our own new coalition based on Silent Majority, blue
1 17
1 1 8 H.R. HALDEMAN
collar, Catholic, Poles, Italians, Irish. No promise with Jews and Negroes.
Appeal not hard right-wing, Bircher, or anti-Communist. Need to study the
real base, and the reason for Agnew upsurge. Feels he's getting coverage on his
trip because he attacked the press and forced them to pay attention.
Then a long analysis of PR, and where we've failed. P's main thrust is
that we haven't adequately developed the image of him and his role and the
office. Need to build image now while going good, in order to carry over
when going badly. Ideas for new year, wants to hold aloofness theory, and
build on it.
Great quote, "No leader survives simply by doing well. He only survives
if the people have confidence in him when he's not doing well." Basis of his
reasoning about need to move fast and hard now to build up mystique. Have
to build the equity now on the personal side so when the attacks come the
person stays above the attack.
Feels 1970 will be the worst year, have to ride it through. Will have
inflation /recession, no turn on crime, election attacks, etc. But will improve in
'71 and build up to '72. Must be prepared.
P called me back up with Bebe about problem of personal household staff,

lousy food of wrong kind, etc. Wants me to solve it. Also wants to change
personal family cooking, but Pat Nixon approves the menus. Gave orders
about wines, no French or California white, only Moselle or Rhine, Johannes-
burg, only Bordeaux red or very good light French Burgundy. Salad, wilted
lettuce and Camembert.

P's birthday. Had a staff card, and talked him into a press photo shot with
Rose and new secretary presenting it. Worked fine, but P his usual awkward
just can't cope with personal-type situations. Explained the whole card
self,
(Washington Star front page) in minute detail. But the photographers couldn't
have cared less. In late afternoon went up to Julie's for dinner, wouldn't let us
announce it ahead because of probable demonstrators. All was fine on arrival,
but during dinner a bunch of bad guys arrived and chanted outside the apart-
ment. Julie cried, P left abruptly, really too bad. Press pretty good on it, but
tough on the family.
P reviewed Price's first real draft of the State of the Union and said it was
eloquent, and a complete disaster. No substance, no cheer lines, no organiza-
tion. Led to a new harangue on need for a speechwriter who can write a Nixon
speech. Tough. Hard for Ray to hit it right when he has no direct contact with
P and no real guidance. Led further to discussion of need for P to spend most
of next week writing his own speech. Feels it is more than twice too long. Said,
"Now I can see why I decided not to do it last year," and is very happy that
he's doing this one at noon instead of prime time. (P did not give a State of
the Union address in 1969.)
P really slept in, up about 1 1:00, and not in to the office until 12:30. Met with
K for about two hours. Big problem in Biafra. We have secret word that they
have collapsed. K feels there's a real danger that all six million Biafrans will
be massacred or starved to death. K in and out all the rest of the day on this.
P had me stay to discuss the household problems again. Told him of my talks
today with Walter and Lee Annenberg. May borrow Annenbergs' cook to
solve the family problem.
P was bringing me more and more into the area of East Wing operations,
those of the First Lady's office, because of his dissatisfaction with specific
factors from time to time and his unwillingness to get directly involved
himself. This was a difficult role for me, and one I resisted but not always
successfully. I did try to work with the Pat Nixon staff to get the P's
problems handled, but this was sometimes a cause of friction.

White House church, Vienna Boys' Choir. No word from P.
K bounced in with word Biafra was about to fall, P ended up calling
Prime Minister Wilson to discuss plans for flying food, etc., for the refu-
gees.
P jumped all over me about progress on converting the pool to press
facilities. Said he hoped the contractor was a Republican because he must be
making a fortune.
He watched the Super Bowl most of the afternoon. Made a lot of calls
about Biafra.

Limited schedule to provide time for work on the State of the Union, but he
didn't use any of it for that. Did have several long sessions with me, and with
E and me.
(P) spent most of the afternoon sessions reviewing and reverting to the
new Derge poll. Was fascinated with the findings and had made a lot of notes
on analysis. Especially interested in the strength of the Silent Majority, the
weakness of the Moratorium, the decline of the Republican Party. I suggested
change in party name as a start on new realignment and P very seriously took
me up on it.
All set to bring Chotiner in as inside White House man for political
campaigns. Mixed blessing.
1 20 H.R. HALDEMAN
Murray Chotiner was an extremely able, shrewd political strategist and

operative of the old school of politics and in many ways a real asset. But
many felt he lacked the finesse and appreciation of the far-reaching impor-
tance of Presidential political actions that were a basic requirement in the
White House.
Concluded we can't really stop inflation in this year, the only real solution
is controls and that is unpalatable, so you just make the best of it. In this case
form is more important than substance.

Another day supposedly cleared for work on State of the Union, but no work
done. (Instead, the day was filled with a series of appointments and a Cabinet
meeting.) I think this is a classic example of forced procrastination. The draft
he has is totally unsatisfactory, and he dreads getting started to work on it, so
keeps inventing excuses. Will have to get at it pretty quick and he knows it, so
I will bet on Camp David tomorrow afternoon, stay until Saturday and that
he'll waste a couple of days, then get it pretty well started. This will mean a
rough week next week as he tries to wrap it up.

Since P was supposed to go to Camp David last night, he had nothing on the
schedule for today. Managed to fritter away the morning, mostly by reviewing
a long list of things with me. Then spent about a half hour at noon trying to
settle on a departure time and whether to go over to EOB first. Settled on 4:00
and no EOB, then got bored and left at 3:30. Finally decided to get Safire and
Buchanan cranking on the speech, as well as Price. Says he needs more input,
at first wanted bits and pieces by noon tomorrow. Then called me at dinner,
and said to have them each do a draft. He'd read the book of past State of the
Union speeches and decided he wanted his to be Wilsonian, which apparently
means short. Maximum 3000 words, 25 minutes. Thematic instead of pro-
grammatic, with strong uplift, etc.
All this hemming and hawing about getting to work on a major speech is
pure Nixon. This had been a pattern during the campaign, the convention,
the transition, and now the White House period. I tried to develop a basic
plan for handling it more efficiently, but found it was usually best just to
clear the decks and let the process run its course. There did not seem to be
any way to change Nixon's personal modus operandi. This is one of the
basic essentials of the job of White House Chief of Staff, as I understand it.
That is, to adapt to the individual P'sways of working, and make them as
easy, efficient, and comfortable for him as possible.
Concerned about use of K's time, especially with press. Wants me to take
over his schedule guidance for public and PR things, get him to see the right
press people and not waste time on the unwinnables.
Had PR staff session on philosophy and approach and told P about
long
it, he was fascinated with the whole discussion. This is always at the top of his
interest level.

P at Camp David, still alone. Called several times, about schedule and miscel-
laneous stuff. Some ideas on speech, said he's going to hit on theme
uplift
about what's ahead, and can just hear the intellectuals grinding their teeth and
saying why doesn't he talk about pollution in the rivers.
P at Camp David, still alone. Long call at noon with a bundle of instructions
for the speech. Feels he's ready now to zero in, apparently is getting a general
feel of what he wants to do, but still draft. Looking
not really writing his own
and also doing some background reading. Has been sleeping
for statistics, etc.,
late in the mornings and working very late at night. Breaks at noon and
dinnertimes and spends an hour or so on the phone. We've done very well at
keeping calls and interruptions away from him.

Had all wanted waiting for the P in EOB at 10:00, and I waited
the drafts he
in my He didn't get up until about 1 :00, and went to the
office for his arrival.
office a little before 2:00. He'd gone to bed last night at 12:05. At 12:30 there
was a fire alarm, and the ushers discovered the P in the Lincoln sitting room
trying to light the fire. He worked there until after 2:30.

Another day of speechmaking. P at EOB all morning and afternoon except for
couple of meetings at midday. Appointed Carswell to the (Supreme) Court,
called him to confirm it.
1 22 H.R. HALDEMAN
This was Judge G. Harrold Carswell of Florida. Shortly thereafter, his

nomination began running into trouble because of a statement he had made
back in 1948 supporting segregation.
Made point of wanting Justices to balance out regarding the Constitution,

and said after you are appointed I'll never talk to you except socially, but I
must appoint men who will bring the balance, and your decisions show you
will.
Had me keep K out all day again, doesn't want to get distracted.

Inaugural anniversary. Hard to believe a year has passed. Late in the after-
noon P came back over to Oval Office and buzzed for Rose and me. When we
came in he was standing by the desk in his overcoat, he reached over and
opened his silver cigar box and it played "Hail to the Chief," he just stood
there with a sheepish smile, and then said, well, it was there a year ago.
State of the Union. Big flurry this morning about final changes. Speech was
great success, very well delivered. Covered all the Democrats' issues and left
them having to agree in general and carp about lack of specifics. No really
strong opposition so far, may come in next few days when they figure it all out.
Also was short, 35:20. I timed with stopwatch.
Had a little staff session in P office to present anniversary gifts. He was as
awkward as usual, but everyone enjoyed it, good touch! A few afternoon
appointments, then had K and me in to rehash the speech a bit. Feels good
about it, knows he did well.
Called me home
several times. First to report on his phone calls
at
around, all had been very good (what else is anyone going to say to
reaction
him?). Then a little later with some specific changes in the budget message, so
apparently he's gotten back to work. I thought he'd fold early.
K called all disturbed because Laird is skipping the NSC meeting tomor-
row where he's supposed to on ABM; wants to be able to say
hit the hard line
he wasn't present when decision was made to go ahead. Dedicating a nuclear
frigate instead. K really mad.

NSC meeting about ABM, and VP's report. K and P really startled by State
position on ABM, backing ofT. K had expected Defense problems, Laird didn't
even come to the meeting. K very agonized, finally late today told P that State
and Rogers were engaged in all-out systematic effort to destroy NSC appara-
tus. He feels this strongly, and ties it in to current heavy PR program at State
to build up Rogers. Feels he'll have to have confrontation and threaten to
leave, or have Rogers take over full responsibility.

A loaded day, trying to catch up. Prime Minister Wilson arrival with usual
fanfare. Big feature was the new uniform of the White House police.
The new uniforms were designed by Jimmie Muscatello. They included

double-breasted white tunics, trimmed with gold, gold buttons and a stiff
military hat with a high crown and plume. The idea was inspired by Nixon's
exposure to foreign police during his '68 European tour. The press thought
the uniforms were inappropriately formal and military-looking.
At midday break did all and then chatted about being worked too
the signing
hard, especially in having to do so much speechwriting. Busy afternoon with
a bunch of cats and dogs. Finished at 5:00 right on schedule. Decided to drop
TV press conference on Friday and do one in the office instead. Feels he's
overexposed and doing too much. Real reason is problem of having to get
"up" again after State of the Union and veto speeches (the appropriations bill
for Labor and HEW was too high, and the P vetoed it). Obviously is anxious
just to let down a little. We talked him into leaving it on, partly because Ziegler
had already announced it, but also because he knows he really should do it.
But then he really lashed out about how hard he has to work, and the inade-
quate staff support again, especially about speechwriting. Flared up a bit for
a few minutes, then simmered down, and obviously realized he had little
choice. K encourages the view that he should limit his exposure, E argues just
the opposite. After they had left and he was on the way out he made the point
that E et al. will always push to do more, and that I must hold the line. State
dinner tonight for Prime Minister (Wilson).

This afternoon P had an hour with (Democratic Senator) Harry Byrd, about
his possible shift to Republican Party. Don't know the outcome. Then filmed
an interview in the Oval Office with Art Linkletter and four kids. Then to the
Residence for a reception for all the congressmen who voted to sustain the
HEW veto. Got 191, a great victory! And a sensational way to start off the
second year, with strong action and a major Congressional coup.
P holed up tonight at EOB with the press conference briefing books, no
word from him.
124 H.R. HALDEMAN
Good meeting today with the PR group, really have a pretty good system
rolling and the results show it.

Press conference preparation. P really blew a fuse when he came in just on
schedule to meet the Environmental Council of Advisors and discovered he
was supposed go before press with the group and announce them. Had not
to
prepared remarks, etc. A classic staff goof in setting up the meeting. Really
amazing how few of these we have. He rallied to the cause all right and did very
well.
Had first of the "Evenings at the White House," with (Comedian) Red
Skelton. Was a smashing success and will be a great new program.
Flap on new White House police uniforms is building. E doing great job
of backing out of and apparently Secret Service approved the headdress all
it,
by themselves after E had okayed the tunics. It looks like a long-lasting point
that they'll keep bringing up in cartoons, etc. Can't hit us on substance so they
pick away at the fringes.

Press conference tonight. No schedule all day in preparation. P spent whole
day at EOB one hour before airtime, then to the house to get dressed.
till
Called couple of times on specific questions.

Good press conference, he was more combative and hit harder than in
others. Afterwards called me in Mess to get an evaluation, and asked that E,
K, and I do a total evaluation of the whole drill. Made point that there are 178
questions in his briefing books, and only did 18 on air. So a lot of extra work.
Said why don't we do it like de Gaulle, who would talk for thirty minutes then
answer four questions that he had ordered asked, and only once or twice a
year.
Also wants to see how many press conferences LBJ and JFK did in their
wised up to fact they were doing them no good. Feels it
later years, after they
would be much better to get exposure on our ground and with our issues, i.e.,
mini press conferences once a week or so, one subject only, and look for other
better ways of exposure.
Huge flap Washington Post. P not too upset,
today over leak of budget in
but staff meeting was a real blow. Ziegler and K both pretty shook, and E
really rough on Ziegler especially. Turns out leak was probably GPO. I called
McCracken because it appeared CEA ( Council of Economic Advisors) was the
source, and he immediately offered to resign.
P later made point that these leaks are a real problem because they will
necessitate his eliminating the planning and discussion meetings which he
doesn't like anyway and only holds for therapy. Says LBJ and other presidents
have overreacted, and he won't. But still is a problem.
P met for an hour privately with Arthur Burns before his swearing-in (as
Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board) this morning. Called me a couple of
times for factual data about Fed (Federal Reserve Board) for his remarks and
to set up, in front of Arthur, a new plan for regular meetings of the Quadriad.
Then had David's swearing-in for the Navy, in Don Hughes' office. P off to
Camp David with David and Julie, Pat Nixon in Key Biscayne with Tricia,
who has the measles.

P at Camp David, then down for White House church, then meeting with Ross
Perot. —
Guess he worked all afternoon I had left a lot of stuff in his office and
he had a full briefcase at Camp David.

Discussion with me on wide range of ideas. P was quite impressed by his talk
with Perot yesterday, especially Ross's idea that the only way to get things
done is have for each project one manager with total responsibility for
to
results. Get rid of boards, advisory committees, etc.
About staff, he is fascinated with our plan to reduce White House staff by
moving our people into departments and agencies, which we badly need. Said
like in poker game, don't leave in anyone you have to feel sorry for, get down
to hard group, lean and tough.
Talk about press conference strategy. P fully convinced he should do only
two or three a year on TV, because of basic problem that they are not to our
advantage because they don't feature our issues. A lot more on need for better
press on P's image and leadership. Says trouble with all our backgrounders
was that they were all on what we accomplished, nothing about personality of
the man. Point of JFK did nothing but appeared great; LB J did everything and
appeared terrible. Taft infinitely more effective than Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy
Roosevelt had personality. Taft just did well.

Rather a slow day, with some juggling of the morning schedule (afternoon
clear, Wednesday plan).
Staff meeting mainly about obvious move by the "Establishment" to
reopen the Vietnam debate. All the magazines hit it this week. Clear that they
gave us 90 days after the November 3 speech and are now back at it. Also lot
of effort to revive Moratorium activities. Have to remobilize the Silent Major-
ity and get our own fires burning.
P issued strict orders that Ziegler and White House staff are to say nothing
1 26 H.R. HALDEMAN
about Vietnam until further orders. Has to keep complete control and not let
an inadvertent comment play into their hands. Also has embargoed ABM.
Hit me again on failure to redirect our hiring from New York, Harvard,
Ripon types to South, Midwest, and West. Is really determined to change the
balance. Told the Congressional staff group he would reappoint Haynsworth
if we picked up three senators and could get him confirmed.
Told me to tell E he plans to take on the integration problem directly. Is

really concerned about situation in Southern schools and feels we have to take
some leadership to try to reverse Court decisions that have forced integration
too far, too fast. Has told Mitchell to file another case, and keep filing until
we get a reversal. Told E to get (HEW Office for Civil Rights Director Leon)
Panetta's resignation by Friday. (E already has it, has been holding it, un-
dated.)
The school desegregation issue was becoming more important as enforce-

ment strategies and tactics were debated between the White House, Justice,
and HEW. P's very strong view was that the major impediment to successful
desegregation was the liberal establishment's determination to interpret the
law as requiring total integration rather than desegregation. He felt that
pushing too hard and too fast would just continue to lead to more and
worse confrontations, whereas a policy of moderation and steady progress
would bring far greater and earlier success. Panetta was a leader in the push
for speed and rigid enforcement and the P ordered him removed. Panetta
had successfully resisted earlier efforts to remove him, so P took the route
at this time of simply announcing Panetta's resignation at a meeting.

P had farewell breakfast for Bill Rogers, who is off to Africa. Then came to
office about 8:45 and no one in yet.
Going again on his determination not to play to blacks and professional
civil-righters. Is convinced we gain nothing. Key is and
to limit all our support
communication good blacks and totally ignore the militants, etc. After-
to the
noon meeting with the Cabinet group working on Southern school problem.
Then off to Camp David with the whole Mitchell family, plus Rose and
Chotiner.

Morning was set aside for preparation and filing of a brief summary of the big
environment message, which went to the Hill today. Worked out well, as P
used a lot of the time productively, had makeup, and did an unrushed TV shot
for the networks in the Oval Office, and it was good.
A discussion with E about school problem, with the result of at least

considering a P statement directly taking on the courts for ruining the school
system in their zeal for full integration. A
dangerous step, but maybe not as
dangerous in the long haul as doing nothing. Late in the day Harlow came in
about mass rally tonight in Charleston to try to block busing decision. Shaping
up into real crisis, and P will ultimately probably act on his own personal
conviction that forced integration is wrong.
Wants a lot of planning and thought given to question of how and when
to use TV. Back now to idea of more frequent press conferences, etc.
Gave me a little Wants us always to
lecture to cover with key staff.
approach a tough problem with great confidence, and only tell the P once that
it's a hard battle. Don't keep on telling him over and over that it's a real
problem. Obviously a reaction to K's incessant hand-wringing, and Harlow's

overdramatic statements that "This means real big trouble." He says he knows
the problems are hard, but wants us to worry about how to solve them, not
about how bad they are.

K got P all stirred up about State Department recommendation that P not
issue his Foreign Policy message because it would conflict with State's. P
rejects this out of hand and ordered me to call (HEW Secretary) Elliot
Richardson to transmit his very firm view (Rogers is in Africa).
Also very concerned about a story that Administration was considering
a shift on voting rights. Wants to be sure we don't let anyone back orTon any
of the civil rights positions.
Ordered me to have Portnoy's Complaint (an allegedly pornographic best-

seller) removed from White House library and put out story he'd done it.
Left for Key Biscayne after Business Council dinner.
Thursday, February 12, through Sunday, February 15, 1970

At Key Biscayne. P stayed out of work, called me two or three times a day, but
had no meetings. K also down finishing up his foreign message. Settled the flap
with State, as they decided not to do a report. Rogers very upset, wanted to
talk to P, but never got a phone connection.
Long chat on trip home about recession-minded Cabinet members, like
those of DDE's in '57 and '58. P more inclined to follow Shultz as only really
knowledgeable economist.

First flap of the day, about VP school desegregation group. Rump session this
morning decided to overrule decision last Saturday and set up big meeting in
Atlanta tomorrow night. All signs indicate a historic turning point, away from
1 28 H.R. HALDEMAN
all-out integrationprograms, with recognition they don't work. Great break

for us. Agnew made
big pitch for his using a new Buchanan speech, about end
of desegregation movement. Wants to give it in Atlanta this week. Others all
opposed in varying degrees. P agrees with Buchanan thesis, but feels Atlanta
the wrong place, and doesn't want VP to get out beyond his own position, and
thus become oversold as the Southern strategy man. Afraid to dilute or waste
the great asset he has become.

A long discussion of school problem, with even (Senator) Scott agreeing we
should go for another Congressional vote against busing, to try to impress the
Courts and deflect their present trend toward ordering end to de facto segrega-
tion nationwide at any cost.
P made very strong statement of his position and his real concern that we
may be headed for total chaos unless the courts let They all seemed to
up.
agree. This has become the major cause of the moment, and may really be very
serious. Great advance political possibilities.
Couple of long talks during noon and late afternoon, as he broods over
the school problem and some other current issues, especially recession. These
clearly are the two big ones now. Great detail about Agnew speech. He's
inclined now to think he should do it, especially on Harlow's recommendation,
based on talk with VP at lunch, which convinced him that VP has valid point
that if we don't move out on this, a Southern Democrat like Russell will, and
might unite the right and left-wing Democrats on a strange basis, both against
the Courts, but for opposite reasons. Feels we can preempt the proper position
by going first, and also must avoid being trapped in the position of having to
enforce integration by busing or gerrymandering in the North.
K all cranked up about his secret trip to Paris, fully covered, and no one
knows he's going. He loves the intrigue, and P enjoys it too.

Cabinet meeting. McCracken gave a brief report, then P launched into his
antirecession pitch, which set off Romney, who was not supposed to get into
his wage-price-policy pitch but did.
P whapped him by saying wage-price-policy had never
finally really
worked; Romney said it had in England; P laid him low saying, "Don't talk
to me about England," and explained differences. Pretty sharp alignment of
Romney, Volpe, Blount (and Stans, who was absent) against the Shultz-
McCracken view, which is to handle things by fiscal and monetary policy.
P had Shultz and me in after meeting, and covered the subject further,
trying to lock up George's view, which made George fear that P thought he
was a wild man on the subject.
P spent most of afternoon at EOB. Had Harriet Elan, Chapin's Negro
secretary, come over to talk about problems and viewpoint of a responsible

intelligent Negro. Obviously P deeply concerned. Later kept saying to me
there's really no adequate solution and nothing we can do in the short haul to
settle this, it will have to take one hundred years, but people don't want to
wait.
Really mad at the Jews because of Pompidou reaction and is saying so
pretty loudly.
French President Georges Pompidou had sold Libya over 100 Mirage jet
and many in the Jewish community had announced a boycott of his
fighters,
upcoming State visit.
Another day of concentration on the school /race problem. Was really mad
about report that DC school board had caved in and fired a white principal
and put in a black. Afraid if we let all this go on it will result in adverse
counteraction that will build a monstrosity, i.e., Wallace. Is convinced,
though, that Northern liberals, RibicofT and Bayh, are going anti-busing only
to trap the Administration politically. Is really afraid we're in a dilemma. If we
strongly oppose de facto integration, Court may still go against us, and then
P has to enforce order he has opposed. But if we don't lead in opposing the
trend, we'll have impossible decisions. Way out is that government can inter-
pret the Court in a very narrow way, and we must.
As one idea, wants to get a right-wing demagogue into some tough race
and have him go on basis of anti-integration, would get enormous reaction,
might even win.
This is a fairly typical strategy on Nixon's part i.e., to — set up, or hope for,
an external extremist view to be launched which would in turn bring coun-
terpressure on the extremists of the other side instead of letting the current
activist element dominate the debate and the action.
Feels now we haveto develop a careful plan for the whole approach to
schools. Can't go on fuzzing the issue forever.
Wants Agnew to go ahead with his speech, but doesn't want Buchanan to
write it. Wants to work on revision of it himself.
Started pushing again on wide range of general follow-through items.
Meeting in EOB with Tower et al., late afternoon, about Senate races.
Andrew Wyeth dinner, great success, with Rudolf Serkin as entertainment.
One of the best functions, key seems to be a homogenous group.
1 30 H.R. HALDEMAN

Cleaned up some odds and ends, with fairly light schedule. K left this morning
on his secret mission, obviously all cranked up, going in Air Force One,
elaborate cover, etc. He really thinks it may mean something. In typical K
fashion, with all from the Ellipse.
the secrecy, he then leaves by chopper
Change of view about the Agnew speech, based on memo from Garment
and Price. Now decided P must make the speech, and that it needs a lot more
work. P very impressed with column in Post by William Raspberry (black)
about school problems and idea that forced integration won't work. Met with
group of Catholic educators which got him really going on support for private
schools. Had (Special Counsel Chuck) Colson in and gave him orders to
"break the china" and get things done.
Told (speech) writers this (school desegregation) is a very historic crisis,
and the country must not move in the wrong direction. We must hit it effec-
tively in a way that will affect the Court. Says there's only mileage in this for
demagogues. Fine for a man who wants to be Governor but not for a man who
has to be President. Must mobilize the decent opinion, but not throw down
gauntlet to Court.
Volunteer dinner tonight.
Another day of long talks. Then he left for Camp David at 3:30 and I spent
three hours just trying to get my notes cleared up so I'll have a slew of
appointments with staff next week.
Really got into a harangue on follow-up. Especially distressed about
Carswell, because we are apparently not doing anything positive, while the
opponents are charging ahead just as they did with Haynsworth.
It's been a long week. Tried to set up new office procedures with my move
to the corner office, but I spent most of the week in the Oval Office listening.

P at Camp David. Called once.

Defense Panel and NSC meetings in morning. K back from his journey Satur-
day Reported to P Sunday at Camp David. Is pretty pleased, feels made
night.
a start towards some real progress. Long talks and he was (he says) very tough.
Quite a stir about P's orders to Colson to charge ahead on the Catholic school
thing. He did, and there are some problems, with Moynihan especially op-
posed. Wants E and group to submit a proposal for strongest possible forward
position, but some action.
Chuck Colson was originally brought into the White House to work in the
Congressional liaison area, but his assignments were expanded to include
general relations with outside interest groups, i.e., labor, ethnics, special
causes. He also became more and more of a special assignment man for the
P, primarily due to his eager willingness to carry out any Presidential order
with great zeal.
This inevitably created major problems from time to time because it
often involved an end run around the system that had been carefully set up
to be sure that all orders were properly staffed and the concerned parties
notified and given the opportunity to provide alternative views or recom-
mendations, or to express opposition for stated reasons.
Late afternoon got into quite a long talk probing whether we need to get
tougher, both on the rest of government and on our own staff. Feels maybe we
aren't hard enough on backsliders and I agreed. Problem is that P is not willing
to stand tight on unpleasant personal situations and won't back us if we do.
He has a great way of "working it out" instead of confronting head-on. We
need to make and win some challenges to get real control, but can't yet.

Pompidou. Good arrival ceremony, extra fanfare, and larger crowds laid on
to compensate for snubs, etc., expected elsewhere. P very anxious to do all we
can.
Good busy afternoon of appointments, including meeting with Rogers to
report on his African trip. K scared to death he wouldn't be asked to sit in and
afraid to ask for fear of turndown. All worked out fine. Then had me in for
another long one at 5:45.
Main subject was introspective rumination about his role and use of his
time. Said had done a lot of thinking over the weekend about his three classic
roles, leader of party, chief of state, head of government.
Wants to have more concentration on thinking deeply about the impor-
tant decisions, and time to read and think, and to rest enough to be always in
best physical condition.
Doesn'tlike relying so much on staff for major decisions, wants staff to
do minor ones, but feels he should get much more deeply into the major
all
ones and know what he's doing.

Also emphasized need to concentrate overall thinking about public stuff
on TV; that's all that counts. Says he can't spend his time just signing his name
and reading briefing papers someone else has prepared.
So, a lot of soul-searching that indicates an uneasy feeling that he's not
really going at it the best way. I think he's right. Main problem is how he'd use
the time if it were made available. Right now he generally wastes it in trivia.
1 32 H.R. HALDEMAN

Governors' Conference.

Really raged again today against United States Jews because of their behavior
toward Pompidou. Has decided to postpone Jewish arms supply for their
"unconscionable conduct." Also said, in front of K, not to let any Jews see him
about Middle East. Said they can go talk to (New York City Mayor John)
Lindsay and (New York Governor Nelson) Rockefeller about whether they can
provide arms for Israel (they were boycotting Pompidou 's New York dinner).
As mad as he's been since we got here.
P did later postpone delivery of our jets to Israel, as threatened above.
Called (Representative) Wilbur Mills to thank him for getting Family

Assistance through (House) Ways and Means (Committee). P played it
straight although Democrats did this to try to trap P with unworkable pro-
gram. Will backfire on them as P succeeds in getting first major social legisla-
tion in decades.
P spokeWhite House Radio /TV Correspondents dinner, and was a hit
at
with brief and funny remarks. Had some good gags, several of them his own,
and delivered them beautifully. Tough crowd, virtually all against him, but he
made some points. Called me at home after and was pleased with himself. Also
delighted because he had just called Reagan, who will stand up to the Jews and
escort Pompidou in California.

Started off the day by refusing to sign a decision about glass imports. Wants
E to move fast on developing a constitutional amendment about schools. Feels
we should bite bullet now and hard, if it's called racism, so be it! Feels we have
on both
to take a black or white position (didn't even notice the pun), can't be
sides because we just from both and please no one. Feels the only good
get hit
thing we've done in this area is to fire Panetta. Says an act is better than a
statement, because it comes through loud and clear.
P came in late, brief meeting with me on miscellany before conference with

group Moynihan assembled about black problem.
Very interesting session, three hours in Cabinet Room, with professors

from Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia. P in good listening form as well as partici-
pating.
Group all felt P should shift policy to helping and backing the strong
instead of putting all effort into raising up the weak.

All quiet until just after churchwhen P called from Camp David, had report
from (Protocol Chief Emil) Mosbacher about treatment of Pompidou by Jews
in Chicago. P furious. Will announce cancellation of Israel arms tomorrow,
wants legislation to provide protection for foreign visitors, and he will go to
New York dinner tomorrow night to add an extra touch. Really disturbed
because Mrs. Pompidou has decided to go home tonight, wants to try and stop
her. So we swing into immediate action this afternoon and have all the wheels
grinding. Fun to have a crisis, if only a little one.
P also cranked up about two major leaks in New York Times today,
especially one of Moynihan memo about blacks. Wants a complete freeze on
Times, etc.
Moynihan had urged a cooling of overheated racial rhetoric — a period of

"benign neglect" during which progress could quietly continue. The phrase
was immediately taken out of context.

Pat Nixon morning on her college tour. P had light schedule all at
left this
midday because day had originally been kept clear for press conference tonight
which was dropped. He had a meeting with Raspberry, black columnist, about
his thoughts on the school problem. This continues to be the main item of
interest, plus work on the Laos statement.
At 2:30 we left for New York and the Pompidou dinner, moving the
departure up an hour to confuse the demonstrators and the press. Trip turned
out a huge success. We went right to the Waldorf, spent balance of afternoon
there, P meeting with K about Laos, and a private meeting with Pompidou
who was deeply touched and impressed by P's gesture of coming to the dinner.
P got great reception at the dinner and scored with his remarks. A darn good
maneuver. Had to reroute motorcade into Waldorf because of threat of man
with gun on FDR Drive, so went through crummy area of lower Manhattan.
P went into quite a harangue at the hotel about the miserable city of New
York, and the whole impossible problem of how to make such cities livable,
really can't be done.
1 34 H.R. HALDEMAN

Full schedule today, but not dinner tonight (was going to have a private one),
so he can work on Laos statement. Leaders Meeting this morning on educa-
tion message. P had long meeting with VP about their plans for Gridiron and
then into other areas. (They're going to do a piano duet, which should be
great.) Quadriad meeting in late afternoon.

NSC meeting this morning. Cabinet and Subcabinet groups about reorganiza-
P canceled Irving Kristol dinner tonight to have afternoon
tion this afternoon.
and evening to work on Laos statement.
Wants us to move hard on Larry O'Brien now that he's back as DNC
chairman. P feels this is clear signal that Teddy is back in control, all the
maneuvering was dodge to cover this. Is worried about O'Brien's effec-
just a
spokesman, will say anything and has great ability to
tiveness, especially as a
get on TV. Wants Chotiner to manage Operation O'Brien.
I don't know what this was specifically, but it was a plan to discredit
O'Brien.
Some more long talks with me about and planning

his internal analysis
and need to get to concentration on push to have all
priorities. Will really
secondary matters handled without his involvement. Wants second level staff
to step up to this and act for White House and P whenever they need Presiden-
tial strike; should feel free to do it by proxy. Is prepared to deal with mistakes
and bad decisions as inevitable so long as lower level staff handles.

Made point that Churchill's technique was to make little notes on every
little item as a way to create a sense of movement and keep things happening.

(Budget Director Bob) Mayo session. Bob launched into an extensive anti-E
diatribe full of petty complaints. Topped it off by saying he'd probably better
resign, since he and E were at an impasse on question of where policy is to be
made. He contends Budget (or OEM) cannot be divorced from policy develop-
ment. P handled whole thing beautifully, putting off decision until next week.
Said afterward real problem is Mayo doesn't realize policy must be controlled
by the P's men, and they aren't in the Budget Bureau. P is apparently ready
to let Mayo go. He had a good session with John Connally and is strongly of
the view that he would be ideal head of OEM. This may turn out to be the
solution.
In the Connally meeting, P outlined his whole line of thinking about

delegation, etc., much Connally made point P must be
to Connally's approval.
totally ruthless inside the Oval Office, but firm and human outside. Also said
he should not pay any price to mollify Cabinet members. Should be tough with
them, and let them go if they don't like it. Connally tracks well with P and
would be an excellent addition if we could get him in.
P gave dinner for NAB Regional Chairmen, a motley collection of highl-
and low-level types and a real waste of time and effort except as a sop to Don
Kendall. Then of! to Key Biscayne for the weekend. Spent most of the after-
noon trying to keep P on track about Key Biscayne, he decided he didn't want
to go because of bad weather, but finally agreed to give it a try. Then had to
wait one half hour on plane because of starter problem, pretty late night. E and
I in cabin for whole flight, K in and out about Laos.

In Key Biscayne. Beautiful cool sunny day. No word from P. K did back-
grounder on Laos and we released the statement. Went out on Bebe's boat for
an evening cruise.

Still at Key Biscayne, weather okay in morning, clouded up after the eclipse
and rained at night. Still no word from P. He did talk to E a little about
schools. Went out on the Julie in afternoon, press boat got up close and caused
a major flap.

We got back into the Laos flap which, in K's absence, took an enormous
amount of P's time.
Problem arose because of discrepancies in terms and in numbers of men
killed over the years. K had given out more specific information than he should
have in the briefing Friday, and then had guided the press group in giving out
some more on Sunday. Turned out today it was inaccurate. So poor Ziegler
had to explain, in two long involved briefings. P spent a lot of time with him
working it all out.
Apparently came out reasonably well, but the whole episode shows more
clearly than anything yet how the White House press is totally dedicated to
screwing us rather than getting the facts and reporting them. They bent every
effort to tangle it up and prove a credibility gap instead of trying to get it
straight. P called me at home tonight to have me call K to tell him not to
nitpick Ziegler and Haig's work while he was gone. They had done outstand-
ing job.
I was in for three and a half hours this morning, alone except for Ziegler
1 36 H.R. HALDEMAN
in about a half hour. Went through my whole pile of schedule and information
material and got a lot decided. Nothing very important. Worried about Mitch-
ell'simage and need to get crime action going; plan for GOP dinner and need
to avoid P getting partisan; meeting on economy and need to get interest rates
down; some long-range trip plans; some press guidance for Connie Stuart;
some songs he wants Johnny Cash to do at his "Evening at White House"; and
the need to build up Herb Klein.

P met with Timmons' attack group first thing, not too impressed with either
the group or Timmons' planning.
This was an informal team set up to find and capitalize on Democratic

weaknesses —including any tax problems they might have.
Had me in after for how to build up the whole attack

long talk about
operation. Wants a new group up to go hard on this. Also wants to be sure
set
we are doing an all-out hatchet job on the Democrat leaders, through IRS, etc.
Call from Chapin, saying K had to see P, new break in Mideast. P won't
see him, K very upset. Problem continues. P wants me to try to untangle him
too. I learned from Haig this morning that K had really battled with Rogers
on phone yesterday about Laos, and the whole deal is really building up. P's
refusal to see K today won't help, but it is just because he doesn't want to get
into Middle East with K. Going to be hard to keep this on track.
We left EOB after another hour, P to the Residence. I was confronted first
by Garment, wanting to know what was wrong; E had dealt him out of school
statement, then got into whole Jewish problem and gave me a handwritten
letter from Golda Meir to P. Then in came Moynihan with a new internal
memo that has been leaked to New York Times, this time from clear back in
January '69. Someone's really rolling on the memo leaks.

K finally got in, after not seeing P at all yesterday. He's shook about Laos,
still
and credibility story riding. K wanted to do another backgrounder on

is still
the theory that he could straighten it all out and get the subject back to the
merits of the case, instead of nitpicking statistics. We said he shouldn't, at staff
meeting, then he took it up with P, who it down. Later in day P had
also shot
E, K, and me in for a little lecture about how we all will have problems and
we must take them in stride, etc. All directed at trying to get K to quit beating
a dead horse and move on the more constructive efforts. Trouble is, there
really is a problem. Epitomized by Laird's statement yesterday that Defense
had given P the wrong figures on Laos casualties on purpose to cover up secret
operations. Pretty shocking.
K is in pretty bad shape, feels he goofed and thus let P down and was
taken in and had, by both Defense and State, and has lost P's confidence. The
lecture was designed to undo this, and to get him back in gear, but I don't think
it worked. Will probably have a continuing problem on this, and will just have
to play it day by day.

The whole situation occupied most of the day for most of the key staff.
P had to do State Department drop-by and GOP fund-raiser dinner
tonight. Is pushing for more free time to work out his civil rights /school
position.
Another Moynihan memo leaked today, and P wants me to clamp down
on Problem is how. He's extremely well controlled on this, but doesn't
leaks.
think we should just let it go on. Wants to try the five men against a wall
technique.
This refers to the story about the five suspects who were lined up against the
wall and told that the one who had done the wrong must step forward
immediately and admit it or all five would be shot.
P had a bipartisan Congressional session about Consumer Affairs, then a

meeting with GOP Governors Executive Committee. Then had piano practice
with VP, for Gridiron, great idea doing duo piano practice routine as complete
surprise. This afternoon a long talk with Moynihan and interview with Dick
Wilson for feature article in Look. I was only in a couple of times and then very
briefly.
Tonight P stag dinner with key staff and (conservative writer) Irving
Kristol. Got off to slow start and through dinner P talked with Shultz about
labor matters, Kristol just listened. Sort of a waste of time and talent. In Oval
Room after dinner the talk heated up, about whole subject of condition of the
country, focused on radicalization of large number of college students,
strength of nihilistic groups (in influence, not numbers), and how to deal with
it all. Attorney General was incredible. Has an absolutely fixed point of view.
Wouldn't even listen, and when he did, he didn't hear. Insisted on expounding
on and on. P finally turned him off so we could hear a little from Kristol. Must
say, Kristol didn't add much.
I had two hour private session with Mayo about his concerns on OEM,
now OMB of Management and Budget), and E. Turns out his real basic
(Office
problem is is based on his conviction that E is obsessed
purely personal and
with determination to acquire total control over government. Can't talk him
out of it. Also a very strong vein of pure egotism and status worry involved.
1 38 H.R. HALDEMAN
Trouble is, budget man, but a woeful choice for this new top
he's a really top
management job. I it, and that may be the real overriding cause
think he knows
of his trouble, although he sure won't admit it.

A last-minute decision first thing this morning to go out and visit Washington
Technical Institute, all-black vocational college. Lots of risk as building bomb-
ing threats continue and all DC schools suspend classes. But all went well, a
few anti-demonstrators, most of students friendly.
Off to Camp David in late afternoon. K thinks he's working out a deal
on Mideast. He is fascinated by complexity of P's mind and approach. K loves
this kind of maneuver as does P, and K is amazed by P's ability at it.
K also hopeful of a deal in Paris. He goes back again tomorrow.
still
Thinks ifNorth Vietnamese have anything positive this time, we'll be on

the
the way to a settlement this year. A real coup if it works out. Problem is to
maintain balance in United States, and this is getting tougher as Senate critics
fire up again, especially about Laos. Also we have a Gallup (poll) that shows
P down 1 1 points on handling Vietnam.

Lot of concern growing about terrorism and left-wing plans for violence.
Many in staff feel it is a real and major threat and that it extends to the P and
top officials, assassination or kidnapping. Feel we are not taking adequate
preventive measures and that we have totally inadequate intelligence.
Very funny, P has secret plan to do a piano duet with VP at Gridiron tonight,
and didn't want anyone to know about it. Midafternoon, VP called Chapin to
be sure P had arranged for two pianos, said he had through me. Called me to
check. P had said nothing, I had done nothing. So I had Chapin call P and sure
enough he hadn't made the arrangements. Would have been quite a fiasco!
Anyway, Chapin worked it all out. P's idea was an absolute smash hit as he
and VP did a stand-up dialogue first, then played favorite songs of past
presidents, with VP coming in each time with "Dixie," climax, "God Bless
America." The whole audience rose and sang along with them. They also
played "Auld Lang Syne" with Marine Orchestra and soloist, for the finale.
Great idea and beautifully executed.
P called me after we got home, was really pleased with how it had come
off, as he should have been. Feels he'll never be able to top it, and won't even
go next year.

P meets this afternoon with ( Reverend Billy ) Graham's group of black minis-
ters.

Biggest problem of the day came via phone call from P after I got home. K had
apparently hit him again on the Rogers problem, said Rogers is out to get him
and takes a stab two or three times every day. Probably comes from Rogers
having a meeting with P yesterday while K
in Paris. P trying as usual to stay
out of it, and K
as usual obsessed with discussing it in detail. P wants me to
try and get him turned off, and to take a vacation for a while to simmer down.
I had long talk with K this morning about Paris. He's still very optimistic
because North Vietnam was at least willing to discuss mutual withdrawal,

which is first admission they even have troops in. K playing tough, uneager
role, and they keep going for the next step. He wanted to wait four weeks for
next meeting, they said no, must be in two weeks. So maybe there's hope. K
says if we can hold here in United States for two to four months he thinks we'll
have it.

Cabinet meeting with the new tables, chairs, and decor. Looks great. First
juggling Cabinet around. Would love to get rid of Kennedy, Romney, Volpe,
and But not much hope. Wanted Morton to take a stab at
especially Hickel.
getting Hickel to go back to Alaska to run for Governor again. And maybe
Romney to do the Senate after all.
Then finally got to the real point, K. He's really worried about his obses-
sion with the idea that Rogers is out to get him, and even more by his inability
to stay out of the Israel problem. Talked about how we could help by trying
to get K to stick to priorities, etc.
P worked at EOB all afternoon on press conference briefing books. Called
me over at 6:30, to talk about book from K too thick. Problem is as staff gets
bigger their work gets more voluminous and less valuable and less imaginative
and more careful.
I brought up George Murphy problem again, which I had spent several
hours on in the afternoon (the ex-actor was running for the Senate in Califor-
nia).The LA Times ran a horrible editorial against him and that reopened the
efforts to gethim not to run, but no one thinks it can be done, except possibly
by the P. He's perfectly willing to try if we want him to. So we have to get more
information.

The morning was kept clear to prepare for filing a statement on education, so
P had E and me in for a long session, then a longer one with me after E left.
School statement still in great agony, major internal staff division. P
doesn't want to indicate in any way that we'll move on de facto segregation or
imply that we'll spend money on buses. Said to leave out "maintain momen-
140 H.R. HALDEMAN
turn" and "morally right" type phrases. But then says Buchanan is just as far
off on the right asGarment is on the left.
Also wants to move on hard legislation hitting people who plan bomb-
ings — fast, and hijackers. Wants death penalty for both.
Start of a postal strike today that could spread beyond New York, wants
to be sure we do what we should.
Alabama poll we took indicates Brewer can beat Wallace for Governor,
so we'll put in $100,000 to make sure. P has slogan for him, "Forward with
Brewer, Not back to Wallace."
The $100,000 would be contributed by the outside campaign fund group

that was set up for the purpose of raising and distributing funds for candi-
dates designated as key prospects by the White House.
P loaded with appointment schedule for afternoon. I spent most of it on

the phone about George Murphy problem. Still going back and forth on
whether P should call and try to get him to pull out. Finally concluded he
should at least call and get Murphy's evaluation and give him a chance to react
by pulling out. P called after the "Evening at the White House," Murphy said
he'll win and that's that.

Day kept clear for press conference preparation. But postal strike in New York
on, and P got into some lengthy sessions with E on it. He spent whole
is still
day at EOB. P's first reaction was for really tough stand, examine the law, if
people can be fired, fire them, if troops can be moved, move them; wants to
do something now, morning, not going to tolerate Federal employees
this
strike. if we can't fire them, all-out attack, not worried
Says suspend them
about the mail, it's the principle. Wanted E to get this all worked out and bring
over an order for P to sign. Then got worried that E should be working on
school statement instead, must have by 5:00 today, after press conference.
Later called over, all upset because K making an issue out of State reluctance
to bomb Laos. Rogers wanted a meeting, to argue P's decision. P told me to
tell K to go ahead and bomb, don't make announcement or notify State, just
do and skip the argument. K in a bind because he's committed to Rogers to
it
notify him before any strikes.

At midday, as P got better
feel of seriousness and complexity of postal
problem, he decided not to have the press conference today. Will probably do
it tomorrow morning. In discussing items with Ziegler for briefing, P said,
"Hard-nose it at the moment, we'll have some good news before long." Wants
to be sure not to express concern, etc., about postal strike because that implies
we're not in control, lack of leadership, etc.
P talked with Shultz on phone, said he'd do anything he wanted about

meetings, statements, etc. He's anxious to get in command of the situation.
Spent the balance of the day working on briefing. P later decided to hold
the school statement until next week partly because it's still not really ready,
and because he'll do press conference tomorrow.
Postal problem settled in late afternoon when union leaders agreed to get
workers back in, then negotiate. At least E thinks this settles it. I doubt that
leaders can get workers back, since it's a wildcat strike to begin with.
P in early, to work on briefing books. Had to spend quite a little time

EOB, to
on postal problem. The settlement didn't work, because rank and file won't go
back, have rejected leaders, and now SDS ( Students for a Democratic Society)
types involved, at least in New York. Walkout has spread to many other cities,
including Chicago, where they noted a strike. Real danger of national strike,
with need then to call in troops to deliver mail, and police to disperse pickets.
Strategy is to do the least we have to do, but to insure the delivery of the mail.
P had a press conference in the Oval Office at 1 1:30. Canceled plan to go
to Camp David, to stay on top of mail crisis. Threat now is of radicalization,
a national strike, other walkouts, i.e., Teamsters, Air Traffic Controllers, etc.,
to cripple whole country at once. Would provide a real opportunity for leader-
ship, but how to handle it? Overreaction could bring a real disaster.

A busy day as the postal strike issue got worse. Most of us were in several
sessions with P and with Shultz, etc. No action today, will see what the workers
do in the morning. If they don't come back, P will move with troops, conse-
quence may be bad. P spent whole day at EOB on this and with Harlow on
the school statement. Wants tomorrow cleared to finish statement and be
prepared to act on strike.

Maybe an historic day. P ordered troops into New York to take over essential
mail services. Started with a long early morning session in my office with
Blount, Shultz and E, plus Klein and Ziegler. Went round and round on what
to do, and all the possible consequences. Finally, inevitable that he use troops.
we had to do it. E, Ziegler and
Shultz was the last holdout but finally agreed
I went over to EOB and told P. He fully agreed. Set time and plan for
announcement on national TV, with top leaders meeting first. Got a statement
prepared. Amazing how little leadership in the group, but finally got them
divided up and onto work.
P alternated between strike and segregation, still trying to get school
1 42 H.R. HALDEMAN
statement out tomorrow. Hung in balance until 5:00 and then decided to go.
Harlow riding herd on it, with E jumping between the two projects. P obvi-
ously thoroughly enjoying the pressure and need for fast action. Stayed at
EOB day except to come over for Leaders Meeting, that lasted so long he
all
had postpone TV fifteen minutes. Rushed into little office, quickly read final
to
draft over (Rose was late getting it typed), and then went on the air, with
excellent seven-minute statement. Had signed State of Emergency and Order
for troops at Leaders Meeting. Went right back to EOB and to work on school
statement. There until 5:30, back for meeting with labor group, building
trades, then Harlow and E about statement until 7:35, when he left to get
dressed for 8:00 African dinner. A really busy and maybe momentous day.
First results appear to show some success as some of the big locals vote
to go back to work. But New York still out, and troops moving in tonight.
Strike could easily spread back out across country and into other unions.
(Postmaster General Winton "Red") Blount got into a flap with the Army
over who's giving orders. E had revised Red's timing and quantity of original
troop movement. I had to call Army and tell them to take orders from PMG
(Postmaster General) only. E of course concurs.
P again completely cool, tough, firm and totally in command; fully aware
of it, and loving it.

School desegregation day. After weeks, the statement is finally out.
P reaffirmed his support of desegregation and his opposition to busing.

Emphasis was put on local authorities and voluntary compliance rather
than Federal enforcement. P also said he would request $1.5 billion over
two years for local desegregation.
P had bipartisan leaders for breakfast and a briefing. Said Teddy K asked
the only smart question, "Where will you get the money?" Then E et al. had
a one-and-a-half-hour press briefing on it. No reaction yet, but P pleased with
final result.
Blount and his Deputy, Ted Klassen, trapped me in late morning about
White House staff interference in Post Office negotiations, especially Colson.
They were really mad. Three-hour meeting this afternoon at Post Office.
Finally got Blount to agree to Usery (Labor) as the chief mediator in charge.
Hard to beat the Post Office down, they are determined to have full control in
their hands.
At meeting looked as if we were in pretty good shape externally, problems
all internal, mainly ego. All unions basically back, except New York, and their
leaders are here and anxious to meet. We seem to have the upper hand.
Problem is and move on from here. Also air
to keep it, traffic controllers
threaten walkout tomorrow, a disaster if they do.

Poor K, no one will pay any attention to his wars, and it looks like Laos
is falling.

Had planned on Key Biscayne at noon today, but Congress is staying in
session at least untiltomorrow, and the postal negotiations start at 2:00, so
decided to wait until tomorrow.
P had NSC meeting this morning, then spent rest of day at EOB until
meeting with Senator Cooper about ABM and Carswell at 5:00 in Oval Office;
after that to Residence.
Made point in meeting this morning that under no circumstance would he
declare a national holiday for Martin Luther King.
Some more discussion about Carswell, still worried for good reason as he
continues to decline, lose a few senators each day.
Easter weekend spent in Key Biscayne. Continuing concern re Carswell

nomination, postal negotiations, and the possibility of a "sick-out" being
called by the air traffic controllers.

Now K is all stirred up. Had him stashed away at Paradise Island for a week's
vacation, but he's afraid to be away if crisis breaks, and Cambodia is brewing
one. After numerous calls, I finally talked him into staying,much to P's relief.
He knows K needs time of! and rest.
On March 18 General Lon Nol had overthrown Cambodia's Prince Siha-

nouk, which was all right with us, but Lon Nol's troops were having a tough
time against the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese.
P met with Blount and E at 5:00 when we arrived at White House. Fairly
encouraged about postal negotiations. Spent evening at house on phone.
Getting caught up after absence. Toured new press facilities and seemed
pleased.
1 44 H.R. HALDEMAN

Back to work my spending hours
in earnest. Fairly light schedule resulted in
in Oval Office on all odds and ends.
sorts of
Moynihan in to see me, disturbed about staff leaks designed to screw him,
especially via Mollenhoff. Made point he's ruined in Democratic party because
of the "benign neglect" memo. He's really distressed, mainly because he has
nowhere left to go. A tough day for me, pages of notes of details for follow-up.
Got them all done, though.

(P) had a meeting with Rogers this morning, and concluded he's got to have
more of these without K. Feels K doesn't give him accurate picture of Laird's
and Rogers' views. Always puts it in black and white. P talked a long time with
E and me about this problem, trying to figure out how to handle this. Basically,
it's impossible because of the characters, especially K. But Rogers clearly
maneuvers to clobber Henry. Haig is doing great job in K's absence, and P
agrees. Has had several long sessions with him. Ordered a big retaliation move
because North Vietnam hit us, wants to knock out a SAM (surface-to-air
missile) site; Haig feels this is wrong, told P so. Wants to wait until Saturday
so as not to screw up K's secret talks in Paris.
P also got into problem of where you find people for government service.
Must have judgment, character, loyalty, patriotism. Most lack at least two of
these, especially the Eastern intellectuals.

Settlement day. Postal agreement. Knew we had it at noon when Usery made
deal with (George) Meany, but had to go through motions of negotiating

session. Now have to sell it to Congress. Came out pretty well, P especially
anxious to get positive interpretation on it.
P interested in basic political and philosophical problems, as outlined in

Kevin Philips' thesis about lack of a conservative elite, and the Pusey report
about the problems at Harvard. Trying to figure out where to put together our
base. Broods frequently over problem of how we communicate with young and
blacks. It's really not possible, except with Uncle Toms, and we should work
on them and forget militants.
The air controllers problem goes on, and the plan now is to fire a bunch
145
1 46 H.R. HALDEMAN
of them, especially after postal settlement, to prove government employees

can't win by striking.Theory is that the mailman is a family friend, so you
can't hurt him, but no one knows the air traffic man. Also they make a lot more
money, hence invoke a lot less popular sympathy.
Haven't told him about the latest Gallup, he's down another 3 points after
an 8-point drop a week ago, that wasn't published. Confirms a downward
trend, probably due to a general lack of positive exposure. He has really been
out of view, but doesn't seem to realize it.

Pretty busy schedule up to departure time for Camp David, so not too much
chitchat today. Carswell battle moving ahead a little better.
Wants to consider letting ( Teamsters leader Jimmy) HofTa out of jail. I'm
'
to have Mitchell talk to Shultz and work out a plan.

Called me from Camp David, still on subject of postal deal. Wants more
action on setting the tone. Especially keep Congressional people on it. Try to
get our people on Sunday TV. Also worried about who's throwing the first
baseball. Wants to have David do it.

P at Camp David. I stayed home to do taxes. P kept calling all day. Mostly
with more thoughts on postal settlement. K has his Paris meeting today and
back here this evening. Will want to get right to P, who will be tied up with
Duke of Windsor dinner.

K called, back from Paris. Meeting went OK, but no breakthrough. Thinks
Cambodia has thrown them completely off balance. They think we engineered
it (the coup) and can't figure it out. K thinks they would have been ready to
deal but are now confused. But they didn't close things off; K did say he
wouldn't meet again unless they had something positive to offer. He's going to
stay on a tough line. Hard to tell how well K evaluates these sessions. He tends
to be all one way, optimistic or pessimistic, and colors everything based on his
basic reaction.

Breakfast with LBJ. Nothing startling.
Another long talk about poll situation. Gallup will be out Thursday with
the big drop. P trying to analyze why. Feels we have proven that a lot of
activity, i.e., messages, stunts, etc., doesn't do any good about national popu-
larity, only events affect this. Strongly sayswe shouldn't worry about doing
something every day. It doesn't make any difference, so not worth all the effort
and expense. Instead should be sure to do more to follow up and capitalize on
the big events that do make a difference. Ordered an immediate phone poll to
see effect of past two weeks.
P decided to go to opening ball game
about 5th inning.
in
Made point again that we need to change the Agnew approach. He is a
very effective salesman for himself but not for the Administration. Has become
too much of an issue and a personality himself.

Too much open time in schedule, plus E gone through Wednesday, plus
setbacks in polls, etc., resulted in my getting caught for hours of conversation
and analysis. (P) very cranked up about final stages of Carswell battle, feels
staff is not adequate. Then a lot of talk about lack of enthusiasm, in the
Administration and especially in White House staff. No one takes the offen-
sive, all just lie down (except Garment and Moynihan, who aren't really on our
side). Don't radiate enthusiasm, because really don't feel it. Said I should see
movie Patton. He inspired people, charged them up, chief of staff has to do
this. Pointed! Said everyone works long and hard and all comes out blah, no
fire except after November 3, and then didn't follow up. Thinks we rely too
much on P for all this, wants to see some leadership in others.

Wants a complete analysis of all Presidential activity and TV coverage
and its effect on polls this year, to prove his point that doing stuff doesn't help.

Carswell day, and he went down
the tubes! Too bad. As the day started we had
a pretty good chance. immediate reaction was to decide not to submit
P's
another nomination until after the elections, and then go for Bob Byrd of West
Virginia. I urged an early start to the effect that if it was obvious this Senate
would not approve a Southerner, then put in a good Northern constructionist.
May do that. P did feel we had not done adequate job in our Congressional
group, but that main fault was Justice. He called Carswell, good brief chat. No
substance except urged him to stay on Court. He will.
P very concerned that staff, et al., not overreact to this and to tomorrow's
Gallup shows a new low of 53. Will have another one Sunday, back
poll, that
up to 56. Odd! Lot of talk about the polls, had our quick phone poll that gives
him 59.
He decided to go out on the boat for dinner, with Mitchell and me. Very
nice cruise to Mt. Vernon, and chopper back. Long talk about plans for next
appointment.
K in for a while this afternoon, discussing Dobrynin talks about prelimi-
148 H.R. HALDEMAN
nary plans for Summit this fall. P wants to go to Berlin, Leningrad or Warsaw.
P also said we've saved Laos for four weeks at least, and maybe we can hold
a few weeks more. Set plans for troop withdrawal announcement on 16th,
150,000, big!

Started the day by canceling Cabinet meeting this afternoon to keep the time
clear to work on new Decided to go with troop announcement
justice, etc.
Thursday night 16th, prime time Set up Monday meeting with Laird,
TV.
Rogers, Wheeler, and K to finalize. But will not tell them the real plan. Wants
a program set up to leak 40,000 reduction to Post and Times, then go with
150,000.
Wants to step up political attack. Investigators on Kennedy and Muskie
plus Bayh and Proxmire. Also get dope on all the key Senatorial candidates,
and especially crack the anti-Carswell groups.
By "investigators" P is referring to E's two men that were used to handle

investigations that were outside the normal scope of the Federal investiga-
tive agencies. The two former New York policemen were Jack Caulfield,
who was on E'sWhite House staff handling special assignments, and Tony
Ulasciewicz, who was paid by outside campaign funds.
Wants to capitalize on Carswell defeat by really moving on our contribu-

tors, to get new Senate. Have to declare war.
Decided to do a strong crime statement, maybe tomorrow on TV.
Again looking for the offensive to counteract defeat. Have to find some way
to get across the point that he can't appoint a judge from the South, find a
way today to do this on TV. My suggestion was to go on TV for two min-
utes with very simple statement, no questions. He decided to do it. Met first
with Mitchell, then really cut loose in press room. Probably too strong, but
he doesn't think so.
into a demon for the rest of the day, on follow-up. Knows

Then turned
he really banged the Senate and partly wants justification, partly thinks he's
scored.
Then had political group in to charge them up. Read statement, chortled
with glee over the tough parts.

(German Chancellor) Willy Brandt day. Usual State Arrival and private meet-
ing.Had me in first about more battle plans for follow-up on his statement.
Started really mad New York Times said his statement was
because Semple in
"bitter." (I think he was bitter and thus doubly resents it.) Set up
knows it
meeting with Mitchell and ( Minnesota judge Harry) Blackmun, the new Jus-
tice for this afternoon, completely off record. But the name leaked from Justice,
and was in Evening Star.
Brandt farewell, and SALT delegation farewell. Then a little chitchat about
"it's noon and another week over." Took off with Bebe for boat ride, then to
Camp David. Called to see if anything new. Pretty calm, thinks he got things
cranked back up. Planning a hot week, with Justice on Monday, postal deal
on Tuesday, crime blast on Wednesday, Vietnam Thursday.

Another of those days of hours alone with P in Oval Office, just talking. A few
appointments in morning, and a Cabinet meeting on the economy in the
afternoon. Lot of talk about new justice and plans and timing for announce-
ment.
P got K's draft of Vietnam speech, and had me take it to read vs. his
December 15 speech. K's new one completely negative, three times too long
and misses point. I convinced P to let Buchanan take a stab at boiling it down.
P feels K is lost cause as writer, also in reading his Paris report it's obvious he
can't negotiate, he makes debating points instead.
Some concern about Mitchell, and especially what can be done about
Martha.
Martha's behavior was sometimes outlandish, due to both emotional and

drinking problems.It was a source of embarrassment to both John and the
Administration. However, John was always patient with her, even later
when it became a public issue.
At about midnight, K called about problems of Apollo XIII on way to

moon.
A fire and power failure had knocked out the Command Module's systems.
The astronauts would see if they could cram into the Lunar Module and
make it back to Earth.
1 50 H.R. HALDEMAN
He wanted
to discuss all the possible problems that the abort and possible
disasterwould raise. Also very concerned as to whether we should notify P. I
decided no, on basis there was nothing he could do. Then Chapin called with
advice from Safire. And K a couple more times. And finally to sleep.

Apollo 13 day. And the Danish Prime Minister. P had to spend two hours on
arrival and meeting, and was furious that visit had even been scheduled. After
that the rest of the day was spent on Apollo XIII, starting with E urging an
instant trip to Houston, which we managed to avoid, after getting Borman to
recommend against it. Then a whole review of other alternatives to show P's
concern and interest. Finally ended up going out to Goddard Space Center for
a briefing; good move and it worked out fine. Whole deal still pretty shaky, but
there's apparently an even chance that they'll get back. P resisted all grand-
standing ideas. Decided to postpone Vietnam speech because of Apollo abort.
Will wait until Monday. P called Laird and Rogers to tell them, and order no
discussion.
I got into a bind with VP
by ordering him to halt on runway at Des
Moines as he was leaving for Houston. Made him sit and wait for over an hour
while P was with Prime Minister, then raised question with P, and he fully
agreed VP should not go to Houston for same reasons P shouldn't, plus
upstaging P. VP mad as hell, but agreed to follow orders and go to Florida and
wait.
Overall a crisis day that came out OK but showed we aren't really geared
for it. Too much confusion and duplication as everyone gets into the act. Need
more discipline and routine. Not too bad.

Long morning session on schedule, as we rejuggle the next couple of weeks and
setup for various contingencies about Apollo. Lot of discussion about various
options for P about Apollo return; go to Houston, go to splashdown, etc. P
determined to find exactly right way for his getting into it. Wanted to be first
one on the announce safe landing. I reviewed a whole range of these with
air to
Borman, then back to discussion with P. Out of that developed my plan for P
going to Houston to greet ground crew and take wives to Hawaii to meet
astronauts. Give them Medal of Freedom. P spends as much time discussing
the problem he has of shortage of time, as he does doing the things he says he
doesn't have time to do. Seems to have lost a lot of the basic "feel" of the job
that he had. Partly a result of multiple unsolvable problems bearing in, and
partly a function of less newness in the job. He really needs crises to deal with,
and is not at his best with a period of general erosion such as this. Moved well
on postal strike, Pompidou, etc., but not good on self-initiated momentum.
This is undoubtedly perfectly natural and, I suspect, represents a normal

doldrum period through which we'll pass.
Big news activity day. P on SALT, then another

briefed Congressional leaders
session on postal House passed Family Assist-
deal, then this afternoon the
ance. Plus continuing suspense about Apollo, although no new developments
on it today.
in morning meetings because he was
Apparently he did outstanding job
concerned about getting out the about decisiveness, command, etc. Feels
line
gist of an operation is ability to command a group and he has it to much
greater degree than Kennedy, Johnson, or DDE, but we don't ever tell anyone.
Compares to Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and de Gaulle, whose staffs all got
enormous coverage of the mystique, without participation by the principal.
Feels his main strength is his ability, but he gets no credit for it, which is
necessary to build up and thus make it even more effective.
Fascinating discussion about his ideas for his own funeral plans. I raised
subject during discussion of astronauts. He wants simplicity, only one DC
service, at Rotunda, no horse. Need a layman for the eulogy, no ideas. Gra-
ham and (Norman Vincent) Peale for prayers. All contributions to Boys
Clubs. Burial at Rose Hills near parents, simple service. Told me to work up
all the details, he didn't care about them.

Apollo XIII day. They made back and P was really elated! Ordered cigars
it
for all on success when learned that was Chris Kraft tradition at NASA. Put
through calls to wives immediately, then waited to call astronauts till they were
aboard Iwo Jima and had called wives. Meanwhile P called all the Congressio-
nal leaders and George Meany, saying to all, "Isn't this a great day." He was
really excited. Even told Ford to give his best to Justice Douglas (whom Ford
is trying to impeach). Then talked to astronauts and told them of trip plans,
then out to press to do likewise, then over to EOB at about 3:30, with no lunch.
Took a nap and was ready for GOP drop-by, then "Evening at White House"
with Johnny Cash. Lots of people, enthusiasm. It was a. great day.
More Apollo XIII, as we flew to Houston to thank the backup ground team
and give them a Medal of Freedom. Good ceremony. At end of flight an
awkward little session where he gave wives pearl pins, with press in.
Hawaii ceremony very good, our guys did a spectacular advancing and
logistics job, and it all went perfectly. Very brief, touching and impressive.
1
1 52 H.R. HALDEMAN
On to Kahala Hilton. P had Rose and me in for drinks and dinner with
him and Pat Nixon. Nice chat, mainly about how bad the press people are,
usual topic, treat them with complete contempt.
Overall an extremely good day, but a lot of work and a lot of air time, 1
hours, to bring it about. Probably worth it, because it was completely a TV
story and thus will override any adverse reporter reaction.

In Hawaii. P up due to time difference. Called me at 7:00 about reac-
early,
tion to yesterday's events.Told him I didn't have a report yet. He went for a
walk on the beach with Don Hughes and the Secret Service. Then a 7:30
breakfast with CINCPAC for a briefing on Vietnam, etc. Then to a special
service at the Kawaiahao Church. Very fascinating with the old Hawaiian
ladies in their long black dresses, etc. Minister was excellent with his use of
ukulele in the sermon and a wonderful choir. Then to the airport and back
to California.

In San Clemente. P up early, charged into the office and announced we'd leave
early for DC tonight right after the TV (the televised troop withdrawal speech)
at 6:15.
Got word today that Carswell will run for Senate in Florida, told the P
later in day when he was relaxing. Quite a surprise, but P tickled by the
prospect. Would be a real vindication if he wins.
P overruled Ziegler plan for K backgrounder on general foreign policy on
grounds that it would help the press, but wouldn't do us any good and would
only divert from speech. Gave K a lecture about playing only to your friends
in the press, those that give you a 40-50 percent chance of a fair story.
Good speech, best reading he's done. No great dramatic appeal. Left right
afterward for DC.
Long session on plane. Mainly pushing on speech follow-up. He made
some phone calls from the plane, got very strong positive reaction. Wants to
be sure, as usual, that we cover all the bases, set the line right, especially in
Congress. Had K in, talked about problem of dealing with Cabinet people.
Wants to set up back channel to issue orders to military not through Secretary
of Defense. Said he's not going to let Laird kill this by pulling out too fast. Said
will pull all together tomorrow, will decide without Rogers. P will personally
take over responsibility for war in Cambodia.

Thought we'd start late today. But he was up at 6:00, in office at 7:05. I got
in at 9:00 and he was cranking in full gear.
All the commentators, etc., still off balance about speech. Weren't expect-
ing 1 50,000 withdrawal, and it left them without a line. One time we really kept
a secret. Only way is not to tell anyone.

Another busy day, as P roars on, in his new energy, with still little sleep. He
was up at 5:00 this morning dictating. Really in high gear when he got to the
office, wanted everything possible canceled so he could concentrate on Cam-
bodia decisions.
By this time the Communists controlled a quarter of "neutral" Cambodia.

Something had to be done. Under consideration were plans for a South
Vietnamese push into an area called the Parrot's Beak, and a joint Ameri-
can/South Vietnamese push into another Cambodian territory called the
Fishhook.
Gradually simmered down as the day went on. As he followed K into

NSC meeting, turned back to me with big smile and said, "K's really having
fun today, he's playing Bismarck." They have moved South Vietnam troops
up Cambodian border and are going ahead with a strike on Saturday.
to
Long sessions with K, and another one with Helms, getting the whole
project under way. K said he was great in NSC; funny, just when K is getting
really low and discouraged a new break comes along and cranks him back up.
Big white-tie dinner tonight for Medal of Freedom winners in press.
Leaders Meeting first thing, about new Draft-reform Bill. Then he had me in
for most of the rest of the morning.
A long afternoon with K, about Cambodia primarily. Will move ahead on
putting South Vietnamese troops in on Saturday; follow-up with United States
tactical air if Lon Nol government
support and blockade of Sihanoukville,
collapses, which North Vietnam takes Phnom Penh.
it will if
He's very much absorbed in Cambodia and realizes he's treading on the
brink of major problems as he escalates the war there. Will have to do a
masterful job of explanation to keep the people with him. And there'll be a
monumental squawk from the Hill. Before he left the office tonight he was
standing looking out the window and said, "Damn Johnson, if he'd just done
the right thing we wouldn't be in this mess now." This refers especially to the
bombing halt, which P regards as great mistake, because we could have closed
the whole thing down if we'd stayed with it in 1968. He still feels he can get
154 H.R. HALDEMAN
it wound up this year if we keep enough pressure on and don't crumble at

home. K agrees.
Not much interest in domestic affairs as the whole focus is on the war.
He it much more absorbing at any time, and especially when things are
finds
tight and he has to make major decisions, going against the bureaucracy. He
left early for the house, called me over for quick schedule review with Pat
Nixon.

He's still about Cambodia. Had K assemble Helms and Moorer
really driving
and Cushman morning. Has told them to go ahead with planning
at 7:15 this
for second phase next Wednesday, following Phase I on Sunday, which moves
South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia to cut off the Parrot's Beak, with
some tactical air support. No great problem because no United States troops,
at least at the outset. But it only cripples North Vietnam, doesn't really knock
out their sanctuaries. That comes with Phase II, which does use United States
troops and could be a real problem.
K was very worried last night, and still is to a lesser degree, that P is
moving too rashly without really thinking through the consequences. Also
Ziegler disturbed because of his problem in getting adequate briefing from K
so that he's prepared to handle questions.
Quite a discussion in staff meeting this morning about P's loss of momen-
tum and leadership in public eyes. E and Harlow and Ziegler and Klein all feel
there is a substantial problem, and that P's theories of isolation and remote-
ness are badly aggravating it. Hard to get them to come up with positive ideas
to counterbalance this, but they do feel strongly. They argue for more public
Presidential presentation, press conferences, speeches, review trips, etc. Not so
much to sell programs, but to demonstrate P cares and is interested and will
try to do something. Whole thrust is on need for appearance, not substance.
Took Camp David with Bebe at about 3:00. All quiet.
off for
Saturday, April 25, and Sunday, April 26, 1970
(P) wants to lay groundwork for big moves on Cambodia this coming week.
He had a big Sunday meeting of the NSO types, no word out of that. All still
quiet.

P on Cambodia this morning. Called me in at 8:30, and I was
started right in
there until 1:00, moving over to EOB at 9:15 with a detour to look at the
crabapple blossoms in the Rose Garden. Canceled NSC, left other minor
items on schedule in early afternoon. Had a few notes from over the week-
end to clean up first. Then to EOB, had K join us. Went through a review of
need for a strong offensive on Cambodia announcement, which will be

Thursday night. Decision made last night after meeting. First move today on
Parrot's Beak (later moved to Tuesday). Second move on COSVN (the
Communist headquarters for all operations in the South) Thursday, and P
goes on TV to announce.
Then K reported Rogers disturbed by decision, wanted to call P. P called
Rogers, said decision was made, but OK to come over right now. Had me call
Laird to come too, since Rogers said he was also disturbed. See report below.
Then got report back from Abrams confirming his full support. Called me at
home, wants to use Map Room for speech Thursday night. Historic signifi-
cance, etc. I don't think that's a good idea.
Meeting, P, Rogers, Laird, and K. EOB 11:00-11:53

Rogers opposed to COSVN decision, taken without consultation. He clearly
tried to hang K for inadequate information to P about consequences. Feels will
cost great United States casualties with little gain. Not significant, not perma-
nent base, not a really crippling blow.
Laird not really opposed to COSVN, but very upset about NSDM (a
Kissingerism for National Security Decision Memorandum, the mechanism he
used for controlling National Security Council actions) making WSAG (an-
other Kissingerism for Washington Special Action Group, an informal working
group within the NSC apparatus used to do preparatory work for planned
actions) responsible for implementation, says that must be Secretary of De-
fense responsibility.Did try to say Abrams opposed to COSVN, but waffled
several times as Kanswered back.
Became clear on questioning by P that Rogers' real problem was his
testimony this afternoon on Hill. He doesn't want to say we're sending United
States troops into Cambodia, but he can't say otherwise with NSDM out
without lying, which he won't do (P agrees). Rogers obviously quite upset,
emotional, mainly played on high casualties, little gain.
K laid low, injecting only factual points about Abrams views, to correct
Laird. In each case Laird backed down.
P raised question of alternatives. Made clear his position that Parrot's
Beak alone not adequate. Willing to consider an alternative to COSVN if all
agree, including Abrams. Problem with alternatives is all would require United
States troops, but would be lesser benefit to us.
Rogers and Laird reiterated their arguments several times. Rogers saying
if decision made he'll support it, but feels all these decisions are being made
without adequate consultation, and he doesn't like it.
After meeting, P told K to suspend orders for 24 hours, cable Abrams and
get his true viewsand recommendations, convene meeting of group tonight to
review again. Said he's committed to two operations, but will consider alterna-
tives to COSVN if Abrams recommends. P made clear he understood basis of
both Rogers and Laird in meeting. Rogers playing against any move, in
1 56 H.R. HALDEMAN
reaction to Senate, establishment press, etc. Laird trying to figure P's position
and be with it, without his prerogatives cut. K pushing too hard to hold
control.
K said afterward, Helms warned him Rogers would not go along. K takes
whole deal as test of P's authority, and I think would go ahead even if plan is
wrong, just to prove P can't be challenged. P recognizes maybe need another
look. Even if change plan, will still do two, and his authority is maintained but
he shows he's willing to listen.

Sort of at loose ends today. Had a 10:15 session with Rogers, Laird, and
Mitchell to lay down the law to Rogers and Laird. He's decided to go ahead
with the full plan and told them so, with darn good salesmanship according to
Mitchell. Then roared into Cabinet Room for meeting he had me set up with
E and Flanigan about economy.
End of morning, after couple of quick appointments, had VP in for
briefing on Cambodia, with K and me. Gave him quick outline of plan, which
he bought enthusiastically. Will be a good salesman for it.
Spent some time wandering around, haircut, etc. Took E for long walk on
South Lawn to discuss general economic and domestic matters. E feels P in
effect told him to take over the domestic side for the time being while P
concentrates on the crisis. Is clearing the decks and gearing up for the whole
thing to hit hard, which it may. Called me about whether OK for him to go
to Camp David tomorrow to work on speech. I said yes, after it has been
announced. If we go the route of letting this build as a major crisis, instead of
downplaying it as we have in the past, that will add to the atmosphere. I think
his action will greatly surprise most of the country. Good or bad will depend
heavily on how he sells it on TV. Today he told patriotic group heads the
general gist of it, and I guess tried out the approach. It went well with them,
anyway.
P really worked me over on the phone about CBS filming of "Tricia White
House Tour," which was set as a 20 or 30 minute segment on the "60 Minutes"
show. P feels she should have full 60 minutes or nothing, says he controls the
film and they can have full hour, or nothing. Really mad, and said so, chewed
me out worse than he ever has as P. Basically a release of tensions on the big
decision, but potentially damaging if he starts flailing in other directions.
Think this one is under control.

Speech preparation day. No schedule. Started by giving Ziegler a rundown on
how to handle press for the day. The story of last night's attack didn't break
until a Thieu announcement at 9:30 (South Vietnam's announcement of the
Parrot's Beak move). Then speculation built fast, and Defense released their
prepared statement. P told Ziegler to continue to lead speculation down the

path that we are considering Cambodia's aid request. Wants a planted story
that he will ask $35 million aid. Say the troop movement has no relation to
Lon Nol request, just another border action, only bigger. Then say P will
discuss entire situation on TV

tomorrow. Set timing of procedure for tomor-
row night, Congressional Cabinet, staff, press briefings, advance calls to Rea-
gan and Rocky, etc.
Then had E and Flanigan in for a review of economy and their stock
market meeting. Agreed we needed to get a briefer up to Wall Street to calm
their fears after the TV. Then K and Ziegler back in for more briefing instruc-
tions, based on adverse senatorial reaction, especially Mansfield. Then worked
out what he wanted for TV map setup, etc. Then sat back and relaxed with K
and me. Reviewed DDE's Lebanon decision and JFK's Cuban missile crisis.
Decided this was tougher than either of those, especially since it didn't have
to be made. But P is convinced it had to be this now, or get out now, no chance
to go along the same path. All this ran till about 1 :00. I was in for three and
a half hours. Then he went to EOB to work on speech, stayed all afternoon and
into evening.
Called me, to have Bebe come up to be with family, and have Rose get
Julie and David home, away from campus problems. Called again to discuss
problem of locating his new pool table. Decided it won't fit in solarium, so
wants a room in EOB. Absolutely astonishing he could get into trivia on brink
of biggest step he's taken so far. Thinks speech is coming along well, as does
Rose. Usual problem of trying to get it short enough, he only wants ten
minutes. But he has a lot to say.
Had a session with E this afternoon about probable violence at Yale this
weekend. Debate whether to send troops up on standby. E and I oppose on
grounds it will only incite them and we'll be accused of repression. Mitchell
and (Deputy Attorney General) Kleindienst are determined to go ahead, on
grounds that will take 14 hours lead and potential for damages is too great to
ignore. Will settle tomorrow.
In earlier debate, Rogers and Laird both said we could do Parrot's Beak
with no trouble, COSVN was big problem. Now Parrot's Beak has busted Hill
wide open.
Will be a tough couple of days.

Cambodia speech day. P up until about 1 :00 AM, to bed for an hour, up again
till about 5:30. Then in to office at about 8:00. Not much sleep before a big day.
He spent the day at EOB, finishing up the speech, and keeping in touch by
phone during breaks while Rose was typing.
P called frequently about ideas for follow-up tonight, queries about our
plans and readiness, especially to be sure we are ready to hit the networks, etc.,
for bad coverage; activity in Congress for support; be sure we kill or deflect
1 58 H.R. HALDEMAN
Reid Amendment that would stop efforts inCambodia; shore up Rogers; keep
Congressional criticism about Parrot's Beak muted, wait till you hear P to-
night; be sure to crank on target Senators, etc.; amending list for Congressio-
nal briefing tonight, etc.
Called me over at 3:00, K already there. Read us the speech, making a few
corrections along the way. (Same as he did on November 3 speech, a new
procedure.) Very strong and excellent wrap-up. K and I both felt it will work.
Some more discussion on follow-up and how to handle reaction.
P left EOB about 7:20 to go to Residence, I walked over with him. Then
came down to leaders and Cabinet briefing at 8:15. (Cabinet met first, with VP
presiding, for brief pitch from Rogers, who did only moderately well. He's
obviously not the least anxious to go ahead with this and it's very hard for him
to back it.)
P did excellent briefing, quite personal. Understanding of those who

would oppose, but it pretty hard to them he was doing this to end war and
laid
save lives. Oddwatch Fulbright, Mansfield, Aiken, Ted Kennedy, all of
to
whom had blasted him yesterday and today. They all stood and applauded at
end.
Then to Oval Office for TV. A horrifying moment when he lost his place
on the script, but recovered beautifully. Left for Residence right after, strolling
slowly through Rose Garden. Stayed up late, 1:30, taking phone calls, Cabinet
and key staff, reports from me on reaction, etc. Had Chief Justice up for couple
of hours, when he came by to drop off a letter about 10:30.
We set up phone calls, reaction, etc.
a well-organized operation for
Worked Kept P posted, and generated some key calls to him.
pretty well.
Reaction was more mixed than November 3, but a lot of strong favorable
response. Not as violent and anti-TV commentators played it very straight, no
real adverse shots.
Friday, May 1, 1970

Reaction day. P in at 7:30. Had me in at 8:00, gazing out at Rose Garden and
musing about how short a time the spring lasts. Then K and Ziegler in for
review of line for today. Cold steel, no give, nothing about negotiation, Hanoi
can now choose between peace and war. Mainly stay strong, whole emphasis
on "back the boys," sell courage of P.
Then he took off for Pentagon briefing. Very pleased when he returned by
the reception he had received from secretaries, etc. Battle is going well. Mean-
while I had series of staff meetings to get all cranked up and rolling on the
offensive.
P back at 1 1:00, had me in, reviewed progress. Made a lot of phone calls,
thanking people. Then took off for boat ride lunch with family, then to Camp
David. Afternoon was pretty calm, kept the follow-up going. P was really beat,
but still riding on reaction. Really needs some good rest.
Called couple of times from Camp David about specific follow-up.

Thought he'd fold early, but he watched movie and called me again
afterwards, at 10:30, just to chat a little and get updated.

Fortunately our poll came out darn good, so I had good news for P when he
calledabout 9:30. I was on the phone solidly from then until 3:45, on follow-
up. Never even hung up phone between calls. Got a lot going. Analyzed the
negatives in news and moved to try to counteract.
Everyone in good shape and working hard, getting pretty good response.
P called about 2:00 and said to let everyone go home and relax, I said
"No, not now, when we've got things rolling. Will let them up later." He was
pleased.
Sunday, May 3, 1970

Another busy day on the phone working on the reaction. P called several times
with ideas for follow-up. Later had K call me to cheer me up, K uptight, and
I think P was working on him indirectly. K was concerned because I had given
P information on campus problems, etc., is worried he will toss babies to the

wolves instead of hanging tight.
Monday, May 4, 1970

And the repercussions roll on. Discussed with P the plans for the week. He says
he's ready to move to domestic matters, but then keeps coming back to things
related to "The Decision" (Cambodia).
K in for review of situation, especially report on the strikes against North
Vietnam. Going well. Then added Ziegler for review of line for the day. Then
some quizzing about follow-up activity, basically very calm and undemanding.
Then he went over to EOB for rest of the day. A long session with E to
get caught up on domestic. A nap. Then had me over, reviewed trip plan. Then
I told him of four students killed at Kent State. He's very disturbed. Afraid his
decision set it off, and that is the ostensible cause of the demonstrations there.
Issued condolence statement, then kept after me all the rest of the day for more
facts. Hoping rioters had provoked the shooting, but no real evidence they did,
except throwing rocks at National Guard.

Talked a lot about how we can get through to the students, turn this stuff
off. Really sad to see this added to all his worries about the war. He's out on
a tough limb, and knows it. This makes it a lot worse, as he has to take the
heat for having caused it. There's an opportunity in this crisis as all others, but
it's know how to handle it. Main need right now is
very hard to identify and
maintain calm and hope this serves to dampen other demonstrations rather
1 60 H.R. HALDEMAN
than firing them up. Hard to tell yet which will result. I moved to try to cover
allour people, and congressmen and Cabinet officers to keep a firm position,
but not inflammatory. Lots of rumors and strong probability of major march
on DC on Saturday. Also student strike starting tomorrow.
P is troubled by all this, although it was predicted as a result of the
Cambodian move.

Another day of reaction. P had his big meetings with Congressional leaders,
the House and Senate Armed Forces Committee for breakfast and the House
and Senate Foreign Relations Committees at 5:00. Both covered military
briefings on progress so far, some darn good news about material discovered,
and P really pushing to get this out. P did superb job at each meeting of
presenting his case and the reasons behind it. Questioning was tough but he
handled very coolly. Probably didn't change any minds, but at least he met
with them and told his story.
Big problem today is the whole student disorder situation. Not much hard
news or specific developments but a lot of planning for strikes and marches for
the rest of the week. Reaction very tough to the four killed at Kent State
yesterday. All our people trying to figure how best to handle, and whether P
can perform any useful role.
P had a long meeting at noon with his top economic types, Kennedy,
Shultz, Mayo, McCracken and Flanigan, about what seems to be a budding
financial crisis, mainly because of major continuing drop in stock market. Got
Fed to reduce margin requirement, made decision not to hold to balanced
budget in '70, or '71, will go ahead with deficit this year due to revenue
shortfall instead of trying to recoup by accelerated tax collections, etc. P much
more concerned with upgoing economy in fall because he feels that's the only
chance to make gains in the elections, and that in turn is the only way ulti-
mately to get control of the economy.
This line of reasoning is easily misinterpreted as crass political manipulation

of the economy for personal political benefit. It should instead be under-
stood as a valid recognition of the necessity to make political gains, in terms
of gaining favorably inclined congressmen and senators, so that there are
enough votes to take the necessary economic moves.
Big thing now is to ride out all the crises with a show of cool strength and
no inflammation, but no make one or two good firm moves
waffling. Then to
to maintain leadership. Real test is how the Cambodia venture turns out. If it
can be proclaimed as success and we can get out in six weeks, it will set him
up pretty well for a while. If not, we're in for a bundle of trouble.

Another day of watching and waiting, except for a meeting with Arthur Burns
and a group of Kent State students. The Kent State 6 were a good group and
meeting went very well. No concrete results. Their main pitch is need for better
communication and more student participation in major decisions. Did con-
firm that Cambodia was not the basic cause. Wants VP to stop saying anything
about students. Very disturbed by Rogers-Laird story that they disagreed with
the decision.
As day went from outside about campus crisis built rapidly.
on, concern
All of us had lots and memos, etc. P came to grips with it this
of calls
afternoon. Obviously realizes, but won't openly admit, his "bums" remark
very harmful.
In his visit to the Pentagon the past Friday, P had referred to the people who
were "blowing up the campuses" as "these bums." This comment was
widely reported out of context as referring to all students, and consequently
produced an enormous adverse reaction.
He agreed to plan of action, meet university presidents tomorrow, press

conference Friday night, call in all governors Monday. Wants to hold off on
appointing special commission about Kent State. Feels it may be a mistake, so
wait a little.
Very aware of point that goal of the Left is to panic us, so we must not
fall into their trap.

And the reaction goes on.The Hickel story broke big today. He wrote P a
letterabout need for communicating with young, shutting up Agnew, meeting
more with Cabinet members. It leaked to Star yesterday and was the big news
today, along with resignation of Youth Head at Department of Education. All
designed to enhance the "collapse of the Presidency" theory. P pretty calm
about it last night, pretty cold-blooded today. Feels Hickel's got to go as soon
as we're past this crisis. This led to a rising "anti-Cabinet" feeling as he
thought more about it. Went back
to deep resentment that none called him
after speech and none rose to his defense on this deal. So he struck back by
ordering the tennis court removed immediately. Feels Cabinet should work on
own initiative to support P, and they haven't.
The decision to remove the tennis court was simply a spiteful way to take
a jab at the Cabinet by removing one of the "perks" many of them en-
1 62 H.R. HALDEMAN
joyed —the use of the White House tennis court. Since the P didn't play
tennis, the court was of no use to him and he diligently pursued this plan
for a while, then let it drop.
Distressed about continuing failure to get out word of Cambodia suc-

cesses, he keeps pumping the story to everyone, and they all are surprised.
An Agnew problem, result of the Hickel letter, and stories that P is
muzzling him. Wants VP to avoidany remarks about students, etc., VP

strongly disagrees. I passed the word. VP said he would act only on order
of P.
P met with university presidents. Then took me on tour of South Grounds
to discuss tennis court removal and
in general. Feels very concerned about
life
campus and basically helpless to deal with it. It's now clear that many
revolt
are looking to him for leadership and to calm it down, and there's really no
way he can do it. Also have the omnipresent media problem, as they build up
everything to look as bad as possible. P said the university presidents were all
scared to death, feel that this now includes the non-radical students, and agree
with Moynihan's theory that the whole university community is now politi-
cized, and there's no way to turn it off. All blame Agnew primarily, then the
P's "bums" crack. General feeling is that without Kent State it would not have
been so bad, but that even without Cambodia there were a lot of campuses
ready to blow.
P went to Camp David late this afternoon to work on press conferences.
He's pretty tired, and he knows it. Went to bed early, after a bunch of phone
calls.
Friday, May 8, 1970

The big press conference with an awful lot at stake as the tension mounts in
the nation. Media have built it up very big, and it really is. An awful lot of
schools closed, a lot of rhetoric, a major threat of violence, etc. P spent the day
at Camp David working on the briefing book. Called down several times about
specific questions and logistics. Came down in time for dinner and to dress,
then went right to East Room, back upstairs afterward. Had said absolutely
no phone calls after (because he was really concerned and unsure about this
one), but changed that afterward when he knew he had done extremely well.
Then he stayed up until after 1:00 on the calls, and we ran a batch through.
He was very tired and rambled on a lot.
All through the day the advice poured in from all sources, as everyone
feared the P would either be too belligerent and non-understanding of the
dissenters, or would be too forgiving and thus lose strength and P leadership.
All depends on your point of view. I gave all the pertinent advice on both
sides to the P, the hard line was mainly from K who feels we should just let
the students tear it for a couple of weeks with no effort at pacification, then
hitthem hard. Most of the others leaned the other way and wanted a full
apology for the "bums" and a tight muzzle on Agnew's rhetoric. Fortunately
P was shrewd enough to accomplish both objectives without giving in on
either.
Whole was masterful. He really zinged the bad guys by
press conference
promoting ABC, the Star, etc., and worked in all the points he wanted to
make. Even got a great laugh out of turning the Hickel letter thing around, and
zinged Wally pretty good at the same time. The aftermath on the White House
staff was a mood of great relief and almost exhilaration. My crew stayed until
about 12:30 handling calls, then left. P called several times after I was home,
last at about 2:00.
we were jammed in by the troop trucks unloading the
In trying to leave
Third Army into the EOB. A very strange feeling as the White House and DC
batten down for another siege. The buses were being lined up, police all over,
etc.

The weirdest day so far. Started with E call at about 5:00 saying P was at the
Lincoln Memorial talking to students. We agreed to send Krogh over, and
Chapin and I got up and went in, arrived about 6:15, by which time P had
moved to the Capitol. I met him when he emerged and Ziegler had also arrived,
so we all went to breakfast at the Mayflower. Very weird. P completely beat
and just rambling on, but obviously too tired to go to sleep. All worked out
fine, he got great press credit for doing the students, and wound down a little.
After return to White House, Igo over to EOB and talk to the
got him to
soldiers who were just waking up in their sleeping bags in the 4th floor hall.
P very impressed by them, but also very kindly toward the students, who were
apparently all hippie types.
Finally got him to go to bed, but he couldn't sleep, so tossed around,
made phone calls, then was back up again. Came over to Oval Office for a
while, then over to EOB for the rest of the afternoon. Called sporadically to
see how things were going, and to push on through from last night and this
morning. Knows pooped and wants schedule cleared so he can go to
he's
Florida this next weekend for four days. He really needs it.
I am concerned about his condition. The decision, the speech, the after-
math killings, riots, press, etc.; the press conference, the student confrontation
have all taken their toll, and he has had very little sleep for a long time and his
judgment, temper, and mood suffer badly as a result. On the other hand he has
gone into a monumental crisis, fully recognized as such by the outside, and so
far has come through extremely well. But there's a long way to go and he's in
no condition to weather it. He's still riding on the crisis wave, but the letdown
is near at hand and will be huge.
A major test will be the Sunday press and the magazines. If we get by
those, we can move with next week in pretty good shape. Then I've got to get
1 64 H.R. HALDEMAN
him to spend some time with key staff and get them rolling again. If we make
it, it'll be a great proof of leadership at a time that it was badly needed. If we
don't, we'll have a rough couple of years of rebuilding.

The aftermath. All quiet, White House Church. I succeeded last night in
getting Hickel not to come, in order to avoid a confrontation with the P, and
the press. He didn't like it, but agreed to follow my recommendation.
Several long calls from the P. He was much more relaxed, but still not
unwound at all.
Thinks we're turning a corner this weekend. Remembers that in '60 and '68
we had 80 percent of the faculties against us, but 50 percent of the students for us.
Thinks now the college demonstrators have overplayed their hands, evidence is
the blue collar group rising up against them, and P can mobilize them.
Pondering the problem of relations with Cabinet, etc., says he can't work
any harder than he does, and they have to decide whether it's better for the P
to do his job or to massage them.
Called later to analyze our problem in getting over the story of the success
in Cambodia. K had major briefing yesterday, but papers gave it no play.
Problem starts with overriding news about the demonstration, but also comes
from our failure to get enough sell in the story. P now feels he should have
gotten into this in his press conference, the only way to get it out.

Buzzed me in first thing, lots of notes on follow-up. Kept me over two hours,
E in and out. Reviewed trivia and a little general scheduling, discussed the
Vietnam (Cambodia) story problem and some ideas about sending groups over
to observe; revised plan for Governors Conference agenda; still demanding the
tennis court be removed; wants to figure a way to get Hickel to leave and run
for Governor of Alaska.
E got pretty direct with P when he was boring in on bad reports from kids
about his Lincoln Memorial bit. E told him he was tired and not very effective.
This made him mad, and it came up several times later in the day. Real trouble
is, he's just totally pooped and is not up to his usual performance.
This was really in evidence at Governor's Conference. He did a darn good

job, but went on and on, frequently irrelevant. Still made his points, but would
have done better in half as much time. It went very well and they seemed to be
well impressed with us. Hard P made great
to be sure until they got out to press.
domino theory, etc.
defense of whole concept of United States involvement,
Rogers called me afterward very concerned about P. Same reason as
above. Feels we've got to keep him on short leash until he gets rested up.
Unfortunately he has a dinner tonight for Sir Alec Douglas Home. Then a
busy morning. But we can keep week light.

P in late, finally got a little sleep. As usual had a lot of stuff for follow-up, notes
from the dinner last night.
Concerned about Senate strategy for Church-Cooper amendment about
Cambodia (which would demand P remove all American troops from Cambodia
by July 1). Wants to be sure that whatever they do is not interpreted as defeat.
Problem is they seem to have enough votes to carry it, although there is a
pretty good possibility we can get it amended on basis of protecting American
troops. Still pushing hard on getting out the Cambodia story.
Wants to try to implement Billy Graham's idea about a big pro- America
rally, maybe on 4th of July.
Had a new idea about cutting off all Defense money to universities that
closed down or caved in to demonstrators. Wants to make university adminis-
tration go on record saying they want the Defense money, so we aren't in an
apparent position of forcing it on them.
K all disturbed about some tap data about his staff, so P has decided to
instruct Hoover that all this material now should come to me, not E or K.
Then I have to decide who gets what.
This refers to reports from the FBI telephone wiretaps placed on certain
NSC staff and other people suspected of leaking National Security classified
information. This procedure, ordered by theP and implemented by Mitch-
elland K, was producing reports that upset K, so it was decided that I
should receive the reports and only pass on to others anything that was
relevant to the leak concerns.
Had our first meeting with Chancellor (George A.) Heard of Vanderbilt.
The P let himself get snookered into appointing him as a special advisor on
campus situation for 60 days. A bad choice, because he's clearly not on our
side in any way, but this came out of the meeting last week with college
presidents and K carried it out with no staff discussion, so we're stuck. Decided
Heard's main contribution could be to set up a mechanism for assuring that
academia can be heard at the White House. Will also have him involved in the
review of Kent State killings, etc. Pure window dressing of a questionable
nature, but it did get pretty good publicity.

P up early and over to EOB where he dictated a ton of memos, mainly
at 7:15
to me, plus his recollections of his trip to the Lincoln Memorial Saturday.
Rather remarkable document and equally remarkable cover memo.
He came over to Oval Office at 9:30, went over current trivia with me, then
166 H.R. HALDEMAN
had J. Edgar in to discuss the new procedure for tap material, only to me.
Hoover very pleased. He came on like gangbusters about public approval of
P, etc. He does a great job of self-promotion. Dropped a few goodies about
Kent State (later proved to be somewhat inaccurate), and then reviewed the
whole conspiracy theory about campuses.
Then P met privately with Moynihan, who said he feels he has to leave.
Wants to go July 1, but P got him to stay until August. Will then return to
Harvard on grounds his two years (maximum Harvard sabbatical) will be up
soon and he wants to start the fall semester. P appears more relieved than
concerned to have him go, and this timing should work out pretty well because
he always said he was only here for two years.

A very busy schedule before departure for Key Biscayne at 5:00. Started at
9:30 with Laird, (Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Thomas) Moorer and K,
about Cambodia. Called me in about status of fight in Senate on various
amendments. Wants to be absolutely sure that however it comes out we have
established a position that it doesn't hurt Administration.
On plane (to Key Biscayne) had K up for a while, then me, mostly in
review of need to get our story out, covered a lot of specific items. In pretty
good spirits,but still cranking on minute details, and not at all relaxed as he
usually on way to Florida.
is
This whole period of two weeks of tension and crisis, preceded by two
weeks of very tough decision making has taken its toll. P won't admit it, but
he is really tired, and is, as some have observed, letting himself slip back to the
old ways. He's driving himself way too hard on unnecessary things, and
because of this is not getting enough sleep, is uptight, etc. All this OK if he can
unwind this weekend, and if nothing big comes up in the interim. But could be
rough if a new crisis arises, because he's not ready to handle it.
The establishment press has really leaped on us and the domestic tension.
They obviously wait for their chance and this has proved to be a beautiful one
which they are exploiting to the fullest.

In Key Biscayne. The unwinding process is not succeeding. P on the phone
every few minutes with little things to check up on.

In Key Biscayne. More of the same. He just keeps grinding away, call after
call after call. He is sleeping late in the mornings, which helps a little, but he
sure has not gotten his mind off of business. I spent hours on the phone
following up.
Finally in the afternoon he took off for Walker's (cay off the Florida
coast), after I talked him into at least staying over until Monday.

P in Walker's most of the day. Back late afternoon and on the phone again.
Mainly wanted a rundown on things, no major changes.

Still atKey Biscayne. Harlow still trying to maneuver a deal in the Senate. Not
too much luck so far, but Cooper did at least agree to consider modification.
Bryce doing a great job of pulling all the strings, etc. His real forte! P pushing
hard on getting the poll out. Also had long conversations on phone with E and
K. Trying to stay on top of and in touch with everything so we didn't really
get him away from it very much. But the news is word from around
better, the
the country is that P's support is strong, the polls are good, and maybe we'll
turn all this around soon. It's tough to keep fighting it, and amazing how easily
everyone crumbles.
In plane on way back, P had me up alone for the first hour, then added
E about Cabinet agenda for tomorrow. Then added K, and said the three of
us had to take the brunt of the heat these past weeks and we deserved an award
like the Purple Heart, so he had devised a new award, The Blue Heart, for
those who are true blue. Then gave us each a blue cloth heart made by Jane
Lucke (Bebe's friend) and said the honor was to be kept very confidential. He
was in a good mood, relaxed, confident, optimistic, not driving hard, but does
want to spend time this week on the economy, turning around Cambodia and
getting something going on crime. Also talked about Cabinet changes coming
soon, but after November in most cases. Says Mitchell has to go unless he can
solve the Martha problem.

Back to DC and the routine. A hot and heavy schedule today. Leadership
Meeting about Senate anti-Cambodia resolutions first. All the leaders who
have been out in country say support is strong for P. Most of them want to
extend the debate instead of compromising, feeling time is on our side and that
we can always give in later if necessary. Scott still intent on maneuvering a
compromise with Cooper. All agree that Democrats are only going for politi-
cal benefit of appearing to have forced P out of Cambodia, when he's already
going to get out anyway.
Then a Cabinet meeting under rather strained conditions, as Hickel still
much in the air. P did a masterful job of talking to Hickel indirectly through
the Cabinet about not trying to affect policy by making a speech outside. A lot
of discussion about role of Cabinet under reorganization. Rogers led argument
1 68 H.R. HALDEMAN
for need for discussion before decisions, fear of cutting Cabinet out, and
becoming just pro forma. Laird made strong pitch against the line that P made
hard lonely decision, this does not build P. Good briefing on background for
Cambodia decision and progress to date.
P had me in for couple of hours at lunchtime, got into long harangue
about his revised views on PR. Now feels he was completely wrong in his
original concept about building mystique and image. Realizes this is impossi-
ble when press is against you. Roosevelts, etc., only succeeded because they
had press with them (not sure that's true). Feels we should give up the struggle
and just present our case via P on TV. Realize Nixon will never have good
public image, so don't try. I think he's partly right, but that's no reason not
to keep trying. But it would work a lot better if he would quit worrying about
it and just be President.
All this he says is result of lot of thought over the weekend. Not too
concerned, sort of reflective. I think he's realizing he has been pushing all this
too hard, and if he'll go back to the original approach he'll do better. All that
really counts is that he make a few good big moves, the rest then will fade
away.

(P) wants to bring Finch into White House as counselor, put Rumsfeld in
charge of OMB, move Elliot Richardson to HEW, Weinberger to budget. Do
all this now, except Rumsfeld is barred constitutionally. Then wants to wait
until after elections and clean out Cabinet, especially Hickel and Romney and
Kennedy.
This whole merry-go-round of proposed Cabinet changes was a constantly

changing process in the P's mind as he contemplated better use of people
in the various assignments. Some removals were simply to get better people
for the jobs;some of the changes and rotations were to use the right people
more effectively. The main force for change at the moment is Bob Finch's
health, which was not good, at least partly due to the strain under which he
was operating in a primarily managerial and administrative job for which
his talents were not well suited.
Thinks we're still too timid on mobilizing the Silent Majority. Thinks all
our people are working hard but just don't know how to do it. Feels he
should probably go out into country and draw crowds and show popular
enthusiasm. Really pleased by our poll and says it's remarkable with econ-
omy the way it is.
I had hard-sell meeting with my crew about launching a new all-out

offensive to turn things around.
P had Rumsfeld, E and me in about how to handle the staff and Cabinet
disloyalty problem. Rumsfeld made point you have to establish record of
trying to work things out before you fire someone. P pretty well convinced
there's no way to get real control except by cracking down hard. Wants Don
Rumsfeld brought more into the inner councils.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, May 22-24, 1970

In Los Angeles, no contact with P except a call Friday night just checking in.
He went to Camp David Friday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. All pretty
quiet. I gave speech at UCLA banquet Saturday night and stirred up a bit of
a flap with reference to Eastern establishment media and isolation of the P.
Had a good session Friday with students.

A few weekend odds and ends to catch up on, and another huge batch of P
memos that he did at Camp David. Some discussion with P and E about care and
handling of Cabinet. P to go to California this weekend instead of Key Biscayne,
and will meet Abrams about Cambodia, then go on TV
secretly there with
midweek next week to announce progress report and withdrawal plan.
Buchanan has a hot new Agnew speech blasting Harriman, Vance, and
Clifford, for Thursday night. P a little leery, wants to be sure it's not too rough.
Also he doesn't want to louse up atmosphere before his TV deal next week.
Called all shook up about stock market drop of 21 points. Said to be sure
no one gets upset or overacts, must act confident. Problem is, no one shows
any sign of undue concern except him.

Suharto (Manila) arrival, meeting and dinner. Kept P busy most of the
morning. Also a meeting with New York hard hats that marched for P last
week. And a reception on Hill for Speaker this afternoon.
K pleased because they (the North Vietnamese ) called Walters in Paris,
and said their man would be gone two weeks. K thought they'd call off deal,
but they're keeping it open, sign of real weakness.
K very disturbed about his staff problems, several leaving due to Cam-
bodia.

A busy morning with Arthur Burns, then the economic group, then LBJ before
the lunch for McCormick. Then tonight the stag dinner for business leaders to
try to calm down the stock market which has been dropping steadily at an
alarming rate. Guess it worked before it even happened because market gained
31 points, highest one-day rise in history. Really neurotic.
1 70 H.R. HALDEMAN
Time doing a cover story on E, K, Mitchell and me. Want interview and
P reluctantly agreed, but thinks we're being naive and will be shafted, probably
right.
P musing on where
things would be today if we had not gone into Cam-
bodia. would have fallen, our casualties would be way up, we'd be under
It
enormous pull-out pressure from within, and P would have badly deteriorated
in world position.
Some more worrying about our internal economic unit, as P feelsQuad-
riad had nothing to offer today, and we don't have a real strong economic
leader on staff.
P spent afternoon at EOB, mainly just pondering the overall situation and
getting his remarks ready for the business leaders tonight. have me
Did call to
turn off VP on his very tough speech for tomorrow about Harriman, Vance,
Clifford. P feels this is not the time for it.

Back to DC (from San Clemen te weekend) at 3:00. (P) had me up for a while
on the plane. In a pretty good mood, did say though he thought he would not
come out for 4th of July, can't afford to be gone ten days at that time. Good
weekend. Really helps to get a change and to spread people around a little.
Lousy Time cover story today, on me and E and K and Mitchell.

Back in DC. Caldera arrival and State dinner are the only scheduled activities.
P spent all afternoon at EOB working on speech.
Had me over for two hours at 5:00, general chat while he was waiting for
Buchanan to finish latest draft this afternoon. I told him market only off .75
on big day, strong at end. He was delighted, since this makes a week with
overall gain of 79 points, a record.
Also told him about Gallup poll for Sunday which has him up another 2
points. Absolutely remarkable since it was taken two weeks ago when media
had us at the absolute bottom. Shows people have some sense in spite of all
they see, hear, and read. P is at 59 approval, which is darn good in normal
time, unbelievable now, in spite of Cambodia, the economy, the students, and
the press.
All this good news got him cranking a bit, and I did it on purpose to get
him up for tomorrow night. I really don't think things are nearly as bad as our
press "friends" are trying to make it appear.

Another speech day. P spent the day at EOB getting speech ready for TV
tonight. Worked a lot with K and Buchanan. Is trying new process, making
them, especially Pat, do most of the writing and rewriting as he critiques.

Thinks he can get more mileage from the writers by not demanding total
perfection, which he can only get by doing it all himself. Feels he should be
doing more speeches, and this is the only way he can.
Concerned about Wallace winning in Alabama, mainly to be sure our
investment was properly used.
Feels Wallace poses problem to Democrats, forces them further left, we
play center strategy right down the middle. Need to build up fact it was a pure
racist victory.
Speech went very well. Many thought it more
his best, I think because
confident and factual, less defensive, belligerent, personal.Used film clip very
effectively to display captured arms, etc. He wasn't too sold on the idea, but
it worked well and he liked it, now wants to use more often.
As usual, said to hold all phone calls, then later asked if there were any,
and we had about 15 racked up, he returned all of them. Loves to gab after
these deals, and so we run our little system. Problem is most people don't even
consider trying to call P.

Busy day of appointments, Caldera farewell (which P wants to be the last
farewell meeting on State visits); Presidential scholars (a high-school-grad
group who announced their opposition to P's policy before the White House
meeting); a signing of Crime Executive Order; greeting group of Iowa busi-
nessmen; a boys choir from Pennsylvania; the Prime Minister of Morocco; F.
Murphy. In between a couple of vital staff sessions about saving the Penn
Central Railroad, and a meeting with Cap Weinberger about his taking on top
budget job.
P talked to Hoover and Mitchell
after crime meeting and they told him
his TV picture was bad last night.
Very helpful! Talked with E and me at noon
about staffing. Agreed to try for Weinberger for budget, Shultz for OMB. Had
E and me meet with Shultz to open it with him, which we did, with no answer
as yet.
P had Weinberger in to pitch him on the budget job, E and I sat in. Cap
a little he hasn't finished his work at FTC (Federal Trade
startled, feels
Commission), and was obviously reluctant to give up all his perquisites, but
P gave him very little choice, and made it clear budget was much more
important. Cap had just come back from Paris and wanted time to think it
over.

Finch day. E and I met with Bob in morning, and I made pitch about need for
him to move out of HEW now, and into White House. He was obviously ready
for it, and went along completely. He felt it should be done as fast as possible,
1 72 H.R. HALDEMAN
so we went to work on a successor. After considerable discussion with P, with

E, Finch, and K in and out, we decided choice was between Franklin Murphy
and Elliot Richardson, with the edge to Richardson because more our man,
but then we love him at State, so decided to ask Murphy So Finch and
first.
I met with Franklin. Said he'd have to wait ten days until back from Europe
to decide.
That settled it for P, and he had Rogers come over at noon, met with P
and me. Agreed immediately to move Richardson. I had feeling he was glad
to move him out. Richardson agreed and after meeting was obviously elated.
At last minute P invited E, K, and me to dinner on Sequoia with him and
Bebe. P really pleased with the shift. Is excited by prospect of Bob's (Finch)
value to White House staff. It will be a good setup and Bob will really help
loosen me up, and take on political and PR areas that I'm now stuck with.
One interesting problem, E asked Moynihan if he wanted HEW, and he
said yes. Now have to turn him off, also Murphy.
P had historic meeting this morning with intelligence chiefs, FBI, CIA,
NSA (National Security Agency), DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), about
internal domestic intelligence. Ordered them to set up a cooperative system,
with Tom Huston.
This was the start of what became known Huston Plan, a program
as the
designed to integrate all some
the sources for domestic intelligence under
central control to eliminate duplication and infighting. This was generated
by P's complete dissatisfaction with the results of intelligence gathering and
interpretation, particularly regarding the instigation and training for the
wave of violent demonstrations. Tom Huston was a middle-level staffer
who was assigned to coordinate and staff the work of the project.

More personnel maneuvers. Announced Finch and Richardson. Worked
pretty well. Haven't seen news coverage. P again all cranked up about staff
meetings and building the inside group.
Then P had E, R and me in with Shultz to follow up on him about OMB.
P gave him a great pitch, after which we all had lunch. Shultz called E later to
say he'd take it. Now all we need is Weinberger and we're really rolling.
About economy, P pushing point our unemployment is up because we're
bringing boys home. Not as high as any Kennedy year, higher than Johnson,
but he was accelerating a war and sending men into it, we are building toward
prosperity without war, which no Democratic President has achieved in mod-
ern times.
P off to Camp David with family and Eisenhowers, to celebrate Julie and
David's graduation. Called to suggest considering Moynihan for UN. Good

idea.

More people maneuvers. P had Moynihan in at end of full morning schedule,
askedif he'd like to be Ambassador to UN. Pat was pleased with offer, and
will consider.
After long midday meeting with E, Shultz and Cap, we put heat on Cap,
and Shultz met again with him in later afternoon and he agreed to come in.
Biggest hang-up was whether he could bring his chauffeur with him, we said
no. I'm going to have a tough time getting these guys settled. All want to hang
on to their cars, aides, etc.
Cabinet officers get a bundle of perks that are hard to give up to come to
the relative rigors of White House life.
P in generally good mood, back to a fairly full schedule. Obviously

pleased with new staff developments, and with Gallup, and general simmering
down. Will coast along for a bit, then we'll be ready for the next crisis, but
better able to cope with it with the new team on tap.

He had full day, breakfast with George Meany and Shultz; NSC; report from
our UN fact-finding group; and pictures at his desk with 1 50-plus Congressio-
nal candidates. Plus the announcement (of new Cabinet and staff positions).
Jordan crisis. We were supposed to go to Key Biscayne at 5:00, but crisis in

Amman, with possible need to send in Marines to rescue Americans, precluded
it. We waited until last hopes problem would be worked out, but it
minute in
still wasn't at 6:30, so weMay still go tomorrow. But P says no. He
canceled.
needs time off and he can't use Camp David.
Started out as bad morning, as we screwed up one schedule item after
another. Poor Chapin.
Sweated out Senate vote on Byrd Amendment. Met with Harlow in late
afternoon and agreed they should continue the filibuster. Reviewed again the
key Senate races as he dreams of gaining three seats so we can win a vote
without sweating it out to the last second. Called me at home to say had lost
1 74 H.R. HALDEMAN
an inlay and had to see dentist in morning. Wants to go with no press notice,
etc.So I set it up.

Some loose ends this morning as schedule was clear for Key Biscayne. Back
on about our people's waste of time talking to people, students, etc.
his kick
Thinks we do too much of this and don't get the word out so don't get any
credit, which is the only real potential benefit. Wants me to talk to K and E
about use of their time, feels some symbolism is good, but don't keep at it.
Lot of agonizing over whether to go to Florida, kept all on standby, and
finally left at 2:00.
P pleased with reorganization results. Wants to be sure we get across the
difference from Kennedy and Johnson Kitchen Cabinets. We've set up work-
ing institution as recommended for years, not just "if-come ad hoc" basis.
Feels the procedure and processes vitally important.
Finch and me to dinner and Patton again.

Key Biscayne, Air Force One home in evening. Long chat about California
Bicentennial party at White House. And some ideas about Cabinet campaign-
ing.

Busy morning schedule. Worked on speech at EOB first for couple of hours,
then appointments until about 1:00. Covered some odd notes of his plus lot of
schedule and information items of mine as he was waiting for latest draft. Then
went back to EOB to work on speech.
Flap about Agnew as he blasted our appointee to Kent State Commis-
sion. Creates awkward situation as Ziegler has to repudiate VP in effect. P
concerned thatVP would cut loose like this without checking first. Actually
hurts him more than anyone. And builds up the guy he attacked, a militant
black from Harvard (Joe Rhodes). E in the middle as it's his boy, and he
staunchly defends the appointment.

Another speech day. P locked up all morning at EOB getting ready. Wanted
me to meet with VP to explain the whole incident and assure him it was not
a rebuff, his judgment was correct, but we can't remove Rhodes now because
of the fuss. VP really blew it by blasting publicly instead of working it out
internally.
P refuses to meet with the (Kent State) Commission, will meet with
Scranton but not the others. E pretty upset at all this, since he put the whole
thing together and it has backfired. VP especially distressed with E because he
feels he told John several times of his concern about the appointments to the
Commission. Speech went very well, 26 minutes. Heavy afternoon schedule,
Ambassador Tosca, NSC, Fitzhugh about Defense reorganization, Riland,
then out on the boat for family dinner. (P) wants a boat dinner with FRESH
staff tomorrow night. Anxious to get cranking with his key staff. They all met
at Camp David today to explore approaches to the Domestic Council.
FRESH is an acronym for the latest informal internal staff group —consist-
ing of Finch, Rumsfeld, Ehrlichman, Shultz, and Haldeman. These groups
were formed from time to time at P's direction or by the members them-
selves to deal with specific or general problems or projects. They usually
died a natural death after their initial purpose was served.

Busy schedule to clean up all the loose ends. Kept P going solid all day. Ended
with Ad Council reception, then took FRESH group out on Sequoia for
dinner. Good session on the Sequoia as P really relaxed and established a good
base with the group.
Quite a bit on Agnew, as P revealed he has a lot more doubts than he has
expressed before. Still convinced he's a major asset, butfeels he really makes
the wrong approaches sometimes. Ended up that we should discuss the prob-
lem and come up with basic recommendation for P as to exact role of Agnew
and how to implement it, which P will then cover with him.
Got word on boat of conservative victory upset in Britain, also from
Blount of postal reform through House. Both good news. P especially pleased
about Britain. Had me ride back in car with him, and talked about how this
discredited pollsters and press.

No schedule, so I spent most of the day with P as he had various people in.
After long discussion decided he has to sign voting rights. Feels veto would be
better politics, but runs real danger of exploding the blacks. Doesn't feel we'll
gain any votes with blacks or young, but will hurt with our basic constituency,
but have to do it, against will of leaders.
still
Flap about (Ohio Senator) Bob Taft's refusal to attend Agnew dinner in
Cleveland tomorrow. Built through the day, as Harlow maneuvered to get
pressure put on Taft. Ended with Taft calling Harlow and refusing to go, really
1 76 H.R. HALDEMAN
stupid. P really furious about his attitude, and says he won't help him in
campaign.
Juggled a bit with problem of Julie and David trip to Japan, but got it
back on track, in shortened version. P, Pat Nixon and Bebe to Camp David
for the weekend. A little peace and quiet.
P at Camp David. I spent most of day in staff planning sessions with E. Also
Finch, and later Shultz. P called in afternoon. Raised idea of Pat Nixon to Peru
instead of VP had suggested earlier. Later called and said she would do
as I
it, and for me to set it up. Wants to load the plane with medical supplies, etc.,
and make it million-dollar plane load of mercy, from people, not government.

Back to work, P saw Heard and some good college presidents this morning,
plus couple of other appointments. Had afternoon clear for work on Jaycee
speech.
Meeting with college presidents as usual did not produce much of any
group they were much more constructive and favorable
value, although as a
than past ones have been. Problem is they all seem to feel the P or the
government should solve the problems they have created by their own lack of
leadership.
The Agnew question again. The college men raised it as they always do.
An easy scapegoat. P wondering if we are all wrong, is he really polarizing the
youth? Really hard to figure whether he does more harm or good. He's
certainly not neutral. P then mused again that it's remarkable we have sur-
vived. Main reason is that we are in the teapot (of DC) and see only the
tempest, country isn't stirred up the way we are.

Leadership Meeting, then miscellany through the rest of the morning.
Have Pat Nixon's Peru trip pretty well lined up.
Got everyone cranked up about CBS plan to give Democrats free time to
counteract the time the P gets on TV. Will launch a battle to stop this before
it becomes standard procedure.
P worked at EOB all afternoon, supposedly on speech, but no results so
far.
K in for long talk, about his worries about very adverse stories about his
dating Jill St. John. He thinks Rogers is planting them to try to destroy him.
May be.

Cabinet meeting, P let Heard and his discussion go on and on.
bad day for poor K. Turns out he made the mistake last
Especially
night of getting P all cranked up about SALT problems. As a result P de-
cided to see Rogers (exactly what K didn't want) and had him for breakfast
without telling anyone. Meanwhile we jumped on K at staff meeting about
credibility of P on Cambodia. Problem is K now argues we have to sustain
Lon Nol government in order to protect our military and negotiating posi-
tion. Then he backs off, so all get feeling of real insecurity. He later con-
cluded we had kept on him in meeting in order to keep him from knowing
about Rogers' breakfast.
P went into this whole problem this afternoon at EOB with me, especially
about K's horrible way of handling a meeting and giving all the feeling that
they have no part except to follow his orders. P worries about how to over-
come this and concludes he has to meet privately with Laird and Rogers more
often, and handle them himself instead of through K, but this will just get K
up all the tighter, so!?
Still diddling around about Jaycee speech. Had Buchanan rework it but
can't decide yet whether to read it or wing it.
St. Louis and the Jaycees. A really great day!

P highly elated, gave very good
speech; used the wing-it approach and came through perfectly.
California. Beautiful, sensational weather. We went to San Clemente, all
in good shape. P didn't come to the office. (Called and) said to think back on
the day; it had been very salutary to get out into the country; gig the press a
little and charge our own batteries.

P in pretty early, decided to open the publishers conference instead of just
greeting them at lunch.
P wants to build up "forgotten minorities" idea, thinks Agnew could do
a speech. Was impressed by Buchanan memo on this, and need to play to our
new potential, labor, Catholic, blue collar, etc.
K came up with great (Philippe) Petain quote as we were discussing
education problem and students, "They know everything, but unfortunately
they don't know anything else."
P talked to Rogers, who suggested he stop in Moscow on way from Tokyo
to London, and meet Gromyko at airport. K and I opposed, mainly because
it undermines our plans for Summit in fall, especially because it takes some
pressure off the Russians for a conference. Rogers had already discussed this
1 78 H.R. HALDEMAN
with Dobrynin. Upshot was for P to tell me to call Rogers and tell him to turn
it off on basis this is not the right time for him to have a meeting.

San Clemente. P up early to see Pat Nixon off for Peru. Then spent the day at
the Residence working on briefing books. Took first stab at the Cambodia
statement in early evening.

San Clemente. Some more talk about press-handling technique. Especially
does not want K giving superlong backgrounders and wants to have absolute
control over scheduling of all White House staff with press. Has been reading
more books on past presidents. Concludes the whole trick in this business is
to do something different and now to do it for TV coverage. Still feels we need
to do more effective job of covering up the time off, but recognized real need
for taking enough time off.

San Clemente. P in just in time for 9:30 meeting with Rogers and his Asian tour
group. Then a session with Manescu, the Romanian Foreign Minister. Then
stayed around for quite a while, just talking. Issued the big Cambodia report
today (including the announcement of the departure of the last American troops
from Cambodia). Then K briefed, went for one and a half hours, way too long!
P really pleased with Buchanan's work on the report, and especially his
summary of the highlights, which P now wants us to do on all statements.
Decided this week has really hit the news, and that we should now
low-profile July. Makes point again that we have to follow up intensely on
events that are successful. We can't assume they'll get adequate ride. He feels
there has been a complete revolution in the means of affecting the public and
that we must learn how to deal with it effectively. Must reorient our thinking
to looking at the big picture, especially TV, not worry about columnists, not
wasting our big bullets.
P met Pat Nixon at El Toro, brought her back to San Clemente, then we
went up to Century Plaza for the night. He pushed again for maximum
follow-up on Pat Nixon trip, and on versatility of first family. P worked most
of evening, had me in from 10-11 just to chat, relaxed, went to bed.

TV day. P locked up all day until left for studio at 6:00. Did another sensa-
tional job on TV. Asked afterward, on chopper back to San Clemente, if it
really got through to ordinary guy or if details of foreign policy were over his
head. I think P's command, etc., got over even if substance didn't, and the
mystique is more important than the content. He
good about it, and our
felt
quick checks confirmed overall success. He handled the commentators and

questions very well, zinged Senate effectively and made all his points.
We had long FRESH meeting during day, mainly about White House
staff personnel.

San Clemente. Swearing in Hodgson, Shultz, Weinberger, Weber. Most of
FRESH meeting was about VP, real question of how to define and then
implement his role. P feels his role must be above the battle, maybe no
candidate speaking, just push on foreign policy and overall Administration
posture. Thinks VP can supplement. Use him primarily on fund-raising, get
him to use a stump speech instead of always a new one, not try to make
national news, build candidate. Agreed VP can't continue to appear to be an
unreasonable figure, and against everything. Must go over to positive and
especially avoid personal attacks. Okay to attack Congress. Problem is he has
no close advisors or friends and P has not given him adequate guidance.
Agreed to my idea of having Harlow travel with him.

San Clemente. Long session with P in office in morning as he had nothing to
do until departure time. Another session on Air Force One en route to DC.
1 79
1 80 H.R. HALDEMAN
Overall, P pleased with this California trip. We made enormous amount of

news and accomplished a lot.

P had breakfast with key GOP leaders and staff about policy for future vetoes.
Had
meeting in afternoon at EOB, about plan for VP. P made pitch to
Harlow to take on responsibility (to travel with the VP and offer him guidance)
and he's basically agreed, didn't have much choice. All agreed that he (VP) is
the big gun for campaign, but must not use overblown rhetoric, personal
attacks, racism, anti-youth.
A problem today as P launched his Indian message with meeting
little
with Taos No one mentioned the whole deal would have to be translated.
tribe.
P had long session in morning with Laird and K. Laird pushing for
accelerated troop withdrawals and decreased bombing and tactical air, as
result of budget cuts. K fighting to maintain current levels, at least through
July, to maintain pressure. P assured K he would back him.
P still keeps the main heat on me about PR follow-up, on family, himself,
the program, the opposition, etc. He's right, but it's hard to stay at top trim
on all these fronts all the time. Have to keep hammering away at the troops.

Odd P had breakfast with Mansfield. Then hit me with a few random
day,
notes and some discussion about schedule. Then over to EOB for lunch and
the afternoon. A long session with E, including review of poll data I had given
him at noon. Our poll shows him down to 53, new Gallup is 55. Poll of ours
shows enormous weakness of Republican Party, and shows disapproval of P
on all areas of major concern except South East Asia war. P doing a lot of
analyzing of this.
In late afternoon had one-and-a-half-hour meeting with Mills and Byrnes

about foreign trade policy. Then a cocktail session in the Map Room to
celebrate House victory against Cooper-Church. We won by 84 votes, were
shooting for 100. P tonight really cranked up about getting this sold as Admin-
istration victory and built up. Didn't have anything scheduled this afternoon,
but it worked out very productively, maybe a good idea to keep more time
open to use on ad hoc basis.

Cabinet meeting morning. Supposed to be a one-subject meeting, on OMB,
all
by Shultz. But P started it off by asking K to cover foreign policy briefly for
10-15 minutes. An hour and a quarter later Shultz finally got on. P kept adding
to K's points and members had questions. Got pretty funny, especially since
Shultz had been filibustered out of his part in the last three Cabinet meetings.
At one point during discussion, P asked Volpe a tough question and

Volpe replied by asking if it is all right for a Cabinet officer to say "No
comment." P instantly said, "It's about time." Broke 'em all up. Had a lot of
follow-up items. Has decided to start wearing a flag (in his lapel). P had UN
dinner.
No schedule. Had me in for two long spells in morning, with K in between

short shot with Flanigan. Then off to Camp David at 2:00.
Got going again on political strategy. Especially wants to emphasize to all
our key people that everything we do, all decisions and statements, must
consider first their effect on November. He was very upset that he had been led
to approve the IRS no tax exemption for segregated private
ruling about
schools, feels it will make no votes anywhere and will badly hurt private
schools both North and South. Thinks we opened Pandora's Box, now thinks
it was bad advice. Point is, for next few months the political considerations are
more important than the substantive because we have to pick up at least three
senators.
Keeps trying to figure out how to implement his idea of changing name
of Republican party to Conservative party. Based on polls, there are twice as
many conservatives as Republicans. Tough legal and technical problem.
No activity at Camp David after arrival.

Camp David. No wordfrom P during day. He did call me a couple of times
in the evening, whileI was at Flanigan's for dinner. Wanted to cut Peace Corps
and Vista budget down far enough to decimate them, and eliminate funds for
UN building expansion, and fire some people at HEW for obscenities, re: P
and Tricia in their slide show last week.

Fairly light day. More emphasis on basing all scheduling and other decisions
on political grounds. Especially emphasize Italians, Poles, Elks and Rotarians,
eliminate Jews, blacks, youth.
About Family Assistance Plan, wants to be sure it's killed by Democrats
and that we make big play for it, but don't let it pass, can't afford it.
K in to see me for his periodic depression about Rogers. This time he's
found Rogers is meeting Dobrynin tomorrow, and K is absolutely convinced
he's going to try to make his own Vietnam settlement, plus get a Summit
meeting, and take full credit for all. K's temptation is to confront Bill and insist
they have it out with P, or else one will have to leave. Thinks he can scare him
out. I urged against it on grounds he might not scare out and P can't follow
1 82 H.R. HALDEMAN
through, especially before elections. Actually it would be counterproductive
for K, and hurt him badly with P, and solve nothing.

Trip day. Office session first. Upset about the McGovern, Hatfield efforts, and
"Committee to End War." Dole talked to him about it last night, said they've
raised a lot of money, etc. Wants us to work out a counterattack. Called
Colson and put him in charge. Made point he's more concerned about the
in
public issue than the Senate votes. Especially wants to hit the Senators up for
election. Set it up as a campaign issue.
Had me up to cabin on flight to Louisville. Mainly just to chat. Louisville
great success. Good airport crowd, great street crowds in town. P up on hood,
stopped car, into crowd, etc. Good for him, and especially good to stick it to
press.
Had me back up on flight home. Back onto Huntley issue, about Chefs
bad quotes in Life. He denies them to Klein. Gives us a great chance further
to discredit TV newsmen and a dig at Life at same time.

Big flap about story in Post section that P delayed the game last night. He
didn't, and is mad at charges he did.
K is building up a new head of steam about Rogers. Bill has made some
startling statements about Cambodia as a non-success; encouragement of
Chinese, harm done to his Middle East efforts by White House comments, etc.
K still feels this is all part of a plan to do him in and to take over foreign policy
by State from White House. Talked to me several times and keeps repeating
his charges and complaints but has no real alternative except to fire Rogers,
which isn't very likely. I agreed to try to get Haig in with P to discuss the whole
problem.
Then tonight Haig called, P had called K at a party to say he'd called
Rogers to congratulate him on his press conference today. K really distressed
by this because Rogers apparently made things even worse at the press confer-
ence. So we have to try to simmer it all down again.

P had no schedule today except for Prince Charles arrival and a fat cat dinner
on the Sequoia, time was open for preparation for tomorrow's planned press
conference, which was canceled until Monday or Friday next week because E
and Shultz decided P had to release major statement tomorrow about policy
on vetoes of excessive appropriation legislation. So I ended up spending hours
in the oval and EOB offices filling in the time.
Long and Colson. Covered the attack operation,

session with Flanigan
especially equal timeand McGovern-Hatfield. P intrigued with Colson's tac-
tics and plans on both. Very upset because we goofed on ambassadors at
Charles arrival and didn't shake hands with them. I finally settled him down
by having protocol call all of them and apologize.

Again no schedule because of planned press conference, except for Heard
meeting in late afternoon. Then the big ball for Prince Charlie tonight.
Decided he wants Scranton Commission to go ahead with open hearings
because it keeps the student unrest issue alive through the summer and works
to our advantage. Wants to be sure we get some really horrible types to testify.
Then need to get our right-wing types to blast the whole thing. Gets a little
involved but should work.

Strongly feels we should go on a strong overall offensive now. The econ-
omy is with us, at least for the moment, so we can really hit the prophets of
doom. Hit the crisis of confidence, etc.

Leadership Meeting and day of appointments. Has idea of working up
full
"spender" rating on all the senators up for election, to hit them with blame for
high prices and to make the issue about Congressional responsibility.
Flap about Bureau of Labor Statistics release of Consumer Price Index,
Shultz told P it would be lowest increase since December '68, then headlines
just said Cost of Living has increased again. P has always been convinced we
are jobbed by Bureau of Labor Statistics staff on these, and this is most
blatant example. Shultz came in furious, and totally frustrated as to what to
do about it.

Breakfast with Bunker and Bruce, Domestic Council first meeting and Boys
Nation.
Read Dent memo analyzing problem with South and issued whole series
of orders about no more catering to liberals and integrationists to our political
disadvantage. Agreed to meet with group of Southern leaders.
Political group reviewed Senate races and allocations of our support
funds. Agreed generally on key races we'll give to. Also covered P's general
ideas about use of VP and Cabinet, he's very tough on their going only where
it really counts. Is determined, though, to go as far as necessary to win any that
we can. He really enjoys the political talk and planning and will be hard to
contain when the campaign starts.
1 84 H.R. HALDEMAN

Loaded schedule on last day before trip. P still disturbed about Dent's memo
on problems with South. Wants me to tell all staff P is a conservative, does not
believe in integration, will carry out the law, nothing more. Won't do the
Watts visit because won't win any Negroes and could alienate whites.
Delighted with new Gallup poll, to come out next week that will show P
at 61 percent approval, up six points from last month.
Bill Rogers called me to relay to P his meeting with Dobrynin was very
satisfactory. Now just have to get Israel to accept. He was really pleased, has
finally accomplished something.
P again pushing on economy. Called Shultz in this morning to put heat
on him to knock down recession talk. Opposition has really flared up today on
this issue. It was all ours for last couple weeks and now they're reacting but
with no real substance. Problem is we have P wants
to be sure to fight back.
to hit them what they are
as trying to talk the country into a recession, exactly
doing. It's almost funny to see the orchestration, a Joe Kraft column and three
different statements all break today, after two weeks of nothing. Unfortu-
nately for them, the market went up a big chunk today.

Busiest day yet. P started with busy round of activity at White House before
leaving for trip.
Was FBI said (National) Guard

very concerned about press report that
was Kent State. Called J. Edgar, who immediately blamed it on
at fault at
Jerris Leonard. P told Hoover to knock it down. Is really afraid we'll end up
putting Administration on the side of the students and really doesn't want
that.
Fargo was not too good. Very poor crowds along the streets (we had not
builtcrowds because of his plan to walk down Main Street), crowd at meeting
place was barricaded way back and we had battle with Secret Service to try to
get them up closer.
Salt Lake was great. Good reception at rodeo. On plane to California, P
in good shape, very tired. A really long day.
P slept late. Unusual for first day in San Clemente. Wants to plan Europe trip
to Spain, Yugoslavia, Great Britain, Netherlands, Ireland, Morocco, and
probably Pope. Was thinking of late August, but I think I convinced him to
wait until September, on the campaign. He feels need to reinforce
more effect
strength in foreign policy, as our main advantage.
Some talk of politics again. Wants to be sure our candidates tie their
opponents into hippies, kids, Demos.
Back on Huntley. Important to destroy him for effect on all other com-
mentators.

P home all morning, ball game in afternoon. Called after the game, said he got
a great reception and was spectacular game, 31 hits, 21 runs, 11 innings.

San Clemente. In late again. Discussion with E and me about desegregation.
Has assigned me to follow up on activities of all concerned to lower the profile,
make sure we are doing no more than necessary to meet what the law requires.
Feels very strongly that anything we do will have adverse political effect,
therefore should only do what we have to, and not brag about it.
Had me tell Mitchell not to open Southern offices and not to send his men
down en masse, only when needed on a spot basis. Also set policy that we'll
use no Federal troops or marshals to enforce, must be done by locals.

Press conference. P holed up all day at Century Plaza (Hotel), only a couple
of callsabout more material. Had me in for a little while at noon to run
through random notes about schedule, etc.
Press conference went well except for power failure that cut audio in the
room just before airtime. Pace was a little slow, but good show overall. He was
a little concerned on chopper back that it had been too slow. Very good
general reaction.

( San Clemente) I stayed home. P in office for a while, meeting with K. Called
to check in, said he was going to drive through Yorba Linda,
etc., then to
Chasens for dinner. He Created quite a flap with press because no notice.
did.
Ziegler called me in evening saying had huge crisis. Survived.

Back to DC. Big flap arose from incredible comment by P at brief press
statement that (Charles) Manson was guilty of LA murders. (This statement
occurred before Manson s criminal convictions.) He was trying to make point
about media responsibility for glorifying criminals, but it came out wrong. We
had quite a time on Air Force One trying to work out a correction. P had John
Mitchell and E write up a statement (Ziegler wanted him to go on TV on
1 86 H.R. HALDEMAN
arrival). Just one of those things that's hard to explain or overcome. Press
overjoyed at catching him, and playing it up big as possible.

Back to the routine. We had major discussion at staff meeting about plans for
vetoes upcoming, of whether to veto all overappropriations, and at once, or to
go selectively. Basically political question about tactics for fall campaign.
Shultz exercises main leadership on these debates.
Major session with P, VP, Attorney General, Richardson, Kennedy, E,
Finch, Harlow, Shultz, Garment, about Southern school desegregation. P
made it absolutely clear no one is to do more than law requires. No political
gain for us. Do what is necessary, low profile, don't kick South around. All
appeared to agree and seemed optimistic, except VP, who felt they were
glossing over the problem, especially about bureaucracy not on our side being
overzealous. Others cited all the good news. VP argued pessimism.

Two-hour meeting with FRESH and Harlow about strategy for upcoming
vetoes.Went round and round, no plan from group, although they'd been
meeting on it all afternoon and we had covered in morning staff meeting.
Decided to regroup tomorrow. Turns into the decision of the year domesti-
Will have enormous and far-reaching consequences, and may be chance
cally.
for the big move politically, especially now that war issue is somewhat neutral-
ized.

Loaded day, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Cabot Lodge back from
Vatican, Governor of Guam, Senator Prouty, DDE stamp, Georgia Integra-
tion Committee, Posthumous Medal of Honor, Foreign Minister of Spain,
capped by two hours with group of Southerners in to bitch about Administra-
tion shift to the left.
Back on veto question, wants more staff work, to try to arrive at a

conclusion as to recommend specifically.
I had a tiff with K today about my involvement with Bill Rogers in his
desire to stop some adverse (to State) actions about AID and international
economic policy. He'd called me to see P, and I was in the middle of checking
it out. K upset, but we talked it out satisfactorily. He's just obsessed with
conviction Rogers is out to get him and to sabotage all our systems and our
foreign policy.

Another busy day, then off to Camp David for weekend. Wants to be sure to
stop Richardson and all others who are running loose on integration opera-
tions. Wants E to police it, which poses problem since E is assuming I'm doing
it. Wants to be sure all know we are to move only at snail's pace.
Long afternoon session with FRESH group, except Shultz, plus Harlow
about veto policy. Basically decided to let Education Bill go with statement,
veto HUDand youth on Thursday, with message and big blast about Congress
overspending.

At Camp David. E and I had long talk about desegregation, etc., which
brought out E's feeling that P has lost confidence in him. Says he hasn't seen
P alone for a month. Feels he can't go on making domestic decisions, etc.,
unless he knows he's doing what P wants. I said we should confront P with
whole thing and get it cleared up, so we did.
In about three-hour chat with P at Aspen, E laid his problem out quite
clearly and P shot it down very well. P did lay out his concerns about liberal
appointments to commissions, overreaction in South, etc., and air was pretty
well cleared up.
P made some good basic points; we can't pick up support from radicalized
partisans. Need to reexamine all our appointments and start to play to our
group, without shame or concern or apology. Should feel our way, appear to
be listening to critics, but we have now learned we have gained nothing by
turning to the other side.
P has changed his mind, reached a new conclusion. Is convinced policy of
sucking after left won't work, not only can't win them, can't even defuse them.
Wants E to shape policies so as to move our way. P changed mind about
school desegregation statement of March 24, thinks it went too far.
P main point; we must put our imprint on the men as well as the policies
in this Administration, all the way through it.

Decided to go ahead with Labor Day dinner as a buffet supper, to get in all
national union heads, then do military tattoo on lawn after.
P called Mitchell at ABA (American Bar Association) and told him to
blast the 100 volunteer lawyers going into South to ride herd on integration.
Said to call it gratuitous insult, harmful effects, is sending vigilantes, hit on give
our citizens' committees a chance, don't let Northerners get away with pious
hypocritical attitude, say they should clean up their own section first before
they point the finger at another.
188 H.R. HALDEMAN
Wants to go out for a ride with Julie this afternoon, and Ziegler is not to
be told, no press to follow.
Some talk with P and K about plans for European trip.

Leadership morning with a surprise development. P had planned to let
this
Education go through without signing instead of vetoing. By end of
Bill
discussion, P decided to veto, which he had wanted to do all along. So moved

up HUD veto from Thursday and did both today, with statement to press this
afternoon. Especially enjoyable because Washington Post reported on front
page this morning that he would not veto. P knows they'll override, but he
makes his big issue on spending much more clearly this way.
Had a real bunch for Congressional half hour. Afterward P very relaxed
and pleased with vetoes, said, "Boy, we had the damnedest collection today.
Jesus Christ what a bunch of nuts." Had Ziegler in to gloat over shock of press
corps about veto.

Postal Bill signing at Post Office Department went pretty well.
Asked me to try to work out some kind of jobs
for Julie and Tricia, both
want to go to work full time, and
need something productive to do.
really
They're in a tough spot. Also some problems about Pat Nixon news coverage.
Guess last night at dinner didn't go too well. K said P wandered into his office,
seemed to have no purpose, said little, but obviously had something on his
mind.
Considerable discussion about P's picture. He still doesn't like the official
one, so we looked at others. Wants to make a change. Reneged on plan to
remove tennis court.
Big deal for the day was critical ABM Amendment vote in Senate. We
won 52-47, better than we had expected.
P delighted with news Angela Davis (UCLA Communist) had owned the guns
used in San Rafael judge killing. Shows the conspiracy linkup more clearly
than anything yet.

Big new word from Soviets, didn't get word from K as to what, but he's
got something cooking.
No schedule. P had me in from 9:00 to 1:00, with K for quite a while at the
start, the out for a meeting with Rabin about Middle East.
Discussion with K about Soviet-China probabilities; K agrees that some-

thing big is stirring. P rather surprised to hear this.
Big plan for trip to New York next Tuesday News and have
to visit Daily
dinner, etc. Mainly to shaft the (N. Y. ) Times, plus Pat Nixon is going up
anyway for shopping.
P talked to Moynihan, who agreed to take UN post in January.
P planned to spend night on Sequoia with Bebe and Hobe, then added
Rogers, then shifted to Camp David, so we all went up there, including E and
Finch. Quiet night.

At Camp David. Very quiet day. Monumental flap with K, who called accus-
ing P and me of playing games with him yesterday about boat ride, etc., to
cover up plan to have Rogers up to Camp David. Incredible.But he was really

convinced, as, was Haig. Guess they sat
apparently, there all day stewing.
Really ridiculous, because we
released Rogers to press as part of party, no
attempt to cover it at all. Guess K is uptight about Middle East and is
imagining things. He made reference to several early morning phone calls from
P yesterday, with quick hangups. Very hard to figure, but has to be cleared up.
He called me again at home, but I didn't quiet him much.

(P) asked me about K's reaction to weekend, and I told him about the flap,
which K had continued today. (K) still convinced we were playing games with
him. He's really very bitter and uptight, and when I totally refuted his claim,
he backed off and said, "Well anyway it should make you realize how paranoid
we have become because of the State Department's maneuvering." He claims
Haig agrees with him.
All this really worries P because it creates doubts about K's reliability on
other recommendations, and gets in the way of his doing his work. P realizes
K's basically jealous of any idea not his own, and he just can't swallow the
apparent early success of the Middle East plan because it is Rogers'. In fact,
he's probably actually trying to make it fail for just this reason. Of all people,
he has to keep his mind clean and clear, and instead he's obsessed with these
weird persecution delusions.
I'll have to talk to K some more because this will prey on P's mind until
something (is) settled, but I don't think it's curable. P said several times that
K may have reached the end of his usefulness. I disagree and think instead that
we have to recognize this weakness as the price we pay for his enormous assets,
and it's well worth it. Probably can convince P to let me take heat on this and
try to keep K from hitting him with it, which is his greatest concern, other than
the impairment of K's work.
1 90 H.R. HALDEMAN

Day started with a bang after P's breakfast with bipartisan leaders of Senate
about Geneva protocol. P had Scott in tow and had a letter from Cardinal
Krol of Pittsburgh about Solicitor General's refusal to back Administration
positionon parochial schools, and P really hit the fan. Had E and me in, read
E to get it changed or Solicitor General fired today. P said
the riot act, ordered
was both concerned by the politics of this but more because his policy is not
being carried out.
Then got into K problem again. Wants me to let K know that we caught
him on his bluff on this one, he's building up a monstrous story that does him
no good.
Things picked up a little later when K popped in to announce he had word
from North Vietnam that they wanted to meet with him in Paris and their big
guys would be there, a week from Saturday. This brightened K's attitude
enormously, and may help cure the current problem. New problem arises as
K wants to go secretly, but P thinks he should go in open because will get
caught, which will be a political problem. So I'm supposed to swing him
around.
New problem with Mitchell arises from the Catholic situation, in that
John clearly is not always carrying out P's orders, but won't admit it to P,
which P recognizes. John does this on basis of judgment that it is best for P,
but still makes it difficult.

(Senators) Baker, Bellmon, and Dole in for early morning appointment, to tell
P of problem of White House staff relations with all good guys in the Senate.
(Dole says he's never even met E.) P overreacted with all kinds of ideas for
curing, along lines of open from senators to E, Shultz, me, etc. Had me
lines
in, and K, and go over this, and had me meet with them after.
later Shultz, to
Trouble is, even the three of them don't agree on either the problem, or the
solution.
Off to Mexico! P had me up for about three hours of the four-and-a-half-hour

flight. Had lots of trivia, notes, etc. He had worked last night after the dinner.
Is still concerned about K. Had a lot of political ideas left over from last night.
P would start to work on his Mexico briefing book, then shift back to other
things, not really very excited about going to Mexico, no real substance to the
visit.
Great reception, street crowds, confetti, burros with flowers, happy peo-
ple,warm, good motorcade. Huge Mexican luncheon (small group but lot of
food), adequate toasts, quite personal and warm. After lunch (5:00) substan-
tive meeting produced agreement about border problem, and the two Presi-
dents went to press hotel (unscheduled) to announce it. No evening activity,
P home and to bed. We stayed on beach and in ocean until after 8:00, then
downtown for fiesta for few minutes with E's, and K with his CBS girl produ-
cer.

San Clemente. Discussed domestic security problem (E and I had discussed
with Mitchell yesterday). P said I should take it over because I'm only one J.
Edgar Hoover trusts and will take orders from. Others, especially Mitchell,
want it under Domestic Council, with a staff of intelligence types to evaluate
input and order necessary projects, etc. Will do it one way or the other, in any
event will drop the interagency task force approach which we've started and
run into snag with FBI and Hoover. Main problem there is Tom Huston.
P in good spirits, enjoying being here, doing all his work, not pushing on
anything. Great!

P talked about Real Majority and need to get that thinking over to all our
people. Wants ram this home and make all decisions based on it. Very
to really
impressed with Buchanan memo analyzing it. Wants to hit pornography,
dope, bad kids.
Pleased with idea ofMoynihan trip to UN and Asia before announcing
him as UN Ambassador, wants me to brace Rogers on and have him talkit,
to Pat to set it all economy. Hard to believe it keeps

up. Talked about
improving, want to be sure we have plan for handling any drop, i.e., CPI
(Consumer Price Index) or other bad news.
(The next week in San Clemente was a combination of catching up on open
details, meetings, and planning sessions.)

Labor Day, but not much of a holiday, P in office most of the day. Discussed
campaign, especially importance of candidates taking good hard line
political
on bombings, etc. Point of pushing opponents to the left. Doesn't want us to
clean up the Obscenity Commission, because he wants the issue of their bad
report.
Wants me to assemble staff to review Buchanan analysis and make it clear
we have to play the line. Also a lot of political instructions for Finch, about
weekly issue bulletin to all candidates, keep them on three to four solid issues.
Very anxious to develop some dramatic Administration action about
hijackings, need tough shocking steps, especially guards on planes.
Labor dinner tonight, a real coup. Large group, and not the usual White
1 92 H.R. HALDEMAN
House guest types. Meany's toast was compared presidents, referred

excellent,
to Tricky Dick, said FDR just as tricky, and Lyndon no slouch either. P later
said Meany was rough on Bobby Kennedy during dinner conversation,
really
also on McGovern, et al. Did dig us a little about the economy, but overall
very favorable. Good army tattoo on South Lawn, with 4000 union headquar-
ters employees. Darn good move overall. Lot of press comment, and labor
guys were clearly impressed.

Back to work. Some critique of dinner, mainly because it ran late and he didn't
get a chance to talk with the men before the entertainment.
Had long afternoon session with Rogers, Laird, Helms, Mitchell, K, and
J. Edgar, mainly about hijacking. Then had trouble lining up a group for
dinner on Sequoia, ended up with J. Edgar, Rose, and me.
Almost unbelievable conversation at dinner as J. Edgar went on and on

about his friends (Clint Murchison, George Allen, Hap Flanigan, etc.) and his
enemies (Bobby Kennedy, Lindsay, Mayor Washington, Pete Flanigan, etc.).
He really lit into the bad guys. Also full of firm political predictions (most of
them pretty far off) and detailed reports of great FBI operations. A real
character out of days of yore, hard to relate to current times. Goes to race
track as often as he can, never bets over $2.00, loves the fast set, but apparently
just asan observer. P seems fascinated by him and ordered me to have lunch
with him twice a month to keep up a close contact.

Long morning meeting with political operations and VP's crew for the cam-
paign. P really in his element as he held forth, for Safire and Buchanan, on
speech content, campaign strategy, etc. Came up with some darn good lines
and ideas, all the stuff he'd like to say but can't. P was delighted with Pat's
kickoff speech for VP, which really hits hard. Really wants to play the conserv-
ative trend and hang the opponents as left-wing radical liberals. Said to say,
"Our opponents are not bad men, they are sincere, dedicated, radicals. They
honestly believe in the liberal left." And force them on the defensive, to deny
it, as they did to us about Birchers in '62.
Had me over to EOB for four hours in afternoon.
K got me at end of staff meeting to plead that Rogers be kept out of meeting
with Golda Meir next week, on grounds he's most hated man in Israel and
would be a disaster; K said he'd stay out too. I covered later with P and he
agreed.
Lot of discussion about hijacking actions. P still pushing hard for strong
positive steps, Flanigan has a plan but P rejected the statement completely
because not direct enough. Wants to say "I have directed that," not "I urge
that." Also wants to add embargo on countries that provide sanctuary to
hijackers, butRogers objects because that would include Egypt and would
louse up peace negotiations. Have to figure out a way, P especially wants to
hit Cuba on the embargo.

Morning pretty well filled with GOP leadership followed by bipartisan group
about hijacking statement P released later in day, about armed guards on
planes, etc.
Was especially impressed by lady during Congressional half hour who
gave him a flag she had made, with 78,000 stitches and "Every stitch represents
something good in America."
Very anxious to get moving on action about campus unrest. Is fully
convinced this is "the" issue this year and we should be on record with positive
action.
I spent good part of afternoon on huge flap with Bob Dole, who was
incensed about screwup of announcement of our Kansas trip; Governor
(Democrat) made it in Kansas, ahead of Dole or the University. After tracking
it all back, found it was Dole's fault.
On chopper to Camp David got into reminiscing about war days, as he

was thinking about inviting his old Pacific group to White House, as we did
the Whittier class. Then he started telling tales of the war days, sounded just
as bad as anyone else! Wants Hughes to have services make a study of his old
buddies, work up a list and get them in.
At Camp David. P slept most of the morning. Worked on speech and ac-
cumulated follow-up folders in afternoon. Then he had me over for several
hours to clean up his notes. Sat in the study.
Has several plots he wants hatched. One to infiltrate the John Gardner
"Common Cause" deal and needle them and try to push them to left. Feels we
can benefit from a third party to the left. I'm not so sure, might push Demo-
crats to center, better to have them go left. Next, a front that sounds like SDS
to support the Democratic candidates and praise their liberal records, etc.,
publicize their "bad" quotes in guise of praise. Give the senators a "radiclib"
rating.
Pushing again on project of building our establishment in press, business,
education, etc. Long general talk about '72 plans and after. Agrees with my
idea that we should shoot generally for replacing all key people by mid '73 and
then really charge ahead to accomplish something during first half of second
term, our potentially most productive period. No problems of political bal-
1 94 H.R. HALDEMAN
ance, and a favorable Congress, hopefully. Fun to contemplate. In mean-

etc.,
time should gear everything to'72, reelection and winning Congress. Not a
bad approach anyway. In most cases what's good politically will be good
otherwise also.
He agrees, too, with my concern about who runs '72 campaign, have to
get a new RNC Chairman. (I hope Rumsfeld will take it, he's the best on the
scene.)

Got started again this morning on basic political approach. Wants to review
the list of critical votes on which we'll base the radiclib labeling; wants action
about the main issue. Really upset that the Domestic Council has come up
with nothing, not even his plan to withhold Defense funds.

Trip day. To Kansas State for Landon Lecture. Huge success, beyond all
fondest hopes! Mainly because the speech was excellent, on student violence,
and there was a small group of about 25 bad guys in the audience of
etc.,
15,000,and their shouts, etc., played right into P's speech. Was really great!
Bulk of students really enthusiastic and anti's whipped them up even more.
Another coup!
Then on to Chicago for Midwest briefing and press reception. P folded
early after a hard day.
K came in to talk in Chicago after the briefing. Deeply concerned that we
are pissing away all we've gained in 18 months, both with Russia and North
Vietnam. And getting nothing for it.
Feels P must have a personal advisor on Middle East, not State, and
recognizes probably can't be K, but someone has to catch all the nuances.
it
K emphasizes he agrees 100 percent with P statements at briefing today,

there's no difference on policy, just on letting Rogers run loose. K feels sure
P can't take Rogers seriously on foreign policy.
In Middle East everything is stirred up, with no concept of what to do or
where to go.
K woke me at 2:00 this morning with call that war had started in Jordan, King
taking on fedayeen (Palestinian rebels were fighting King Hussein, and Syria
was poised at the border). Possibility Israel will go in, especially if Iraq or Syria
does. Afraid Rogers may panic, so K needs authority to keep things from
etc. Haig wants United States full alert but K feels no.
breaking, tighten alerts,
K wants to take position (that) he notified P tonight and act on basis of P
orders. We agreed no need to call P, no decisions needed because all actions
are preparatory and imperative and nonvisible. K then called Rogers, Moorer,
Packard, Sisco, told them he'd talked to Chicago, implied P, all OK. Rogers
scared enough not to go off. Has taken all emergency measures, etc. Question
of bringing P back to DC in morning, K feels may be necessary (I disagreed).
Later called after WSAG meeting, all under control, no need to come back.
P had good day in Chicago.
On Air Force One talked about more days of offbeat stuff.
value of
Especially pleased with encounter on morning with group of hard
street this
hats, and with crowd at Marshall Field (department store) when he went in to
buy ties. Wants more such chances.

Golda Meir meeting, P once again impressed with her strength and toughness.
Guess it went pretty well, though he was not looking forward to it.
Lot of talk about ways to get the Kansas speech replayed on TV prime
time, even using our money. Got Colson to work on it. Networks all turned
it down, even using an existing sponsor's time. Gives us good issue, but would
rather have the TV.

To Camp David at 6:00, after greeting reception for Congressional staffs.

At Camp David, K called first thing about latest in Jordan.
On September 18, Syrian tanks crossed into Jordan. K sent a strong note
Rogers made a strong public statement to the Syrians. The
to the Soviets;
—
tanks began pulling back but K was sure it wasn't over yet.
K now worried because State wants to take to UN.

K very worried about Rogers' plans. Finds he's in New York this week
and just learned Dobrynin coming back and spending two days in New York.
K wanted me to call Rogers, tell him not to see Dobrynin, K didn't want
to talk to P about this, but later agreed to on my recommendation, and it
worked out fine. Says P problem is his reluctance to understand that tactics
turn into strategy, and you can't let things go along and then try to save them
without brilliant maneuver. Feels the real stake is Nixon credibility with
Soviets.

Busy day back at the White House. Lot of action last night about war in
Jordan.K up most of night, called P at 3:00 and 5:00, had meeting in K's office,
with P until midnight.
1 96 H.R. HALDEMAN
Syrian tanks moved back into Jordan. K informed the Israelis we would
support their air strike if necessary. P put troops and naval forces on alert
in the Mediterranean.
Had morning (K wanted at 7:30) of the top level,

a meeting at 8:30 this
Laird, Packard, Rogers, Sisco, K, Haig with P. Decided to move with ground
troops and K worked with (Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin. After
meeting, Rogers went into K's office and K urged they work together in crises,
not at each others' throats. Rogers had accused K in meeting of withholding
some information from P, and Rogers repeated charge in K's office, all based
on question of whether Israelis needed advance notice to provide time to
mobilize forces. Rogers feels K trying to force P to rash decision. All this from
K, who called me in to lay out the night's history for the record.
This whole struggle went on through the day, K and Haig dropping in to
my office three or four times to report the latest. K really disturbed that Rogers
will win out. I covered some of this with P in late afternoon. He had me go into
K's office with him, to get updating and K started in again on Sisco (he says
now Joe plays P when with P, and Rogers when with Rogers). P okayed K's
plans but cut him short on complaints. Then walked over to EOB with me,
talked about the problem. Said he's about come to conclusion can't tolerate
any longer, either K or Rogers has to go, no other solution. Problem is he gave
no clue as to which. I believe letting K go would be a disaster even though he's
a lot harder to deal with than Bill, and I can't imagine P letting Bill go. He
knows K is right.

Things back on a more even keel as Jordan seems to calm down a bit.
The Syrian tanks withdrew again, this time for good, and Hussein's soldiers
were besting the rebels.
Still pushing on daily action about crime and students. At Leaders' Meet-
ing today he announced 1,000 additional FBI agents. Fascinated by our poll
that gives him 64 percent approval, but shows 47 percent think he's not strong
enough about students. Same poll shows 71 percent think college administra-
tors are too lenient. Did agree to hold up on Defense research funds letter to
colleges, on my recommendation (per Flanigan) that it could cause student
demonstrators to try to force administrations to reject funds and we'd be
blamed for starting it. Instead will wait until something stirs up on a campus
and then use this to react to it, so it will be their fault not ours.
P seemed in much less preoccupied mood than yesterday. Not as con-

cerned about Jordan and possible consequences and K not grinding as hard
about all the potential disasters. Sure is a difference in the atmosphere in the
inner circle from one day to the next.

A huge new flap developed when Rogers called me and said K told him to send
a flash cable that he believed was contrary to P's desires and he wouldn't send
it without talking with P. The P was taking nap at EOB, I told Haig, and he
and K hit the roof. Problem was Rogers was going against direct P order to
K about wording of cable.
While we talked Rogers arrived and sneaked into EOB and was with P,
so we shot over the paperwork and waited. K built up a monumental head of
steam, said he'd see this through and then had to leave, couldn't take more of
this, about then P had him come over.
One more down.
On September 18 we had received word that the Soviets were building a

submarine base in Cienfuegos Bay, Cuba. We kept it absolutely quiet while
we decided what to do, but on September 24 the word leaked out. That day
P and K gave Dobrynin an ultimatum, and over the next few weeks, after
many meetings and notes, the Soviets backed down and abandoned the
base. Most of the material relating to this incident was deleted from my
diary by the government for national security reasons.

P pretty busy all morning, alone at EOB good part of the afternoon. Decided
to see Scranton Commission tomorrow and try to get it all over with fast as
possible. Had me over for couple of hours at late afternoon.
Back onto the K subject. Wants Haig to keep K from always looking like
there's a crisis. Best way to manage a crisis is to look like there isn't one. Keep
cool, act very strong in private channels. K apparently blew one in briefing
today by saying Cuba is serious.
P received the Scranton report (on Kent State), we did all our little projects
to discredit it and that is now underway, after all the agonizing about how to
handle it.
Big day for political discussions as P tries to get the line set and some
action underway before we leave. Mainly concerned with not letting Demo-
198 H.R. HALDEMAN
crats, especially presidential candidates like Ted Kennedy, Muskie, HHH, etc.,
get away with their obvious present attempt to move away from theleft and
into middle of road. He's right, our people are letting them do it and press is
not nailing them.
And off to Europe tomorrow morning.

Off on another trip. Eight-hour flight from Andrews to Ciampino Airport at
Rome. Choppers into Quirinale. K met us here, from his secret talks in Paris.
He felt it went well. Saw P for an hour or so tonight.

Rome. A really good day, with the highlights two unscheduled activities, which
were great. Then we learned the American hostages were coming through
Rome on their way home, here for fueling stop only.P met them, talked a little
on the strip, then went up into plane and talked some more. Guess he did
extremely well.
He extended his meeting with Pope well past the 45 minutes. He wanted
to go back into city and see people before boarding chopper, in St. Peter's, so
we worked out plan for him. Crowds big and very enthusiastic. Stood up on
car, moved through crowd. Great!
Then chopper to Saratoga, for overnight. Then the Cabinet officers and
staff had dinner in flag mess and started a movie. Interrupted by word that
(Egyptian President Gamal) Nasser had died. So we had a big conference
about how to handle. Agreed should issue statement from P and should cancel
firepower part of tomorrow's operation. I woke P up and told him. He agreed
with statement, then went back to sleep.
Then K and I got into the whole question of continuing the trip, a real
problem because ( Yugoslavian President Josip) Tito will undoubtedly go to
funeral on Thursday. We finally came up with a plan that lets P visit Tito on
Wednesday.

Sixth Fleet and Naples. So far trip working very well. The two big events of
yesterday, hostages and motorcade, were not planned or advanced, but our
crew swung right in and carried them out very well. Best test.

NATO and Belgrade. The airport arrival was 100% correct and protocol, no
crowd, no cheering, etc. After usual courtesies at the Palace, P left by his own
motorcade to Tomb of Unknown Soldier. Decided to try a detour into the city
on the way back. Told Hughes (all by radio in car) to cut wreath ceremony as
short as possible. It was scheduled for 25 minutes; we did it in 10. Then went
back into city to shopping district, hit it about 6:00, and it worked perfectly.
P stopped the car a couple of times, was completely engulfed by crowd, got up
on hood, held a baby. As we moved slowly, crowd was very enthusiastic.
Tito's dinner started a half hour late, then they were even later arriving
at reception, and it ran overtime, so P was over an hour late returning to
Palace, after midnight— and tomorrow is a really loaded day.
FOURTH QUARTER: OCTOBER— DECEMBER

Yugoslavia. P off this morning for his meetings with Tito. Then at noon off by
plane to Zagreb. Since Tito added himself at the last minute, we had no control
over the motorcade so couldn't slow down or stop.
Was really a streets were jammed and people very enthusi-
shame because
astic, even in pouring Would have been a great scene if he had stopped
rain.
in the middle and they'd let the people come in. P was really disappointed when
they didn't. Came back to staff section in plane on way back and talked about
it. (Was trying to escape Tito for a few minutes. Had been with him all day.)
Then after strange little reception in Zagreb, had to drive to Tito's birth-
place because weather too bad for choppers. A one-hour drive each way. Tito
rode with P, which wasn't so bad, but two Croat leaders hopped in too, and
no interpreter. Must have been a total disaster, although he didn't seem to
mind. Spent quite a while in the birthplace, still pouring rain on all of us
outside. Back to Belgrade for our State dinner.
P asked me to haveit speeded up, and so I stayed in kitchen and super-
vised the whole deal, and we served a four-course dinner in exactly one hour.

Madrid. A sensational day! Miles and miles of people packed solid, band
music over speakers the entire route, flags and banners over the street and on
all the poles and buildings. Motorcade never stopped, per (President Fran-
cisco) Franco's orders, but they were sure out en masse and excited. The horse
guards were great, but did block the view of the crowd.
The Moncloa Palace is a truly beautiful residence and gardens. P rattled
through an afternoon schedule, then to 9:30 white-tie dinner at Royal Palace.
200
Absolutely amazing crowds; still there when we came out at 12:15, and P went
over and shook hands while they mobbed him.
Dinner was magnificent, as is the Palace. Room after room with unbeliev-
able ceilings and furnishings — table for about 140, in hall with 15 huge crystal
chandeliers.

Ireland. Good welcome at Shannon and motorcade through Limerick and
Hospital to (businessman Jack) Mulcahy's estate, Kilfrush. A spectacular
home and setting, in opulent luxury. Good crowds full of Saturday night cheer
(and beer). The crowds are boisterous and the cops really tough.
Mulcahy had dinner for P, Prime Minister, top staff, and Rogers. A
six-course affair, started at 9:30, lasted until Then over an hour of Irish
1 1:00.
entertainment, very good but very long and very late. P and Prime Minister
both exhausted, so it was a little rough on all concerned.

A nice easy day at Kilfrush.

Ireland, and home. Made the morning pilgrimage to Timahoe to visit
graveyard and former (Quaker) meeting house site of the Milhous clan. P
seemed to enjoy seeing it. They had done a good job of clearing the grass,
uncovering foundations of the meeting house, locating a grave, and placing
a commemorative cement tablet. P chatted with the 94-year-old man who
remembered the Milhouses, and Mrs. Goodbody, the Secretary of the local
Quakers, read a little speech and gave P copies of documents tying him in
to the area. P gave an excellent mini-speech on peace, Quakers, Irish, Cath-
olics, and back to peace. Very moving. Sensational little boys' band played
"God Bless America" and we were off by motorcade across the country-
side.
Some good crowds in the little towns. A bit scary in one as the kids surged
up to his car and in between the other cars. Horribly dangerous, but no
accidents. Got caught in a real downpour, but P stayed up in his open car, and
he and the crowds got soaked.
Then
the meetings with de Valera, Prime Minister, luncheon, etc. P car
was by eggs on way to Dublin castle, and it splattered all over him. So P
hit
kept the car moving at good pace in spite of very good crowds.
Then Air Force One, and the long trip home. P spent a lot of time on his
Vietnam speech for Wednesday night, had me up a number of times.
202 H.R. HALDEMAN

Speech day, nothing scheduled. Speech itself went very well. Low key and
no dramatics (which bothered Frank Borman who thought
fairly fast reading,
itwas too "meat and potatoes"). Usual aftermath of phone calls, reaction, etc.
TV did pretty well on the commentary, all seems to feel it puts us on the
initiative and ball is now in Hanoi's court. Doves and hawks both jumping in
to acclaim the move for cease-fire. Another good stroke by P that appears to
be a move to further defuse war issue, or maybe even put it on our side.
General public reaction seems to be excellent.
P proposed a cease-fire in place throughout Indochina, a negotiated with-

drawal of all U.S. troops, and a political settlement which reflected the
existing situation in South Vietnam.
One of those bad days operationally. Started with a flap last night about
briefing folders and it carried on today. P was horrified to see a front page
picture in Post of several thousand policemen in uniform who visited the
capital about legislation against copkillers. We
had known nothing about it,
hence P did not receive them and we missed a great opportunity. Then we had
a Crime Bill signing ceremony at Justice and had no signing pens. Then we
signed a Transportation Bill at White House, and repeated the omission. By
this point, P was becoming a little discouraged for good reason. Also his
briefing papers were all way too long, and left out the really important points.
Lot of discussion all through the day about campaign stops.
Called tonight all cranked up because Macalester College kids gave Tricia
a bad time with obscene signs. Wants Dewitt Wallace, who funds the place, to
put the screws on them.
Some talk, as there is almost every day, about plans for after November,
getting rid of bad guys and excess baggage. Laying groundwork for 72. Wants
to divide United States into four regions with a White House political czar
over each one, and move Chotiner in to run RNC under Finch.

Big excitement this afternoon as Kent State grand jury indicted 25 students
and no National Guard. Totally refutes Scranton conclusion. P comes up with
all kinds of ideas for follow-through, with candidates, etc.
Obviously P is really geared up to hit the trail, I just hope we've taken the
right course because he's really committed now. If the general view that voters
are really confused and seeking direction this year proves to be right, our tour
may make the difference. But most of our candidates have a long way to go.
The campaign we set out P had me in to make sure we were not

begins. Before
letting anyone about the Kent State grand jury report. He wants
get out of line
to be sure we keep that issue our way, and the report works for us ideally.
Day went very well, crowds, logistics, etc., all fine. P in good form,
reworked his speech as he went along. Had some rocks thrown at Burlington,
first stop, and some hecklers, so he picked up theme of need for the Silent
Majority to stand up and be counted. Don't answer the rocks and obscenities
in kind, use the strongest voice of all, your vote at the ballot box. Very
effectively ties theDemocrats to the student demonstrators.
A long hard day, and his voice showed it at the end, but he didn't slow
down at all. Good effect with the locals, should make some real mileage. He
feels he got his basic line well started. Will work on variations next week.

Off again! A day of campaigning, from Columbus to Grand Forks to
full
Kansas City. Bigand enthusiastic crowds. Less heckling (none at Kansas City
because we screened the entrants). P followed same basic lines as Saturday,
building and revising as he goes. Will build hard on "one vote is worth 100
four-letter obscenities" and "it is time for the Silent Majority to stand up and
be counted." These work very well. The other big crowd pleaser is about "bad
youth do not represent this generation and will not be the leaders of the
future." Lots of kids in the crowds and they're really fired up.
Late tonight he called Moore, Ziegler, and me in, said he had a plan to
screw (Los Angeles Times reporter) Loory, the current number one bad guy
in the press. Tomorrow on trip home put all the baddest guys on Air Force
One as the pool, then at last minute P will go over and ride press plane. (Not
a very good idea, but he got a kick out of thinking about it. We'll shift away
from it tomorrow.) He got pretty tired by day's end, and has a sore throat, but
wouldn't go to bed early.
We successfully brought off a surprise stop at Ohio State after the rally.
Worked perfectly, no one knew he was coming. Just a few kids lying around
the quad, then a big crowd gathered as the word spread. He had a chance to
talk with them, no press except the pool cars. Good move!
This was an occasion when I forcibly overrode the Secret Service, who had
absolutely refused to follow my last-minute instruction to divert the motor-
cade to allow an unscheduled stop at the University. Bob Taylor told me
204 H.R. HALDEMAN
that he would not and could not permit P to make the University visit. But
P had given me very specific orders that he would make the stop. Taylor said
he would have to take his objection directly to the P, which he did, and he
was overruled, much to his great, and understandable, consternation. How-
ever,both P and I felt that the spontaneity of the move would preclude any
—
planned demonstrations or violence and that turned out to be correct.

On the trail, Johnson City, Tennessee, Asheville and Ft. Wayne. Another
reallygood day, crowds, etc., although all cities had rain. No hecklers even at
the two outdoor stops (I think the radical leadership had told them to stop
because they're playing into our hands). P was really tired by tonight and
didn't really rise to the opportunity of a wildly enthusiastic crowd. Cold is
bothering him.
Gag is now that P has clearly drawn the line with his attack on obscenities
and advice toanswer not in kind but with your vote, the good four-letter word.
Now is question whether you'd rather F or vote.

(Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei) Gromyko and speech preparation. P ex-
tended the Gromyko meeting to two and a half hours, and took him to EOB
for private talk at the end. Got agreement on Summit, but not on announce-
ment next week.
Concern this morning about cost of living index problem. It was the main
news lead and Democrats have, of course, jumped on it to prove inflation still
going. Hard to answer, although quarterly trend is down.
Still has cold and husky voice.

United Nations. Usual lousy reception, really bad for United States President
to be treated that way.
He really roared through his own speech and took off like a bolt after he
finished. Not a good deal for us.
Baltimore. P had me White House to compile full analysis of current

stay at
status of all campaigns. He had Sato meeting, then UN dinner. I went to Camp
David with Chapin and Larry and families.

(Nicolae) Ceausescu. Took up most of the morning, plus State dinner tonight.
P pretty much preoccupied with political thinking the rest of the day.
Especially anxious to get good readings on all the key states, House and Senate
both. Had me make calls to many of the key people, all feel they are a little
ahead and will win, but narrowly. Some bad reports in the news summary and
that got him Real problem is the economy, and as all the weeklies say
started.
today, key is whether the "social issue," crime, violence, students, etc., over-
rides the "pocketbook issues" or not.
P projects loss of 12-15 in House, four governors (including Florida,
Ohio, Pa) and gain two or three in Senate.

Back on the trail to Florida. Two evening rallies Palm Beach and Miami. Went
OK, nothing special.
Haig called me on plane to report Soviets turned down idea of announc-
ing Summit this week. Say they need more time for preparation. Actually just
don't want to help us in the elections. Warned against any leak, would scuttle
whole plan. P not very disturbed, seemed to expect it.
The rough one —

Chicago, Rockford, Rochester, Omaha, and San Jose, with
an added speech at his initiative in Chicago for the Junior League at breakfast.
San Jose turned into the real blockbuster. Very tough demonstrators
shouting "1-2-3-4-etc." on the way into auditorium. Tried to storm the
doors after we were and then really hit the motorcade on the way out.
in,
We wanted some confrontation and there were no hecklers in the hall, so we

stalled departure a little so they could zero in outside, and they sure did.
Before getting in car, P stood up and gave the V signs, which made them
mad. They threw rocks, flags, candles, etc., as we drove out, after a terrifying
flying wedge of cops opened up the road. Rock hit my car, driver hit brakes,
car stalled, car behind hit us, rather scary as rocks were flying, etc., but we
caught up and all got out. Bus windows smashed, etc. Made a huge incident
and we worked hard to crank it up, should make really major story and
might be effective.
After arrival in San Clemente, P went home, then kept calling with ideas
about how push the line. Then called and asked, "How are things at your
to
place?" I said fine and started to talk. He interrupted and said we're having
a fire here. Laughed and said house had caught fire from his den fireplace.
Told me to come on over. Place full of smoke, hoses, firemen, and water.
Not too much damage. P took me in his bedroom (he was padding around
206 H.R. HALDEMAN
the patio in pajamas, slippers,and a weird bathrobe when I arrived), said

there was no problem. It was full of smoke, I could hardly breathe. He said
he loved smoke and would sleep there. I talked him into the guest house. We
went over there, had a beer and talked about the day. Finally to bed about
1:00.
A it. He was very tired, but
really weird day, especially the last parts of
in great humor. Pulled down his pajamas and showed me horrible bruise on
his thigh from motorcade in Rochester.
All through the day he delighted in giving the "V" to the peaceniks.

Speech day. P worked most of the day on TV for tonight at Anaheim. Safire
wrote a great draft of a new speech on violence. P decided not to try to use it.
Used the basic speech with modifications. Was a disappointment to all of us.
Also Ronald Reagan screwed it up badly by taking way too much time,
which cut even more into P. All in all it may have come out for the best, but
it wasn't what we had hoped for. Reaction was pretty good, but most wanted
a little Tomorrow will be.
stronger.
Long evening of phone calls from P afterward.
The final swing. Phoenix the big deal with the read speech about violence.
Darn good. We taped it to use on TV. Good crowds all day, P really tired and
loose after Phoenix. Rambled on and on in Las Vegas, but was back up for
evening in Salt Lake City in the Tabernacle. Did a great job there, especially
a short spiritual talk after the program, very effective.
Decided to go ahead with the national TV of Phoenix, trying to buy
half-hour time, will probably have to go with 15 minutes.

TV night, and a real disaster! There was a terrible audio problem on the tape
of Phoenix and we didn't know how bad it was until the first network, NBC,
went on the air. We had bought Complaints poured in, including to
all three.
the P. After all kinds of checking we could only conclude we had laid a bomb.
Also our purchase gave Muskie three quarter-hour shots (for the Democratic
reply on all three networks). His production was very good, but the content
and delivery pretty bad. I think we really came oflwith a net plus, but not what
it should have been. When the real facts were apparent, P was very calm and
understanding, although he had been cranking pretty hard at first.
Considerable division of opinion within star! about net effect, I think most
feel it was bad, some think a disaster. The hard-liners still feel it was good. But
the whole mess points up the necessity of checking and rechecking on all these
things. We certainly would have been better off to have done nothing, and then
Muskie, too, would have done nothing.

(San Clemente) Election Day. P at loose ends after voting early. Sat in the
officemost of the day, except for a drive in afternoon. Long talks, reflecting
back on election days, and how hard they are for candidates and family. He
rather enjoyed being a non-candidate. Reviewed again plans for changes in
Cabinet and need for posts for some of the candidates if they lose. Made a lot
of phone calls, to candidates, finance guys etc. Reviewed final predictions.
Long talk with Bill Buckley (about his brother's Senate candidacy in New
York), and said "I don't know how you mackerel snappers look at others, but
if a quiet Quaker prayer will help, you've got it. Tell Jim to go to the bar with
the warm beer and relax a couple of hours after the polls close."
Then a long night of tallies. P in office, with TV, I took reports in all night.
Called winners as announced. Up until about 1:00. Finally gave up, Indiana
still hanging.

The day after. Fairly rough, since results were at best a mixed blessing. ( We
had gained 2 seats in the Senate but lost 9 in the House and 11 in state legisla-
tures.) P obviously disappointed not to do better on Senate, although he only
predicted 2 to 3. I think he had hoped for at least several more.
Driving hard to get interpretation our way, as major victory in Senate. Big
loss of governors hard to override, especially since it was a complete surprise.
is
P very upset by it was an overall defeat. So he went before the

stories saying
TV cameras to set his own line. Did a superb job and should really help.
On flight back to DC, Pat Nixon blasted me and P about West Wing
interference in social operations. Feels we override Lucy and slow down deci-
sions, etc. Wants all control in East Wing, so we'll try that. Patterns are well
enough set now that it might work.
After we got home, he was on the phone again, as a result of the DC
papers. Wants a concerted attack to get our point across. Obvious we're up
against a conspiracy in the press. Feels we need an all-out plan for next couple
of days, to set the line.

And the reaction goes on. P did great job at end of Cabinet meeting putting
whole thing in perspective and shooting down all of the negative press theses.
Then ground away all day on other ways to combat it.
Fortunately had the Mountbatten dinner to keep him occupied tonight.
208 H.R. HALDEMAN

And more reaction. NSC filled most of the morning. He semi-canceled Key
Biscayne plan for this afternoon, holed up in EOB, calling for more statistics,
called a junior staff meeting to give them the pitch, decided at the last minute
to go to Key Biscayne after all.
Brooded over and over about political meeting and decided to have it
tomorrow, hauling everyone down to Florida for the day. Just can't get
himself away from the subject. Afraid to let down for fear he'll have left some
base uncovered, and just can't stop thinking or talking about it. If tomorrow's
meeting doesn't wrap it up I think I'll confront him directly.

Key Biscayne. The big meeting. Mitchell, Finch, E, Rumsfeld, Harlow and
Colson. Ran from 11:00-5:00 with no break. Sandwiches brought in, plus
gallons of coffee. Accomplished a lot as P really got into gear on future
planning.
Decided major personnel changes. Cabinet: Romney out. Rumsfeld to
replace him. Hickel out. Whitaker as Under Secretary.
Hickel out. Russell to SBA. (Mitchell tell him. Don't use audit as a club
to keep him quiet unless necessary, because may backfire.)
Kennedy hopefully out. Then Mitchell explore Treasury with Bob Ander-
son. Also have to get Walker out. (P called later, Flanigan as Under Secretary.)
Morton out of RNC, to Interior. Harlow to RNC. Sandoval out of SBA.
MacGregor for White House Congressional liaison. (After considering Bush,
better for him to take Under Secretary of Commerce.) Make Siciliano a judge
in California. Move Chotiner to RNC as organizer. Keep Dent in White
House to handle South.
Issues:Go for value-added tax and huge revenue-sharing (lump all cate-
gorical programs and grants and give to locals with no strings, $30 billion).
Lot of discussion of economy, and need especially to knock the mythol-
ogy. All agreed this, in some form, must be the core of the State of the Union.
Hit crisis of U.S. fiscal policy. Agreed we don't work with Congress, we go
against them.
Figure Democrats' strategy will be series of major programs designed so
we can't approve them.
P said will hold offSummit until serves our purpose. Will go for increases
in military budget and military assistance and squeeze the Great Society pro-
grams.
Discussed need for new roles for VP, positive and constructive. Environ-
ment, health, Congressional relations, labor union relations, South, take on all
presidential candidates.
We take very conservative civil rights line.
Good meeting, covered lot of ground and for once got something done.

Key Biscayne. P at Walker's, went right after meeting yesterday in afternoon
and completely revised the campaign analysis letter we're sending out. All
40,000 had already been mailed but we caught them at the Post Office and will
revise tomorrow.

Key Biscayne. Obviously still completely absorbed with politics. Said he'd
been working on organization of states for '72. Wanted to review purge list,
talked about people assignments, etc.
Called to say he'd decided to go home tomorrow, move Mexican lunch-
eon to DC. (Pat Nixon doesn't want it here.) Finally talked him out of it with
support from Rogers. But that made him mad and he now says he'll go home
Thursday, right after luncheon.

De Gaulle died last night, and P immediately decided to go to memorial service
ending the question of Key Biscayne stay. First instructions were
in Paris, thus
no Secret Service sitting with him at service and he goes down aisle alone.
A beautiful day, and he made me come over for about four hours and sit
and analysis, a
inside going over all sorts of details, especially election results
subject he can't escape from. Plus a lot of odds and ends, he's really been
storing up: Mitchell to Key Biscayne for Christmas; fire Ambassador McBride
(Mexico); get Moynihan UN deal settled with Rogers on trip; shift Mexican
luncheon; worry about costume for Paris service; cleaning house in Adminis-
tration, purge list, appoint loyalists; charge up White House staff, get some
"holler guys," dump all incompetents but keep the enthusiasts; deal with
Nelson Rockefeller, appoint him Secretary of State late next year (Rogers
should resign after Summit), thus get Malcolm Wilson as Governor in New
York, a complete loyalist; have to start on health issue, called Richardson, set
—
up meeting tomorrow before departure; plans for social Church, Evenings,
etc., use wholly for our political purposes; discussed convention, in a state we
need to win, late as possible, make it good TV; man to man operation on
Democratic candidates; need to develop key publishers and editors for '72
endorsements; press conference in next couple of weeks; move now on Nixon
organization in South; plus plans for all key states.
Then back at it again on the plane to DC, for two more hours (and no
dinner). Basically more of the same. Turned out he had an incredible stack of
little white note sheets with amazing array of trivia. Then on and on about
analysis of campaign, just can't get off the subject.

Called at home, very late, to discuss French restaurants, hotels, etc., then
Shriver, then on to a new analysis of election for about a half hour. Horrible!
210 H.R. HALDEMAN
All of this obsessive boring in on details and trivia, some mixed with
reasonably important points and most focused on the political aspects of
the just past Congressional elections and the forthcoming Presidential elec-
tion (in two years), was a combination of clearing stacks of little stored
notes that he wanted to get off of his desk, and reviewing lots of ideas that
he wanted to get off of his mind. This happened every once in a while, when
the pipeline of these things got so clogged up that it had to be cleared. It was
a good process, because it then enabled him to drop these matters and turn
to the issues at hand. But it meant an enormous amount of work for me and
my staff to be sure all matters were carried out.

To Paris. First breakfast with Mitchell, locked him up to run '72 campaign and
covered lot of other political ground.
Had me up for couple of hours on plane, almost entirely political analysis
of '70 and planning for '72. Very upset to find HEW
starting to push integra-
tion suits in North and ordered it stopped immediately.
After arrival at Embassy residence, had me come over from hotel, back
onto another two-hour political review from 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM. Decided
Bush would be better for Republican National Chairman than Harlow, more
enthusiasm and better image, had me call Mitchell, who totally disagreed, so
we dropped that one.
On learning he had to stay for reception tomorrow afternoon, P decided
to go out to good restaurant for lunch. K talked him out of it, so we'll have
luncheon at Residence. P then sulked about never gets to do anything fun that
he wants to do, always has to do what's right.
In Paris. De Gaulle service, Bruce meeting, appointment with Pompidou.

Embassy luncheon, visit to Embassy personnel, Pompidou reception, chats
with all the big leaders. On plane for return he had me up for several hours of
political rehash (after he took a 4-hour nap).

Back in D.C. Echeverria meeting. Not much today on political. Maybe it's
finally fading. P in late.

Off to Camp David, then called me in evening, but nothing important.
Had report from Mitchell about Romney, George won't leave quickly, will
have to be fired. So we have to set him up on the integrated housing issue and
fire him on that basis to be sure we get the credit.

Welcome to the new senators.
P pretty much getting back into gear. Hardly any talk today of campaign
or results. One flap about Colson and the ads, and a Time story about P
supposedly saying Ted Kennedy would be 1972 opponent. Both will blow
over. Set up a busy week, and also next. P originally decided to have a press
conference next week, but I talked him out of it, in favor of waiting until after
Thanksgiving.
P impressed by Moynihan memo, gist of which is the lack of real
a long
P agrees, and wants E et al. to recruit in this
intellectuals in the Administration.
direction. As of now have no real ferment of new ideas and no real tough
intellectual challenge of present ideas or programs. Main problem is most
intellectuals are not on our side.

Things piled up and eliminated the usual clear Wednesday afternoon. Main
problem was bipartisan Leaders Meeting, scheduled for first thing in morning,
changed for Democrats because of caucus, shifted all over, finally set for 3:30.
P had long secret meeting with Laird, Rogers, Moorer, and K about a new
secret plan, to try to rescue 90 POW's, we'll try it Saturday, I talked with
Rogers first about changes in State and Moynihan to UN. He's not very
responsive, sort of fuzzes it up.
P had fair amount of free time, is now focusing more on business.
still
Had E in and reported to us on his breakfast with Rockefeller. Report on New

York politics, especially (New York Mayor John) Lindsay. Rockefeller can't
figure out where he'll go, is lost in New York City. Then got on to economic
policy and told E he was seriously considering complete change in advisors,
since they failed in the one prime objective he set, to keep unemployment under
5 percent in October. Doesn't want to take any chance on screwing up 1972.
Problem is not just advice, it's that they don't get in and fight.
Some talk again about need to build up staff morale. He keeps trying to
think of devices, i.e., circulating good columns. Not really a problem, but he
thinks it is.
A loaded one from breakfast with Mansfield to dinner with Ash Council. NSC
about NATO, apparently very good meeting, P took strong stand about
maintaining support. It obviously got to him because his toast at dinner turned
21 2 H.R. HALDEMAN
into a 20-minute speech about need for maintaining #1 position in world

strength.
Pleased with "fat cat" dinner last night. They pledged $7 million, from
Stone, Mulcahy, and Scaife for '71, '72, and '73 deficit if any. Had long talk
with (lawyer Herb) Kalmbach after and has him lined up for 50 percent of his
time, handling super fat cats and special assignments.
Apparently had a good talk with (economist) Milton Friedman, and said
after it was nice to have someone say we're doing things right. Friedman urges
we stay on present economic course. Says we're in good shape if we stay with
it. P still concerned about '72. Can't afford to risk a downtrend, no matter how
much inflation.

The POW maneuver for Saturday was moved up to today, and all were on
pins and needles awaiting outcome. Too bad, it didn't work. Turned out no
prisoners were there. Still went ahead with big bombing, etc. (extensive air
strike to protect U.S. reconnaissance planes operating over North Vietnam).
P told K he'd worked out new plan for Vietnam at 2:00 this morning.
Wants to blast talks, give last chance, then pull out. Mine Haiphong (or
blockade), take offensive, and announce stepped-up withdrawals at same time.
Put real heat on North Vietnam.
P was really impressed with John Connally at Ash dinner last night.
Wants to get hooks into him. Is convinced he can be brought over for '72.
On POW move, told K in the morning "Don't do any planning for
success, it's bad luck."
P very impressed with Ash recommendation about reducing size of Execu-
tive Office. Intrigued with reducing 4000 personnel to 1500. Off to Camp
David for the night.

Results of P's weekend became evident, several tapes full of miscellaneous
memos, and five full tapes of a long (25 pages, single-spaced) memo to me. I
had produced 6 tapes myself. So the typists were busy today. All of this
primarily to analyze, summarize, and act upon the staff memos about election
results and plans for future.
Lot of reaction evident from P, i.e., he canceled Florida for Thanksgiving
and California for Christmas because some criticized excess travel.
Lot of reaction to North Vietnam bombing, will leave all explanations
to Defense. Launched a push (PR) about the effort to spring POW's. De-
cided it was good counter-story to the bombings even though it failed. P had
the Colonel ("Bo" Gritz) who led the raid brought in and was really im-
pressed. Went on for a half hour after about how great these guys were, told
Ziegler to try to get someone in press to recognize it. Told Ziegler to treat
any skeptics with utter contempt. He was as cranked up as I've ever seen
him.

Big push morning was to keep the push going about the POW raid. P still
this
very much impressed by the Colonel who led the raid, gets quite emotional
about their bravery, etc. Wants to really rally the people on this one. Is
convinced the liberals are again on the wrong side, as in Cambodia, and wants
to push his advantage.
P furious about reports from State backing ofT of support of North
Vietnam bombing. I called Irwin (Rogers in Canada) to order investigation
and retraction. He moved fast and they did retract.
P gave Ziegler full background of POW raid, to be sure his story is clear
that it was his idea and initiative. All started by his instructions to use some
imagination about POWs.

Big day, topped by dismissal of Hickel. Had a session with Moynihan, he
wrote P yesterday to say he couldn't take UN
after all. Gave whole range of
reasons. So he's going back to Harvard. I told him P understood, but would
want and suggestions from him as he has done all along.
critiques
P decided to have award ceremony for the POW raiders today. Put it
together fast and I guess it went well. He was pleased, and felt it very good idea
to honor them now. Good Congressional attendance.
P got into discussion of press this morning with K and me. Apparently
reflecting on his words to Keogh yesterday. Made whole thesis that they all
suffer from excess intellectual pride, totally self-centered, hence can't admit
they're wrong and can't tolerate being proven so. Thus their hatred for Nixon
who's proved them wrong so often. Also none has integrity, no religious
quality, because of their intellectual arrogance.
P wants me to launch plan for "lib" mailings supporting Muskie to all
Democratic leaders and editors in South.
An example of the "dirty tricks" concept — in this case, mailings supporting

Muskie that would appear to be from a strong liberal source and thus
offensive to the conservative South.
Back on press, said the intellectuals of the left are actually a new group
of fascists. And Keogh (who was a former editor of Time) told him most
young journalists are activists, feel they have a mission, not to report but to
influence.
21 4 H.R. HALDEMAN

Unfortunately, the P had a large gap in his schedule, and kept me in for about
four hours today. I did get all the backlog of schedule and information items
cleared up. As always, got back on political analysis. He's quite concerned
regarding youth, especially because of a new Harris poll. Mused over reasons
and cures for the problem. Wants our own poll and a program to handle it.
He saw (Massachusetts Senator Ed) Brooke and offered him the UN post, but
Ed wants to stay in the Senate.
Not pleased with the Leadership Meeting, mainly because of the lack of
any enthusiasm. He's obviously still very much absorbed in political and PR
analysis and not really back on track about basic governmental matters. Will
probably take major crisis to revive the focus, problem is that can't come in
domestic area and that's where he should be getting involved. May just come
in time. Basic problem is to get him interested and talking to other people on
substantive matters.
Thisis the point at which I stopped recording these diaries in handwritten
form and started to dictate them each evening at home onto tape cassettes.
The reader will undoubtedly notice a substantial difference in form and a
major increase in content when I started the easier process of speaking
rather than writing the diaries.

There was a flap this morning at White House when
an awards ceremony at the
a girl who got a bravery award P about how she
made some crack to the
wouldn't think he was sincere about this until he ended the war in Vietnam.
This of course drove him right up the wall. He called both Hoover and
Kleindienst and jumped on them, since these awards were a Justice Depart-
ment project.
He got back going on the PR thing again, making the point that the story
we need to get across is what kind of a man is he, rather than the pitch on the
machinery. He concludes we now have the image of a PR-oriented Administra-
tion, but we've totally failed in our real PR. Also, we've missed in the foreign
policy area where we had three major accomplishments: Cambodia, the Mid-
dle East, and the Vietnam speech, but we don't get across the courage, the
independence, the boldness, standing alone, overruling advisors, that go into
this.
After K went out, he got into a discussion of Rogers, and concluded that
he may have to bite the bullet here. Wants me to put a fully documented case
together and sit down with Rogers and make it clear that State has broken its
pick at the White House, and point out to him step by step why. I think he's
basically concluded that he's not going to be able to keep Rogers on for much
longer, and he's starting to build the case for removal.

P worked most of the day on his speech for tonight and then came on up to
New York at about 7:00.
Speech went very well. On the plane on the way home, the P had me up
for the whole trip because he didn't want to talk with the Cabinet officers. We
got into the Connally thing. It turns out that he had meeting with Connally this
morning for about an hour, the last 1 5 minutes of which he used to make a
pitch to Connally to take the Secretary of Treasury. He now wants me to call
Connally and give him a further push on That the P wanted him to know
it.
that he feels urgently that Connally is desperately needed in this position now,
and for another more important position in the future. Really he wants you
here as a counselor, advisor, and friend. He feels you're the only man in the
Democratic Party that could be President, and that we have to have someone
in the Cabinet who is capable of being President. The P doesn't have a man
in the whole shop that he respects in this way, and he's very concerned about
the whole question of determining whether the United States or Russia is going
to be number one. He's not interested in the idea of political purposes, either
inTexas or to get a Democrat in the Cabinet. That occupied most of the trip
home.

P came in late. Spent the morning kind of cleaning up loose ends before he left
for Camp David at 2:00.

He had Colson bring in the photos and file on Teddy Kennedy's activities
in Paris. P seemed to be pleased with the evidence we have on this and wants
Colson to follow up on getting it out.
Colson had a private detective follow Kennedy in Paris and take photos of
him with various women. Colson then leaked the photos to members of
Congress and to the press. In Paris, on the eve of de Gaulle's funeral,
Kennedy was seen dancing until dawn with the daughter of the former King
of Italy.
I finally got Connally on the phone at about 1 1 :00 tonight, and interest-
ingly enough, he seems to be favorably inclined towards taking the job. He was
obviously pleased that I had called, and that I felt as strongly as I did about
his taking it. He made the point that he wasn't just interested in just being
Secretary of Treasury or any other department, but he was very much im-
216 H.R. HALDEMAN
pressed with what the P said about wanting his help on a broad basis and
wanting to put him on the NSC. He has the problem of personal finances, and
will have to make extensive adjustments. One of his concerns was the flak we'd
get from within the Republican Party and the concern that they might waylay
him He's also concerned about the timing and whether he can
at every corner.
divestand organize his financial things in time to meet the P's deadline of
January 20. He had talked with his children tonight and with his wife, and
found no negative block there. He's going to meet with his partner tomorrow.

A big day with a lot of action. Started with the P having breakfast with John
Connally, as a result of which he has succeeded in getting him to take the post
as Secretary of Treasury.He told me right after he came into the office, then
wanted no one else knew. I reminded him that he had discussed
to be sure that
the possibility with E, and he said to cover John on not telling anyone.
Connally had made the point to the P of the overriding importance of getting
something for Bush right away, because we couldn't do anything on the
Connally announcement until Bush was set. P then wanted me to talk to
Rogers, and try to work Bush out for the UN, get that assignment settled right
now.
The next development was a note from Bryce, saying that he wouldn't be
able or willing to take the National Chairmanship, and he submitted his letter
of resignation effective Wednesday. On the basis of this, the P told E and me
to move on Rumsfeld, and try to convince him to take the job. We did so, and
got an absolute stonewall flat "no" answer.
Considerable discussion of candidates for RNC, and it boiled down to
Finch, Bush, Kleindienst, Dole, and MacGregor. Finch is ruled out because of
the South. Kleindienst because he wouldn't take it and Mitchell doesn't want
him to anyway. Dole because he's an incumbent senator. So we're down to
Bush and MacGregor. The decision was for me to talk to MacGregor, see if
I could get him to take it. We would then move Bush into the MacGregor post
of Congressional liaison.
The Connally appointment and the repercussions of it will be one of the
biggest things we've done and should be extremely effective in startling the
media and the establishment. It will create some monumental problems with
John Tower and some of the other Republicans. And we're going to have a
tough time selling some of them. The RNC is another tough problem, and I
think there's real doubt that MacGregor will take it, but we'll give it a try.

P had a relatively light day. He added a breakfast with Bill Rogers sometime
late last night, which resulted in his getting in a little late. The only schedule
item this morning was an hour meeting with King Hussein. We added a few
quick items after that. He then has a small working dinner with Hussein
tonight, and that's it.
(P) asked Henry for an answer for his press conference on a question
about the Tet truce which is being pushed by Senator Jackson and backed by
Rogers, much to Henry's chagrin. Henry has indicated that any such thing
would be disastrous to us, in that it would permit the enemy to build up during
the truce, which they're already doing, to get ready for a major drive on either
Laos or Cambodia. The only way we could possibly set up a truce would be
to include the stipulation that they would have to stop infiltration, and they
would of course be unwilling to do this. I reached Connally this morning,
having missed him last night, and passed on the P's message together with my
own pleasure.
The biggest problem is to try to get this done without getting any leaks
ahead of time, and obviously the thing to do is to move as fast as we can. The
only problem is that we've got to get Bush settled before we can move on
Connally, and that gets back to the whole parley on the National chairman-
ship, because we have to see what MacGregor will do.

Another day almost totally involved, on my part at least, with personnel
maneuvers. P had no schedule except for a presentation ceremony at noon.
As we discussed things in the morning, P decided that he definitely wanted
to bring Bush into the White House on a general basis. I then called Bush in,
and gave him the pitch on taking a White House job. He was clearly disap-
pointed because he had been hoping for the UN spot. Bush made such a good
pitch to the P about what he'd like to do at the UN in the way of really being
an advocate for the P, not only at the UN, but in the overall New York
community. The P decided this was in fact a better use of Bush than having
him at the White House, and we'll go ahead and announce Bush on Friday,
which will get him locked up before the Connally announcement, which is still
planned for Monday. This really does work out better, because it gives Bush
a more prestigious appointment and a seat in the Cabinet, which will help
when the Connally blow strikes.
All of this left us with a problem as far as the National Committee's
concerned, and after considerable agonizing, the decision there was to go with
Dole, even though he is an incumbent senator. We'll have to find a really
top-level executive director to work under him. On this basis, Harlow and I
had Dole in, and raised the problems with him so that he could start thinking
about solutions. We did not tell him he was the P's choice, but did say that he
was very favorably regarded. It will now be up to him to get some groundswell
started for himself. P had a nice chat with Harlow to say good-bye, this is
Bryce's last day. Told him how we would be counting on him for help in the
21 8 H.R. HALDEMAN
future, on a general basis, and wanted him to sit in the Leaders Meetings, and
that we would be using him for a lot of other things. All this made Bryce very
happy. In discussing ways to screw NBC, the P, thinking Nancy Dickerson is
on CBS, asked me to explore the possibility of his doing a half-hour or hour
nighttime special with her. It would be just a warm conversation about his
personal views of the Presidency after two years in would make a darn
office. It
good show, the problem is apparently Nancy Dickerson's with NBC, so it

wouldn't really screw them after all.
In order to get the human side of things out, he's come up with the idea
of having Dick Moore, or sometimes Safire, attend all dinners and sit in on all
meetings, looking for anecdotal material and general human interest stories.
P was pretty upset about the fact that 25 of the White House press corps
met yesterday to try to figure how they could trap him at the press conference
tomorrow night.
K was back in today, all disturbed about the Israeli situation. He thinks
that the same kind of problem is building up now as he faced all last summer,
when the P wouldn't consult with him on developments, as we moved closer
and closer to the brink of war. His most recent evidence is the fact that the P
doesn't want him to sit in the meeting with Moshe Dayan, and was going to
have Rogers sit in. It's now been set up that only Laird will be there, which
somewhat pacifies K, but he's still concerned. He told me that if the situation
developed into the same thing as last summer, he would definitely have to
leave, that he couldn't go through that sort of operation again. This has been
a frequently repeated threat, but I have a feeling he's more serious on this one
than he has been on some of the others.

Press conference day. P stayed locked up at the EOB all day, and I didn't see
him for the entire day, something of a record. He didn't leave the EOB until
just time to go over to the Residence and change clothes and go down for
the press conference at 7:00. Went back up right after the press conference
and spent the evening with the family. The press conference itself was, in
most people's minds, a great success. P was particularly pleased with his
answers in several areas, probably the most important one being his explana-
tion of the need for foreign aid to Cambodia, where he explained how this
was the most valuable investment we make because of its saving of American
lives. He was extremely effective on this. The high point probably on most
people's minds was the fact that he admitted he was wrong on the Manson
comments and a couple of his others where he's prejudged trials that are in
progress. He gave a brief 13-second answer, but in effect said that he was
wrong in his comments on these things and he was sorry about it. Overall,
was well worthwhile. It's just too bad it wasn't on later so it could reach
more people.
The whole personnel process goes on and on as we try to put the puzzle
together. Dole still leads in contention for the National Committee, but there
are many with very deep reservations.

During the day we had several inputs from Senator Scott about his total
disapproval of Dole for RNC, and he is mobilizing senators to oppose the
Dole possibility.
As a result of the press conference and the press's efforts to mobilize to
take on the P preceding the press conference, we have launched an all-out
antipress offensive through the attack group. The press corps made a real
mistake in getting together in their secret session to try to figure ways to make
the press conferences tougher.
P was and apparently had been up late last night dictating also, since
in early
he had me to get started on when I came in the morning.
five tapes for
I used a good part of the day to cover some general meetings, one with
Chapin and Larry on Connally arrangements, and another long session with
Henry, on the question of whether he should stay on, since he's now got to
make a decision in the next couple of days as to whether he stays or not. I told
him of course he should stay, that there's no dissatisfaction, etc., but that he
should talk with the P, and make his offer to go back to Harvard, etc., so they
have a chance to review the thing and settle it once and for all.
Henry's main concern is that he is going to get back into the situation
similar to last summer on the Middle East, where he doesn't have the P's
confidence and is not involved in what's going on. I pointed out that this is
bound to be a problem from time to time but that overall he is indispensable
to the P, and both he and the P know it, and he's got to stay here.

John Connally day. We got cranking early and hard this morning. P had
breakfast with the Connallys at 8:30 while we had our regular staff meeting,
at which I could say nothing. Very awkward since Finch and Rumsfeld did not
know about the coming appointment. P had his meeting with John Tower,
which had been scheduled for 10:15. While he was doing that I met with
Rumsfeld and Finch, gave them the word. Finch received it with considerable
pleasure. Rumsfeld was totally noncommittal and looked as if he was deeply
distressed.
On my way down meet with Finch and Rumsfeld I had been handed
to
the handwritten letter of resignationfrom Kennedy and also a brief handwrit-
ten note to the P which inadvertently I read and discovered that Kennedy was
making a pitch to be named Ambassador at Large. I told him (P) very briefly
220 H.R. HALDEMAN
what Kennedy would like to be an Ambassador at Large.

said in his note, he
P asked very quicklyRogers knew about this and I reminded him that
if
Rogers had suggested it to him, but it had not been discussed further. The P
said fine and shot through into the Cabinet room for the Cabinet meeting.
He built up somewhat the announcement by leading gradually into what
Kennedy was going to do as a follow-up and went through the UN post and
other things and ruled them out and then announced that he would be taking
a post as Ambassador at Large. Through this buildup, both Kennedy and I
were panic-stricken because we thought the P had misunderstood and was
building him up for the UN job, which he very definitely did not want. It
turned out fine in the long run, however. Bill Rogers rose to the occasion
beautifully and responded as if he had known all along that this is what we
were going to do. The P then made his pitch on Connally and told them about
that appointment.
The Congressional leaders were also present meeting and Tower
at the
was included. They were all pretty much stunned announcement.
at the
Following the Cabinet meeting, Connally, Mrs. Connally, and Mrs.
Nixon were brought into the Oval Office. Then Kennedy and Rogers were
brought in from the Cabinet Room. We finalized the presentation plan. Then
the group went from there directly to the Press Room, where the P made his
announcement first of Kennedy's new post, then of the Connally appointment.
Press corps was absolutely flabbergasted. They were all craning to see who was
coming in behind the P and were totally bewildered by the parade of the P,
Kennedy, Rogers, the Connallys, and Mrs. Nixon. As they figured it out, they
appeared to be completely astonished. It was fun to watch because the surprise
was total. For the first time we really did keep an announcement confidential
until the zero hour.
Dole called me later giving me his report (on the RNC situation). He says
he's now got 28 senators signed up, so support is building up. The P got
trapped by Mrs. Nixon into standing in the receiving line at the Congressional
open house today, shaking hands with everybody although his intention was
just to come in and sort of stroll through and let it go at that. Also, Mrs. Nixon
called me at home tonight, very upset about her discovery that they were
planning to light the Commerce, the FTC, Archives, and Justice buildings. She
feels that this should not be done, that only the monuments and the White
House should be lighted, and that the White House is, in fact, a monument.
That it downgrades it by having the buildings done. And also that it causes a
political problem because of the big effort to get people to hold down on their
consumption of electricity. I don't know whether we can do anything about it
at this point.

The P cut off the GOP Leadership Breakfast with the wives fairly promptly.
We got into some more discussion of the Dole candidacy. I gave him Dole's
report from last night. He thinks now we should stir up the House and try to
get over half the GOP members there lined up so we can get that pretty well
set, too. We had a long discussion on the subject in the staff meeting this
morning. The general feeling is very strongly against Dole on the grounds that
he is divisive rather than inclusive and that his appointment would be a signal
that we were taking the wrong direction politically. We all tried to put the heat
on Rumsfeld, but he resists very strongly. I don't think there's any chance of
getting him to shift.
K came in and the discussion covered some of the general thinking about
Vietnam and the P's big peace plan for next year, which K later told me he does
not favor. He thinks that any pullout next year would be a serious mistake
because the adverse reaction to it could set in well before the '72 elections. He
favors, instead, a continued winding down and then a pullout right at the fall
of '72 so thatif any bad results follow they will be too late to affect the election.
It seems to make sense. Overall, he seems to be in a good mood. Generally

relaxed and moving with things as they come. But he hasn't really gotten to
grips on the budget and the State of the Union yet. He's got the guys working,
but he hasn't started to dig in. He did get underway tonight on his Christmas-
tree-lighting speech and mentioned on the phone that he thought he probably
would not read it but would instead do an extemporaneous deal.
This was (British Prime Minister) Edward Heath day, with the usual arrival
ceremonies and private meeting morning and State dinner tonight. The
all
afternoon was pretty much occupied with a visit to the Department of Agricul-
ture operation in Beltsville, Maryland, and the session with Scranton.
The big flap of the day was the Army domestic intelligence activity, which
has been blown up by the TV and the press as a result of a letter of some former
Army sergeant sent to Senator Ervin. The whole episode poses a major prob-
lem for us in the area of repression, which our enemies are trying to build up
in that this implies we're using the Army to spy on political people. Most of
the charges are not basically true and we can prove this in at least some of the
cases. Also, whatever activity had been going on was stopped last June, and
the files destroyed. Our key thing is to get the White House out of this, so we
covered it thoroughly with Laird and instructed him to handle the entire thing
in Defense. We've told Ziegler to stay off of it here.
A bit of a blow today on the new Gallup poll, which showed the P at an
all-time low of 52.

Another Heath day, as the P took him to Camp David for meetings in the
morning and lunch at Aspen.
He got going again in the morning on the Army spy deal. He wants to
222 H.R. HALDEMAN
launch an all-out assault to make a bigger story out of our denial than the
original story. We've got to attack the attackers on this one.
In the afternoon he had Henry in and just sort of sat and chatted, using
up the idle time. He got into a discussion of the Poland uprising and the
possibility that this could cause a major problem for the Soviets, especially if
it keeps on going. If it stops at the point it's already reached it won't make very
much difference. They also got into our operating plan in Laos where they're
going to move the South Vietnamese in for a major attack operation, this time
without US support, so it will be substantially different than Cambodia.
On the PR side, the P got going on the need for a two-year tabulation of
all the things he's done, the people he's seen, meetings he's held, countries he's
visited, states he's visited and, particularly, his meetings with minority groups,
Cabinet officials, congressmen and senators, etc. He wants to do a complete
log, trying to put all these statistics together primarily, of course, to shoot
down once more the isolation theory and the idea that he doesn't work hard.
Also got into the Dole question on National Chairman. Dole keeps
calling him pushed the thing about as far as he can.
to get guidance, since he's
The on that still is that we ought go with Dole, but he wants to let
P's view
the opposition work itself out first to be sure that we're fully covered, also to
force Dole to build his own support.
Tonight was the Christmas Party for Old Friends, an "Evening at the
White House" with David Frost, which turned out to be something of a frost.
It was saved by the P's discovery this morning that a group of Korean children
were here on a singing tour and he brought them into the party.
The P kept himself busy this morning, which helped to give a little time to get
some work done. He went out to the hospital to see Senator Russell, who
probably will die in the next few days, so this was what the P considers to be
his last visit with him. He was very much impressed again with how powerful
a man he is and how much more impressive he is than our Northern senators.
He mused quite a bit when he got back about the fact that patriotism is so
much higher in the South.
During our chat he had Colson in for a while, who reported on the Teddy
Kennedy question. He's getting the pictures distributed and maintaining the
on
effort that, also Chuck's following up on the knockdown of the press,
during their poor performance at the press conference.
Henry came in for part of the time that Chuck was there to get the P's
signature on a letter to Frank Church regarding the foreign aid supplement.
The P blew up when he discovered that the purpose of the letter really was to
let Church get off the hook on his anti-Cambodia position. The P told Henry
to change the letter substantially to correct the language so as to make it
absolutely clear that the P was not changing his position but that Church was
changing his.
We had a long meeting with the VP, E, and Finch this morning regarding
his(VP's) takeover of the responsibility for relations with governors, mayors
and county executives. It went pretty well. VP was in a good mood, wearing
a T-shirt and a sort of sweat jacket. He was
obviously very anxious to take on
this responsibility on a and seems to understand the level of
full-scale basis
activity it will require of him and wants to do it. It is astonishing how bad he
ison judging staff, however.
I had a long session with our new TV guy, Mark Goode, or at least our
candidate for the job, and on and off with the senior guy we now have, Bill
Carruthers. I think we're putting together a good unit here. If we can now get
the PR communications worked out, we'll have solved a couple of our major
hangups and be able to move ahead more constructively.

With the morning clear, the P had me in for a couple of hours to go over a
whole range of odds and ends.
Henry was in for a while and the P discussed a possible trip for next year.
He's thinking about going to Vietnam in April or whenever we decide to make
the basic end of the war announcement. His idea would be to tour around the
country, build up Thieu, and so forth, and then make the announcement right
afterwards. Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all
combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71,
trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with and which
we'll have to answer for at the elections. He prefers, instead, a commitment to
have them all out by the end of '72 so that we won't have to deliver finally until
after the elections and therefore can keep our flanks protected. This would
certainly seem to make more sense, and the P seemed to agree in general, but
wants Henry to work up plans on it. He still feels he's got to make a major
move in early '71 and he could make the commitment at that time that there
would be no further use of draftees in Vietnam and also make the long-range
troop-withdrawal commitment. Henry's argument is that this precludes, then,
the necessity for periodic announcements or explanations and covers the whole
thing in one swoop, as did our 150,000 announcement last year.
The P came up with an interesting idea for the Christmas program next
year. Instead of having David Frost do the readings, he'll do them himself. He
wants to include letters he's received and some Dickens-type Christmas read-
ings. He's also thinking about using educational television from time to time
to take an hour and answer his mail on TV, having some of the incoming
letters read and then discussing them in the form of an answer to the writer.
The P is chafing at the overabundance of Christmas activity and is already

outlining his regulations for next year wherein he wants much less involvement
of himself in the Christmas-season stuff. Overall, though, spirits are pretty
good considering the fact that he's had no time off at all, really, for weeks.
Somehow we've got to convince him that he ought to get out of here once in
224 H.R. HALDEMAN
a while, but so far we haven't succeeded. I talked to both Bebe and Billy
Graham, and they said they'd work on him, but there's been no visible result
to date.
We had the Cabinet /Sub Cabinet year-end briefing and reception today.
Moynihan gave his valedictory address and it was superb. He came through
with exactly what we wanted in terms of a charge to the troops to get out and
work for our policies.

Another pretty busy day with a few breaks in between for discussion, especially
late this afternoon.
Teddy Kennedy called this morning saying he had to talk to the P, that
he had something urgent regarding prisoners of war. The P refused to talk to
him, told K Teddy refused to talk to K. Upshot was that
to return the call.
Teddy got from North Vietnamese a list of prisoners' names, which he
the
made a big play with on the Senate floor. It turned out later they were the same
names we already had and the whole thing was something of a cruel hoax on
everyone concerned.
Henry came up with the need to meet with the P today with Al Haig and
then tomorrow with Laird and Moorer because he has to use the P to force
Laird and the military to go ahead with the P's plans, which they won't carry
out without direct orders.
The plans in question involved cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in half
by attacking enemy forces in Laos. Only South Vietnamese (ARVN)
troops would be used, but the U.S. would supply air cover and artillery
support.
He (P) had a long talk with Rogers on the phone regarding the line for
his press conference tomorrow, told him to blast Teddy on the POW hoax,
take a hard line on the surveillance we're conducting on Cuba, and play down
POW exchange versus cease-fire. He also had K call
Mansfield's proposal for
Dole and have him take Teddy on mercilessly on this, which Dole will do
tonight and tomorrow morning.

A Colson story was a major item today, as the P was determined we should
I had a number of people spending considera-
try to find the source of the leak.
ble effort to try to do so. We finally tracked it down to somebody on the
conservative side on the Hill who was genuinely concerned that Colson was
going to be appointed National Chairman and, in order to protect Dole's
franchise, was trying to destroy Colson.
John Connally called at home disturbed because he had
this evening,
gotten word somehow announcement somebody in

that several days after his
Washington ordered all of his tax returns sent up to Washington from Texas.
He's very upset that someone is playing games here and wants to be sure we
get on top of it, so I'll check on that. It's interesting that he would know this
had been done, which shows that he's got his sources in the local IRS office.
Also interesting that he reacted as strongly and quickly as he did.

The P came up with an interesting conclusion as he was thinking through the
whole youth problem. He decided there is a reverse reaction of the teenagers
on their parents which results in making the parents doubt their own values.
In the past, parents stood firm, the kids were always screwed up. Now the kids
are still screwed up, but instead of standing firm, the parents follow their lead.
He thinks this is a problem within our own staff because many of them have
kids with serious problems. It is very hard for our guys to keep their balance
because they're beat on by their kids, by the press, by the people they meet
socially, etc. He's concluded, therefore, that the major effect of the youth
revolution is its effect on parents and their guilt complexes.
He got back on the need to get out something good every day to build the
staff up, to give them a lift and to counteract the constant hammering they get
from press and Congress, etc. The P's point is we need poetry, excitement, and
spiritual quality. We've got to find a way to get it. He then bet that all the
year-end interviews would come out very pragmatic, low-key, and business-
like, analyzing where we've failed or succeeded rather than getting into the real
value of the thing. He commented, while Ziegler was in the room, that Church-
ill's books regarding war are like Tolstoy's novels regarding war: they're great
because they don't concern themselves with war, but rather with people. You
end up knowing the men, the personalities, and the great forces that went
behind the great wars rather than just the technical details of the battle.
The P visited the Home for the Incurables today, at our suggestion, to
wish them a Merry Christmas. He refused to take any press or even let them
know he was there until after he had gotten back, which drove Ziegler up the
wall, but made the visit work out extremely well. I watched him for a while as
he went through and he did a superb job of dealing with the kids or older
people as he would hold on to an arm to keep it from waving around and then
shake the hand. He talked with them in a normal conversational way, even
though they couldn't talk back. When he came out, he made the comment as
he got in the car, "Boy, we think we've got troubles." It's just amazing to
watch him in this kind of situation because he handled it so well.
226 H.R. HALDEMAN
We office, sat and chatted for a little while, then finally

got back to the
gave up for the day and went home for Christmas Eve. We had some sugges-
tions in through Julie that they go to a Christmas Eve service tonight and to
the Children's Hospital on Saturday, I don't know whether he'll do that or not.

Christmas Day. The P stayed home until about 4:00. Then he went up to Camp
David with the family. They did go to the church service last night, but didn't
tell anyone, so no word is out on it. The P called about midday. He said to take
five minutes off anytime during the day and enjoy Christmas.

The P had no schedule today, as is the case for the rest of the week, except a
few minor functions at midday on a couple of the other days.
He had me in for about an hour in the morning, interrupting my session
with Roger Ailes, at which time I was telling him we were getting a new TV
consultant.
He asked me to have a talk with Haig because he's concerned as a result
of his conversation with Rogers yesterday, that Rogers is aware of what
Henry's doing with the Russians. While Henry thinks he's operating secretly,
he's not really.
The P feels that Henry's got to open up the fact of his secret channel so
that Rogers knows about it and we have some more candor in this whole thing
because the problem now of playing it two ways poses a very bad situation for
the P. For example, on the past trips, Tony Lake, who's now working for
Muskie, was with Henry, so he knows all about them, yet Rogers doesn't know
about it. There's a good chance that this will come out, which would be a very
embarrassing thing. The P feels Henry's got to realize he's not a secret-type
person, that the things he does do come out. He summed it up by saying the
whole situation now poses a major problem for the P because Rogers knows
that K's meeting with Dobrynin. Maybe the thing to do is to tell Rogers that
both he and Henry have to meet with Dobrynin independently, and both of
them should understand this. To do this we have to get K and Rogers together,
especially as we approach the possibility of a meeting with the Russians.
I went out for about an hour, then he buzzed me back in at noon and kept
me in for another two and a half hours, this time with Colson there. He got
into sort of a long, rambling discussion on follow-up items: who we'll need for
an attack on the Democrats; the need to develop our contact program concen-
trating on the top hundred people in the country spread across contributors,
press, political, labor, religious, educational, etc.; then he got back onto his
story of having never called a reporter or complained about a story, etc., the
fact that we haven't gotten that across; the need for a spokesman that we can
trust who can get on TV and talk about what the P is like.

P spent the morning getting his annual physical checkup. Unfortunately, we
blew the plan for Tkach to brief afterwards. He did the briefing but Ron didn't
really get over to him the point of getting out the line that the P needs to stop
working so hard so Walter, instead, gave a pretty straight medical report. This
led to great concern on the P's part. That was compounded by his discovery
that we had completely failed to get out the story of his meeting with the Boys'
Town group yesterday. This led the P back to the discussion last night with
Connally and the fact that we don't really get out the points that we should
be getting.
Then he got back onto checking on some of the odds and ends and
mentioning some of Connally's other points, one of which was that Lincoln
was the great figure of the 19th century and Churchill and de Gaulle were the
two great figures of the 20th century, and the big thing about all of them is
their comeback from defeat, not their conduct of wars, etc. Connally feels we
should very much build the comeback story.
Also, the P decided on the basis of an Alsop story in the paper today that
leaked all of our plans for the State of the Union that we'd have to reevaluate
the decision to drop the value-added tax idea. He thinks if we do just a small
one we can get away with it. E totally disagrees. They had a long session this
afternoon to discuss this.
Rose snuck and conned the P into accepting her invitation to attend a
in
Keogh going-away party at Blair House tonight. The P spent several hours
after that, agonizing over it, and was very distressed that he had to go, but
couldn't figure out how to get out of it.
We had a flap with Teddy Kennedy, who is trying to capitalize on the decision
of the Spanish government to commute the death sentences of some Basques.
Teddy is going to put out the fact that he had wired the Spanish government
before the decision and was wiring them his approval after the decision.
The P spent most of the afternoon over at the EOB. He told Ziegler not
was working they might as well too.
to let the press leave because as long as he
So Ron didn't put a lid on and some of the press had to stay around. At 6:00
the P called Ron and told him to bring whatever press was left, there were only
about six, over to the EOB for a drink. This apparently worked out pretty well.
The P gave them about a 40-minute Q & A session standing up. It was kind
—
of funny when they walked in Frank Cormier, Helen Thomas, and Herb
—
Kaplow were the only reporters plus a couple of photographers and a radio
technician. Helen Thomas, while the P was mixing the martinis in his little bar,
said, "Now I know why you spend so much time at the EOB Office." The P
apparently did make a number of pretty good points to these people. Ziegler
was particularly amused by his statement that I and the other key members of
228 H.R. HALDEMAN
the staff had the highest IQs of any White House staff people at least since
Roosevelt, and that as a group, E, Shultz, Weinberger, and I were the most
White House staff in

brilliant history, intellectually. Ron, for some reason,
thought that was very funny.
The P called me later at home wanting to be sure that Ziegler was getting
across the importance of this littlemeeting with the press, the fact that he just
called them over and handled it on an informal basis and the subtlety of this
as a special event. Ron's working to peddle that and we'll see what we can get
going.
1971
The P went to Camp David and E and I also came up, bringing our whole
families. The P was very upset by a report in the sports section today that the
Stanford football team was running around their hotel in sandals and shorts
and that their quarterback had enjoyed posing for pictures with the topless
dancers from San Francisco. The story was trying to make them out as being
good guys because of this, and sneering at Ohio State as squares because they
were wearing neckties and blazers. The P said for the first time he was going
to root for the Midwest team in the Rose Bowl.
He was concerned about some press stories that hit us for not inviting
Muskie to the Clean-Air-Bill signing yesterday and wants Ziegler to really use
this as a case in point to hit back on this being a bum rap for us, and then shift
to the point that the P has been the most gracious, nonpolitical P in history in
terms of his treatment of his present, future, and past opponents. Actually, this
is true in that Truman never had Hoover at the White House, Eisenhower
never had Truman, Johnson and Kennedy never had Nixon, whereas Nixon
has had Humphrey, Johnson, Muskie, Teddy Kennedy, and everybody to the
White House on various occasions. Then we get one little incident like this and
we're stabbed unfairly.

At Camp David. The P had me over to Aspen at 2:45. I was there for three
hours for just a general discussion in his study. He spent all the time inside. He
hasn't been out in the snow at all, although it is beautiful here. He's obviously
been doing a lot of reading, but also some general homework. He wanted to
be very sure we got the statistics on Presidential activity really worked up well
and out to Congressional leaders and our own people so as to keep that story
229
230 H.R. HALDEMAN
going. He thinks Ziegler ought do a once-a-month recap on a slow news day

to
to build up a cumulative effect and eventually get through on this point, and
also the graciousness to our enemies story.
We discussed the general PR question. He's concerned about the memos
we're getting out and also the danger that in getting all those memos in to him
he will overreact and change himself as Johnson did. Also, by writing
try to
the memos there's a tendency on the part of the staff to shift responsibility to
what the P should do, rather than what the staff should or is doing. He made
one interesting point, which is the need to really get to work on our foreign
policy PR because this is our strongest point, and, especially since the death
of de Gaulle, we have a real opportunity to build the P as the world leader.
Muskie and all the rest of them will try to move in on this field, but we must
continue to dominate.

Still at Camp David. He had a long talk with K apparently, who is very
worried about Tony Lake and his defection. The P had to give Henry a big
pitch trying to make the point that these people are just seeking power and that
there'sno reason to be disturbed about that kind of thing, it's too late to worry
about it after it's happened. He pushed the line that brave men die only once,
but cowards die a thousand times, and made the point that we have to keep
our people from consulting their peers and that we can't keep worrying about
things after they've happened. He does want me to talk to Haig about the
necessity of keeping their people cranked up, that they can't just run a tough
show in their staff, they have to give them some inspiration and uplift also.
Along that line he wants me to do the same thing in every morning staff
meeting because he's concerned that even though we don't feel there's any staff
morale problem, there is to some degree always that danger, and especially
among the people that travel in the Washington social set, etc. He made the
point that very few personalities are as immune, tough, and thick as he and I
are to criticism and attacks. Most people don't respond in a vigorous upbeat
way to these things as we do, so I have to keep working, he feels, with the other
staff.

He got into a discussion of his concern about the Tony Lake situation. Henry
told the P that Lake didn't leave because of Cambodia but because of disagree-
ment on domestic policies. He's afraid that Lake could expose the whole Paris
thing and would destroy the Administration internally because if this came
out, Rogers would quite likely feel that he had to resign in protest to the P for
having this kind of thing conducted without Rogers' knowledge. He also had
a few things for California scheduling thoughts and the plan for tomorrow
before we leave.

Day of Cabinet meeting. Our first with the new plan of having biweekly
meetings at 8:00 AM lasting for just an hour. The P carried this one for an hour
and a half because he's just not able to convince himself you can hold the thing
to an hour and keep everybody happy. He told the Cabinet he's going to make
a new troop announcement on April 15, and then launched into some views
on the economy. He made the point that his kids had not been totally im-
pressed with the TV (a "TV conversation" with network newsmen he had done
the night before) and that they prefer the press conference, but Eddie Cox had
called Tricia— the P identified him as a Harvard Law type —
and said I doubt
if those Harvard Law types understood any more of what I was saying about
the economy last night than I did. Then he referred to Wilson as the most
intellectual of all P's and said, of course, that was because of his education, or
perhaps in spite of it. Then he said what Lincoln might have been if he'd gone
to school, it probably would have ruined him.
He then led them into quite a discussion of the economy, which lasted
about an hour. He hit the theory that there is no formula for low unemploy-
ment without war, and said that this is the one thing we are going to accom-
plish, and it will be a marvelous achievement. He raised the point of the
possibility of further changes in the Cabinet, and said there would be no more
at the P's request, that this is the team that we have here now, unless any of
you decide you want to leave.
Elliot Richardson got into a discussion of how we can better influence
commentators and opinion leaders to give them a better feel for the depth and
range of the P's knowledge and understanding, for example, of economics. He
was making the point that the people would be greatly enlightened if they
could see the P in action, the way the Cabinet just had this morning.
After the Cabinet meeting the President had a series of appointments that
kept him busy through the rest of the morning. We left about 12:20 for the
airport and on to San Clemente.

The P is still in San Clemente and I'm still in Palm Springs. Mitchell told the
P that I'm the only one in the White House he will deal with. The P's concerned
that we've got to broaden Mitchell's viewpoint, although he agrees that we've
got to put Mitchell in complete charge of political operations. But he thinks
John tends to be too exclusive in some of his decisions and that we need to
work on that while still giving him whole authority.
As a result of some of the reports in the paper on the Reagan inaugural,
etc., the P concluded that Reagan's going to have a tough year ahead of him.
He thinks he's going to have trouble as he moves into trying to solve the
revenue and welfare problems, especially since he doesn't have the student
issue as an overriding distracting factor.
232 H.R. HALDEMAN
The P's still at San Clemente. He apparently had a discussion today with
Ziegler and E regarding the question of taking time off and vacations. Ziegler
made the point that he's now well positioned to take time off because of the
doctor's instructions and the feeling that people think he should be off more.
He seems to buy this concept and may be willing to take a little more time than
he has in the last couple of months.
He also raised the K problem again. Apparently Henry had talked with
E this morning about the question of whether he should go back to Harvard
or not, and all of his problems with Rogers. E, I guess, took it upon himself
to fill the P in on all of this. The P makes the point that Henry craves the ego
satisfaction of raising these questions and having people reassure him that he's
in good shape and all. He also makes the point that he'd be a damn fool not
to stay on.

San Clemente. I'm still at Palm Springs. It was his birthday. I called in the
morning to wish him a happy birthday. He got talked into a walk on the beach
for a birthday picture by Ziegler, and it didn't come out too well, but didn't
do any great harm, I guess. (It was a stiff picture of the P walking on the beach
in a windbreaker, shorts —
and black wingtip shoes.) We don't seem to be able
to set up a system where we leave him alone as we've tried to do here.

San Clemente. I called Connally to follow up on his conversation with the P
regarding Presidential PR, and he basically recapped the same things he had
told the P, and that the P had passed on to me already. He did make the point
that he had met last week with a small group of the top bankers in New York,
and had taken the opportunity to devote 1 5 minutes of his conversation with
them to just talking about the P and what kind of a man he is. In doing so he
made the points that the P has the best concept of his problems than any man
Connally knows, that he is isolated to a certain extent, as any P has to be, that
he has allocated his time better than any man he has ever seen, that he has an
extremely competent staff and delegates, more than any other P, and it's the
only way a P can operate effectively; he is highly disciplined mentally and
physically, knows his people, their strengths and weaknesses, and his adversar-
ies and their strengths and weaknesses, both foreign and domestic, that he's
ruthless enough to be a great P.

He also made a fascinating political point, which is that there's nothing
wrong with having certain elements against us. He made this in the context of
the press conference and its adversary nature, which he thinks is good. His
point is that the basic political rule is to pick your enemies carefully and then
hang on to them, but be sure they're always the same ones. This is something
we haven't consciously or adequately done.

San Clemente. The big problem of the day arose between Dole and (RNC
Co-chairman) Tom Evans, with Mitchell in the middle of it, and also Rog
Morton. Dole decided he was going to make a power play to see how far he
could get in establishing total control of the (Republican National) Commit-
tee, vs. our plan to have Evans exercise a major force there. The main flap
apparently had arisen because Dole was late for an appointment in his office
with Evans, and so Evans left, and this got Dole into a huff. In any event, the
thing raged on through the night. Mitchell finally had Rog Morton get Dole
simmered down and they put the thing together, but not until Mitchell made
the point to Dole that if he didn't want to take the Chairmanship, that was
fine. We'd put John Andrews in, and let it go that way.
From San Clemente to Lincoln, Nebraska, for an address at the University,

and then on to DC. The P did a very good job at the University with a serious,
uplifting speech preceded by his football presentation, which went over very
well. He got a good reception by the students. There was a group that at-
tempted a "Peace Now" shoutdown at the very beginning, but they in turn
were shouted down by the rest of the audience, and they never let out another
peep after that.
He me after getting home to explore whether the speech today in
called
Nebraska was too soft-line on the students. Apparently, Henry had told him
that he had been too apologetic and backed down too much. I don't think
that's the case, but there obviously is a fine line to be drawn in this regard.
Back in DC. The P was very concerned early this morning about the Nebraska
coverage, primarily because theNew York Times story, by Semple, implied we
had conceded we were wrong in earlier comments regarding students, etc. The
P wanted to be sure that Ziegler and everyone else understood the basic rule
that you don't capture people by surrendering to them. They capture you. It's
extremely important that the leader never be in the position to allow the
impression that he was wrong. He was quite concerned about this, but all of
us, in reviewing the piece, agreed that it had really come out quite well and it
didn't have the problem.

The big deal of the day today didn't involve the P, but rather K, who got
into his usual tirade against State and Defense meeting this morn-
at the staff
ing, and I hit back at him on the point that he had created some problems
234 H.R. HALDEMAN
himself by the failure to notify Rogers of his last meeting with Dobrynin. That
upset him. He packed up his papers and left the meeting. He came back about
ten minutes later and asked Klein to leave so that he could talk to the four of
us: Rumsfeld, Shultz, E, and me. He then said that he had to make his decision
about going back to Harvard in the next day or so, and that if this wasn't
straightened out, he was going to go back and not stay here. He was more
uptight than he usually is on the subject, and this was the first time he had
raised it with the group, although he's been discussing his problems with E
during this past week in California, while I was away, and has John quite
disturbed, although it's basically the same routine over again. As a result, John
and I met with him briefly a little later in the morning and agreed that
something had to be done in the way of a showdown with the P on the whole
subject, but that it should not be done until after the State of the Union speech.
This successfully stalls Henry past the time of his return to Harvard, which I
don't think he has any intention of doing. The P has gone to Camp David for
the weekend. I'm staying home.

The P had some ideas regarding the Buchanan memo on the fact thatwe
basically had sold out all of our Republican conservative policies in our "move
to the left."I think the point is getting through to the P that our movement
is somewhat to the left and he doesn't want to get too far off of his natural
base. The Buchanan theory of course is to go all conservative, which would be
equally bad, but we do seem to be moving too far leftward at this point.
Also he has come back into the whole PR area in making the point that
nobody's doing an adequate job of selling the story of the man. I'm working
up my basic memorandum on this and he wants me to review it with Connally
before I send it to the P. He wants a lot more push on this area. He did make
the point that we can't worry about the columnists as they take us on, because
they're always going to be attacking; and he commented that he could sit on
the Statue of Liberty holding an open door and they wouldn't write anything
good. He made the point to me that I'm going to have to get my desk cleared
because I'm going to have to handle all the political stuff for the White House
and also should ride herd on the PR side, so he doesn't want me involved in
the administrative stuff, which fits what I've been talking about
exactly with
with Butterfield et al. We're going to make some changes there, and I think it
all will work out pretty well.

The P had a full morning of meetings, the principal one of which was a session
with Rogers, Laird, K, Helms, and Moorer to discuss Laird's trip and the
results therefrom. This principally concerned the level of troop withdrawals
and the timing for same, and the plan for some new attacks in Laos and
Cambodia. (It was at this meeting that he authorized the Laos operation.)
During the discussion with Henry and me he talked about his troop
withdrawal plan and the point that Thieu had strongly urged that we not
reduce the level below 200,000 prior to his (Thieu 's) election in October or
November. We would be down to 280,000 in April, so that permits us to
withdraw only about 75,000, or 12,000 a month for the next six months after
that. We could then, of course, announce the massive withdrawal right after
the Vietnamese elections, and this is the P's present plan. All this also relates
to the question of a trip to Vietnam, which I think he's still planning on doing
in April, and he'll probably make the new announcement at that time and also
use that as a means of bolstering the Thieu government and our confidence in
them.
The other big flap today was the problem of an article in The New York
Times regarding the decline of the State Department, which understandably
had Rogers quite upset, and he succeeded in getting the P into the same frame
of mind. The P's reaction was to put out a statement from him blasting the
article,but a careful reading of it convinced me that it's got enough basis in
fact and accuracy that it wouldn't be a good thing to do. He did have me call
Rogers a couple of times to tell him that we were moving on it, trying to find
out who had done it, planning a statement by Ziegler to shoot it down, etc.
In discussing this, I talked to Safire, who makes the very valid point that
this whole situation is really the result of a backfire of the State Department's
PR effort at the middle level, where they've been strongly selling the line that
K has taken over the development of foreign policy. They've been doing this
as a way to try and stab K, but as Safire had apparently predicted earlier,
instead it's backfired and this one writer at least, with the Times, has picked
up their line on a straight basis and is throwing it back at them. Safire's
convinced they've been on a real campaign to chop K in the NSC and that's
what really led to this. It'd be hard to convince the P and Rogers of this point,
but I'm sure Safire is right.

Cabinet meeting this for three hours to cover the State of the Union
morning
presentation. E and crew ran the show and did an excellent job of present-
his
ing our general budget plans and then reviewing the main new programs in
revenue sharing, executive reorganization, health, and environment. In the
middle of the Health presentation, P made the point that we should not
provide full free health care because most of the time, when someone's got a
pain, he'd be a hell of a lot better off not to go to the doctor, it'd just make
it worse.
This afternoon Ziegler was in to get some guidelines on how to handle
Cambodia. We're being accused in the press of a credibility problem again
236 H.R. HALDEMAN
because we have stepped up air activity and they're trying to pretend that this
is a change in policy. The P told Ron to hit the credibility question directly and
to hit it hard. We've already clearly pointed out there would be no American
ground action and no American advisors in Cambodia. We said we would
assist Cambodia, and this was okayed by Congress with dollars and logistic
assistance. We also said we would continue air activities, where necessary, for
the purpose of inhibiting the enemy from reestablishing their sanctuaries. That
was presented to Congress and was written into the legislation. The P wanted
to be sure Ron hit this hard.
A little later, K was in and there was quite a discussion of (Senator)
Muskie and the (Europe) trip. The P obviously is not pleased
results of his
with the reception Muskie was given by the Soviets and by Willy Brandt. He
wants to have Muskie hit on the total irresponsibility of his statement, or his
proposed statement, standstill in the disarmament talks. He should be hit on
his amazing ignorance; say it's unprecedented for a senator to do this. He
made the point that we've got to recognize that the Soviets will play a role in
United States politics. They definitely want to get Nixon out, and will do what
they can to see that it happens. K argues that they have to balance this against
their fear that Nixon may win and they'll have to live with him another four
years. The P says, "I'm willing to try the negotiations," and so on.
The P had a dinner in his honor given by the Cabinet at Blair House
tonight, as they did last year on the anniversary.

The second anniversary of To mark the occasion we had a
the Inaugural.
meeting of about 60 top White House and OMB. E opened it with
staff people.
a general overview briefing of the State of the Union. The P came in at 9:30.
We let the press in to cover his opening remarks, then tossed the press out and
he talked for about an hour more. A very inspiring message to the troops. He
kidded them along some, but also took them to the mountaintop on the
tremendous importance of the first change of direction of government in the
190 years of the country's history.
He spent the day at the EOB working on the speech, alone most of the
time.He had me over for one spell between drafts, primarily to get into some
PR items. He particularly wanted some very strong reaction to the Life and
Newsweek blasts this week. He wanted us to get across somewhere the story
that Life had offered Tricia a cover picture and story with the understanding
that she could have editorial control as they gave to the Kennedys, and so
forth. Tricia refused, saying that she didn't like Life and the way that they
handled things, and therefore would not want to be a part of such a thing.
We had a long meeting this afternoon with E, Shultz, Mitchell, and K at
Henry's request to discuss in detail his problems with the State Department.
He walked into the meeting with huge thick folders for each of us with all kinds
of papers documenting his case on the terrible things State has been doing in
the public press, and how they've been undercutting him in internal opera-
tions, and how they've disobeyed Presidential orders, cable traffic and all sorts
of stuff. He did an extremely good job, for a change, of presenting his case
quite unemotionally and very rationally. This made it far more effective than
it usually is when he gets going. He really wrapped it up by saying he wasn't
going to discuss it with the P, but was hoping we would find a way to approach
it, and that the problem had to be resolved. He would not continue this
method of operation. If it couldn't be resolved, he would leave; if it could be,

he'd be perfectly willing to work within a new approach as long as NSC has
complete control and Rogers is, as he puts it, "brought to heel."
I also had a meeting this morning with Mitchell regarding the whole
political structure. He claims the P has never asked him to take on the assign-
ment of running the campaign, so I confirmed that was, indeed, the P's
intention and John agreed that he would do it. He then discussed his plans on
retiring from Justice and felt that he would have to do so later this year. He
could not continue as Attorney General and still run the campaign, but that
didn't seem to bother him. He's ready to resign when it's necessary and says
there's no problem because he can go on back to the law firm after the election
and would be happy to do so.
The P spent EOB, working on the speech. He reacted at

the whole day at the
first news of Teddy Kennedy's defeat as majority whip in
quite indifferently to
the Senate, and said he didn't think it would have the significance that the
commentators would probably try to give it. He made the point that you don't
kill a man who's been built up the way Teddy has, by a defeat, any more than
you killed Nixon by his defeat in California. He thinks it will provide a

momentary setback, but that Teddy will move ahead in spite of it, with
considerable strength.
Henry came in this morning to say he had discovered that Rogers and
Laird had met secretly with Alexis Johnson yesterday and had decided to send
a cable to our Ambassador as an attempt to try to turn off the planned Laotian
operations. Alex Johnson felt so guilty about it, he ended up calling Henry and
telling him, and we put out an all-points bulletin to make sure that the cable
didn't get to the P, since Rogers had said that he was not going to send the
cable in through the system, but would get it cleared directly with the P. We
had everything covered, but in spite of that the P got the cable. We later found
out Rose Woods had taken it to him because Rogers' secretary had called her
and said that they were sending this over in a sealed envelope marked "Eyes
Only" and it was to be delivered directly to the P, not through any individual
or department. As soon as the P opened it, he reacted exactly as he should
have, and called Henry over, said the P would not approve this, and that it was
up to Henry to handle it through his system. Henry took the matter to the
WSAG ( Washington Special Action Group) meeting and brought it up there.
238 H.R. HALDEMAN
State of the Union Day. The big flap in the morning arose when he read the
morning papers and called to say, "What in the name of good God hell is going
on!" because the Times and Post had both leaked all the details of the reorgani-
zation plan, which was the one really well-kept secret. The P's reaction was to
decide we wouldn't give the text of the speech to the press prior to delivery. He
of course backed off of it and agreed to let it out, but was very concerned about
tracking down the source of the leak. He also made the point that he'd come
to the tough conclusion that it's not worth telling people anymore what we're
doing, especially the Cabinet, and so on; that from now on we should just wait
until the day of the event so that we don't run the risk of leaks of this sort.
He called several times during the day regarding television plans for the
State of the Union, and he had decided not to use makeup, etc., but backed
off under Carruthers' strong recommendation that he has to use makeup
because the lighting in there makes it even more necessary than their normal
circumstances. Then he got up to the house and discovered Carruthers had
picked narrow ties and a blue shirt. He felt he should wear a white shirt and
wide ties. Again, he backed off and wore both the ties and shirt that Carruthers
wanted him to. Net result was an excellent picture on TV. Reaction to the
speech afterward was extremely good.
The other big problem of the day was Senator Cooper and others in the
Congress who are starting to criticize the Cambodian buildup, and the P
wanted me to have Rogers get to Cooper right away and convince him that this
whole thing does not involve ground troops or advisors, or anything of that
sort, and that it was being done only because it was necessary to interdict the
enormous buildup of the sanctuaries. He felt Bill should warn Cooper that he's
on a bad wicket and should not push it too far. It turned out that when I called
Rogers he had already done exactly this with Cooper and he was delighted to
have caught us ahead of time.
The P got going under a pretty good head of steam today with a long meeting
with Reagan at the Governor's request, mainly so Reagan could assure him
that he would be heading a Nixon delegation to the convention and would not
in any way allow himself to become a candidate. They also discussed welfare
and the whole range of State of the Union items.

The start of Congressional follow-up week. A GOP Leadership Meeting first
thing in the morning, and then meetings in the afternoon with the Senate
bipartisan group and the House bipartisan group to start selling the program.
The P was not too pleased with the Leadership Meeting, first of all because
there was absolutely no enthusiasm. They were deadly, just sat around and
whined, as they usually do. No one had charged them up. He resents having
to go in and do the charging up himself, and says it's hard work, like pulling
teeth, which I'm sure it must be.

State visit with Juan Carlos and Sophia of Spain. After the first of this week's
four Congressional breakfasts. There is a State dinner tonight.
P had another one of those sessions with Moorer and K today, as a result
of which he wants a meeting with Laird, Rogers, and Moorer tomorrow.
Henry got me into the office, just as I was going home, to go over the general
plan of what they're really up to. They're planning a major assault in Laos
which, if and Henry fully believes it will be, would in effect end the
successful,
war because it would totally demolish the enemy's capability. The problem is
that it will be a very major attack, with our troops massed heavily on the
Laotian border, and the question is whether the heat generated in Congress
and across the country will be worth it. Henry's point is that our action in
Cambodia, etc., cleared things up so we've got no problem in '71, but could
have them in '72. This new action in Laos now would set us up so we wouldn't
have to worry about problems in '72, and that of course is the most important.
Henry does feel that there's one alternative, which is that we've discovered
the enemy has our plan and is starting to mass their troops to counteract. By
going ahead with our planning and letting them go ahead with their counter-
planning, we can draw them into a monumental trap and then move in and
bomb them, maybe with the same effect as going ahead with the plan. This of
course would be a much more salable alternative domestically. The problem
with either of these plans is that all of a sudden the Russians have come around
and Henry's had a very productive meeting with Dobrynin that's resulted in
their agreeing to move ahead on setting a Summit for midyear, plus a basic
SALT settlement and a couple of other items that we've been after them on.
The massive Laotian attack would probably abort the whole Soviet effort, and
the question is whether the Summit, etc., is worth more to us or whether
winding down the war is. This is the tough question that Henry's got to face
now, and he asked me to think about it tonight and talk to him about it some
more tomorrow.
The SALT talks had been bogged down for over a year, but now for the first
time the Soviets had indicated they might be willing to talk about both
defensive and we had been
offensive weapons, as suggesting, instead of just
defensive weapons. The Summit agreement was also a breakthrough.
240 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P extended the Congressional breakfast a little longer today. Each one
seems to be longer than the one before. We had a pretty light day for him
otherwise. The morning was basically clear, and he spent it just chatting in
general with me. He called Senator Stennis to thank him for his remarks
yesterday on Cambodia in defense of the Administration. Had quite a long
talk outlining his Cambodia position and making it clear that we absolutely
were committed to no ground troops but to full use of air as needed to knock
out the rebuilding of the sanctuaries and protect American lives.
In the late morning the P agreed group of twelve college student

to let a
editors come over. This was a group that was visiting the State Department for
the day under Mike Collins' Public Information Program. The P greeted them
in the Oval Office, then chatted with them a little there and had E give them
a quick rundown on the revenue sharing and other domestic program points
from the State of the Union. They were totally bored with that entire presenta-
tion and the P, unfortunately, gave them a chance to ask a question. The
bearded guy immediately jumped on Cambodia and the fact that we had
troops in there. First E stepped in and corrected the guy, who was using as his
"facts" the CBS presentation last night, which claimed that we had men
working on the ground in Cambodia. E jumped in and corrected the facts, then
the P moved in and made a very clear and complete statement of our position
on Cambodia. I don't think he convinced the students, but at least he covered
his point with them.
He spent most of the afternoon coming back to that session because it
clearly bothered him. I think that part of it may have been good because it will
make him think a little about the public information aspects of the actions
we're taking in Cambodia.
Along come up with a recommendation that we
similar lines, Mitchell has
should grand jury for further investigation at Kent State. Bob Taft is
call a
strongly opposed to this. The P wasn't quite sure what his view is but agreed
with me that we should just let it lie where it is, that opening it doesn't do us
any good. Also, J. Edgar Hoover has told him that the facts don't warrant a
grand jury. He wants E to try to work this out.
Buchanan, the VP, K, and I were called into the P's office after the few
morning schedule items he had, and before we departed for the Virgin Islands.
The P first had Henry review the plan for the Laotian move and get all the
things set on that. Henry's still not sure we're going ahead with that step, but
they're working on the plan for it in any event.
He then got into the purpose of the meeting with Buchanan et al., which
was that he feels the VP should go for a big play on live television to comment
on the recent press coverage of Southeast Asia. He feels he should speak more
in sorrow than in anger and should not be defensive about Cambodia. He

should work from Bill Rogers' testimony and make the points that the press
attacks are unfair, irrelevant, and inaccurate as well as conflicting, that we
would think that they were writing about the previous Administration. They
ignored the total difference between what we're doing and what LBJ was doing
in Vietnam. Make the point that we've kept every promise we've made and cite
the examples of the sanctuaries and no ground or air support in the sanctuar-
ies. Then make the point that troops are down, casualties are down, and this
can continue only if the Nixon Doctrine continues to be applied. Then make
the point that the press has a vested interest in seeing us fail because they
predicted that we'd fail. Everyone agreed that there is a need to soften the press
in advance of the stepped-up activity next week, which will drive them right up
the wall.
The only activity after we got into Virgin Islands was a call from Bu-
chanan, who's all distressed about the TV news tonight that reported the
appearance of a major buildup on the Laotian border of ARVN troops ready
for attack. Apparently this arose out of Rogers' news conference and some
observation of troop activity along the border. Pat felt we should rush to the
P with this, but of course we didn't. The P has gone for a swim and holed up
in his cottage here and appears to be very pleased with the setup so far.

In Washington. Day which he regards as total
started with Prayer Breakfast,
torture at best. This onewent pretty well except that the Chief Justice, who was
supposed to be the main speaker and go on for only ten minutes, took twenty-
five minutes to explain word-for-word and over and over the true meaning of
the 23rd Psalm.

The Cabinet met for a brief session. Rogers, just at the point of adjourn-
ment, jumped in hard on foreign policy, making some very good remarks on
attacking the point that some in Congress are trying to imply that we've
violated the spirit of the law in our Laotian buildup. Rogers made the point
that there no such thing as "spirit of the law," the question is the word of
is
the law. If the words are not clear, so that one cannot tell precisely what the
law means, then you look to the intent. In this case, Cooper-Church, the words
and the intent are clear. The prohibition on use of air power was specifically
removed from Cooper-Church before it was passed, and it is absolutely clear
that the intent of Congress, as well as the word of the law, the letter of the law,
is that there is no limitation on the use of air power. The P then hit the same
point, saying that we are candid, we are honest, and we are within the law.
The latter part of the afternoon was consumed with a long session with
the War Action group, getting final plans laid for the next move. He's pretty
well girded up for the effects of any major move. I actually don't think there
are going to be any great problems, because I think the thing has already been
discounted by the heavy press anticipation and the people are pretty well
242 H.R. HALDEMAN
prepared for whatever steps we do take. There certainly doesn't seem to be any
likelihood of a Cambodia-level reaction, although I guess anything can hap-
pen.

The P originally had an NSC meeting scheduled for this morning but canceled
it as a result of his long conversation last night withHenry after the "Evening
at the White House." Apparently Henry had become very concerned about the
TV news reports regarding the Laos buildup, and especially about Dan Rather
reporting that the P had met with the Action Group late yesterday afternoon,
and that they were trying to persuade him not to go ahead with plans for
action. On the basis of that, Henry felt that they probably should cancel the
plans and hold up on the Phase II operation.
The P put off a decision on it, though, until this morning and said that he
wanted the NSC meeting canceled and instead he wanted to meet with Mitch-
ell, Connally, and me to review the bidding. We had that meeting at about
9:30. The P first spent some time with Henry and then called me in before the
others arrived and reviewed the bidding on the situation to date and what he
considered the options to be. Henry's argument was that the bureaucracy was
so completely out of control that we wouldn't be able to hold them in line if
we went ahead, therefore we should do so. By this morning, however, both
Henry and the P had pretty much changed their minds and swung back to
feeling that we should go ahead with the operation on the basis that if the P
now allowed himself to be talked out of it, in effect by the press reports which
had been leaked from State and Defense, that he would lose any hope of
controlling the bureaucracy. My argument was that it had some validity, but
even more important was the fact that we needed the move in order to ensure
our continuing safe withdrawal, and also that I feel strongly that the proposed
negatives that the others offer are certainly not assured, and in my view not
even probable. That is, I don't think the reaction in Congress or on the
campuses, or in the press, or with the public is going to be nearly as strong or
adverse as we are assuming it might and Connally had pretty
be. Mitchell
much the same views.
The P had me back in and discussed some more concern on how to get
a hold of all this and also some concern on the PR side of it. He wanted me
to work closely with Henry on that.
Fortunately, because of the earlier developments, I guess, Henry asked me
to attend the WSAG meeting, and he also asked Ziegler to attend the first part
of it. I tried to leave when Ziegler did, after we had discussed the basic PR plan
for the Cambodian operation tonight, and for the removal of the embargo on
the Laotian press coverage tomorrow. Ziegler left at that time and so did I, but
Henry came up and called me back down to go over the whole scenario for the
Laotian operation Sunday night. I did so and participated in all of the PR
thinking. As a result of this, the P has concluded that this is probably the best
way to handle this thing from now on, that is, for me to sit in all critical
meetings and to force attention and consideration of Congressional and PR
factors when they're making the decisions, and force them not to let that kind
of decision be made by the generals and undersecretaries. I think this will
probably work pretty well, and it will of course be fascinating to do, as it was
to sit in the WSAGmeeting today and review the whole scenario for the
operation.
We had a rather interesting episode as the P's appointment with Dr.
Riland came due and he proceeded to take off his clothes and go into the outer
room and have us sit down and continue the discussion with him while Riland
wrenched his back and went through his manipulations. Following the Riland
treatment, and after he had left, the P sat in one of the chairs in his outer office
with just his shorts on and pursued the conversation a little further. Then
Henry and I left with the understanding that the plan was set and we would
go ahead.

A big day on the Laotian buildup. I sat in the WSAG meeting again today and
will plan on doing so regularly from now on. Unfortunately, on this
I blew it
one because Henry got into the question of whether Rogers should do an
appearance on Monday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I
argued that he should because it would give us our story on television Monday
night, after the Sunday-night move. Henry didn't want it done that way and
was furious at my stepping in, slammed his book shut, sat and stewed at the
head of the table for a few minutes, and then abruptly adjourned the meeting
for a five-minute recess and then started the 40 group. I talked to him after-
ward about the tactic there, and he realizes that his maneuver in closing down
the meeting really did more harm than my taking the position I did to begin
with.
Mitchell and had a two-hour session with the P on a number of items.
I
First we discussed the whole question of J. Edgar Hoover and whether he
should be continued. The decision was that Mitchell should go ahead with his
implementation of his internal security planning operations, which Hoover
opposes. This may bring about a confrontation. If it does, we'll see how we
handle it from there. The P made it clear that Hoover has got to be replaced
before the end of Nixon's first term because we can't run the risk of the
possibility of Nixon not being reelected and of someone else appointing
Hoover's successor. The problem is, we need to make this point to Hoover in
such a way as to get him to resign without any big problem.
There was some discussion of the Wallace question. It appears that Wal-
lace is interested in making a deal of some kind that will make it unnecessary
for him to run for P, which he apparently does not want to do. Mitchell seemed
to feel that we might still want Wallace in the race, but the P felt very strongly
that under any circumstances it would be better for us to have him out and that
244 H.R. HALDEMAN
we should try to work this out. We also got into the question of a possible deal
with Mayor Daley, who has indicated that he will not do anything to oppose
the P if Clem Stone agrees to stay out of the Governor's race in Illinois.
He had a talk with Bill Rogers regarding follow-up plans after the Sun-
day-night move, made a few agreements which will drive Henry up the wall,
but I think we can work them out.
Laos continues on a pretty even keel today. There were a few flurries here and
there, but the embargo's lifted and the news is out, and it doesn't seem to be
creating nearly the stir that people were afraid of. I think we'll come out
extremely well on it. Everything went very well at the WSAG meeting today.
The P was planning on going to Camp David tonight, but the icy rain made
the weather conditions bad, so he couldn't fly, and he decided he didn't want
to try to drive. He will probably go up tomorrow instead.

The P left Camp David this morning at 9:30. Henry and I flew down with him.
He was in pretty good spirits on the plane. He talked a little about the press
this morning, particularly the story regarding the Laos invasion, which was
completely wrong in that it said the decision had now been made not to go in,
and a big effort was made to point out that Nixon had gotten cold feet and the
planned move into Laos had been canceled. The P feels that this article, and
I'm sure that he's right, is just a forerunner of what they would have hit him
with if he actually hadn't gone ahead with the Laos move. He therefore feels
very good that he has gone ahead.

The day Laos move. Everything went OK last night, and this morning
after the
the follow-up into line just as it was supposed to. The P seemed in good
fell
shape as the reaction and plan generally fell together. He of course wanted to
push hard on getting our side of the reaction going.
The P is very anxious that we not let the Democratic candidates look good
on this issue. Muskie has moved out in opposition and he wants to be sure we
keep him out on that limb and push hard to make an asset out of this. He
wants to be sure we don't take a soft-handed defensive position. We should
whack the opponents on patriotism, saving American lives, etc., and really go
to work on it.
We got the dope on the volume of troops, food, and ammunition that's
moved on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The P wants to make a strong point of the
real significance of the trail so that we build up the significance of the Laotian
operation and he wants to really push the strong positive points. He also had
an idea of making a positive out of the antipress on the blackout or embargo,

by making a point that the alarm and confusion and uncertainty that the press
has been talking about was in the press, not in the people, and that obviously
we wouldn't telegraph our punches to the enemy, and thank God we finally
planted some alarm among them, etc. In other words, again taking the positive
approach.
Later in the day we got into a huge flap regarding briefings because K and
Rogers had agreed that there wouldn't be any briefings and then K let Colson
et al. set up a late-afternoon briefing session for him with about 15 top
conservative columnists. When he realized what he had done, he realized also

that he'd have to cancel it, so we ended up with a pretty awkward situation
which was unfortunate. But they did cancel the briefing and kept the commit-
ment to Rogers.
The P got into some discussion with me about the problems of Henry's
briefing tactics. He feels that he does too much of a good job of telling the
people what they want to know, rather than what we want them to know. Then
he also got into the point of the need for K to be more discreet regarding his
glamorous young women, especially in public and especially in Washington,
DC. He feels it's OK for Henry to be a swinger in New York, Florida, and
California, but he should not be in Washington, and he wants us at the White
House dinners not to put him next to the most glamorous gal anymore, but
rather put him near some intelligent and interesting woman instead.

Laos is still going well, and that's led him to think back on the whole Cam-
bodia question. He feels strongly that we've completely failed to get over the
success story. Use Laos now to establish the success of Cambodia and make
the public see it as such. NBC last night reported a poll they had taken that
showed that people don't feel that Cambodia was successful. He thinks we've
got to take the two key points: one, that casualties have been reduced 75
percent,and the other that withdrawals are not only insured but now can be
stepped up.He pointed out that Colonel Cook had told him when he came
back from Vietnam that everybody in Vietnam says Cambodia was the best
thing we've ever done.
Today was one of those days where things get screwed up. The prime
thing was a reception for the Freedom Foundation where we had full press
coverage including a whole battery of TV cameras, and the P was pretty
disturbed because he didn't have anything to say to them, and wasn't expecting
to have press coverage, although his briefing paper, of course, said that there
would be. He feels that we've got to avoid this in the future. This also arose
yesterday in a related problem where he had wanted to use a TelePrompTer
for recording the environment message and there wasn't a TelePrompTer set
up. Our staff didn't get it worked out right. Today a similar kind of flap,
regarding the Pollution-Control Council that meets tomorrow, in that he feels
246 H.R. HALDEMAN
the environment is not an issue that's worth a damn to us. He has a very
uneasy feeling about it because he thinks it works the wrong way for us, that
we're catering to the left in all of this and that we shouldn't be. They're the
ones that care about the environment, and that they're trying to use the
environmental issue as a means of destroying the system and we're playing
right into their hands.
He says that he and the family have agreed that Isabel Shelton and
Judith Martin (of The Washington Post) both must be banned from the
White House as accredited press people for social functions, and says that
it's ordered as of now and must be carried out and he'll firewhoever is
them in, if they ever get in again. This came out of
responsible for letting
The story that Judith Martin ran on Beverly Sills'
several flaps, apparently.
bra-strap breaking, plus the story that ran today downgrading Sevilla-
Sacassa as a result of the diplomatic reception last night caused the P to put
the pressure on Mrs. Nixon again to agree to keep the people out, which he
says she's now agreed to do.

The P had his first breakfast with the Democratic members of Congress this
morning. Apparently it went very well. He was particularly pleased with the
story he told them, saying that he had noted there had been some reports
regarding the political effect of the reforms he was proposing and he had
serious doubts as to whether this would be of any political benefit to him; he
said that English history showed (and he made the point that Fulbright could
correct him if he was wrong on this) that those responsible for reforms in
government are generally thrown out, and he cited the example of Disraeli as
reported in Blake's biography, where there was a big battle between Gladstone
and Disraeli and Disraeli took the reforms that Gladstone had proposed and
had been fighting for and he got them through. Among them was an extended
franchise, as a result of which there were a lot of new people able to vote. In
the next election they voted Disraeli out of office and Gladstone in. Everybody
laughed at that point. The P then pointed out that six years later the same
people voted Disraeli back in and the P said, "I assure you that I don't plan
to come back in six years to try again."
The big issue today was the Lockheed problem. Right after the break-
fast the P called Connally into his office and had E and me come in to talk
privately about how to handle the thing. The problem is that Lockheed is in
serious danger of going broke as a result of the collapse of Rolls-Royce, and
thus the nonavailability of engines for the Lockheed Air Bus. If Lockheed
folds, it's quite probable that both TWA and Eastern will, and also Collins
Radio, so the domino effect becomes horrendous. Pete Flanigan has been
working on this, but the P was determined, it was obvious in our brief meet-
ing, to put Connally in charge of it and have him handle this from here on
out.
He was pretty fully occupied this morning. He didn't come into the office
before going over to the State Department to sign the Seabeds Treaty. Then,
when he got back, he went full tilt through the Kennedy swearing-in in his
office, the Connally swearing-in in the East Room, and a number of other
meetings preparatory to departure for Key Biscay ne.
The problem arising this morning was in relation to the VP, who
principal
apparently called the P on the phone from California to object to the health
message as it's presently contemplated. The VP feels there's some serious
mistakes being made in this, and that adequate consideration hasn't been given
to them, and also that he was misrepresented in the option paper going to the
P. This of course created quite a flap, resulting in a session on the plane with
Weinberger and Shultz to discuss the whole thing. The P felt the paper proba-
bly hadn't been adequately staffed, but his principal concern was that the VP
would come to him on it, rather than working it out with the staff. He feels that
we've got to keep the VP out of substantive policy development, that we
cannot have him fighting the White House staff or the Cabinet, that he must
not get involved in policy because he tends to zero in on one feature and jump
on it rather than looking at the whole picture. He feels we need someone on
our staff who has the confidence of the VP who can hold his hand, and he's
decided Weinberger is the one who should do this.
At Key Biscayne. We had a discussion with Rogers and K on the whole

Laotian situation. Primarily on tactics, as to the need for putting all the
necessary effort in there. The P wants to be sure that we do everything that we
need to do, and that we pull no punches at all. He discussed the fact that it's
important for some civilian input into military planning and cited some of the
earlier instanceswhere he pushed the military to go further than they them-
selves had intended to go, and that it was beneficial and desirable that he had
done so. He's doing that again on this one, feeling that, for instance, we should
bomb the passes and perhaps some other things in order to make sure the
Laotian operation works out.
We also got into a fairly lengthy discussion of the press problem as a result
of an ABC film report last night purporting to show that there were American
ground troops operating in Laos. They apparently had gotten some film of an
American body being removed, which was wearing an ARVN uniform, and
they found that very sinister. Rogers made the point that the key here is what
appears on television, and that we've got to keep riding herd or we're going to
get clobbered. He is of course absolutely right. Henry, on the other hand, was
more concerned with the Reston column that complained that we weren't
permitting the press adequate access to cover the war. Rogers' point was, that
kind of complaint hurts us not at all, but the picture on television and the
248 H.R. HALDEMAN
commentary that goes with it hurts us enormously, and that's what we've got
to watch out for.

At Key Biscayne. This was by far the best day of the weekend, and, unfortu-
nately, as soon as I got out on the beach, the P called and had me come over,
and I was stuck inside the house for almost four hours going over his long list
of odds and ends. He was somewhat concerned by the new Harris poll, which
I reviewed with him, giving a comparison of Presidential personality standings
at present versus 1968. It showed he had declined in the rating of strength and
decisiveness, two basic characteristics he feels are most important for us to get
over. He's still high in both of these, but has gone down over the last three
years. This again indicates the job we've got to do in the personality side.

The P was holed up at the EOB all day, getting ready for his press conference,
and had hardly any interruptions. He did call once and was particularly
interested in talking about the results of a youth poll reported in the news
summary today. He is intrigued that it showed that youth want stronger
leadership, more close familyand they recognize the need for hard work
ties,
to achieve success. He problem for us in it, in that their most

feels there's a real
admired men are JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, with Nixon
coming in a poor fourth at 9 percent. He felt it was interesting that Teddy was
not in this list, however. He thinks this whole study shows that the youth are
a very vulnerable target for us, and that we ought to be concentrating on our
opportunities to reach them.
Henry was in, agonizing over his TV problem. It appears that Klein wants
somebody on for a special full hour of "Face the Nation" after the State of the
World next week, and Henry of course wants to go on himself but professes
to believe, as I do, that he can't. He's opposed to Laird and /or Rogers going
on because he's afraid they'll louse up his report and /or take credit for it.
Unfortunately there's no way of talking him out of this line of thinking, and
the net result probably will be that we won't have anybody go on. We'll try to
use the time for domestic policy.
He (the P) raised the point again of his concern about K's staff; the fact that
the news today reports that one more has turned left, this time Mort Halperin
going to the Common Cause staff. He wants me to work with Haig and make
sure that Henry examines his staff very closely and is really set to kick out any
potential traitors and not to let any others in.
This afternoon he did the Young Republicans' leadership conference

gathering and apparently got a spectacular reception, and again did an excel-
lent job, culminating in sitting at the piano and playing "God Bless America"
while they all sang.
No fixed schedule today, except a meeting with Colombo to bid him farewell,
which was first thing this morning. That led, of course, to the inevitable
objection to second day meetings with foreign visitors, and he had Henry in
this morning and outlined some rules as to who does and doesn't get in for this
kind of session from now on. Henry was delighted with the way the P had
handled the meeting this morning with Colombo, and told the P so.
The news flap today was on an Arthur Burns story in the paper this
morning, resulting from his testimony yesterday where he had said the prob-
lem wasn't one of money supply, but rather of confidence, thereby implying he,
as Chairman (of the Federal Reserve Board), didn't have confidence in the P's
policies. The P was really upset about this. Arthur was trying to call him
during the day, and the P said he would not take the call and, rather, had me
call Arthur and tell him of his distress and make the point strongly to Arthur
that he can't get away with this kind of thing. The P has the strong feeling that
we've got to really put the screws onto Arthur and that he is not showing the
proper gratitude or appreciation for the P's having put him where he is.
Another flap arose from the continuing effort of (antiwar Republican
Congressman Paul) McCloskey to discuss impeachment of the P. He's not
actually called for it, but he keeps talking about it. We're going to move now
to get a petition going in McCloskey's district demanding his resignation and
putting the heat on him since he's betrayed the trust of the Republicans who
elected him.
There was the usual relaxed Saturday morning with long chats with E on
some of the above and then with Colson on how his Project Muskie is coming
along and some ideas on ways to carry that further ahead; also on general PR
planning and thinking. The P left for Camp David to spend the night. He
called a couple of times after he got up there, mainly on details of the State of
the World.

I had a three-hour lunch with Rogers, ostensibly for the purpose of discussing
State Department personnel, which we did go into in considerable detail. It
was clear, however, that Rogers' principal concern was to try to work out the
Henry K problem, and he specifically asked for ways that he could direct
communications to the P directly, rather than via Henry. Basically he is
sincerely trying to do what he thinks is best for the P, and of course so is
250 H.R. HALDEMAN
Henry, but the two of them just stay on a collision course and somehow we've
got to figure out how to work it out. Henry caught me later and made it clear
that his dissatisfaction is again reaching a peak also, so we have a lot to do.
Henry was in this morning with great concern about the military situation in
Laos. He will not admit publicly that anything's wrong, but he wanted the P
to know that he was very much concerned that the military reports were not
giving us the straight poop.
P that he send General Haig out to check
In any event, he proposed to the
up on on the scene. He kept making the case over and over that
the whole thing
military history shows that the real problem in wars is that military command-
ers tend to become locked into and infatuated with their basic original plans,
and refuse to change them even when the situation so dictates, and that's one
of the major reasons for military defeats. He's afraid that it's possible, at least,
that this might be the case with Abrams at this point, and he at least wants to
check it out. The P's reaction was noncommittal and pensive while Henry was
in there. After Henry left, he talked about it some, and obviously was con-
cerned and felt there might be merit to it, although he deplored Henry's
constant repetition and citing of military history to try and prove his point.
The K-Rogers problem continues, and the P spent quite a little time
talking about it. He keeps asking me what plans I have for dealing with it, and
of course I don't have any. I think that we've got to push to some kind of
confrontation to try to make both men realize they're performing childishly,
and to the detriment of their country as well as themselves. But I'm not sure
we can make any progress by doing that.
The P wanted me to have a meeting with some of our key political and
right-wing types to try to develop a line and a plan of strategy for how to
handle the Democratic attacks on the war, which are now becoming strong
and very partisan. We've got an opportunity because the various Democrats
have taken different positions, Muskie calling for a pullout this year, the
Democratic Policy Committee calling for a pullout by 1973, Jackson taking a
hard line, Harriman not going quite as far out as Muskie. The P's point is that
we ought to be able to posture ourselves for maximum gain on this, and exploit
the differences within the Democratic Party. The question is whether we accept
or jump on the Democratic Committee's position or maybe divide and hit it
both ways. There's one huge flaw in it on the basis that they want to get
everything out, including the POW's, but they overlooked the problem of how
we get the POW's out, and there's obviously no way we can.
The K-Rogers thing goes on today, even though the State of the World is over
with, now because of the Middle East. Henry persists in rushing in to the P and
telling him we're about to get into a war in the Middle East. The P asks him
what he wants to do about it. He doesn't have any ideas, except that he wants
to take over. Says we need a scenario, etc. This stirred up quite a bit today;
Henry had several sessions with the P between his various public events, and
then the P saw Rogers later in the day, and then Rogers called to say he'd
received the message from the Israelis that he had been expecting. The P told
him to send it over, and then told me to have it routed through Henry, and to
tell Henry that's what we were doing. So I did.
Had two public events over at the Residence today: George Bush's swear-
ing-in this morning, which went rather routinely, and the Adams portrait
presentation this afternoon, in which the P did a superlative job of reciting
some obscure John Quincy Adams history and reading a poem written by
Adams while he was in the Congress. All this came out of Carl Sandburg's
Abraham Lincoln, which the P had been reading and found a couple of pages
on Adams, which gave him some material that none of the writers had come
up with, and that none of the other speakers on the program offered, so he did
very well on that one.
He got into considerable discussion on the general PR situation, questioning

whether any of what we've done in the domestic area has really done any good.
Also, he's starting to take the line again that things are pretty well set, so we
might as well quit trying.
He then gets immediately back to trying to figure out how to handle the
Laos ground action in Vietnam, taking on the networks, how to get more
going on the Hill regarding Vietnam, and a long discussion of timing of TV
press conferences, as to whether they should be every two weeks, every week,
or what. Ziegler was in for part of this discussion. He also made the point that
when Eisenhower left office there were no American ground forces or advisors
in Vietnam, and no Americans had been killed in Vietnam. Eight years later,
when Nixon came in, he found there had been two hundred thousand Ameri-
can casualties, for over forty thousand American dead. The Democratic ad-
ministrations of the sixties got us into the war. The Nixon Administration is
getting us out. If the Democrats want to fight the war issue on a partisan basis,
this is the way they're going to have to take it. He wants Dole to take this on
and for others to follow up, softening it, of course, by saying that we have a
strong level of minorities of Democrats who support the P in his efforts, and
and then cite them.
that they deserve great credit,
The P sudden ordered up a helicopter for Camp David and
at 3:00 all of a
said he wanted me to go along, so I had to rush out and take off with him.
The Connallys are up here for the weekend, so the P had them plus John
E, who came up for the dinner. It was Connally's birthday and we had a
birthday cake, very pleasant, light-hearted dinner chat. The P selected Around
the World in 80 Days as the movie because the Connallys hadn't seen it and
252 H.R. HALDEMAN
he was sure they would be delighted with it, which they basically were. He was
hysterical through it; was coming up, he'd say "You're going to
as each scene
love this particular part, or the scenery is just great, now watch this closely,"
and so on. He obviously has seen it time after time and knows the whole thing
practically by heart. He also got a big kick, as did Connally, out of identifying
the old stars as they appear in their bit parts.

After a late breakfast the P me
over to Aspen at 11:00 for about a
called
three-hour session. Connally, E, and had a meeting in Laurel for a couple of
I
hours after that, mainly discussing the whole PR question. Connally thinks
that we should portray the P as a student of the Presidency, that we should
recognize his weaknesses and let those be pointed out from time to time too,
but make the strong point that he understands the uses of power. That Laos,
and Cambodia, for example, are demonstrations of his perceptive use of
power, and that we should get other illustrations. Also, his recognition of
economic power, the mobilization of the government to use this power interna-
tionally. That he recognizes that the Marshall Plan concept is a thing of the
past, that the Nixon Doctrine is a policy of power, that what he's doing is
far-reaching in concept, that over a long-term basis he's laying a foundation.

Des Moines trip day. P didn't He went right from the
come to the office.
Residence to the helicopter. The Des Moines went well in general, espe-
trip
cially the appearance before the State Legislature, which was a very good
move, and the P did an excellent job. The only flaw was a fairly substantial
number of quite militant demonstrators at the Capitol, who then came over to
the hotel for the latter part of the day. They were chanting the usual obscenity
and some pretty bad signs, etc. They appeared to be pretty much college age.
They threw some rocks and other things before the P came out, but didn't
create anyproblem with him. It'll be interesting to see how the press plays it,
and I'm sure they'll give it a pretty fair buildup, but it was not really that
significant.
The other big news of the day was the bombing of some office areas in the
Senate side of the Capitol. There had been earlier threats from the Weather-
men, and they may very well have pulled this. The demonstrations in Iowa
were basically SDS, and all of it could very well be part of a general plan,
leading up to their April 24 demonstration and then their May Day plan to
close down Washington.
He was obviously pretty tired on the way home and still had the dinner
ahead of him, so tomorrow will be probably not too good a day. He's pushing
for loading things into the schedule tomorrow, which doesn't seem to me to
be a very productive idea since we're still shooting for the press conference on
Thursday night. We may have to shift that because of Israeli developments.

The P went through some various reactions to Des Moines yesterday. He had
read the news summary this morning, and of course all the reports were to the
effect that the reception had been chilly, and not as enthusiastic as we had
hoped. He made the point that we should be sure, for Rochester on Friday,
that we have a big crowd and a lot of enthusiasm.
He did want us to get more intelligence on how the students had organized
and how they had gotten there, trying to find out why our intelligence had not
told us about this ahead of time.
The big flap today was a speech Symington gave on the Senate floor,
about Henry K and executive privilege, blasting Henry for refusing to testify
and Rogers on the basis that he didn't amount
in the process really cutting
to anything and that all the power was in K, etc. Apparently there was also
a colloquy on the House floor that was equally tough on Rogers. Bill called
in regard to this, and felt we had to move on it quickly. The P talked to him
on the phone and then got Ziegler in and worked out a statement, (which)
Rogers actually watered down substantially from what the P was willing to
say.
Then, after the day's schedule, at about 5:00, E was still in the P's EOB
office,and the P called me over. The three of us had a long discussion about
the whole Rogers-K problem, trying to figure out whether there's any solution.
John feels that it's reached the point where it is actually insolvable, and that
one or the other has probably got to go. He feels that Henry's at a point
emotionally where, when one of these things hits, he's going to come charging
in and quit before he actually even realizes what he's doing, and that once he
does so, it will be too late, there won't be any more we can do about it. I
question whether this is likely to happen but I guess it might. The P made the
point several times that the price that he has to pay to K in terms of emotional
drain on himself is very great.

The big problemis still the K-Rogers situation. (P) repeats again his recogni-
tion that Henry is more valuable than Rogers, and as he evaluates Rogers, he
is being more realistic than he has been sometimes in the past, recognizing that
Bill doesn't have nearly the loyalty that Henry does. The P made the point, for
example, that if we got to the stage where somebody had to fall on a sword in
order to save the P, Henry would do it, but Rogers wouldn't. I made the point
that I agreed with that, but that if Henry did do it, he would do it with loud
kicking and screaming and make sure the blood spurted all over the place so
254 H.R. HALDEMAN
he got full credit for it, but he would go ahead and do

it, whereas Rogers would
find a way to avoidand get someone else stuck.

it
Henry says he called Rogers this morning and said that the two of them
should get together and make sure they have a unified front in the face of this
latest attack (by Senator Symington and the House the day before). Rogers told
him he just didn't have time to get together. Rogers told me basically the same
thing later today, and said he would get together with Henry, but didn't think
there was much point in it.

Press Conference day. The P spent EOB working on his
the whole day over at
briefing book, did call several times on the phone but I didn't see him at all
during the day. He decided, as usual, not to use makeup, and then backed out
under Carruthers' urging and agreed to go ahead and do it. He fully recognizes
the importance of covering Laos adequately tonight and talked about it con-
siderably during the day with an understanding that he's got to get the point
across of why we're there and what we're trying to do. As it turned out, he did
this beautifully in the press conference.
We got the results of our poll, which I gave him, showing his popularity
down to 48. This bothered him a little bit, but he felt it was good for us to get
this, because we wouldn't have learned how useless our domestic pro-
if not
grams are. He feels we need a much more skeptical attitude regarding the
importance of domestic programs, and that we must have the P seen on TV
more often in the things the people are interested in. He feels that we also have
to consider whether there's a possibility that maybe the people just don't like
our domestic programs, and look at the way Reagan romped on welfare as
being maybe a better way of going at this than we have.
He agreed to the cancellation of Rochester tomorrow after we got weather
reports indicating blizzard conditions and a very difficult situation trying to get
in there. That's a real break for us because there were threats of some major
demonstrations by both hard hats and students, and this was a good way to
get out of it.

No regular schedule today because of the plan for going to Rochester, which
was canceled yesterday. The P called a mini-NSC meeting this morning on
short notice, and that took up a good chunk of the morning. All in all it
worked out to a darn good day of activity and gave him a chance to get some
follow-up on last night. He was obviously very tired today. He apparently
didn't sleep very well last night.
He was particularly charged up about a reaction to CBS's counterattack
on war coverage. We should now pick an enemy and go with him, and that the
networks should be it. He thinks we've got a lot to gain from doing this at this
point, particularly on Cambodia and Laos coverage.

The day of our big Senior Staff Dinner with John Connally. The P started out
by calling me in first thing this morning, so I missed the (An)
staff meeting.
interesting item of the day was the plan for the meeting with the ladies of the
press on Mrs. Nixon and women's roles generally.
K came in late this afternoon following up on an earlier visit by Haig
regarding the problem of the State Department meeting on the Middle
East. The question now is what to do about Rogers' attempt to get around
the NSC system. Originally Rogers had scheduled the meeting for today in
preparation for the NSC on Wednesday. Today's meeting was to discuss
one segment of the situation regarding the Suez Canal (which was still
closed). Then today he canceled that meeting, which Henry was not going
to attend, but was going to send Haig instead. Rogers set another meeting
formally for tomorrow to discuss the entire Middle East (peace) settlement
situation, prior to the NSC meeting on Wednesday with the P. Henry feels
that he can't possibly attend such a meeting because if he ends up in agree-
ment with Rogers' position, then he and Rogers will confront the P with a
lack of options. Henry's standard rule always is not to take a position and
to force all the options out before making a recommendation. This maneu-
ver of Rogers' makes that impossible. Henry's view, in light of that, is that
he has no option but to confirm to the P that he's going to leave in Decem-
ber. The P can then back him all the way, knowing in his own mind, al-
though it would not be publicly known, that the thing will come to an end
at a time certain. I don't exactly understand Henry's reasoning on this, but

that's the point he takes.

The was K's decision to finally confront the P with his plan
big thing of the day
for resignation, which he actually did. The P told him, according to Henry,
that he would not discuss the matter at all with him at this time, there were too
many important things involved and we just couldn't even consider it, that we
have to get to it later on. In the late afternoon, P had E stay after a meeting
with Shultz and then called me in. After some hemming and hawing about
other things, told us about Henry's situation, and we had quite a long talk,
making all of us late to dinner. The upshot of which is that we didn't really
come to a conclusion on how to handle it, but all of us feel that Henry's taking
this action may purge him of his internal problems and make it easier to deal
with him and the whole thing.
256 H.R. HALDEMAN

The main feature of the day was the law speech to the American Judicial
Council in Williamsburg. We choppered down and back. The trip went pretty
well,no major problems, a few demonstrators, but we had enough of a crowd
of our own people that they didn't get any play.
K was in for a session this afternoon also after we returned. He got
into some detail on Laos, where he's concerned that the Vietnamese now
have decided to pull out as quickly as they can because they're afraid that
the North Vietnamese are massing for a big attack and that their guys are
going to get trapped and slaughtered. Henry is most anxious that if there's
any way we can hang in for another three weeks or so, that we do so, be-
cause they can inflict so much more damage and buy so much more time
for us down the road. The problem, of course, is that if it's a real disaster,
it'll hurt Thieu politically, and we can't afford to let that happen either.
They're sending Haig over on Sunday to check the whole thing out, and
hopefully to get the South Vietnamese to hang in for three to four weeks. If
they do, we can then time the removal of ARVN from Laos to the P's
April troop-withdrawal statement and make it all into one big "ending-the-
war" type deal. They also got into the Middle East on Henry's concern that
we should not try to go for a comprehensive solution. We rather should
work on it bit by bit.
He thinks that we can get more done that way and that it can be more
effective in dealing with the Russians. His point, however, is that it's got to be
worked out on the basis of trust with Israel, and that the Israelis don't trust
anybody except the P. Therefore the P will have to meet with Rabin and work
it out, and then send a letter to Mrs. Meir.
Henry and the P then got into another chapter in their running discus-
sion of WW
II German generals. The P has read one of Churchill's histo-
ries of the war recently and has become a great expert on the relative merits
of the various German generals, a subject which, of course, Henry dearly

loves to discuss.
The other major item today was Lockheed's problems. The P had a
meeting with Connally and has agreed with his recommendation to go
ahead and try to save Lockheed. We're giving up on Rolls-Royce and let-
ting them collapse; we'll have to do it all here in the United States. So the P
agreed that Connally should remain in charge of this, that Flanigan should
be the White House man on it, and of course Packard at Defense. He made
the point that we've got to pump in whatever money is necessary to save
Lockheed, and that we can justify it on the use of Federal money because if
Lockheed collapsed, we'd have as much of a loss in tax revenue as the cost
would be to us of propping Lockheed up at this point. This will be a tick-
lish maneuver and it will be interesting to see how Connally does in run-
ning it.

David's commencement exercises from OCS (Officers' Candidate School) at
Newport. We flew up in the morning with the family. The P delivered the
address, which was extremely good. The only fly in the ointment up there was
a gathering of some eight or nine hundred hard hats and Catholics who were
combined in some sort of protest. The P wasn't even aware of it, but it got
thoroughly covered, of course, on the TV news.
After we got to Florida, he called a couple of times, got very upset because
unfortunately he saw the CBS news coverage of the Newport affair and didn't
like it very well, so he wanted a lot of action taken; he wanted me to call
Colson, Magruder, etc., which I did, but it was a good thing because he called
later to check up on them.

Pretty full dayfrom a schedule viewpoint, with the Irish Prime Minister arrival
and meeting morning plus a number of other miscellaneous appointments,
this
Cabinet meeting this afternoon, and some other odds and ends. The P
managed to stay pretty heavily involved. I sent in to the P a letter from
Moynihan that got him fairly disturbed because it made the point that busi-
nessmen are very upset with the Administration and its policy of repression.
That they're getting this feeling from their children, and that we don't ade-
quately have a program for active defense on the part of businessmen who are
with the Administration. He was obviously quite startled by the news of Tom
Dewey's death and is planning to go to the funeral if we can work it out
Saturday or late Friday. He feels that it's important for him to go, especially
since he's doing the Whitney Young funeral tomorrow.

Whitney Young's funeral. We left fairly early. The plane loaded with black
leaders and a few top staff people. The P did a superb job in his ad lib eulogy.
He spent a good bit of time this afternoon on the phone talking to
various people. In talking to Safire, he became very disturbed because Bill
was making the point that the P is seeing a lot more people and talking a lot
more openly now as part of a PR plan to improve his image. He, of course,
is very distressed that anybody would suggest this, and particularly dis-
tressed that Safire would think it was a good idea to push this kind of a line.
He's terribly anxious that we not let out the idea that we're changing our PR
approach, adding a lot of interviews and that sort of thing, to try and hustle
things. He feels Safire needs the facts so that he isn't in the danger of build-
ing stories on a myth. Actually, Bill agrees and recognizes that we have
stepped up our activity, the press knows we have, and they're going to write
258 H.R. HALDEMAN
that we have. So we should try to turn that around to a plus rather than
pretending that it doesn't exist.
The fascinating point that the P raised was the observation of the enor-
mous uplifting effect of the Clay-Frazier fight. It had the chemistry and drama
that really lifted public spirits. The P feels that people need to be caught up in
a great event and taken out of their humdrum existence.
engagement announcement
Tricia's and the rest of the party last night
apparently went very well. Got extremely good press today, and ought to carry
us with the excitement of it and so forth through the summer period. In fact,
this may be one of the event-type things that the P's talking about, if we can
take advantage of it properly.
After considerable discussion and weighing of other alternatives, the P decided

to drop an in-office press conference tomorrow. He felt it would
his plan for
undercut the Howard K. Smith interview Monday night, and makes the point
that even a one-network TV deal is worth a hundred times the writing press
all put together.
Henry was in for a while and reported that he had received a long
proposal from Dobrynin today on the proposed Berlin settlement, which is
still not in form to be satisfactory to us, but it's getting much closer appar-
ently, and Henry thinks maybe there's something workable that can be de-
veloped from it.
Negotiations had been going on for a year with the Soviets about ways to
ease transit between East and West Berlin, and otherwise defuse the ten-
sions of the divided city.
The full House voted on SST today and defeated it, which is something
of a blow, but there's still a chance of saving it in the Senate, where it will
now go.
The P wanted the U.S. to build a Supersonic Transport plane, like the
Concorde, but Federal funds were required and there was Congressional
opposition.
The P's at Camp David. He was very much interested in the report on the
reaction to the VP's dinner last night with John Connally and the Cabinet.
Don said that it had gone very well. It was a relaxed, friendly kind of meeting,
with a knitted feeling that the Cabinet was much groupier than they have been
before, and it was a very different kind of meeting from those they've had in
the past. He said it started a little as a bitching session but shifted to the
positive, and compared to previous gatherings, was definitely the best.
The introduction was very skillfully done by the VP, as he led into
Connally's remarks. They got into quite a discussion of the election.
The P also raised the question of the need to really ride herd on the plans
for Tricia's wedding and the handling of the events leading up to it. He wants
to be sure that we take a hard look at everything. A lot of people will be
interested in what's going on, and the P asked me to set up a system to make
sure that things get in to us before decisions are made, so that we have control,
ostensibly in the P's name. So we'll set that up.

The Howard K. Smith interview on ABC at 9:30 tonight. The P spent the
entire day at the EOB getting ready. He didn't call me over at all during the
day. The interview went extremely well on TV; staff reaction was very good.
It was too late at night to get our usual round-the-country reaction wrap-ups,
but we'll get those tomorrow.

The P had a pretty heavy schedule through the day, with the Leadership
Meeting this morning, a number of groups through the day, and a small dinner
tonight with Heatherington on the Voluntary Action project. At midday, while
Henry and I were in, he did get into a general review of Laos. As Henry
wrapped it up, it comes out as clearly not a success, but still a worthwhile
operation. Both he and the P feel that they were misled by Abrams on the
original evaluation of what might be accomplished, and that Abrams went
ahead with his plan even though it was clear that it wasn't working. Henry feels
strongly that they should have followed Westmoreland's advice and gone
south to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail instead of going in to capture Chapone,
which was a visible objective but turned out to be basically a disaster. They
concluded that they should pull Abrams out, but then the P made the point
that this is the end of the military operations anyway, so what difference does
it make.
On March 18, the ARVN

began a strategic retreat from Laos, but the air
support was poor, the enemy offensive was strong, and some soldiers pan-
icked, jumping on the skids of the evacuation helicopters, and clinging
there. Mediawise it was terrible.
260 H.R. HALDEMAN
The SST vote was this afternoon and we lost, in spite of the P's efforts. He
obviously was discouraged by the loss and feels that it's a real mistake to have
let the thing go, but we really did do all that we could do.
The P reversed his decision on canceling the California trip on the basis of
strong recommendations of the senior staff and then agreed to go ahead in
all
spite of the fact that the weather's bad and he's not particularly pleased with
the whole thought.
He got into some further discussion on Congressional relations, particu-
larly theneed to get a group of hard-core protagonists in the House and
Senate. He feels we've got significant weaknesses in this area, and we need to
pull it together and start getting things organized. He feels that the staff doesn't
understand that we are in a all our people do a
continuous campaign. That
good job of running the government, but not much of a job of selling it, and
he doesn't want to dawdle along anymore on it.
He made the point in musing over general schedule planning that maybe
we should just scratch all the trivia on the schedule and only do the major
things. This is a trend that comes up from time to time, and I think that it's
something that he does seriously consider as a possibility. His other point is
that the SST failure and the lack of strong initiative to get up and accomplish
things may really mean the end of the American era.
A pretty well loaded day in Washington before departing for San Clemente,
starting with breakfast for Albert, Boggs, and Ford, at which the P really laid
out the line on the question of Congressional resolutions limiting the P's
powers as Commander in Chief or requiring a withdrawal by a date certain.
He hit them very hard on this and made the point very specifically that if the
Congress in any way tied his hands, and as a result of that we had to bug out
of Vietnam, losing American lives, or the Thieu government fell and Vietnam
went to the Communists, he would have no choice but to go directly to the
people in his campaign next year, taking on the Congress and blaming them
for this situation. He had a Cabinet meeting on the subject of construction
industry wage problems and so forth. He then had a few remarks at a confer-
ence of religious leaders on the drug problem, which he felt did him and the
cause no particular good.
After we got here (San Clemente), he told Henry that he wanted him and
me to come over to talk with him at the house. He was up in the study with
only one light on, the fire burning and the tape player going very loudly. He
turned off the tape and we sat down. P now agrees with Henry's long-held view
that there is a remote possibility of a settlement on Vietnam with Hanoi,

probably partly as a result of Laos. The P clearly has sort of a mystic feeling
about the Laotian thing, and says so. He's not sure what it is or why, but he
has the feeling that there may be more involved here than has so far met the
eye.
He then got into the point that he had called us in for, which was to say
that he'd been giving a lot of thought to our whole strategic situation at the
present time, and specifically as it related to our schedule here in California.
His decision was that there would be no press conference this week; that it
doesn't serve our purpose at this time to have one. There's nothing that he
wants to say, and no advantage to making any news that might come up at
such a conference. In other words, the basic rule is that we should never go to
the press except when we're up; we've got nothing to gain now. The only
argument for a press conference is for the benefit of the press, but we should
have press conferences only when it serves our purposes.
He feels that Ziegler should announce on Thursday or Friday that he will
be making the troop announcement on the 7th of April, rather than waiting
until the 15th, using the rationale that he's committed to making it by the 15th,
and since Congress will be gone at the time, he wanted to make it at the close
of this Congressional session before the recess. The mood he has is a very
mystic one, and he's not highly optimistic, but certainly not down in the
dumps, and has the feeling that something is happening or is about to happen.
The P was in early in the morning, still running on Eastern Time. Decided to
definitely announce the troop statement on Tuesday, so as to precede the
Democratic Caucus meeting on Wednesday. He wants a plan ready for coun-
tering the opposition, because they'll say this isn't enough and we've got to
make sure that the issue is clear that it's a matter of ending the war; that it
shows our Vietnamization success; and that it shows the value of Laos. He
wants to hit this day in and day out and make the point that the opponents
are asking for an American defeat instead of peace with honor. In other words
they ask for defeat with dishonor and give aid and comfort to the enemy, etc.
He choppered up today to Sam Goldwyn's house for a presentation of the
Medal of Freedom to Goldwyn, which was a great idea and went very well.
Goldwyn was very much touched, the P made some good remarks, and Sam,
who is basically paralyzed but is able to talk a little, turned to the P (or not
turned, because he can't turn), but said to the P in a hung
low voice after he'd
themedal on him, "I'm glad you beat those bastards in '68; they were the worst
bunch of sons of bitches we ever had in there." He then said louder, and it was
heard by the press, that Nixon was his favorite president, that he was a good,
strong fighter with guts, but that he always fought clean. Some pretty good
quotes.
The P decided to drive back rather than taking the helicopter, and I rode
262 H.R. HALDEMAN
with him as we went from Beverly Hills down to Santa Monica and all along
the beach cities before cutting back into the freeway just before Long Beach.
It was a long and he chatted generally about his sort of fascination with
ride,
the real world, as he rarely sees it, and the fact that there are so many small
businesses. He was very interested in them as he drove along the streets. He

was also sort of fascinated with the large number of hippie-type people on the
streets. Of course, that wasn't too surprising, considering the part of town we
were in. He went right to the residence when we got back, and stayed there for
the rest of the day.

Another day with nothing planned except the Allen Drury interview and of
course the news announcement of the plan to make the troop announcement
next week.
The P went home at about 6:00 and called me right after he got there. He
suggested that I come over for dinner. So I went up to the study, where he had
the fire going and the record player blaring. We talked for about 15 minutes
before Manolo served a delicious steak dinner with fried onion rings and a
beautiful cheese souffle. He talked about his concern of Tricia and Julie using
government planes for their personal trips, and came up with the idea of
having the Air Force charge him the commercial airline fare when they do use
such planes, which is an ideal way to get around the sticky wicket there. He
came up with the idea of trying to organize the administrative assistants and
secretaries on the Hill that are for us, as a counterbalance to the predominant
left-wing types. That led him into a question of how we can better charge up
the White House staff, and he feels that maybe we need a weekly meeting when
he gives them a little pep talk. This of course will last about one week, but it
does come to mind every once in a while.
I managed to get out after two hours, and I think he went on down and
went to bed. He was obviously in kind of a retrospective mood, and walked

out with me to the car, sort of generally chatting along the way but nothing
apparently particular on his mind. Some general thoughts as of the end of
March: our position, looked at objectively, would appear to be at an all-time
low at the present reading. The polls show us the lowest we've been: Gallup
at 50, Harris showing a drop just the other day from 43 to 41. The credibility
figure is way down, the rating on handling the Vietnam War is the lowest it's
been, the magazines did one of their periodic "this week Nixon's in deep
trouble" sort of orgies. The Laos withdrawal effect is at its peak, or bottom.
In spite of this, the general attitude of all of the staff people, and certainly of
the P, as well as most of the Cabinet members, seems to be very much upbeat,
positive, and optimistic.
The reason probably is best expressed by the phone conversation I had
with Bill Rogers yesterday, in which he reported on a talk he had with (Chi-
cago Daily News Washington Bureau Chief)) Peter Lisagor earlier in the day.
Lisagor had raised the question with him that he couldn't understand why he
seemed so happy and optimistic, and why everybody in the White House
seemed to be the same way when it appeared to Lisagor that we were in serious
trouble and getting worse. Rogers answered that the reason in his mind was
that we know what we're doing and where we're going, and therefore are not
concerned about the outlook. On the other hand, the press and perhaps the
people at this point, don't know, and won't for a little while, so they take a
more pessimistic view. Rogers went on to say that when we came in here two
years ago we inherited a number of monumental problems, and now we're on
the road to solution. All of this may be overoptimistic, but there are all kinds
of potential optimistic factors that aren't even taken into consideration in it.
At the very least,would appear that the economy has bottomed out and is
it
gradually inching back into a sound position, and that we're going to get out
of the war one way or another, and we have a pretty fair chance of getting out
honorably.
Looking beyond that, there are a number of monumentally optimistic
possibilities. Henry definitely feels he's got the SALT thing lined up, and that
we can announce that in a couple of weeks that will lead to a Summit, and a
four-power meeting after that in the fall. We know that at some point not too
far off, we'll be able to announce that no more draftees will be serving in
Vietnam. Henry feels, and now the P concurs, that there's a 50/50 chance at
least of getting a Vietnam settlement this summer and ending the war com-
pletely. The Berlin negotiations appear to be reaching some sort of productive
possibilities. The economic situation could turn out to be substantially better
than we think it is at the moment. Then of course there are all sorts of
unforeseen possibilities on the bright side, as well as many on the dark side that
could come up.
All in all, the outlook appears to be strongly balanced in our favor, and
I think all of us both rationally and intuitively, and that provides the
feel it
basis for the optimism that everybody seems to have. Overall, the conclusion
would be that probably this week, or this period of two or three weeks, will
mark the low of the first term, and also that probably the troop announcement
next week will be the basic turning point from which things will start moving
upward.

The Democratic Caucus had their vote this morning on the question of pulling
troops out of Vietnam. They got a reasonably good compromise through, and
on the basis of that we had long discussions about how to handle a reaction
and decided that our position should be that we were very pleased that they're
supporting the goal of the P to end the war and get our prisoners released as
soon as possible. It did avoid stating a specific time certain, and our particular
264 H.R. HALDEMAN
victory was that they didn't put in a date of the end of 1971. They have called
for end of involvement by the end of the 92nd Congress. We've turned it
basically to a positive for us, and I think it will stick pretty well that way.
Later in the day, the House voted on the draft extension, and we almost
lost our two-year proposal to a one-year amendment.
The bigger thing today was the Calley decision, which was announced
yesterday (or several days ago), of guilty, and then the sentence today of life
in prison. The public reaction has been enormous, and all in favor of Calley
and against the conviction. The question now is what the P should or should
not do in reaction to this, as public opinion continues to mount. There's a
number of varying views within the staff, and we still haven't gotten it figured
out.
On March 29, 1971, an Army court-martial found First Lieutenant William

Calley, Jr., guilty of the murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians in 1968.
Many felt the sentence was excessive. The case became a political football
for the left and for the media.

Calley dominated the day today. The P started out with a 9:00 meeting with
E and me to review the general situation and his conversation on the subject
last night with Connally. He makes the point that the military is not concerned
really with the honor of the military service, they're concerned with the system
of which they're a part. He feels that there's not enough in it for us to fight for
the military. The lawyers, on the other hand, provide no political gain for us
in their argument.We do have to be for orderly process, but we've got to act
on the what does us the most good. He feels that maybe there's a
basis of
position to be taken that an act of compassion on the part of the P wouldn't
be a bad thing to do at this point. He feels that we've got to move now, making
the statement that the P will review this in the appeal process and will order
that he (Calley) be allowed to remain in an apartment.
He feels we've got to get it raised above this case. Make the point the war
is bad, so we've got to avoid more bad wars. It's got to be dealt with not on
the merits of the case; there is no reasonable doubt of his technical guilt, but
there is doubt regarding the motive. It gets to the question of whether this man
is a criminal who should be treated like Manson, and the answer is no.
At noon he made the point that if we don't move, the support we have for
withdrawal from Vietnam, etc., will evaporate or become discouraged. We've
got to keep our eye on the main ball, which is to maintain our public support.
He feels that the question is, we either do something Monday or we temporize
for a year or two. He thinks he can indicate that he's ordered the file out to
study, and that he's ordered the General to release Calley to his apartment. He
then picked up the phone and called Admiral Moorer and issued the order
releasing Calley from the stockade. When he hung up, he made the comment
that at least a P can do something once in a while. He then said of Admiral
265
266 H.R. HALDEMAN
Moorer, "That's the one place where they say, 'Yes, sir,' instead of, 'Yes,
"
but.'
The P agrees with my feeling that he can't be in the position of going on
television Wednesday night without taking any action regarding Calley. The
general public reaction has been stupendous, and we can't simply ignore it. We
left it up in the air for tonight, but we'll have to make a decision first thing
tomorrow morning.
This turned out to be pretty much Calley day all day, as we worked on the
whole question of the approach to further action. The P wanted to be sure that
we got out the details regarding his decision yesterday to release him from the
stockade. He referred to the Lincoln period, and his study of that history, and
his idea that the presidents have this right but it must be exercised personally.
There was about a three-hour break for a meeting on welfare with Rea-
gan, and then back to Calley considerations again. The P decided finally, after
going through all the range of options, to take precisely the action that Dick
Moore had recommended at the very beginning, that is, to announce now that
he will review the case before the final sentence is imposed.
He reviewed with E the basis for making the announcement on this
action. Wants him to make the point that he's consulted with the Attorney
General and the Secretaries of Treasury, Defense, State, and HEW, and has
received a lot of advice from them and other sources. Some said he should
move now to free Calley or lighten the sentence, but he decided not to because
thiswould be a derogation of the review process and he had learned that it
would take two months before the trial record was even available. Others said
he should not get involved at all, some of them even objected to his action
yesterday.
Public opinion runs strongly on this. The awareness level of 96 percent is
the highest we've gotten on any subject in any of ourwhole

polls. With this
thing behind him, he now plans to turn to the Wednesday night speech, and
has had Buchanan come out tonight to get started on that.

The P got working on the speech this morning, and has changed substan-
to
tially Henry was originally taking. He's going to go fairly
the approach that
quickly through the basic-detail stuff he has to cover regarding Vietnam, Laos,
and the troop withdrawal, and then get more into a general approach to the
situation that we now find ourselves in regarding the war, the need for national
defense, and the general public attitude toward all of this.
Even though it was Saturday, and a sensationally beautiful day, the P
stayed in the office all day, going over these things with me plus reviewing
periodic speech drafts with Buchanan. This should get him in shape to take
tomorrow off, and we'll see what happens.

The P apparently stayed at the house most of the day. Went down to Red
Beach in the afternoon with Bebe. He only called me once, and that was just
to check on the news play, with which he was already basically familiar.

San Clemente and then to DC. Bill Rogers called this morning with some
thoughts on the speech. He thought the P should consider, at the end, getting
away from the textand speaking directly to the people, making the point that
now the time has come to withdraw and that's what we're doing. The P had
good sessions with Henry and John on the plane on the way back. He had me
up for just a few minutes to go over some insignificant odds and ends that he
had notes left on. And now we're back to the Washington grind.
The P called me late in the evening at home. He had just read the
Washington Star report on Congressman (Hale) Boggs' attack on J. Edgar
Hoover, and his call for Hoover's resignation. The P wanted me to call Hoover
and tell him not to respond: to be silent and let his friends respond for him.
I called Hoover, and he appreciated the whole thing very much. He told me
that Boggs was drunk today when he made the attack, and that he (Hoover)
had talked to the Attorney General, who had issued a statement demanding
that Boggs repudiate his charges and deny all the allegations. Hoover also
made the point to me that he had testified two weeks ago, and had said that
since 1924 there had never been a phone tap on any senator or congressman,
and that even when he had people under surveillance, he had lifted the surveil-
lance when they went onto the Capitol grounds. I reported this back to the P,
and he made the point that we should also use Johnson's influence on Boggs,
that we should attack Boggs on his drunkenness and try to destroy him, and
that we should release the ORC (Opinion Research Corporation) poll that we
have on Hoover. He then made the comment that we will have an interesting
week, and said goodnight.

He had me over first thing this morning, and obviously wanted to have a long
chat. But I had to leave to go to Ann's school for Fathers' Day. We did get
into a few items, and it turned out that what he wanted to talk about was his
concern about jittery members of the staff. He feels that this is the time that
we should ruthlessly weed out all of those who will not stand strongly behind
268 H.R. HALDEMAN
us. He made the quote that "None of the staff are here because of what they
did; they're here because of what I did —and therefore there's no reason for
anybody on the staff to be strong in a tough time like this." He then stated very
positively, "I shall not who has shown weakness in
go forward with anyone
this situation. I want them weeded out within thirty days." He said the
all
Cabinet is a different problem, and he doesn't quite know how to deal with
that.
He said it's a question of those who are so emotionally disturbed about
situations and and we can't give
serious events, that they'll have to desert us,
them that opportunity next year. weed them out now. He made
We've got to
the point that he didn't think I see this as clearly as he does, but wanted me
to be thinking about it in any event. I left then because I was late for the trip
to Ann's school.
This afternoon he had me over again and asked how everything was. He
was in kind of an introspective mood. Discussed a few of the minor logistics
regarding the speech and then settled back and said he wanted to read me the
speech. He made the point that he was not showing me a copy so that I would
be able to say I had not seen the speech, and use that as a backup argument
for not letting anyone else see it. He then read it through quite quickly. He feels
it will run 18 to 20 minutes as it's now written, but it only took him 12 minutes
to read it to me, even stopping to make a few notes from time to time. It comes
off very well and makes the case exactly as he should. It's my view, at least, that
it will be pretty successful in accomplishing what he's after. He had the OAS
white-tie dinner tonight. All of the key staff were at the Finches' for dinner as
a sort of farewell party before they and the Rumsfelds leave on their European
trip.

The day of the latest Vietnam speech. The P spent the whole day at the EOB
working on the speech. He had a session with Laird and Rogers at noon and
then a bipartisan Leaders Meeting at 7:00 to brief them on his withdrawal
announcement plans. He had me come over a couple of times for general
conversation as he had his drafts finished and was sort of relaxing. At one
session, while Henry was there, he said he was going to let me in on the secret
part of the speech, the ad-lib closing, and he then read me, from his yellow pad,
As it turned out, they were almost verbatim what he
his notes for the closing.
used on the speech, and he obviously had been working very hard on putting
them together. They related to the Medal of Honor incident when the little boy
saluted him.
The general reaction to the speech was extremely good, especially to the
closing segment because of its emotional quality. There is, of course, consider-
able disappointment and concern because the withdrawal rate (of 100,000
troops) has not stepped up far enough, nor is there any fixed terminal date, but
the sincerity, conviction, and basic emotion of the P's presentation seemed to
override this with most people, and I think overall we'll end up with a very
positive plus.
In the middle of the day I got the poll report from our interview on
Monday and Tuesday, and it came out extremely well. The P's up from 41 to
54 in approval, so, although he had told me he didn't want to see the poll
before the speech, I decided he ought to know about it and went over and gave
him the results, which of course cheered him up considerably.
The Calley case popped up again this morning in the form of a release of
a letter to the P from Captain Daniel, the prosecutor, which created a substan-
tial flap. He feels that the prosecutor must have had higher clearance in order
to have made this overt move. He was also distressed that E didn't go out and
answer this head-on, but John talked him out of it on the grounds that it was
a one-day story, and that would only accelerate it. I'm not really sure that's the
case.
Later in the afternoon we had a long general talk about Connally and staff
and so on, the P's dissatisfaction with the Cabinet primarily about the fact that
none of them had called him up before the speech to wish him well or anything
of that sort. The reason, of course, is that he's never encouraged that kind of
thing, and none of them feel they can call him up. In any event, he expressed
considerable disappointment in this situation, and then got to talking about
Connally and the VP, and revealed his thought that the way out of the whole
deal is to have the VP resign later this year, which then gives the P the
opportunity to appoint a new VP under the new law of succession. This subject
to a majority approval of both houses of Congress. He would then appoint
Connally, which would set him up for succession and probably would work
out extremely well. He was up late tonight and on the phone to me even after
I got home, three or four times, in the usual follow-up kind of activity. Even
though he said he wouldn't take any calls, he did take a number of them and
made several himself.

The main effort today was speech follow-up. The reaction based on last night
was overall very good and I think we accomplished what we were after and I
think the P feels that way too. He did have Henry and me in early this morning,
and made the point that only the two of us had stood up, and that he would
never forget it. He also would never forget the fact that no one else did stand
up, and he would keep that in mind as time went on. He was fairly emotional
on the point and obviously feels quite strongly about this. He still has a very
strong feeling that there is a lack of moral support, both in the Cabinet and
in the staff, and that he has no use for weak men and that's really what we've
got.
He was very pleased with the way he worked the emotional part into the
speech, and thinks that's what reallymade it, and of course, he's absolutely
right.
270 H.R. HALDEMAN
We got into quite a discussion with Ziegler this morning on several PR items,
particularly the Calley question as a result of the problem of the from the
letter
prosecutor, (Captain) Daniel. The P now feels that E should not have an-
swered the questions regarding the Calley case when he announced the P's
decision to review it. He feels we have to educate our people not to be
responsive, and to recognize that a briefing is not for the benefit of the press.
He hit me on making sure that we don't appoint any more establishment
people to any commissions, etc. He wants to go for Midwest, Southern, and
Western people, and not pick up any more Eastern establishment types.
In the afternoon we went to Good Friday church services at St. John's,
across from Lafayette Park. All was worked out on the basis of a last-minute
run, but somehow someone got the word, and when we arrived there were a
half-dozen minister types standing out in front, shouting, "Peace now!" The
P went in and remained for the twenty-minute service, and then, as he went out
a different door, the demonstrators had gathered there and were chanting
again, this time something about Christ died to save men's lives or something.
The P's reaction was of course that he would not go to Gettysburg for Easter
services, since it had been announced he was going, and that would just set off
more demonstrations. So we had to work out a plan for canceling that and
setting up an unannounced trip to Thurmont for Easter services. Left for
Williamsburg at 4:00. The P left for Camp David at 5:00 to join his family there
for the Easter weekend.

Back We started our new 8:15 staff meeting
to a regular schedule at the office.
setup in the Roosevelt Room, and itwent reasonably well considering it was
all
the first day. The P had me in at 9:00 and went through an hour of odds and
ends that he had stacked up over the weekend. A lot of notes, mainly regarding
some schedule changes.
P got into the question also of talking to Mitchell about Hoover. He feels
that with the Star editorial calling for Hoover's resignation and the other
pressures that are mounting, that we're going to have to move on it. The P
talked to Hoover over the weekend, and he had told the P he would be happy
to resign whenever the P or the Attorney General felt that he should. The P
feels that we've got to work something out on this, and do it fairly soon.
Maybe the best idea would be to have Hoover retire on his 77th birthday,
which is January 1 Another point on Hoover was that he got to thinking it
.
would be a good idea to have a Congressional letter of support of Hoover so

we can build up some strength before we let him resign. Obviously he can't
resign now under pressure, so we've got to do something to shore him up, in
order to get him out.
Late this afternoon the P had Henry and me in, just a little talk before he
went home for dinner. He reported on his meeting with Rogers, and Henry
seemed to be pleased with that. He then got into a general talk about China
policy; all of them very pleased because of the Ping-Pong exchange which may
be a good lead-in to our trade announcement on Wednesday.
We had been pursuing an opening to China through several channels for

two years now, but this was a totally unexpected breakthrough: an Ameri-
can table tennis team competing in the world championship in Japan had
been invited to play several exhibition matches in China. It was a typically
subtle Chinese move, and would usher in the age of 'Ting-Pong diplo-
macy." The Wednesday announcement was an already-planned termina-
tion of our trade embargo with China.
The happenstance that the P met today with the Chinese Ambassador,
and also with Anna Chennault, should make the press sit up and wonder what
we're up to, and could be kind of intriguing. Henry feels that our whole policy,
and the current moves on China, will help to shake the Soviets up, as will
Brezhnev's need to make a big peace move of some kind, which should play
in our favor for a SALT agreement and a Summit conference.
The big thing now is to make sure we get credit for all the shifts in China
policy, rather than letting them go to the State Department, who of course had
nothing to do with it, in fact opposed every step the P took because they were
afraid any moves toward China would offend Russia.

A reasonably busy day for the P. After a general discussion of odds and ends
this morning, he got Henry in and, in comparing his problems to those of
previous P's, mentioned that he had Henry up to the Lincoln Room for dinner
last night and that had gotten him to thinking, as they were talking there,
about the many problems that other P's had, and certainly some of them had
been great. Ours were probably more substantial than anyone except Lincoln,
whose problems overshadowed everyone's by a wide margin. He commented
on the point that Lincolnhad the cannons in the street in New York to shoot
draft resisters; that he had a rebellious Cabinet; Stanton wouldn't speak to
him; his wife's insanity and her two brothers killed in the Southern side of the
war, etc. All of those, added up, make our situation look pretty simple. He
then got into a discussion of China policy, arising partly out of Scali's recom-
mendation that we do something to recognize the United States Ping-Pong
team when it comes back from the tour in China. The thought here is that
we're making some progress, but we can't start claiming any success or doing
any public events such as that because it will get in the way of future progress.
272 H.R. HALDEMAN
E and I had a brief meeting with him on the Hoover question. John
Mitchell had called E to say that Hoover has sent a memo around to the top
members of the Bureau, telling them not to route their domestic intelligence
information to (Assistant Attorney General Robert ) Mardian, which is directly
contrary to our orders, and also implying that, at the direct order of the P,
Hoover has been doing some wiretapping and other high-level surveillance.
is true, and John wanted to check them out with
Neither of these the P for the
Attorney General so he'll know how to approach the situation.
He had a fairly long meeting with Connally and called me right afterward,
started to report it on the phone and then asked me to come over to the office.
He obviously was very pleased with the talk. Connally feels the problem is that
our people don't hit anybody, and that we've got to do that. He also made the
point again of the failure to show personal concern, no warmth, no human
qualities, and that this has to come from the little things, because you can't do
it in the big appearances.
The real question posed is whether we change the P's own approach to the
press conferences and interviews and so forth, to try to add emotion and
warmth He does feel that he can try to get some more schmaltz into
to them.
the speeches; make them warm instead of brittle, make the anecdotes warm
and find a way to work them in.
They discussed Agnew, and Connally feels that he can survive if he stays
on and doesn't go overboard. The P doesn't agree. He's told
his present course
me to have a private talk with Connally regarding the Vice Presidency, and
start getting him built up and ready for it. He agreed with the idea of consider-
ing moving Stans to Finance Chairman and putting a strong spokesman into
the Commerce slot.

He got into quite a long discussion again this morning on the PR situation
regarding Connally's point, which really differs from what other people are
saying. He feels that the real problem, apart from what the P does, is that the
Cabinet and staff don't have any passion, they don't show any commitment to
the P and his policies. It has to be more than just reciting the facts, they've got
to cry, be outraged, etc.

He had Henry in at midday. The China plan was discussed in some detail.
We were reviewing the background of the P's initiatives on this, going clear
back to his article for Foreign Affairs, which laid it out even before the
campaign began (this 1967 article discussed the importance of relations between
the U.S.and China), and then a number of his speeches and other actions since
then. The whole Asian tour, of course, was basically focused on opening lines
to China, particularly with the meetings with Yahya and Ceausescu. (Presi-
dents Yahya Khan of Pakistan and Ceausescu of Romania were two of our
channels to China.)
Still bouncing on the stock market rise yesterday and the continuing rise
today.
He got back on the general PR question again, the point that we've not
created a mythology, that the courage, boldness, and guts hasn't come across.
We haven't made the point that it's not true that everything is political. He
feels that the most important factor in the first two years
and that we've
is guts,
got to get that across. He also got into the POW wives question while Henry
was there, because of Dole's report yesterday that they're pretty shaky, and
that we've got to do something dramatic to keep them on track. The P told
Henry to see the wives this week and to work out something with them that
will buy us three months' time, because we can't afford to let them come
unglued at this point, while everything else is going so well. The P met with the
Prime Minister of Morocco today, who came all the way over just to tell him
that the King couldn't come next week. As a result of this, the P's thinking
about State visits and come up with the decision that there will be no State
visits in 1972.
The P was in early this morning because of a long series of morning meetings
on foreign trade.
Apparently Pat Nixon was sick last night to the point that after examina-
tion at the White House they took her to the hospital for X rays. They had
feared it might be a collapsed lung, but it turns out to be a minor pleurisy
problem, and she seems to be at least resting comfortably today. The P got into
a review of the ASNE last night (his appearance at the American Society of
Newspaper Editors). We talked about the questions and that kind of thing; his
reaction was that the editors hadn't done too well on their questioning, and he
was glad that the thing hadn't been on TV. He was pretty funny in commenting
on the first question, in which the editor asked him if he ever woke up at 2:00
or 3:00 in the morning and what he thought about at such a time. The P had
answered it saying he thought about working for peace and so on. He said this
morning he wished he had answered with what he really wanted to say, which
was he thought about going to the bathroom just like everybody does when he
wakes up in the middle of the night.
After the morning appointments we had a long, typical Saturday-after-
noon gab session. Henry was in for a good part of it, and some of the
discussion was on China, in fact, most of it. Henry feels that what makes the
P so formidable in his dealings with the Communists is the fact that he has
turned their theory of protracted war against them, and apparently the Com-
munists have that same feeling. He wanted to give some thought to letting the
Ping-Pong team come in, just as another hypo to the fact that this was what
274 H.R. HALDEMAN
was done. Henry's basically opposed to that, and doesn't want to overplay the
China thing until we get something more going.
We had a long discussion of our long-range strategy regarding SALT and
Defense and the Soviet ABM, making the point that we have to get some of
these things done in order to break the back of the present establishment
Democratic leadership. But that we can't do much about building a strong
defense for the United States during this term because Congress won't support
us. What we have to do is get reelected and then move into the defense setup
at that time.
Another point that was made was that the whole China thing has given
us maneuvering room with the Russians because now we're not backed against
the wall. The problem now is that we've got to avoid making too much hay
out of China, because they might pull the rug out from under us and we don't
want to get our neck out that far. The P's concerned that we still keep the heat
on the opposition; they've all joined with us on the China thing, and that, in
a way, is not as good as when they opposed us, such as in Laos. Teddy
Kennedy is scheduling hearings this week, and the P feels we need to get
Rogers to testify up there and really hit them. He also wanted to check on
whether Hubert, Teddy, or Muskie had made any statement regarding China.
As far as any of us could remember, they had not.
We also talked a little about McCloskey, and I filled the P in on McClos-
key's tirades and temper tantrums in Laos. It would seem that he's really not
very stable or rational, and this is something we may be able to take advantage
of. We're set to counteract whatever McCloskey comes up with on his TV
interview tomorrow.

The main item this morning was reaction to McCloskey, who was on the
Sunday television yesterday attacking us on bombings in Laos. The P told me
to order State to have Sullivan take McCloskey on and knock him off. The
question is whether Rogers should also do so. The point is that State's under
attack on this, and it's up to them to counter it. The P does have mixed feelings
on the McCloskey thing, and wants to be careful not to build him up. He
points out that you must not give a demagogue too much attention. We at the
White House should soar above this and not get into it.
He had a very upbeat feeling as a result of church yesterday. The Texas
M
A & choir came through the line, told him they were all for him, ready to
go to Vietnam, etc. He makes the point that this is the audience we should
speak to. He choppered down to Williamsburg for the Governors' Conference;
did an excellent job on welfare reform in his talk there.
Tonight was the DAR, and that went very well, although the speech
wasn't particularly outstanding. The highlight really was seeing a DAR con-
vention, because it looked exactly like a DAR convention; they were all in their
pastel formals with their official sashes across the front, and looked exactly like
the little old ladies of the DAR should look. He got a good reception; gave a
good upbeat speech. Everybody's in general agreement now that things are
going much better and that we should take exactly that attitude on a very
positive basis and not let the constant sniping bother us.

The P had a pretty busy day, starting with the leaders at 8:00, then agricultural
editors, the Jaycee leadership, the President of the International Red Cross, a
session with Shultz, session with Hardin and Lincoln on the Texas drought,
meeting with the Attorney General, and a meeting with our pro-Nixon sena-
tors in the Cabinet Room. In between these, he had me in five or six times for
fairly extensive sessions, adding up to 14 pages of notes. One item of concern
was Bill Rogers' plans for extending his trip next week to include Israel and
Egypt and a couple of other Middle East stops. This of course has Henry going
right up the wall. He's opposed to the whole idea of Rogers getting into the
Middle East, as always, and particularly doesn't think he should go there, but
the P confirmed that he had told him he could. Henry then raised the specter
of Rogers probably coming up with a proposal for going to the Soviet Union,
and the P said absolutely no on that without any equivocation at all.
The next big item of the day was a rather weird, orT-the-record press deal
that the VP had Sunday night in Williamsburg. Apparently, after midnight he
called nine press people to his suite and spent three hours in an off-the-record
backgrounder with them, during which he expressed his disagreement with the
idea of letting down the barriers with China and his extreme dissatisfaction
with the press reporting of the Chinese Ping-Pong tour. K said that he had sent
Haig to brief the VP Friday on China. The P wants him now to get of! this
wicket and say he was completely misunderstood. K had recommended that
Ziegler say that the VP's expressing his personal view. But the P disagreed with
that, and agreed with Ron's recommendation that he say that the VP's autho-
rized him to say that there is no difference on the part of the VP with the P's
policy on China. The VP completely agrees with the initiatives the P has taken.
He says it's clear that he doesn't understand the big picture in this whole
Chinese operation, which is, of course, the Russian game. We're using the
Chinese thaw to get the Russians shook. Dobrynin will be back later this week,
and Henry will get a reading on how it's working.
Henry also raised the point of the need now to get a direct channel to deal
with the Chinese, and is thinking of the idea of sending (General Vernon)
Walters to Warsaw to set up the communications. The P got again to the point
that Agnew shows qualities here that are very damaging. He wants me to talk
privately to Connally, and to move very, very slowly; but to start getting him
with it, in this area of possible Vice Presidential candidate.
The next thing come along was the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling
to
on school desegregation, which is apparently quite a milestone decision and
knocks down the P's neighborhood school idea and upholds busing for the
276 H.R. HALDEMAN
purpose of desegregation. The P spent considerable time with Ron, and later
with the Attorney General, working out the precise wording of how Ron
should handle it. He obviously was very much concerned about the decision,
and feels that we've got to be very careful in what we say. After a lot of
discussion, they all agreed that we would make the point that now that the
Court has acted, it's and therefore it's the obligation of the
the law of the land
local school authorities and the district courts, which have jurisdiction in these
matters, to carry out the mandate of the court. He doesn't want Ron to go any
further than that.
He then made the point that he wanted E to get Richardson in, and
ordered him that HEW is not to do anything except what is specifically
required by the law. They are not to take the initiative, they are not to get out
in front and charge. He wants to be sure that there's an absolute order to them
on this; that they don't screw us on the court decision. He wants to kill the idea
of any philosophy of our getting credit for the decision, or getting out in front
of the court onit. We go straight down the line, and not one step beyond the
law.He decided to have a meeting with the Attorney General and Richardson
and E in the morning to lay the law down on this.

Another busy day for a Wednesday. Most of the morning spent working on
the desegregation business. Then a session with the head of the Ping-Pong
team that toured China. (P) also greeted the 4-H Club group who were here,
and was extremely impressed with them and invited them out to look at the
Rose Garden and remarked several times, as the day went on, what a fine
group they are.
At 4:00 Mitchell and I had a two-hour meeting with him on politics. John
did a good job of stalling on any commitments by giving him a general
rundown on how he's starting to put the political organization together, but
strongly making the point that he's still just putting the players together and
that he doesn't want to get locked into anything until he's got the whole deal
thought out. The P wants us to start polling the key states, particularly to
measure the effect of how we stand with Wallace in or out, in those states. He
covered a lot of specific items on individual people and individual states where
action needs to be taken. As we were adjourning, Mitchell used the opportu-
nity to zing in on the E order telling him to stop his ITT antitrust action. He
got the P to wave off on that.
The Justice Department had lost an antitrust suit against International

Telephone and Telegraph, and were now appealing. The P was not a fan of
antitrust suits and ordered them to stop, but Mitchell explained there would
be personnel problems if he did, so P withdrew his objection. As it hap-
pened, the case was settled favorably for the government, but we would hear
a lot more about it in 1972.
The P had three major meetings today, and had me sit in on each of them. One
with Dole and Anne Armstrong, one with John Connally, and one with Bill
Rogers.
In the Dole meeting, other than a general political discussion, Anne
Armstrong asked the P how he answers the question of how to deal with
youth, and how we should approach this problem. He made some very inter-
esting points: we've got to give them a challenge, we can't let them escape
responsibility for themselves and blame their problems on external factors.
We can't let them think solely of self, any more than a nation can think
solely of itself. They've got to explore the unknown. They have to do some-
thing. He diverted for a minute to say that the United States should be first
in the world because we will use that position to help others and to maintain
the peace, to do good, rather than to do evil, to help rather than to harm
others. Back to the dealing with youth: we should be understanding of
upper- and middle-class parents because they really do have great problems
with their kids because they've been given so much. It's a mistake to think
that the way to greatness is to make it easy to get there. For instance, the
two greatest nations in the world today (other than the United States) are
Japan and Germany, and they became so because they were defeated nations
that had to rise up by their own bootstraps. He said we must not destroy the
—
character of children by permissiveness permissiveness that denies the child
the opportunity to look in a mirror and finally realize that the problem is
—
me not my teachers, not the war, not the environment, but me. It was a
fascinating insight; he got quite absorbed in it and made these points very
strongly.
He also told Anne the story, as he had Henry earlier, of how his mother
had to support his older brother while they were in Prescott, Arizona, and he
was recovering from tuberculosis; and in order to finance
(actually, he died)
living over there, his mother took in three other tuberculosis patients, all of
whom were also terminal cases, and nursed all of them, with Mrs. Nixon
providing the full care. The two stories together made quite an impression, I
think, on Anne Armstrong, and she's going to use the points in her appear-
ances.
The meeting with Rogers this afternoon was to cover the points that
needed to be covered before he took off on his trip. It went very well, and there
was nothing of any great substance; I had written a memo for the P's file on
the specifics. In general, Rogers made the point that he doesn't think there's
going to be a war in the Middle East because there's nothing in it for Israel,
278 H.R. HALDEMAN
no reason for Israel to start a war, and obviously no reason for the Egyptians
to start one because they'd lose it.
The other big item today was the continuation of the veterans' ( Vietnam
Veterans Against the War) demonstration problem. We had a long session this
morning to try to determine what to do in face of the fact that the veterans are
in violation of the Supreme Court order by staying on the mall, and it's really
our job to enforce that order, but the P has ordered the Attorney General not
to use police and not to evict the veterans. Our decision ended up to be that
we just continue negotiating and try to negotiate the issue to death. Later this
afternoon the Attorney General, under pressure from Burger and the Court,
went back to the District Court and asked them to dissolve the order on the
grounds that there was only one more night left and it wasn't worth pursuing.
Apparently, the circuit court judge blasted us on this move, and said that
the court had been put in a very bad position, which actually it has, since we
asked for the order to begin with and then didn't enforce it after we got it.
Which put the veterans in the position of violating the law and us in the
position of not enforcing it. Fortunately, I don't think this point has come
through very clearly, and it probably won't. We did move a little too fast on
getting the order to begin with, though.
We got into quite a discussion of the media problem; they're really killing us
because they run the veterans' demonstration every night in great detail, and
we have no way to fight back. It's a tough one, and we've been trying to figure
out some ways of getting back at it. One thought we're going to try is to have
Rainwater of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) call all the network presi-
dents and ask if they'll assure him of equal time for veterans in favor of the
Administration's position on the war next week. Obviously they'll turn him
down, and at least that will give us an arguing point. In the meantime we're
getting pretty well chopped up.
We also got into the analysis of our quick poll last night, which shows a
drop in Presidential approval of about 3 points and a switch back to disap-
proval on Vietnam from our previous position of fairly strong approval. It's
a hard one to figure, because since we last polled, we've had the ASNE
(American Association of Newspaper Editors) appearance, the DAR speech,
the Governors' Conference speech, all the developments in China, the good
economic news of last week, and really no bad war news except the veterans'
demonstration, and still we go down. The only conclusion can be that the
veterans' deal, and the coverage of it, is the cause, so we've got to see if
somehow we can't make the media the issue. We'll probably have to crank up
the VP again and get him going on it. In any event, we've got to work out
something.
The P took off by helicopter for Julie's house in Virginia Beach. He called
me after he got there to check on follow-up on the above things, and also to
urge that we get some mileage out of the great picture he thinks they got this
afternoon of the little deaf kid in the office. He goes on to Camp David after
dinner tonight with the family.
The P is at Camp
David. The day of the big peace demonstration in Washing-
ton. I wasmost of the day, mainly to be on hand if anything arose on the
in
demonstration, but nothing did. They developed a huge crowd, close to 200,-
000. No violence, basically a pretty non-stirred-up group. They gathered in the
mall and started the march early down to the Capitol. Had the usual speeches
and singing, etc., at the Capitol, and then pretty much dispersed. No problems
from our viewpoint. That will probably come next week when the violent
group gets started. They were smart to do this at the Capitol because the crowd
looked a lot bigger there than it did last year at the monument grounds.
The P called from time updated on how it was going. He
to time to get
was mainly interested, of course, in seeing that it was downplayed as much as
possible. He didn't seem to be particularly concerned about it. He did think we
ought to try to counteract in some way the veterans' effect of last week, and
particularly the failure of the media to give us any coverage while it really
supercovered them.

The P's still at Camp David; he stayed up there
all day. Rogers called this
morning; he leaves on his tomorrow. He wanted to urge that the P in his

trip
press conference this week start claiming credit in the Middle East and make
the point that he sent Rogers out, in his quest for peace. He thinks this will help
to overcome the view that the P isn't interested in the Middle East if he says
that he asked Rogers to go even with the diplomatic risks involved. He could
also point out that this is an historical trip, and that no secretary of state has
ever before visited a country that we don't have diplomatic relations with.
Also, he thinks it would help with Israel to show that the P is behind Rogers,
because the Israelis always say, "Yes, we know what you think, Mr. Rogers,
but we also know what the White House really thinks about this."

Staff meeting this morning. Got into the whole question of our position about
the demonstrators, following up on our PR staff meeting yesterday afternoon.
The general feeling was that the P should say something to show that he's not
frightened, but also not insensitive to the demonstrators, their feeling that his
absence from Washington is evidence of the fear of being here and his insen-
sitivity to the problem. They generally felt that it got through that the demon-
stration is now respectable, and that we need to keep that under consideration.
280 H.R. HALDEMAN
I discussed this later with the P, and we got into quite a discussion as to what
the statement should be. The P's first was to recite all the bad things
inclination
that they did, after saying that he was pleased the demonstrations were peace-
ful on the whole, but that it's too bad they tore down the United States flags
at the monument, burned the benches, stopped traffic in New Jersey, threw
bottles at the police, etc. After Ron came in, we went back over that ground
and decided rather to make the point that the message of the demonstrators
is that they want to end the war, and there's no argument with that. The P does
too. The question is ending one war and preventing others. The P's building
a structure of peace so that the teenagers who are there demonstrating won't
have to fight in a war. This takes long-range planning and hard decisions, and
the track record of those who have shouted "peace now" in years past is not
one that speaks very well for their leadership.
The general feeling was that last week's press coverage of activities is
bound to have an effect, but our people are overactive, they feel that we have
to do something fast, and this is the problem that LBJ became obsessed with.
The important thing for us is to maintain serenity and calm. The P made the
point that anyone who had been through the Hiss case wouldn't get excited
about all these other things. The question now is just to see it through. You'll
either win or lose, and you can't let it be personal.
While Alger Hiss was Director of the State Department Office of Special
he was accused of collaboration with the Communist
Political Affairs,
—
underground a charge he vehemently denied. Against prevailing senti-
ment, then-Congressman Nixon urged that the investigation be continued.
On December 15, 1948, Hiss was indicted because of Nixon's perseverance.
This success catapulted Nixon's political career.
We discussed various possibilities of preparedness for breaking up the

blocking of the roads, which is going to be the important problem next week.
The feeling is that the district police are going to be able to handle it themselves
unless the numbers become really massive, in which case the National Guard
willhave to help. It turns out that we can use the National Guard without
declaring a state of martial law, and this, of course, is something we wanted
to avoid at any cost.
The next antiwar demonstration was scheduled to be an all-out effort to

stop the business of Washington by blocking the roads and bridges into
the city and thus preventing government workers from getting to their
jobs. Our position was that it was imperative to prevent the success of this
plan.
The P talked with Henry about the problem of the effect of the demonstra-
tions on Hanoi. Henry's all concerned that they may have misinterpreted the
thing and weakened our position, which of course to some degree they will, but
there's no point in worrying about it. The P made the point to me that we're
going to have to play the propaganda role more skillfully, and that he's only
going to let Henry go to Paris once, or at the very most twice, and then we'll
give up on the negotiations. He feels that if we wait more than a couple more
months, we won't have anything left to negotiate anyway, except the residual
force and the bombing vs. the release of POW's. The problem is that we need
one more stab at negotiations, so we can't set a time certain yet. After we've
taken that stab, if it doesn't work we'll just go ahead and set the time certain,
and that's it.
The P made the point in a phone call that sometimes we really

also
dodge a and that he was sure glad this morning he didn't make a
bullet,
statement praising the peaceful protests, because it would have ridden right
with the reports of today's activities and would have really looked bad for
us.

The P had a pretty heavy appointment schedule today. The P had Henry and
me in at one point morning, and Henry obviously was very much de-
this
pressed because the general developments had not been what he had hoped. I
didn't get a full reading on what the problem was. I suspected at the time that
his SALT plan had probably fallen through, and I don't know whether that's
the case or not. In any event, the P made a very determined effort to try to
cheer Henry up, and didn't really succeed.
We had a session with the Attorney General and Kleindienst, and ( White
House Counsel) John Dean and me, this morning on plans for the demonstra-
tions. We've sorted down to a little bit more sensible approach now, and are
going at it on the basis of the DC police handling all of the actual law
enforcement responsibilities, with the understanding that they may not be able
to get the streets cleared immediately, but we will clear them as fast as we can
and bring people in at whatever time the streets actually are cleared. There
wasn't much activity in the way of demonstrations today. A little flurry at
Selective Service, and that was about it.

The P spent the day in press conference preparation supposedly, but because
this gave him free time, I got caught for some long sessions, including an
especially long one this morning with Henry.
The P led into his major development, which I won't cover here in specif-
ics but only for recall. Henry reviewed the past record and read the current
document.
I
282 H.R. HALDEMAN
This "major development" was the initial planning for the Nixon trip to
China, which was at that time a matter of the highest possible secrecy. All
of the early steps were planned and executed by Nixon and Kissinger,
working through various foreign intermediaries. The "current document"
was a handwritten message to Nixon from Chinese Premier Chou En-lai
responding (a bit belatedly) to President Nixon's message to him of Decem-
ber 16 of the preceding year.
This message stated that China was willing to receive publicly in Pe-
king a special envoy of the President of the U.S. for the purpose of direct
discussions.
I did not record this specific reference in this diary because of its
enormous level of secrecy at the time. On the morning after the message had
been received, I sat in on a meeting with K and P and made the following
notes.
Then there was a long discussion about implementation, primarily the

question of selection of an emissary, with the P ruling out himself or Rogers,
and then ruling out K, because that would break all the china with State. This
boiled it down to David Bruce or the remote possibility of Nelson Rockefeller.
This was discussed in some detail along with timing and various potential
outcomes and scenarios, with no decisions made at that time. We had another
session in the afternoon at the EOB, and Henry had his thoughts more in line
by then, and made the point that he was the only one who really could handle
this, and that the way to go at it was in effect to set it up for the P, with a secret
meeting prior to that with Henry, and that's the way it was left as Henry took
off late this afternoon for a week in Palm Springs. No action will be taken for
a week or ten days, and then we'll start moving from there.
The P called several times concerning the question of whether or not to
use a podium for the press conference; whether to eliminate the platform and
put it at ground level; whether or not he would use makeup. Obviously he's
spending some time on the mechanics. He also called one time in great glee
because he had learned the market was up to 950 today, on 24 million shares,
second-highest day in history. The upswing is really pleasing to him.

Press conference day. The P spent the whole day at the FOE preparing. He
called several times on the phone on odds and ends; then, during the session
I had with him at the EOB, and again later at the Oval Office, he raised the
question of the mood of the P in the press conference. Buchanan had urged
that he hit it harder and express real anger regarding the demonstrators, etc.
I thought he ought to stay consistent and take the same tone that he has in the
past —which, as it turns out, he ended up doing. He was very pleased afterward
by the way the thing had worked out. Most of the questions were on Vietnam
and China; only one domestic-policy question, and that was on the school-
busing decision by the Court. He particularly liked two new lines that he
developed regarding foreign policy: one, in relation to China, he said that now
that we've broken the ice, we have to test the water; and regarding Vietnam,
it isn't a matter of peace in our time, but (referring to the teenagers) a question
of peace in their times.
On Air Force One en route to Southern California, in talking with Al Haig on

the plane, the P made the point that in describing Nixon you have to make the
point that he's always like the iceberg, you see only the tip. You must never
think that the surface is all that's going on. The real power is beneath the
surface. He was discussing this in relation to Russia and China. He wanted to
be sure that we got word Department
to all our troops as well as the State
people, and also to the Congressional leaders and so on, that everybody should
keep quiet about China at this point and let things work their own way out,
at least for the time being. After we arrived at Pendleton we had an excellent
Marine ceremony. The P moved into the crowd afterward and got some darn
good receptions from the Marines and their families. Then up to San Cle-
mente.
Kleindienst called with a problem that Packard won't permit the use of
Federal troops to handle the Washington demonstrators, unless there's a
proclamation or unless he's ordered to do so, without a proclamation by the
P. This gets into the factor of what level the P becomes involved. The procla-
mation would require the P to determine a general disorder, federalize the
National Guard, and put the General in charge of the troops, which is just
what we don't want to do. So we told him that the P was ordering that the
troops be provided without proclamation, and that's what they're going to go
ahead and do.

He checked this morning on the demonstration plans and made the point to
me that he wants a very hard line taken in Washington on Monday, and that
he's going to take a hard line on the press conference, using the term "The
party's over, and it's time to draw the line." This concerned me, and I talked
with E. It So John called him and talked him out of using
also bothered him.
that particular phrase. He is concerned, though, that we go hard on this.
Fortunately, that's exactly what they developed in Washington, and E called
me later in the day to say that their plan now is to bust the demonstrators
Sunday morning, and probably move in with narcotics agents to arrest as
284 H.R. HALDEMAN
many as they can. Thus they think we'll bust up their plans and make it hard
for them to do their traffic-stopping exercise on Monday.
The P then had his press conference in the driveway of the Residence, and
that seemed to go pretty well. Now he wants to go hard for picking up the phrase
that he used in regard to demonstrators, which is that the right to demonstrate
for peace abroad doesn't include the right to break the peace at home.
Sunday, May 2, 1971

He started the day in Palm Springs. The P did his Farm Speech thing this
morning and did a tape for national radio release. He got into demonstration
plans, seemed to be satisfied that they were OK. John said that they moved in
hard and fast, arrested a lot of them, and that most of the rest were packing
and going home, and he thought they'd really broken it up pretty well. The P
was somewhat concerned that maybe we had moved too hard on the thing, and
that it was a close call as to whether we should have done this or forced them
to go ahead with their plans. I think we came out right.
Monday, May 3, 1971

The day of the big demonstration. It all went reasonably well; they were able
to keep traffic open all day and keep the city under control, although a lot of
the demonstrators were running loose. Ultimately they ended up arresting
about 8,000 of them and holding them in a stockade sort of setup out at
Kennedy Stadium. They finally put them in the Uline Arena to hole them up
for tonight and do the processing and then releasing them after putting up bail.
The P was concerned that we perhaps should let them out and let them disrupt
traffic rather than keeping them locked up.

The P had a busy day, pretty well loaded with appointments, and I had very little
time in there, which was great because I was able to get my own work completely
cleared up. We had a long discussion about the effect of the demonstration
and activities today. Everything is very
yesterday, the coverage of it last night,
low key today with hardly any tieups or vandalism this morning. A fairly large
crowd did gather this afternoon and march to the Justice Department, where a
couple of thousand were arrested, but no apparent violence. There's starting to
be a buildup from the left and the civil liberties types now, about reacting
adversely to the arrest procedure, but I think public opinion is basically with us.
The P's been very pleased with the job Chief Wilson has done.
Friday, May 7, 1971

Agriculture day today. The P did a good job in the extemporaneous speech at
the Agriculture Department auditorium this morning. He had a meeting with
Meany this afternoon and got his commitment to help on both the SST and
Lockheed. Speaking of Lockheed, there was a monumental flap late last night
as Haig, and later K, called me to say that Dave Packard was furious with the
Lockheed decision, which Connally announced yesterday, and that he is going
to resign and blast the Administration for the position we're taking on Lock-
heed. Henry was pretty disturbed about it, having talked to both Packard and
Laird, and felt that there was a real danger here. So I suggested that he call
Connally and see if Connally couldn't get it untangled. Connally stepped right
up to it.
He talked to me he did meet with Packard. He said

later in the day;
Packard was about the whole thing; that he had paced back and
really upset
forth in the office, and the only way Connally could talk to him was to get up
and pace along with him. Packard said he just felt it was completely the wrong
decision and that he couldn't support it. It ended up with Connally's getting
Packard to agree that he wouldn't take any steps, at least at this point, and that
he'd wait and see how the whole thing developed; but that he did not support
the decision. Connally feels it's very clear that Packard's upset about a lot
more than just the Lockheed decision, which Henry confirms because Packard
has been very uptight, and Henry thinks that Packard's been looking for a way
to resign for some time, anyway.

The morning was spent on our New York trip to view the new parkland. I had
fairly long sessions with the P on the plane on the way up and on the way back.
He is cranked up on follow-up on the SST vote in the House this week, and
agreed to meet with a group that Gerry Ford would put together for a break-
fast tomorrow morning in order to get it going. He got into a discussion of
general tactics regarding how we approach things. Makes the point that we're
going to quit meeting with the people that are against us, and playing to the
issues such as consumers, environment, youth, press, business elite, intellectu-
als, volunteers, and that he won't meet with these groups except when it's
etc.,
solely a question of a delaying action. He feels the battle lines are drawn now;
we should play our friends all out and get only our people in. The key now is
to fight the main battle, which is Vietnam, and not to be diverted to the fringes.
We had our Monday-night staff dinner. Henry came late and left early and had
nothing to say.

The usual clear Wednesday, which creates monumental problems for me as the
P has nothing to do and so keeps me in there talking for hours as he did
virtually all morning and for a good chunk this afternoon.
We had the SST vote in the House, and it came out in favor of restoring
the SST funds. The P was delighted and made a number of calls to congress-
286 H.R. HALDEMAN
men assuring them of our support in trying to get it through the Senate. Also,
the Ways and Means Committee reported out the Welfare Reform Bill today,
so it was a good day at the House of Representatives.
The big flap of the day was the proposed NATO Troop-Reduction
Amendment offered by Mansfield, and the question of how to deal with it; the
decision was to fight it for a defeat in the Senate. That got us into a K-Rogers
tangle as K started launching all the plans for it, but the P wanted Rogers to
lead the charge and talked to him about it. Rogers said he would, but in talking
to K later backed away, and obviously didn't want to really take over on it.
We went through a painful exercise, with Henry in the office, while the P was
trying to work out a way to force Henry to get Rogers in.
Addendum from May 12. This item's added as Henry K called me after
I had done the other tape, to report that in his meeting with Dobrynin today,
he had gotten agreement in all of the specifics of SALT except for one minor
technicality that relates to translation in the letter, as related to the wording
in the press release. Henry says there's a nine out of ten chance that we'll be
able to make the announcement next Thursday, and that if it gets hung up at
all, it will only be hung up on this technicality, which can be worked out in two
weeks. He's very pleased, and thinks he's gotten over the first hurdle in his
series of negotiating plans, and now we will anxiously await the next one.

K and I were in for a fairly long session first thing this morning, since the day
had been kept clear for a possible press conference. The P got into a review of
Laos and the fact that casualties were way down now; that there's been no
spring offensive despite the largest materiel input ever in Vietnam, including at
Tet; and that it's really remarkable proof of the effectiveness of the operation.
We also got to talking about China and the whole plan for possible follow-up
on the initiative. Henry's ecstatic because he's heard back from the North
Vietnamese, and they want to meet with him in Paris on the 30th, so he's going
ahead with that plan. He still thinks the Chinese thing's going to work out, but
there's been no word, of course, from them, and won't be for a couple of
weeks.
Then we got problem of Rogers and the SALT agreement, since
into the
that's now set and will be announced next Thursday. The problem is how to
fill Rogers in ahead of time without his feeling that it's been maneuvered
behind his back, which of course it has. The P's very sensitive to this, but
doesn't seem to have any fixed ideas on how to deal with it.
He got into a discussion with E later in the morning, on the need to think
regarding goals, rather than programs, and got into quite a session with John
covering the same ground that I'd been pushing on, trying to shift the emphasis
of the Domestic Council's approach. The P pointed out that we've got to
personalize and conceptualize in broad visionary terms regarding goals, in-
stead of just developing programs and legislation. He said politically the new
American Revolution is a dud. The people don't care how you run the govern-
ment; they only want it to cost a little less. He wants to go for water, education,
narcotics, street crime, and whatever positive issues we can develop.

He had me come over around noon for a couple of hours, pretty much just to
generally get caught up. He got into the PR thing, thinking back on Bu-
chanan's memo that we're overdoing the human interest stuff. He thinks
Buchanan's wrong, and that the deal here is not to talk about the PR aspects,
but we do need to get this kind of thing out. He makes the point that Kennedy
was colder, more ruthless, etc., than the P is, but look at his PR. He came
through as the warm, human guy sponsoring the arts, loving his family, and
all that kind of stuff. Then made the point that PR is right if it emphasizes the
truth. It's wrong, at least for us, if it isn't true. We should only do things that
help on the PR impact.

Got into a discussion of the letter he had received from Bowling, the President
of Earlham College, which he felt was very astute in its analysis of the Middle
East and the Israeli attitude. He wants me to send a copy of the letter to
Rogers, telling him the P found it very interesting. More importantly, he wants
me to sit down with Haig and go over, on a cold-turkey basis, that this is a view
of a Quaker and that we've got to realize we can't play the Jewish game. That
all they're trying to do is string us along until the elections next year when they
hope to replace us.
SALT was the big activity today, as our original plans for the Rogers, Laird,
and ( chief SALT negotiator ) Gerry Smith meetings were one by one dropped
and shifted because Henry didn't have the final OK from Dobrynin on the
wording of the agreement and the final decision to confirm announcement on
Thursday. As the day went on, Henry became more and more nervous, as did
the P, because it looked as if maybe there was a snag we weren't going to get
through. That all proved to be unfounded, as at 3:45 Henry burst into a
meeting the P and I were having with Colson, to say that everything was all
set. We talked in some double-talk so Colson wouldn't understand what we
were saying for a while, and then finally Chuck left and we went into the plans
for how to handle it. We'll go ahead with briefings tomorrow of Rogers, etc.
The P is still extremely worried about how to tell Rogers, and went back and
forth on that, frequently, on and off during the rest of the afternoon, but we
locked him in for a 9:00 appointment in the morning and he's going to have
to face up to it now.
288 H.R. HALDEMAN
There was, of course, considerable discussion as the day went on, of

looking back on how the whole thing had come together. The tremendous role
Henry's played in this, implementing the P's decisions in his many secret
meetings with Dobrynin, which have finally progressed to the point of some-
thing that we can actually take to the people. This puts us in a marvelous
position because of the general feeling on the part of many of the doves in
Congress that SALT had broken down, and Muskie's plan to start holding
hearings, etc. This, of course, shoots all the ground out from under them. The
problem now is how to handle the announcement and follow-up on it in such
a way as to tread the very fine line between making sure that the enormous
significance of the step is clearly understood, but that we don't oversell it or
appear to have arrived at any final decision.
There was a lot of back-and-forth discussion between Henry and the P as
to who deserved the credit, Henry making very clear the point that it was
etc.,
the P's courage in the decisions that had made it all possible, but obviously
Henry feels he played a monumental role also and I guess he really did.
E reported that the SST revival was dead since Boeing had decided to fold
their hand and not attempt to go for renewal, on the basis that they can't win
in the renegotiation of the contract. This came as something of a blow to the
P. He's especially concerned because it's obviously a slur on us, in that the
House revived the thing and we weren't able to carry it through with the
supplier. He's furious with Boeing, and has made it clear they'll get nothing
more from this Administration as long as he is in office.
He also got into quite a long thing on the lack of leadership in the
Congress, particularly in the Senate, making the point that Gerry Ford really
is the only leader we've got on either side in either house. And that led into
some reminiscing about the old-time greats in the Congress.

E reported that in his meeting with the President of Boeing, T. Wilson,
this afternoon, Wilson got into a pitch on their new hydrofoil and John cut
him off, saying that he really didn't think this Administration was going to be
very interested in a new contract with the Boeing Company, at least at this
time, at which Wilson got up hastily and departed.
We had a little flap with the Director of the National Institutes of Mental
Health, who apparently said the other day that he thought marijuana offenses
should be handled like traffic violations. This sent the P right up the wall, and
he's told E to get the guy fired, which it turns out we're glad to do because he's
been causing some other problems and shows some clear disloyalty. So John's
moving ahead on that.

This was about a 99 percent SALT day, as we set the notification process in
motion. Henry met with Gerry Smith for breakfast at 8:30. The P had Rogers
in at 9:00, and they informed both of them. The P called me in at 10:20; also
Henry was in, and reported on Rogers' reaction. The P had the feeling that
there was very much of a problem, that Rogers' reaction was really almost no
reaction at all, but he clearly had the feeling of wondering what was going on.
While we were in talking about this and starting to lay plans for timing for
tomorrow, Rogers asked me to be called out of the meeting with the P and
asked me to come over to see him.
I then went over to the State Department; had about a hour with Rogers.
He was clearly very upset. His basic point was, "Why didn't you tell me that
you were doing this? There's no need for me to be involved, but I do have to
be informed." He also made it clear that he's hurt, and raised the question of
whether the P's sending him a signal. If so, he'll go. I didn't really respond to
that.
He made the point that if the P doesn't trust him, he can't do his work.
He was very clearly upset; he didn't buy my explanation regarding the cutting
across party lines and so forth. He very clearly resents K; he asked how many
meetings Henry had with Dobrynin and whether there were memos of conver-
sation. He claims he's fully posted Henry on everything that he's done, but is
not being posted by Henry. This is in direct opposition to what Henry says,
and I and Bill got quite distressed.

raised that
To sum it up: it was clear he was very worried about the short-term impact
on his own image and hadn't yet figured out the long-term implications.
When I got back to the office he called, saying he had been thinking about
it and it was clear that we should develop a party line as to how this all
transpired. I then went back into the P's office and reported all of this to him,
after which he had Henry come in and we discussed it some more, particularly
the point of establishing the line. He said that I should make the point
strongly, that our line is that this is a Presidential initiative; that we will not
discuss the details of how it was accomplished, we won't let anyone describe
the process. We don't want any puffing because it was a mutual thing with the
Russians. The point is the P broke the deadlock and then it was implemented
at the appropriate levels in the government. If Bill's asked whether he was
involved he should say we won't disclose any details of the negotiation, but he
can say he was informed.
The P then had me go out and call Rogers. In the meantime, Rogers had
put a call in to the P, so I called Bill, filled him in on this, and then the P
returned his call and had a pretty good chat with him. Right after he hung up
the P heaved a deep sigh, looked out the window, and said it would be
goddamn easy to run this office if you didn't have to deal with people.
This afternoon the P had a meeting scheduled at 4:00 with Connally. Instead
of having him come over, he had me call at 3:45 and say that the P was going
to be tied up, but that he was sending someone else over to see Connally. Then
290 H.R. HALDEMAN
the P went over and surprised him in his office. He had me go with him and
sit which lasted about a hour and a half, and then the P spent
in the meeting,
a half hour wandering around the Treasury Building, meeting people and so
forth. By this time a crowd had built up outside, and he stopped and chatted
with them as he worked his way back across the street.
Connally and the P discussed the whole SALT thing, and were very
cheerful on the reaction to that. Then the P made the point that he wants
Connally to serve as the chief Administration spokesman on the economy, and
that he wants to delegate all of that responsibility to Connally. Connally made
a little speech about how he certainly didn't want to take on this task, and all
that sort of thing, but that it was certainly clear that the P should have one
single spokesman and that it had to be the Secretary of the Treasury, so he
modestly allowed as how he would take it on.
The P was in at 7:20 this cranked up from the whole

morning. Apparently still
SALT drop by the Tulane Univer-

deal. Last night he decided after dinner to
sity Alumni Dinner. Nobody even knew anything about it, but they finally
found out where it was. The P shot out and went over. Fortunately the Army
band was there; they played "Hail to the Chief," he came in, gave some
apparently very good remarks and left, scoring another pretty good hit.
The P continues in a kind of bouncy and detached mood, as he was
yesterday afternoon. I think basically in reaction, now that he's finally got the
SALT deal settled. Bebe arrived late this afternoon, and the P was bouncing
around touring him in offices, sort of like he was touring the Treasury and East
Wing offices yesterday.

This is We left early in the morning
the day of the trip to the Johnson Library.
and I didn't see the Pon the plane on the way down. He had Rogers,
at all
Connally, and George Bush up for a long talk; also Henry up for a while. The
library dedication went pretty much as planned; no problems and no great
accomplishments. Johnson looked pretty horrible; he seems to have suffered
some from that stroke apparently, because he was limping and has put on a
lot of weight, but was in tremendously good spirits, of course, and the whole
event must have been very cheering to him.
The P had me up for an hour or so on the flight to Key Biscayne. He got
into the budget problem and the need to cut down on things such as the NSF
(National Science Foundation) grants, especially when they go for teachers'
salaries; he wants to put that kind of money into something else, where it
would do us some good, and not worry about the squeals that it will bring
from the universities. He's afraid that he's been sucked into some things, such
as that and other educational expenditures, food stamps and other left-wing
proposals that he hasn't taken a close enough look at and he wants to be sure
we're not getting caught on any of these.
He Honor America Day. The Committee hasn't come up
talked about
with anything much in the way of a proposal except to do an outside show at
the Jefferson Monument, which the P definitely does not want to do because
of the demonstrator problem.

(Key Biscayne) The P had me come over at about 10:00. We had set up a deal
for him to meet with Miss USA at 1 1 :00, since when she was selected yesterday
she indicated that the person she would most like to meet was the P; said she'd
like to talk with him about various things. So we set up the opportunity and
it worked out very well.
He got into some ideas on library plans, obviously arising out of the
Johnson visit. He said that LBJ had tried to amend the Congressional regula-
tions on USIA in order to permit their film to be used in Presidential libraries.
He hadn't gotten this done and he wants us to move on it right now on the
basis of Johnson. He's concerned about the plans for our library; he doesn't
want to create a monument like Johnson's. He's also worried about oral
histories, and has very much of a feeling that he does not want any oral
histories made.
He got into quite a bit of discussion on domestic-policy matters. He's very
much concerned about handling of the drug situation; wants the whole thing
taken out of HEW. He makes the point that they're all on drugs there anyway,
but he wants it handled in Justice. He also wants Finch and Rumsfeld to quit
emoting about the drug problem, which only builds it up. We should be talking
about our solutions, not about the enormity of the problem. He feels NET
(National Educational Television) is no good; the whole thing is a bad idea,
subsidized public broadcasting is wrong, even if we could influence it to cover
things in the right way. So I'm supposed to try to drop it over the edge and
see that it's not funded in some way.
He's also worried about the Peace Corps and thinks we're making some
mistakes there. He feels we're not using our power enough on these things.
That we should really look into this; put a tough guy on it who hates the
left-wing press and do something about it.
Mitchell, he feels, should get onto the YAF (Young Americans for Free-
dom) deal, they've now announced they're going to back Reagan for P. He
thinks Mitchell should move into that and straighten them back out because
we need the group enthusiasm of the right wing.
The P spent the afternoon out boating, and I guess he's going over to the
Key Biscayne Hotel for dinner. We'll be leaving tomorrow for the Alabama
trip.
292 H.R. HALDEMAN
Started out in Key Alabama for stops in Memphis and

Biscayne, then on to
Birmingham, then on into DC. I had no contact at all with the P during the
day except for a quick phone call in the morning before we left Key Biscayne,
when he wanted to overrule the indication in the schedule that he would be
riding in the bubble-top in the motorcade.
The bubble-top is a special Presidential limousine designed for motorcade

and parade use, with a bulletproof transparent plastic bubble over the
backseat that enabled the P to stand up and be seen by the street crowds,
without exposing him to the danger of something thrown or shot. Nixon felt
it was security overkill, and did not like using it, preferring instead the
regular convertible, where he could sit or stand in the open.
We had already changed it and put him into the Secret Service follow-up
convertible, so that was no problem. We had great crowds in Memphis and
Birmingham, and the trip went extremely well. It should have had some pretty
substantial significance in terms of Southern strategy. George Wallace was
with us all day. Couldn't have been more friendly. Stayed right with the P, got
in every picture with him that he could.
Back in the mill in Washington. Actually he had a light schedule set for
today — the address to the Associated Council of the Arts. He made the point
earlier thismorning that he wants to put out a statement on marijuana that's
really strong, ashe said, one that tears the ass out of them. He also commented
on the question of why all the Jews seem to be the ones that are for liberalizing
the regulations on marijuana. He wants to find a way to hit hard, head-on,
dramatic, do it through Congress. As a follow-up on this, he has E and Krogh
(Egil "Bud" Krogh, a lawyer on the Domestic Council staff) going, and I think
they'll probably be coming up with something pretty good.
He had Henry in for a while this morning. He then delivered himself of
a whole series of fascinating Nixonisms as he discussed various international
matters with Henry. In talking about the problem with India invading Paki-
stan (a possibility, since tensions were high between the two countries), he said
that they have an old saying in their country that trust is like a thin thread:
once you break it, it's very hard to splice together again. He brought
this up
in the context of Laos, making the point that in we had broken our thin
effect
thread with the American people as to the winding down of the war when we
moved into Laos, and that it's going to be very hard to put that together again.
He made the point to Henry that all wars are close, this was also in reference
to Laos and the question of, if we'd only hung on two weeks longer we would
have had a success there instead of the mess that we ended up with, but he said
to Henry, "You've got to realize that all wars are close. That nobody wins big
in any war. .
."
.
Then he got to talking about the fact that foreign policy was not doing us
any real good, although we had accomplished a lot of things, and he explained
that to Henry's country, the intellectuals and the social jet set, etc., we're doing
an outstanding job, but in what he referred to as "my country," that is, the
plain folks out in the middle of America, they don't know anything about what
you're doing on SALT and all these other things, they just want things to
simmer down and be quiet, and to them we have not accomplished very much.
Then he got to talking about election issues, and made the ironic point that of
all the major issues, the only one that is a sure thing for us is Vietnam. That
all the rest are in doubt, but we know precisely what we're going to do and
where we're going to be on Vietnam.
King Faisal's visit today. The P ended up approving a full-scale arrival cere-
mony, and that plus the meeting and then a luncheon, followed by a private
meeting with Secretary Rogers, not with Faisal, but Rogers and K to discuss
the China-UN situation, used up virtually the entire day until 4:00, at which
time the P met with E and Krogh to go over the narcotics situation, and then
added Elliot Richardson. The P had sort of a dull session, apparently, with
Faisal, who talked on and on at the arrival ceremony again in the meeting. The
P says he speaks perfect English but won't use it, so they had to go through
the interpreting business on the entire conversation, which really bogged it
down.
The P got into a discussion of the general political situation the first thing this
morning. He wanted to track down whoever had done on Julie's
the attack
new teaching job to see whether there was a partisan source to it. That led him
to thinking that we should put permanent tails and coverage on Teddy and
Muskie and Hubert on all the personal stuff to cover the kinds of things that
they hit us on in '62; personal finances, family, and so forth.
Henry's all set for his trip this weekend, and is urging the P to give him
three weeks for a reply, which will still get one in before we go to Midway to
meet with Thieu on the 28th. The P emphasized that all foreign policy initia-
tives are going to have to be completed by July 1972 because after that there
will be a Democratic nominee and they'll insist that he be taken along on any
trips and brought in on any discussions. The ideal scenario still would be to
294 H.R. HALDEMAN
get the Vietnam thing settled this summer, have a Summit this fall, and wrap
up the first SALT agreement; announce a China visit and have it in March or
so of next year. Whether we can pull this off or not remains to be seen.
The P did his visit to West Point today, which went extremely well, and he
seemed to be very pleased with it, both during and afterward. He obviously
gets a tremendous kick out of chatting with the cadets and seeing the outstand-
ing caliber of young men that we have in groups such as this. It clearly gives
him a charge, and trips of this kind may be worthwhile for this reason only.
Before we left the White House, he had Henry in for a final discussion before
Henry's trip to Paris tomorrow, and called me in at the latter part of it, as he
sort of wandered around discussing the history of World War I, some of the
problems made then. He was pointing up the significance of the date March
21, which this year relates to Laos, but in 1918 related to (Erich) Ludendorffs
big offensive, which was considered a great German victory but which turned
out to be the turning point in the war and the principal German loss. He sees
Laos in the same possible perspective. It turned out that at the battle of March
21, 1918, the Germans lost more of their high command and senior officers
than the British did, and that result was a major setback for the German cause.
He also got into a discussion on MacArthur at the Yalu, and other specific
military strategy items. He clearly has been reading some military history, and
enjoys discussing that kind of thing with Henry.
On the way back on Air Force One we got into a discussion of our press
relations approach. I had reported to himthat (John) Scali (who was now
working with K on press)
had called in Dan Rather to bring him to task on
some factual errors he had made, and also had called in (Hugh) Sidey to blast
him for Time's coverage of the Acheson group meeting, which Time had
totally distorted. He questions whether Scali is doing the right thing. He makes
the point that Ziegler's been trying to do this on factual corrections for two
years and has gotten nowhere. We have to realize the press aren't interested in
factual accuracy, and also that if we straighten them out on the points of
factual matters, they'll hit us even worse on the judgment-type questions. His
theory is different from Scali's and others in that he believes the press and TV
don't change their attitude and approach unless you hurt them.
The P's staying at Camp David. Called first thing this morning to get a general
reaction to the news, which I couldn't do much on because I hadn't read the
papers yet. We did get excellent TV coverage last night and good press cover-
age today on the West Point appearance. The P makes the point that this
shows the advantage of doing something on a Saturday or Sunday, when the
news is normally light. He pointed out that he'd found out from Julie that
Davis had written a blistering letter to The Washington Post regarding their
attitude toward the Southern trip, and makes the point that we should develop
the idea of using a Cabinet officer or a congressman or someone else with a big
name to write letters of this kind as a part of our letter-writing program. The
celebrity letters of course will get a much better chance of being printed.
The P was at Camp David until about 2:00 and then returned to Washing-
ton, went right over to the OEB, and continued work on press-conference
preparation. He did call on the phone at midday from Camp David.

He had Henry back in again at 1 1 :00, and we were all in until about noon.
During that time the P got into questioning Henry, and that led him into a
discussion of the whole question of moral war. He made the point that after
World War II he had visited Germany, stood on a hill, and looked around
where all the terrible damage was, with hundreds of thousands of people killed.
And you could certainly say that was immoral, to have killed all those people,
to have bombed the areas and so forth, but the real question is, would Hitler
conquering that area be more moral? Same point applies, that the North
Vietnamese bombing is a tragedy, but it's even more immoral to send Ameri-
cans abroad and not back them up with air power. He got quite cranked up
on this whole subject, and made the point that he will not go out of Vietnam
whimpering.
Tonight at home Henry called me to say he had received his letter from
the Chinese and that it was even more accommodating than he had thought
it would be. He was obviously quite ecstatic about the whole deal.
At midday the P had Finch in for an hour and a half on California

politics. Bob reviewed his memo of recommendations. He has a main point of
contention with Mitchell on the question of Ronald Reagan as honorary

chairman of California. Finch thinks that this will give Reagan's people the
feeling that they've got a franchise to organize the campaign.

Henry called me morning to follow up on his phone call to me late last
in this
night reporting that he had got his message from the Chinese. He let me read
it this morning, and it really is effusive, and I can see why Henry's so excited.
They are really leaning over backward to set up a meeting, and specifically
confirmed the meeting with Henry and want him to come practically immedi-
ately, which he of course can't do. He's going to have to hold it off for a month,
but it looks as if we have the ball rolling in that area, and he feels that will put
a lot of pressure on North Vietnam to settle with him when he meets with them
secretly at the end of June. So he's extremely optimistic that we may get all of
the settlements that we're working toward on all of our initiatives, and if we
do that we'll really be in great shape.
296 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P had a pretty busy schedule. He met with the VP at his request, and it
turned out he wanted to make a pitch for his going to Red China while he's
on his trip to the inauguration in Korea. It was almost unbelievable, because
he raised it in a way that made it awkward for the P to have to tell him that
he couldn't go, and then once told, he didn't give up.

The P went to Tulsa today. We went up to Camp David with the family, and
the P arrived there late this afternoon. Called me, not realizing I was at Camp
David, to cover a couple of items, on mainly the reaction to the trip. He was
very pleased with it; he had followed Bill Rogers' idea of making the point that
America's a great country and that we get a distorted picture in Washington,
DC, and he got a very good reaction to this. He sort of laughed and said that
after Oklahoma, Alabama, and Texas they'll really be talking about our
Southern strategy, but he agrees that we should be playing to the areas where
we're strong. He made the comment that it really warms your heart to have a
group like the Tulsa University Choir, all crew-cut and not a single demonstra-
tor there. Overall, obviously he thought the thinghad gone very well. At the
end of the conversation he asked me why I didn't come on up to Camp David
for the weekend, and I told him we were already there, which pleased him.

At Camp David. The P stayedday again through the night tonight because
all
Pat wanted to stay up there, apparently to get a little rest from the pressure of
wedding planning. We had quite a long talk about Connally and the Vice
Presidency, and he says he thinks it's time for me to sit down and have a frank,
confidential talk with Connally about the problem. See if he thinks it can be
pulled off. He feels Agnew doesn't really have it; he's not broad-gauged
enough. We just can't keep him working in the South because whatever he says
down there will play all over the country. Also, he's not upbeat; he doesn't give
anyone a lift. It all adds up to the P's convinced that he can't do the job, and
that will affect his ability to campaign. So I'm supposed to get into all this with
Connally.
He TV thing again, which has been bugging him
also got into the public
and concerned that nothing's been done. His point is that it doesn't do
he's
anything for us, that supporting NET can't help us in any way, and so we need
some action do something to get the thing unfinanced, and his point is that
to
the board doesn't make any difference, and even if we have appointed most of
the board members now, they don't have much to do with day-to-day opera-
tions.

The P had E in with Weinberger and me first thing this morning after the
Cabinet meeting to discuss a new approach to the budget. He made the point
that we are not now thinking of spending in political terms. He wants us to
stop helping professors and that sort of thing, and look for other areas like
that, where we can cut back even though we take some lumps.
Concerning the Domestic Council, he wants them to look for more things
like the automobile safety business, where we can cut back programs that
screw things up. In the environment, he wants to take some risks in order to
produce some jobs. All of the decisions in the environment and the consumer
areas should lean toward things that will create jobs. He makes the point that
there won't be any tax legislation in time to do any good as far as stimulating
the job level, so we want to look at all budget items in terms of jobs and
whenever we can, put them in California. On housing, we should use whatever
Administration discretion we can to subsidize housing and thus create jobs.
Late this afternoon he called Colson and me in to tell me about his
meeting with NBC where he apparently really whapped the NBC top manage-
ment on the basis that we ought to quit kidding ourselves and recognize that
we all know their newscasters are all completely biased and anti-Administra-
tion. There is nothing that management can do about it. The P understands
that and doesn't hold it against them, but he wants to be sure that we are all
realistic and understand this. Apparently he played this beautifully and Colson
was practically ecstatic over the effect he felt it had on the NBC people.

Late morning he had E and me over and got into quite a discussion on
priorities. Makes the point again that out of all the things we've done, nothing
comes through clearly. The Cabinet officers have established no image of
themselves. E do some polling and analysis
raised the point that he wants to
and whole question of fear. He thinks that the questions in the polls
get out the
are not asked right. For instance, on crime, he thinks we have got to bring the
issue back on allaying the fear of crime. That we've accomplished this; people
aren't as afraid now as they were when we came in. They are not afraid about
the war, they are not afraid about the crime in the streets, they are not afraid
about the riots on the campuses, they are not afraid about the cities burning,
etc. But they don't know why they are not so much afraid, and we have got
to get that point across.

He Teddy Kennedy question again, makes the point that we've
raised the
got to do some long-range planning regarding him, on the basis that it may
very well go his way, and if so, there will be great pressures to forget Chap-
paquiddick, which is, of course, his most vulnerable point, that we can't let be
forgotten.
298 H.R. HALDEMAN
P this morning got into a discussion of how we're going to have to make a shift,
as of now, throughout our entire shop to begin a totally oriented commitment

to relating everything we do to the political side, without appearing to do so.
This has got to apply to everything. The question to be asked in weighing every
answer is, "Does this help us politically?" He says it's OK to do a few nice
things, but damn few. And even if they don't directly help us politically, if the
answer is no, it doesn't help us politically, but that failure to do it looks
political in the act of failing to do it, then we should do it because we have to.
Late in the afternoon he decided to take the Sequoia out for dinner to
avoid the pre-wedding dinner parties, and at the last minute had me ask
Connally and Rogers, and then he added E and Flanigan and me. At dinner,
Rogers leveled an incredible blast with some pretty strong language at the
whole Commerce Department. Saying that their personnel abroad were terri-
ble, but their whole setup was very bad. This sort of shocked everybody there,
and no one knew exactly how to respond to it.

Rogers also got into quite a defense of the State Department, particularly
on the drug business. He's concerned that at the Monday meeting of ambassa-
dors, on trying to stop drug production and traffic, that we be very careful not
to be critical of the drug-producing countries but rather appear to be trying to
work cooperatively with them. Overall, Bill did not distinguish himself at this
session, and I don't think that he gained much in the eyes of the P.
P came into the office this morning to while away the time before the wedding.
In the early afternoon, he went over to the EOB and had some lunch, then after
a while he called me and said he wanted to go down to the press tent and see
what the setup was before the wedding.
During the morning, he kept looking out to see if it was going to rain,
because that was the big problem with the question of having the wedding
outside. He felt very strongly that it should be outside, and finally, by noon,
when they were about to make the decision to move it inside because it was
raining a little bit and looked like it was going to rain some more. Then, at my
suggestion, he called Tricia and talked for a little while and bolstered her up
because she wanted to keep it outside also, although Julie and Pat and every-
body else was urging that they move it in. On that basis, they made the decision
to go outside, and it was a good decision, even though it was touch-and-go for
quite a while because it did rain on and off and the guests did get a little wet.
Anyway, from the EOB he called and said that he wanted to go down to
the press tent. Ziegler and I joined him and we walked down West Executive
into the Southwest Gate, across the drive, and down to the press tent. He did
a walking press interview all the way and they got a lot of pretty good personal
questions. The one where he got tangled up a bit was on the honeymoon. They
asked where they were going and he misunderstood the question and thought
they were asking if he was going, which he said he could tell them he wasn't
and they said no, we're asking where they're going, he said that wherever
they're going, I won't be there. Thus giving them a pretty good hint that it was
Camp David.
The actual seating of the guests had to be delayed for about 45 minutes
because of the rain. They held them in the South Hall. The P started getting
pretty nervous; he kept calling me from upstairs, saying to hurry up and get
it set up. Especially after the rain stopped, he didn't want them to waste time
pulling up the from the carpet or anything else, he just wanted
plastic covering
to get the chairs up and and the thing underway. As it turned
the guests seated
out, it worked out beautifully and the whole thing was a sensational success.
On the way out of the aisle, the P and Mrs. Nixon cut out from the regular
procession and went over to greet Mrs. Tkach, who was in a wheelchair and
is in extremely bad shape. It was a very touching moment. As Jo and I went
through the receiving line, Tricia made the point that it was Bob and Daddy
who stuck with us on doing it outside and worked the whole thing out, and
obviously she was very pleased that we had. The P distinguished himself during
the dancing period as he very graciously danced not only with Tricia, but then
with Pat, and then Lynda Robb and Julie, and I guess one or two others. He
looked like he was having a good time and did a superb job of it.
After the bridal couple left, the P and Mrs. Nixon went upstairs and he
called me up. He and Pat, Julie and Bebe, were in the West Hall, talking the
whole thing over, and the P asked me for a rundown on how it had all gone.
I gave him a very enthusiastic report. The P was in great spirits.
Julie wanted to watch the thing on TV, and the P said if you do, I'm going
to have to leave, but we persuaded him to look at it on TV, on the NBC special
which came on right at that time. He saw himself going down that aisle and
made the comment that, well at least I'm standing pretty straight. Obviously
the ladies in the family had been nagging him about standing up straight, and
he was pleased to see himself looking pretty good. The TV was great and he
realized it, so it was a good thing he did watch it, and I think that bucked him
up, too. All in all, the whole thing was a sensational day.

The P spent most of the day at the EOB with Bebe, while Mrs. Nixon helped
Julie pack for her departure to join David, after a reception for the Nixon and
Ryan families in the morning at the Residence as a follow-up to the wedding.
The family then took Julie to the airport and returned to the house for dinner.
The big deal today was a break in The New York Times of the reprinting
of the 40-volume Vietnam Papers, that covered the whole McNamara opera-
tion. Haig called to tell me about it before I had seen the Times. Apparently
we didn't know that the papers had been taken out and The New York Times
has all of them except one volume of the 40. It really blasts McNamara and
300 H.R. HALDEMAN
Kennedy and Johnson. He (Haig) feels that it will cause terrible problems
with the South Vietnamese government. The point is that it's criminally trai-
torous that the documents got to The New
York Times, and even more so that
the Times is printing them. The Times says they plan to print the whole series
of articles. The key now is for us to keep out of it and let the people that are
affected cut each other up on it.
These were of course the "Pentagon Papers," the 7,000-page study of

American involvement in Southeast Asia from World War II to 1968
which had been commissioned by Robert McNamara while he was Secre-
tary of Defense. It was the largest leak of classified documents in American
history.

The day started up with some more follow-up on the New York Times story,
which was discussed at the staff meeting. When the P called me in, he raised
the point, too, that there's cause in this for everyone to be concerned, espe-
cially regarding foreign policy. As to staff leakage, etc., the P is especially
concerned about Henry's staff. He thinks that we should get the story out on
... at Brookings, who is the suspected villain.
The first suspect for the leakage was a former Defense Department em-
ployee who was then a Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Just smoke Brookings out, using names, and demand that charges be
brought. He also wanted me to talk toHaig about the staff situation, particu-
larly with concern to the P's papers and how we're taking care of them.

The big thing today was still New
York Times story follow-up, as they go
the
on running it and the whole thing builds substantively. Mitchell went ahead
last night with his request of them to cease publication; they refused. So today
he went for an injunction, got a temporary restraining order, and probably will
be able to get an injunction. After meeting with the P this afternoon, decided
to file criminal charges. So we're pretty much in the soup on the whole thing
now. The real problem is to try to establish clearly that the Administration's
interest here is in the violation of Top Secret classifications rather than in the
release of this particular material. The problem otherwise is that we're going
to be tied into it and get blamed for the same kind of deception that was
practiced by the Johnson Administration.
The P dictated a memo to me thismorning, issuing orders that there is to
be no contact and no interviews by any member of the White House staff with
The New York Times unless there is express permission from the P, which he
does not intend to grant. I called all the key staff members and covered them
on this, and interestingly enough, they all agreed that it was the right idea. He
also felt that we should launch an attack on the Times; that it was a reckless
disclosure of secrets and shocking breach of security. The other point that he
wanted us to emphasize was that this is a family quarrel of another Adminis-
tration, that they're washing their dirty linen in public and that we aren't going
to get into it, but we do believe in the security of secret documents and we'll
have to enforce that.

New York Times reaction again dominated the day today, starting with the
where we got into a discussion in the 8:00 meeting, with Shultz
staff meeting,
making the point that there are three main issues: the question of whether this
should have been classified or declassified to begin with; the point that Top
Secret material is published every day and the question of whyanythis is
different from others; and the concern about how devious Defense and For-
eign Affairs intelligence are. They're always playing a cat-and-mouse game,
never a straight statement.
There's a real problem here of Johnson's pure deceit, for instance at his
press conference where he said he was not doing exactly what he was doing.
Another idea was that we should declassify all the material that can be declas-
sified and announce now that we're going to do so. Do enough of a release so
that we can't be accused of suppression. That, though, creates the problem of

declassifying other documents or releasing them to the Senate on the basis of
their being leaked or on any other basis.
The P got into this, on and off all during the day, wanted to be sure that
we're making an all-out effort on editorials.
He feels that we do have to make the issue that the press is massively
endangering our security, paint them as lawbreakers, disloyal, etc. That there's
no question of right to know or how we got into Vietnam, but we must
maintain the integrity of government.
As we were talking at midday today, he heard some kids shouting out
on the South Lawn and realized the 1,000 Rural Electrification Administra-
tion youth group were gathering to be addressed by Cliff Hardin and then
taken on a White House tour. After pondering the whole thing, on and off
for a while, he decided that he should go out and greet them, which he then
did on a completely spontaneous and unannounced basis, and it was a big
success. Now he feels he wants to do more of that kind of thing, which
indeed he should.
302 H.R. HALDEMAN

New York Times is still the major item of the day. P spent considerable time
at a number of sessions with Colson, Ziegler, E, K, and various combinations
of them, going over points to be made. Particularly anxious to get across that
this is no skin off of our hide, this involves the Kennedy- Johnson Administra-
tions; there are no documents from this Administration.
He asked me to tell E that he wasn't sure Mitchell should delay the grand
jury. He thinks that we have to play boldly and not be afraid of the risks.
Mitchell delayed it anyway; in fact, he already had when the P was talking
to me.
He made the point that things were the same way in the Hiss case, that
everybody will get a little jittery and want to start pulling back, but we want
to fight it. This involves security.
P worked on the ideas of what he ought to say at Rochester tomorrow.
His point is to speak to the policy of this Administration regarding security.
We've got to enforce a law that is passed by Congress. He then mentioned to
K, E, and me, that he's thinking in very big terms on this and that he may
argue the case before the Supreme Court himself, to indicate the importance
of it. He wants to use the line that the Times now says that stolen goods are
fit to print. Also, he ordered Henry to get the Lodge files on the murder of
Diem. Part of which is covered in the files that the Times has, but part of it
isn't, and he thinks that we should get some of those in our possession.
Apparently Lodge has the only files at this point.

Again today The New York Times papers is the big story.
We pretty much agreed, although Henry K was in violent disagreement,
that LBJ should go on But then learned late this
to defend the Presidency.
evening that Johnson had completely collapsed, was in a state of being totally
unstrung, feels that the country is lost, that the P can't rule and that they're
out to destroy him, etc. So that ended any participation by him.
The whole thing kept going back and forth in phone calls. E set up a
meeting of the group in Washington to work on final recommendations, etc.
As of late this evening, the matter was still pending consideration by the
courts. There was something of a flap on the point raised by The New York
Times that the question was now moot because The Washington Post had the
materials, so we went into the DC court asking for an injunction against the
Post, which was not granted and we moved immediately to the Court of
Appeals. The question of whether to go into the DC court was raised by John
Mitchell, calling E while we were in Rochester. John and I agreed we should
go, as did Mitchell, so that was the way that was set.
First thing this morning, the P met with President (Leopold) Senghor of
Senegal. That was supposed to be a half-hour meeting before we left for

Rochester; unfortunately Senghor wasn't told that, and didn't get to the point
of anything that he had planned to discuss until the meeting had been going
about forty-five minutes. Also, he speaks only French, so translation was
required. This, needless to say, didn't get the P off to too good a start for the
day. Rochester itself went The crowds weren't as big as we had
pretty well.
hoped for, but then the demonstrations weren't as bad as we were afraid that
they might be, either.
At Key Biscayne. The P had me over this morning for three or four hours at
the Residence; he had the door open to his study so it was extremely hot. He
had his bathing suit on and a sport shirt and was smoking a cigar; I had on
my coat and tie. He had called me about 8:30 in the morning, talked for a few
moments on the phone, and then told me to come over. I hadn't even gotten
up yet, so ended up never having any breakfast. He got into a critique on the
Rochester trip, feeling that we had missed some things on the motorcade
operation, etc., and he had some ideas on kinds of things that he could do in
these towns when we're on the road that would make the trips more effective.
Another idea that concerned him was the stock market drop, for which he was
having trouble figuring the reason.

At Key Biscayne. The P was on the phone for a long time this morning, caught
me over at the hotel at breakfast, then frequently on various ideas during the
day as they came up, all regarding The New York Times case. He explained to
me that in order to understand this whole thing, we have to understand the
Hiss case. That they're very similar, although none of us really realizes it. In
that case, too, the papers themselves didn't make any difference. They were old
and outdated and unimportant; the key thing was that we got across the point
that Hiss was a spy, a liar, and a Communist.
The question on this one is basically the same thing. These papers are not
what are important in themselves, what is important is that someone stole
them and that the Times printed them. He feels strongly that we've got to get
Ellsberg nailed hard on the basis of being guilty of stealing the papers. That's
the only way we're going to make the case of the press having done something
bad and violated the law in publishing stolen documents.
We now knew that the papers had been leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, a former
Pentagon aide who subsequently worked at the Rand Corporation.
304 H.R. HALDEMAN

Still in Key Biscayne. The P went over to the Teamsters this morning on short
notice, although we had tentatively worked out a plan for doing it over the last
few days. He went into their executive board and constitutional committee
meeting and met privately with Fitzsimmons for a few minutes beforehand.
The whole thing was very cordial. He talked primarily on foreign policy, gave
them a good buildup, emphasized that he was the first President since FDR to
visitthe Teamsters, and got a big hand for that, as he did when he said that
he knew that he could always count on them for solid backing on matters of
foreign policy and anything that affected the security of the nation. It was a
good session and well worth taking the time.

The big problem currently today was the round of Senate resolutions launched
by a Cook-Stevens amendment to require an end of the war in nine months.
This got all hung up in a lot of parliamentary maneuvering, amendments, etc.
The net result was that Cook-Stevens was amended by Stennis to put in a
relatively favorable amendment for us, and then it passed on that basis. But
then Mansfield offered his resolution as a substitute for it and Mansfield
passed 57-42, which is a pretty strong vote and solidly against us. So we've
now taken our basic defeat in the Senate on the antiwar deal.
This worried the P some, and worried Henry a great deal more. He got
very cranked up about it because he really feels that this is the collapse of the
country and it will mean not much chance for his negotiation in Paris this
weekend, which is especially galling to him. It is contradictory on its face,
because setting a deadline is totally inconsistent with a cease-fire negotiation
and release of PO W's. So the enemy's incentive to negotiate would be elimi-
nated.
The New York Times papers question goes on. The P now wants to have
Huston set up a small team under E to start rifling through all the secret
documents and especially the Cuban missile crisis, etc., as well as Vietnam.
And then get some newspapers to demand that it come out and also get a
congressman to do so.
He got to talking on the general subject and made the point that he had
a call from the Chicago Tribune and that they're demanding that we release
and declassify World War II and Korea documents, also the Bay of Pigs and
the Cuban confrontation. The P is ordering that this be done; everything that's
not involved in current security.

The P had breakfast with Mansfield this morning and apparently he relayed
to him two points. First, they went into the question of the release of the
Pentagon Papers, and the P worked out a deal whereby we will turn the Papers
over to Mansfield and Albert and they can figure out how to handle them. This
puts the heat completely on them. It fits in with E's strategy on the basis that
they will then have to hold hearings, etc., to follow up on this, which will be
an enormous problem for the Democrats to figure out how to cope with.
The P then, after leading Mansfield on, and finishing that up, indirectly
led him into the question of the Mansfield amendment yesterday calling for a
date certain to end the war in nine months, and the P gave him a basic
ultimatum regarding the harm that the Senate did. He rather happily described
this to K and me and E, who was there for it, in his office. He made the point
that we are in the middle of negotiations that started May 3 1 and we'll know
within a month whether the Senate action has ruined those negotiations. If so,
the P will have to go on to the people and explain that the reason for the
collapse was the action of the Senate and that Mansfield will have to take that
blame. He made the point to us that if we do get to the point where we have
to withdraw because the negotiations failed, he will do it with a total bombing
of the North to eliminate their capability of attacking, so in order to get out,
we escalate to accelerate our withdrawal.
Henry was in and out several times in the morning, as he was getting ready
to leave for London for his cover-up to his move on to Paris this weekend for
the negotiations. The P made the point to him that he's got to get it settled,
that from here on everything is based on the domestic political outlook and
he's got to realize that. He makes the point, too, that with the Mansfield
resolution, now maybe we have the excuse for flushing the whole deal. We had
to make that decision last year, either to stand up or to flush and we made the
decision to stand up, feeling that we'd never have the chance to decide it again.
But now we probably do have that chance, because of the Senate resolution,
and if the negotiations fail, that may be exactly what we will do.
On the release of the material, he made the point we won't compromise
codes and sources, but we are going to release other materials, and he wants
to have the Tribune start demanding papers.
Regarding the declassification of other papers, he's determined to do
everything we can to our advantage, on the assumption that we have only a
year to do it, for sure. He wants to move into World War II, Korea, the Cuban
Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and the murder of Trujillo. He wants me to set
it up to give someone free rein in these files and put a full team on it that's
absolutely trustworthy and get it all done within this next year. Also, now that
we have our man in the IRS, he wants to pull the Clark Clifford file and also
all the top supporters of the doves, the full list with a full field audit, and see
what we can make of it on analysis.
We took off at midday for the trip to Indiana, where the P did the dedication
ceremony for the plaque, or historical marker, commemorating his mother's
306 H.R. HALDEMAN
home. He gave an excellent little talk in the courthouse square, and the whole
thing came off extremely well as a bit of rural Americana. There was a big
crowd, very enthusiastic, heartland-type people. The principal of the school
was the emcee, the little girl who was the chairman of the Junior Historical
Society introduced the P, and at the end the band played "God Bless America"
while everybody sang together. Then the P followed through on his plan to
drive from there to Indianapolis, rather than taking the helicopter back. We
had given no advance notice and our subterfuge worked well. We had only the
press pool with us.
I rode in the car with the P. Unfortunately, it was hot as the dickens
and, with the glass top and sides of his car, it got hotter and hotter inside.
We kept looking for opportunities to stop on the unannounced route, and
finallyfound one in the form of a little local newspaper office, where they
had heard on the police radio ahead of time that we were driving in and had
whipped up a sign on wrapping paper saying welcome Mr. President and
Max. This referred to Max Friedersdorf of our staff, who was born in Jen-
nings County and was a friend of the editor of the paper. The P stopped
there and chatted with the newspaper staff for a little while. Then we drove
on and saw a bunch of old ladies standing on the road, stopped to talk to
them, and discovered they were from an old folks' home. There were quite a
few people along the way, as the word got out by radio that we were coming.
Overall, I think that it was well worthwhile doing it. But both the P and I
were dripping wet and really hot by the time we got to the hotel in In-
dianapolis. Fortunately there was time to take a shower and get cleaned up.
The Hovde dinner came out fine.
On Mayor Daley met us at Meigs Field and rode in with the

to Chicago.
P to the hotel, and as the P described it later, it was a real comic opera
operation. Daley is just unbelievable. He had the fireboats out, spraying red,
white, and blue water, and when we arrived at the hotel, he had his Mayor
Daley bagpipe band out in front playing for us. Apparently the P had a good
chat with him about a number of local and national issues. Daley made the
point strongly that he was with the P all the way on foreign policy, and the P
was very pleased with him.
We had a flap because a couple of hours before we arrived, a man was
found carrying two guns in Grant Park, along the route we would have taken
to the Blackstone, where we usually stay, but didn't stay tonight. The police
got into a gun battle with him and shot him eight times, killing him. That
created a bit of a local stir.

At Camp David. Meeting with John Connally. I discussed the Vice Presidency
problem with him; he basically agrees that there is a problem and that either
we have to change the VP's posture and attitudes and the P must give him
something to do in a very clear-cut way. If he's going to keep him he has to
use him, otherwise he's got to let him go. He is inclined to agree that he's more
likely to be a liability and that replacement would probably be
than an asset,
a good idea if it could be done without creating a stir. He wasn't aware of the
possibility of appointing a replacement, but seemed very much intrigued about
it when I raised it. He didn't express any thoughts as to who the replacement
should be. He felt that it should not be either an all-out conservative or an

all-out liberal, but rather a man in the P's basic image, who will articulate the
P's position well. Principally, one who will be an asset in the campaign. He said
he'll give it some thought as to specific suggestions as to who it ought to be,
but he didn't have any ideas offhand. Obviously, he was very interested in the
whole concept of the change being made.

K was in this morning, reviewing his schedule for announcements. As of now,
he expects to announce on July 1 5 that we will be sending Bruce to Peking in
October, and that's all we'll say at that time.
The announcement is to take five minutes of prime time at 8:00 Califor-
nia time. The P made the comment that we're sitting now at a great water-
shed in history, clearly the greatest since WW
II. Henry interjected that he
considered it to be the greatest since the Civil War, as far as the overall effect
on the nation. We then got into some discussion of who goes to Peking.
Definitely, Rogers would. Then the P raised Mansfield and Scott, which both
Henry and I are very much opposed to. The P made the point that Henry
must get an agreement out of Chou En-lai that no Democrat is to go to
China before the P goes. The question was also raised as to how we post-
pone the UN date.
As the day went on, we got into a monumental flap between K and the
State Department as Henry discovered in The New York Times an article that
indicated that K would be going to Peking as the P's representative sometime
in '72. Henry's convinced that Rogers leaked this on purpose in an attempt to
try and stop Henry as the negotiator with the Chinese, and to try to break off
his relations with Dobrynin. The same story had a number of accurate reports
on changes in ambassadorial assignments, which Henry feels were just put in
to validate the other points.
The P told me to talk to Haig about keeping Henry calmed down, because
there's nothing we can do, we just have to play out the game. He also said to
order Ziegler to make the point that we have no comment on these speculative
stories.
The P met with his economic group: Connally, Shultz, Flanigan, Peter-
son, the Council of Economic Advisors, and Hodgson. (Stans was unable to
be there.) He really cut loose on them this morning. He sat all alone on his side
308 H.R. HALDEMAN
of the Cabinet table. The rest of them lined up on the VP's side. As he started
talking, a thunderstorm hit and there were loud claps of thunder outside.
President's Talk to Economic Group

He made the point that he has made a number of tough decisions
regarding foreign policy in recent weeks and months. That before each
of them there was a lot of opposition, from Defense, State, Joint Chiefs,
etc., and that some of them had gone to the extreme of sending
memoranda in after the decision was made, but before it was
announced, giving the department's view on the decision. He said that
it's perfectly all right for them and others to do this, but the right way
to express a dissenting view is in the form of a memo to the P, with the

clear understanding that the memo is for the P. He then injected
sarcastically that he'll be sure, once he's received it, that marked Top
it's
Secret so it will get out in all the newspapers. He said that we cannot
have a debate in the press; it must be a debate inside because the P must
know all the views.
He made the point that the one who goes up or down on any of
these decisions is not you, it's the P. If it works, I'll give you credit; if it
doesn't work, I'll keep your views a secret. Then he referred to

Cambodia, and the fact that a number of people who had written
memos to him on Cambodia were very happy that he had not made
them public, since they were all opposed and it had turned out to be a
great success.
Then he said the decisions on the economy are final, we will not
have a wage price board. We will have jawboning, but his way. There
will be no change in tax policy now and he doesn't want any discussion
now regarding the possibility of a change in policy later. To have any
confidence, there must be certainty. To have certainty, there must be one
voice. So he's designating one man, the Secretary of Treasury, as the
economic spokesman. He's ideally suited for this role because he doesn't
leak things in advance. He said that everybody in this room will follow
the line announced by the Secretary of Treasury, or on occasion by the
P. He even said, "I sat in that chair as VP for eight years, and if I
disagreed, by God, I always told the P, I never told the press." We have
a plan, we will follow it, we have confidence in it. No guidance is to be
provided to the press, off the record or any other way. If you can't
follow this rule, or if you can't go along with the Administration
decision, then get out.
Having said that, he got up abruptly and walked out of the room, leaving
them all pretty much gaping. He had Henry and me sit in as did E. Henry was
ecstatic afterward and made the comment, that was one of the great moments
here.

Today started with the 8:00 Cabinet meeting at which the P delivered his blast
to the Cabinet along the same lines that he had done with the Economic group
yesterday. He was in for a half an hour, which was the total length of the
meeting, and the P did all the talking. Walked in, started it, delivered his pitch,
got up, and walked out. He opened with the point that this was probably the
most important Cabinet meeting this year, and perhaps through next year. He
had only the Cabinet members present, with a couple of undersecretaries
sitting in for those who were absent, and I was the only staff member present.
President's Talk to Cabinet

He by talking about the controversy on the Pentagon Papers,
started
and said we are going to have order in government, there must be a
if
process for making decisions so we can get the best possible advice
without being compromised by it being publicized. We are not talking
about history, we're talking about now. Down in the government are a
bunch of sons of bitches. Some of those that you've appointed may be
well-intentioned sons of bitches, but there's still a problem. There are
some in the Civil Service who are dedicated, but many who sit in the
meetings and debriefings, etc., are out to get us. This is true of all
administrations but worse now, and it's strange because

it's I've been
much more permissive than any other P.
We have yet to fire one of these people.
From now on, Haldeman is you
the lord high executioner. Don't
come whining to me when he do something. He will do it
tells you to
because I asked him to and you're to carry it out. The P must have the
best possible advice, with the bark off, but he must not see it in the
newspapers, and that isn't going to happen anymore. We've checked and
found that 96 percent of the bureaucracy are against us; they're bastards
who We don't need to be concerned about the
are here to screw us.
so-calledopen Administration. We're pretty open like a sieve, —
everything gets out. Every day we see that one department is fighting
another. Justice versus Treasury, and so on. Of course they are and they
always will be, but they cannot be doing it in the press.The P will make
the decisions, such as appointments to various posts. I'll make them. I'm
not referring to you here, but to the people in your woodwork.

You've got to realize the press aren't interested in liking you,
they're only interested in news or in screwing me. So don't fall for the
line that theywant something just for their guidance and background
and so on. They're going to screw you with it. Regarding Presidential
decisions, appointments and otherwise, I want discipline. It's up to
Haldeman to police it. We have ways to do it that will be extremely
effective. When he calls, I want action. Unless we act effectively on the
31 H.R. HALDEMAN
leaks now, it will be too late later next year. In the economic field this is
The economists don't know what to do. For

a very difficult subject.
example, Arthur Burns has changed his mind over and over. He has
memos in on all different positions. Unfortunately, he said each of them
publicly before he sent the memo to the P. There are many different
views now regarding the economy, taxes, and so on. A lot of papers
have been presented for the historical record and it's fine for everyone to
do that, but the outcome depends on success or failure. From the
advisors' viewpoint, if he's wrong and we succeed, it'll be forgotten and
the P will never reveal the fact that he had given the wrong advice. If
the advice is right and we fail, it'll still come out that he advised the
right thing and he can be a hero while we fall. So the advisor has the
luxury of winning both ways. The P doesn't have that choice. He's the
only one in this room who has to run for office.
Regarding the economy, I've made the decision. It'll be announced
by Connally today. He's our economic spokesman. You're free to
express your views only when you support the P, but the whole damn
thing on the economy has already been in the papers and thus it affects
the decisions. So we've created the impression on this thing and on other
things, not that we're wrong or that we're right, but that we're not sure.
So what does the businessman do? He decides to wait and what
see
we're going to do. There's only one thing worse than being wrong and
that's not being sure. So we're stopping that crap today. The first time
there's a leak out of this Administration regarding an inside debate,
we're going to crack down on the people at the top or at the second
level and they're going to go, so start looking for the scapegoat. You're
allon the top and each of you have a few loyal lieutenants, but beneath
you you have a whole department full of vipers and they'll strike
because they want to beat us, especially next year. For example,
Goldstein at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, a left-wing radical who
hates us. So the Secretary of Labor now gives the policy and political
interpretations. Don't worry about not being an open administration.
Civil servants weren't appointed to represent us. Regarding the
economy, we can't stop the situation with the Fed. Burns can say what
he pleases. I hope he'll see the wisdom someday of being helpful and
restrained in what he says, or he can be independent. Period. Our
decisions are there will be no wage-price controls, no wage-price board.
We will call in the steel people and raise hell on both prices and wages,
on specifics. We are going ahead with the depreciation allowance, but
there will be no increase in exemptions, no investment tax credit. There's
no point in these, because we can't get them through Congress anyway
and that would just show the impotence of the Presidency. Many of you
have been on one side or the other of these, or both sides. I believe
we're on the right track, but there must be confidence that we know
what we're doing and that we have competence in what we're doing.
Haldeman will be telling the White House staff all of this, right
down to the pipsqueaks. We've got a lot of little people who love to be
heroes. (Daniel) Ellsberg has gone out and said he's not guilty because
what he did, he did for the sake of the country. Hiss and the Rosenbergs
and those people all said the same thing. It's irrelevant which side
Ellsberg is on, we can't have the decision made regarding what is to be
released made by someone who doesn't have the responsibility. This
ruins an orderly government. I get a lot of advice on PR and personality
and how I've got to put on my nice-guy hat and dance at the White
House, so I did it, but let me make it clear that's not my nature. We're
going to go forward on Ellsberg and prosecute him.
The success or failure of the Administration depends on discipline.
Absolute frankness on advice around the table here, and I'll take the
responsibility, so don't hesitate, don't worry that you'll look bad, I
won't tell. You'll make the record if you look good. We want a strong
hard line regarding the decisions before they're made, or we can't
govern, especially regarding the budget, which will be tough. Put the
blame on the P, he said no, that you can't tell the press anything until
it's decided. The P has the right to advice without pressure, especially
pressure by leaks to bring press pressure. I want you to make this same
talk to your subordinates. Haldeman has the worst job that anybody
can have in the White House. I remember poor old Bedell Smith, who
had to carry out a lot of tough decisions for Eisenhower. In his later
years he started to drink a lot, probably to try and forget the things he
had to do in his early years. He was at my house one night and he
started to cry, and he said, "All my life I've just been Ike's prat boy,
doing his dirty work." Well, Haldeman is my prat boy he'll be down —
the throat of anyone here regarding leaks if they affect the national
interest. When he talks, it's me talking, and don't think it'll do you any
good to come and talk to me, because I'll be tougher than he is. That's
the way it's going to be.
Then he just got up and walked out, that was the end of the meeting. It
was pretty impressive, for all of them. I walked out right after he did. They
seemed to be very much impressed, so I think it had its effect.

We had the Court decision (on the Pentagon Papers case) this afternoon, and
that pretty much dominated the developments. The Court went 6 to 3 against
us. After the NSC meeting this afternoon, the P had Laird and Mitchell into
his office and called K and me in for a discussion on the Court decision and
how we should handle the reaction. Laird took the view that he should supply
copies of all of the Pentagon Papers to the press because they have agreed to
delete the sensitive sections. Henry argued very strongly that we have to
31 2 H.R. HALDEMAN
maintain the principle of the security of government, and that we should not
give the papers out.
There's a general agreement that there is very definitely a conspiracy here,
on these papers, and Laird alluded to some intelligence they had that he didn't
get into detail on.
THIRD QUARTER: JULY— SEPTEMBER

In discussing the Pentagon Papers question, in one of a long series of long
meetings today, the P raised the point of the Hiss question again. One of the
points he kept making about Alger Hiss is that his family was beyond re-
proach, etc. He wants E to realize that we have a great opportunity here, that
this is a conspiracy. He really got going again on trying to get somebody in fast
to take this whole project on, like the P took on the Hiss case, 18 hours a day,
with total dedication, tracking down every lead, leaking stuff to the press. He
made the point that the establishment has a new intellectual arrogance which
leads them to think that they know best and that the determination regarding
what the public should know should be made by them. We serve a different
morality. Elected officials establish the law; the courts enforce them. Those
who disobey, even if they think the laws are wrong, are immoral. If the cause
is right, they say it justifies breaking the law, but that's fascism, the means
justify the ends.
The P had his schedule free for the day except at midday with a bunch of
open-office-hour-type things and a luncheon. He was interested in the fol-
low-up on the conspiracy question. He wants to get Huston back on one
special line of inquiry. He had some points that he wanted Colson to follow
up on.
He had E and me in late this afternoon, making the point that there are
two phases to this. One, that E should handle the whole declassification and
protection of documents, dealing with the courts, etc., but the other is the
investigation and development of the conspiracy, which requires a dirty guy
31 3
314 H.R. HALDEMAN
to really go it. The committee can then call up the witnesses before
after
they're indicted and we can start hauling all those people in. This will require
great preparation, and a top staff man; depends on hard work, running
down everything. He thought that it was almost worth pulling E off the
domestic stuff and having him do it, because he really wants to get it done.
We had a flap with Rogers that Haig called me about. He had waited until
Henry was gone and then sent a memo in saying that he was going to send
Sisco back to the Middle East to try to bring Israel and Egypt together into
a settlement. Haig feels this would be disastrous, and asked that I help in trying
to cool it somehow. I talked to the P, he agreed that we should tell Rogers that
this has possibilities, but he's a little uneasy about moving now, so he wants
him to hold up until we can think it through. I told Haig to go ahead and
handle it that way with Rogers, which he's going to do.
The other big item of the day was the unemployment announcement
down to 5.6 from 6.2 last month, the biggest one-month drop in history, and
obviously a great story for us. Unfortunately, as usual, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics screwed it up and said that it wasn't really important because it was
due to a statistical quirk. This drove the P right up the wall tonight, and he
started hounding Colson on the phone every couple of minutes, demanding
that we get Goldstein fired, etc. Colson overreacted and started bouncing
around in the woodwork, getting action underway and finally got around to
calling me. In the meantime he had Shultz on a special airplane being brought
back down for a 7:30 meeting tomorrow morning to get things started so they
can give the P a plan at 8:00, when he says he'll be at his desk. I doubt that
he will, but he just might out of orneriness.

At Camp David, in the morning, he phoned while I was up at the pool.
Concerned about the weekend's news on the economy and says we're going to
have to start playing a harder game with Arthur, and also we've really got to
put the screws on the bad guy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He's talked
to Colson, told him to get a group together regarding Vietnam, making the
point that we shouldn't fall for the Democratic line that Vietnam is not going
to be an issue. That we've got to make it an issue, making the point that the
Democrats got us in, Nixon got us out, and then the Democrats tried to
sabotage Nixon's efforts to get us out. Also, he wants E's people to get going
with major accomplishments: one, crime, pointing out that we've reduced
crime in the major cities, we've reduced student unrest, we're launching suc-
cessfully a war on drugs, we've strengthened the Court, and we've ended the
era of permissiveness. The second being the war. Third is economics. It's what
happens that will count, nothing that we can say is going to make any differ-
ence.
He witnessed the certification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, the 18-
year-old vote, today. We had a group of 500 musical kids, singers and musi-
cians —The Young Americans —who are going to make a tour of Europe
starting tomorrow. They did a spectacular job. They were really enthusiastic
when P came into the East Room, and gave him a tremendous ovations.
the
Several of the girls crying, as they were so impressed with the whole occasion.
The whole group of 500 sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and it was
really great. Unfortunately, as usual the TV gave us virtually no coverage, and
that got him stirred up later on this evening.

Started in Washington, with some meetings this morning. One with Mitchell
and E regarding the whole conspiracy theory. The P is, of course, convinced
that Ellsberg is not a lone operator, and that we've got to move on this thing.
He made the point to Mitchell, that we need the cooperation from Hoover.
This has to be a case that's tried in the newspapers; not the Ellsberg part,
because he's already been indicted (on June 28), but we need to get the rest
smoked out, via Congress and the press, rather than letting them get into court
cases, where they pick up legal protections.
Kansas City went pretty well. Basically uneventful the usual routine of —
a media briefing, etc. Nothing really worth covering there. On the plane from
Kansas City to San Clemente, he had me up for a while, then had a long
session with Rogers, Helms, and Haig to discuss the Middle East. He reviewed
that meeting with me afterward and feels that Rogers is basically right on some
of the points that he makes, particularly that we should appear to be doing
something. Rogers apparently told the P that, talking to some of the editors
at Kansas City, especially of the bigger papers, they felt the briefing really
wasn't worthwhile. They said that it wasn't too interesting, and that the only
thing that saved it was the P's participation. When we got to San Clemente,
he headed for home, as did I.

The P got into the office at 7:00 this morning. I didn't get in until 8:30, and he
called me in then and had me in there from then until nearly 1:00, which is a
pretty long solid session. After I got home this afternoon, the P called while
I was out sailing and left word for me to call back. When I did he made the
point and was quite pleased about it, that as he said, the plot thickens. We now
have a message from the Pakistanis, and the secret meeting that they set up is
on, but for security reasons, they want it moved to Peking. He thinks this is
very significant because they want it at the highest level, and he thinks it's
possible that he'll see the old man (Mao Tse-tung), as well as the guy who he
was going to see (Chou En-lai). He's concluded that
originally he'll have to tell
Rogers tomorrow. So this is highly significant and historic.

31 6 H.R. HALDEMAN

At San Clemente. The P called me in with Haig to discuss the plan for
informing Rogers of K's mission, and he got into quite a long discussion of
how we would handle the notification process on next week's announcement
and all that sort of thing. Henry leaves for his trip over the mountain at 3:00
our time, which is 4:00 AM in Pakistan. He goes all the way to Peking,
apparently, and will be there overnight.
This was Kissinger's famous "stomachache maneuver." He pulled out of his

meetings in Pakistan on the excuse that he was suffering from a stomach-
ache, was announced that he had been taken into the mountains to
and it
recuperate for a few days. Under this cover, he actually was flown to Peking
to meet with Chou En-lai. This ruse was employed to maintain total secrecy
regarding K's meeting with the Chinese.
The P felt very strongly that he would make the announcement on TV,
without any preliminary announcement, and the only notifications being to a
few of the key countries, and then only 15 minutes before air time. No press
briefings in advance, no Congressional notification. He decided that he wanted
Haig and me in with him when he told Rogers. He had me call Rogers at 10:15
and ask him to come over at 10:30.
The Rogers meeting really went very well in spite of the P's fear about the
whole thing. The P did a superb job of picking up from my earlier information
to Rogers, when I told him that there was something cooking in Pakistan, and
that (President of Pakistan) Yahya Khan had asked for a personal Presiden-
tial emissary to pick up a high-level message. The P then said Henry had
learned after he got there that they had shifted: rather than just delivering a
message to him, they wanted him to come to Peking for a meeting with Chou,
and that's what he's doing. Rogers took it all extremely well, and the P went
on to elaborate that this all was part of the planning for a visit. Rogers, of
course, would be going on the visit, as would Henry. We'd keep it at the lowest
possible level as far as numbers, and all this seemed to work out pretty well.
The P obviously is really cranked up about this whole Chinese thing, and
did go on and on talking about it. Rogers also was very positive and intrigued,
and I would say that the meeting accomplished everything that the P had
hoped for, and then some.
P shifted the schedule around to set the budget meet-

In Southern California.
ings for Fridayand Saturday, and he wants Connally to sit in on all of the
meetings. He got back into the whole clearance business, as he keeps doing
from time He made the point, too, that we don't want the Pentagon
to time.
Papers to we want to keep the contents of them built up, and keep that
die, that
story going because it's important to us. The other item for today was Har-
low's report on his conversations with the VP while they were on the trip.
Bryce says that he thinks there's a three-out-of-four chance that of his own
volition, the VP will withdraw from the ticket, probably in January or and
so,
that he has some very lucrative outside offers that he'd like to take on, and
wants to take on the battle of the press from outside the government, so that
thing looks as if it's pretty much lined up.
Another day starting out early in the morning and ending around midday, as
we have all this week. worked out great because the P's pulled out some-
It's
where around 1:00 each day, and as soon as he does, I take off to go back to
Balboa.
He made when Henry gets back, he'll be the mystery man
the point that
of the age, and whole thing if he has one word of backgrounder
he'll kill the
to any press people. So there are to be no backgrounders whatsoever. He has

to quit seeing anyone from the Times or Post on any basis, including the
columnists, except for Joe Alsop. One factor, of course, is that Rogers is easier
to handle if K doesn't background.
The P made the point that the key to this whole story, however, is to
create doubt and mystery. Never deny the "stomachache" thing in Pakistan.
Say it was true, but then the other things also happened. The P then went back
and sort of reminisced on the conversation that he had with Henry when the
message came in. He said Henry was literally trembling when he brought the
message up to the P in the Lincoln Room, and the P had ordered out a glass
of brandy for each of them, and had a toast, after they read the document.
We've got to keep it locked up tight. A call from Henry on the result will
probably come around 4:00 or 5:00 tomorrow morning. The P told Al to notify
him as soon as Henry called, and they discussed some code words to set up so
that Henry would just simply say that it's on or off or postponed, because he
doesn't want to risk any leak. He said to use "Eureka" if there was a success
and to find out what the Greek word for failure is, to use for the opposite. Also
said that when Henry lands here on Tuesday morning, he's to go direct to the
P, regardless of the time.

I and there was no contact with the P other than a
didn't go into the office,
phone morning, when he called, obviously quite pleased, to say
call at 7:50 this
that we got the message all right, that they agreed on the time for making a
joint communique, that the meeting has been put off to spring of next year.
The was very dramatic in that Henry had met with him for seventeen
thing
318 H.R. HALDEMAN
hours. The communique meeting Henry had, the place that he

will indicate the
met, and the participants. The game on this, of course, is still to play it mum,
no word to anybody. The P will tell Rogers. He kind of chortled then because
he had talked to Billy Graham just before talking to me, and Graham had
asked him how K was feeling, that he was so concerned about his illness, and
so on.

The P had Haig meet with Rogers and tell him about Henry's activities
also
in Paris, both past and present, so that Rogers will be completely up-to-date
on all the missions that Henry's been on in the past, and the full deal on this
trip. Haig was very concerned about this, and thought that it will probably
permanently break it off with him with Henry, but that he would go ahead and
do it anyway. I told him I didn't think it would, and that Henry would realize
that this was the right thing to do.

Today is and that dominated everything, of course.
the day of Henry's return,
We The P and I met him at
got in early for Henry's helicopter arrival at 7:00.
the chopper and then the P took him in his golf cart over to the Residence for
breakfast. They were there until after 9:00, when the P came over to the office,
and I guess Henry went home. The P called me in at 10:00 and quickly
reviewed Henry's findings, which basically we already knew. He made the
point that our real problem now is to set up something for Rogers to say, and
to find a way to finesse Vietnam on Thursday night. The problem being that
with all the attention there's been on Vietnam, the public is going to expect a
Vietnam announcement when the P says that he's going on the air. It's clear
now that Rogers can't give the speech on China in London on Monday, so his
speech should be on Vietnam. We got into handling the China question with
the United Nations. We will vote in favor of admission of the People's Repub-
lic of China, but we will vote against expulsion of Taiwan. We have to figure
out how we avoid double-crossing Taiwan in this. The P concluded, therefore,
Rogers announces our China policy,
that he can't have a press conference until
and that either Rogers or Bush has to announce it. Henry was concerned that
we not appear to the People's Republic of China to support a two-China
policy. The P got into some reflection of how everything all turns around.
Years ago he fought the battle for Chiang, and he's always taken the line that
we stand by the South Koreans, and that we stand by the South Vietnamese,
etc. It's ironic now that Richard Nixon is the one to lead the move in the other
direction.
The Chinese visit was apparently a fascinating experience for Henry. They
put him directly in a government guest house when he arrived, they told him
to rest, and then the top people with whom he conferred, Chou En-lai, the
Ambassador to Canada, a sort of Defense Minister-type apparently, and one

or two others, plus two very good interpreters, all called on him at the guest
house, and they had their talks there. The talks were abruptly recessed and the
parties came and went from time to time as they tried to work things out.
Henry hung very tight on our points apparently. At least the way he tells
it, and came out extremely well, in that we got the visit and the announcement
set up pretty much the way we want it. It's pretty clear that the Chinese want
it just as badly as we do and that makes it easier to negotiate. The general
feeling of the group was that the North Vietnamese, when they find out about
this, will undoubtedly be pushed even more strongly toward working out some
negotiation with us, and so that enhances the hope that something will develop
there.
After I got home this afternoon, the P called and raised the point that
maybe would be a good idea to take Henry out for dinner tonight. Let him
it
unwind a little. I stalled him and checked with Haig, who was already planning
to take Henry out just to block his evening; felt he was dead on his feet and
would just want to go for a quick dinner and then get to bed. So I called the
P back and he agreed. The P also made the point that K was obsessed with
doing something with the press. My own view is that we should avoid the
backgrounder with Henry. I agree with Rogers on this, but that's going to be
hard to do because Henry really is determined to do it. He obviously did a
superb job, and feels he did, and is really ecstatic about it; he thinks we've
come off quite well.
Rogers really reacted extremely well, didn't raise any objection except to
the idea of Henry backgrounding, and was most gracious in congratulating
Henry on the work that he had done, both on China and on Vietnam. So I
think that we're over that hurdle, although the P was very worried about it,
up until this morning.
The day of the big speech (that the P would be going to Peking). The P was
in good spirits and completely relaxed during the day. We got into quite a little
discussion on plans for the speech. He's not going to release an advance text,
and we didn't inform anybody, including Ziegler or anyone else, of what the
content of the speech was going to be, until we got to the TV studio.
We got into some of the problems Rogers pointed out, that we're going
to appear to be letting our friends down and they will object. Also, the liberals,
on the other side, will make the "Tricky Dick" claim and will complain that
there was no consultation with Congress, and do everything they can to scuttle
it, so we have a delicate path to tread right down the middle. Rogers urged that
we have to make clear what we didn't do. That no agreements were reached,
we have no secret deals, no promises, no concessions. We have to reassure
them of that, and assure Congress that we will cooperate with them in making
the plans. Bill's concerned because he'll be called to testify and wants to be able
320 H.R. HALDEMAN
He thinks that we should not use Henry's idea of saying that;

to cover this.
because of the delicacy of the situation we will have no comment. We are
changing our basic policy and we need to reassure our Pacific allies that we are
not changing our policy regarding them, that we don't deal with our friends
behind their backs, etc.
Then the P, as he's always done on every speech, read the final draft to
me. Then a little later he called Henry in, and again read it to him. He seems
to be quite satisfied that it's the way he wants it. So we headed on up by
helicopter to Burbank, where we originated at the NBC The speech
studio.
went well. On arrival at Burbank there was quite a large crowd outside the
parking lot, with a surprisingly enthusiastic reception for the P, which, of
course, pleased him greatly. We then afterward drove over to Perino's for
dinner, the P, E, K, Scali, Ziegler, and me. Had a delicious dinner. The P
thoroughly enjoyed himself. We went through a lot of the background discus-
sion on how had come about, Henry telling some of his stories, which we'd
it
already covered in some detail. The main highlight of the evening for the P was
a long lecture on wine selection that he gave to Scali as he ordered up a
magnum of Lafitte Rothschild 1961, which turned out to cost $250.
Even with the preparation this afternoon for the speech and all that he
had on his mind, the P called me from his house to say that he'd been reading
the San Diego paper and saw all the discussion about the convention site and
felt that we were missing a bet by not making a big thing out of the announce-
ment of the San Diego selection and thought we should do something about
that.
The other big thing this afternoon was a call I had from Connally, who
was furious because he had been told that we had hired a new Treasurer of the
United States and that this had been done without consulting him. This got
Connally extremely upset and he said that as a result of this and other things,
he was going to check out. In other words, resign. He wanted to talk to me
about it, but that he was fed up with this whole thing. I called him later from
the studio to try and simmer the thing down after I had checked it out, and
gave him the story on what had happened, but he didn't buy it. He said that
he just wasn't going to tolerate this kind of thing, that obviously it's forecast-
ing what's to come. At his press conference this morning a reporter said to him
that he had word from the White House that Connally was forced to have the
press conference. He was not a peon and was not going to function as a slave
to the White House staff, and that he knows he's got a problem when Rogers
is out here knifing him with the P, referring to him as a "gunboat diplomat,"
etc. There wasn't much I could do about it today, and I did not tell the P and
told Connally that I was not going to until tomorrow.

He me at home after midnight to make the point that we'll have a
called
delicateproblem with Rogers tomorrow, regarding K doing the briefing. He
wanted me, in notifying Rogers of it, to emphasize the shift of the focus to the
P as K did with the SALT briefings, and so on. So once again I get to do the
dirty work.
The main focus today was on the aftermath of the speech and a follow-up on
the Connally flap. The P had some follow-up things. The response to the
speech was surprisingly favorable from all quarters, even the conservatives,
and this leads the P to want a poll this weekend.
We got into the Connally thing a number of times. He had me call
Connally and try to settle it, which I was not successful in doing, and we ended
up getting back to the point that the P would have to talk with him. Connally
requested 30 minutes with him on Monday. At the P's request, I asked Con-
nally to come out here and talk over the weekend, but he didn't want to do it,
so we left it that we'd meet on Monday, and the P's now decided that he wants
to take Connally and me to dinner on the Sequoia and put it to him regarding
the Vice Presidency, making the point that we made a big play on China and
now we're going to make another big play. If we can't work that out, then we'll
go for Secretary of State, as was discussed earlier.
Still at San Clemente. The P was in for the morning, mainly reviewing the
China announcement, going over some follow-up plans. He got into some
changes in the schedule plan, as he realized that he was really pretty tired as
a result of the tension of all of this, and that he hadn't had a vacation out here,
even though he had taken most of the afternoons off. I made the case that he
had built himself in his position up to a point now where it seemed to me he
would be perfectly justified and would have no problem in announcing a
two-week vacation and actually taking off in San Clemente for two full weeks
in the latter part of August. He agreed with this, so we'll go ahead and schedule
on that basis.
We also got into Bill Rogers' reaction. He felt the whole story on the
China thing had played very well, but he said he wanted some time with the
P to be sure that what he says and does is correct. He's especially concerned
about how to handle the representation question in the United Nations. Needs
to decide whether the P wants to make a maximum effort to save the Taiwan
seat, and it's ticklish as to whether we really try this or whether we just go
through the motions. If we fight, we may still lose, but if we appear to fold, the
conservatives will hit us.
In terms of general commentary regarding the wholeChina thing, P made
several wide-ranging observations. One thing, he was commenting on how
stupid the Birchers are in attacking us on this, because they should see this in
terms of a matter against the Russians and be delighted with it. The point to
make what would have happened if we hadn't done this? We'd be collapsing
is,
now in Vietnam, and the Congressional resolutions on pullout would be

passing; the UN issue for China was lost anyway. He told Henry to tell the
right wing not to get out on a limb on this stuff, that they've got to trust the
322 H.R. HALDEMAN
P.Then we got to talking about Yahya's cooperation in this whole thing with
Henry, particularly how funny it was that Yahya made such a point at the
luncheon in Islamabad of making a fuss over Henry's so-called stomachache,
and in effect ordering him mountain retreat, saying he would send his
to the
Deputy Foreign Minister keep him company, and so on, making a big
to
public fuss out of Henry's indisposition so it would be reported as such and
give Henry the cover he was seeking.
He commented at some length with Henry as to the strain that he'd been
through on this. You don't realize how much tension you're under in trying
to keep a secret of this magnitude. He also commented that the thesis that the
right wing has, that there should be no contact with the Communists, is
absolutely wrong. The P has always was wrong. He's always favored
felt that
the need to talk. Talked about the pressure for a press conference
and decided
that, while he could refuse to discuss the Vietnam negotiations and the sub-
stance of China, he was better off not to even try one before the 26th, when
Henry goes back for his next secret meeting in Paris with Le Due Tho.

Today was the day of the meetings, starting with the breakfast with Mansfield.
I haven't had any report on how that went. Then the bipartisan leadership
meeting. The P made the point there that we need time for setting up the China
meeting because it's regarding substance. It's going to take a lot of planning,
which is completely different from a goodwill trip.
Bipartisan meeting was immediately followed by the Cabinet meeting,
and there the P emphasized the necessity for total discipline on what we say,
that without secrecy the meetings will not succeed, that we have long and
torturous discussions that we've already been in, that we'll continue to be in
now, and will be in after the meetings. There must be discipline through all the
departments. It's essential that we don't speculate.
Rogers said, we've got to work in three areas: Congressional, our own
family, and other nations. The P said that the points to underline are the
—
questions on how it affects the Russians this is not directed against any
— —
country how it affects Vietnam we won't speculate. In the meantime, every-
body's to shut his yap, except what the P says. This is not a goodwill trip, it's
not cosmetics, it's not to see China, but to see the men. You have to consider
the alternatives. If we were to work with the Soviet and Chinese neighbors,
with little detentes here and there, such as arms control with the Soviets, it is
worthless if China is outside the communications orbit. In 25 years you can't
have a quarter of the people of the world isolated and have any chance of
peace. The answer regarding becoming soft is that no one is less euphoric than
the P, especially on the United States versus the Communists. No one can be
more pragmatic in this matter, but the United States can't just stand by
without trying to affect the world.
No one knew about this because it was not possible to bring it off if they
did know. Even then, we were worried because we might talk in our sleep. You
must exert discipline over your people. They'll be sucking around everybody
in the government. Any little blip can be disastrous. We have not established
trust and confidence yet. The Chinese must feel that they can talk in secrecy.
Laird said we've got to maintain the other pillars of the Nixon doctrine. He's
concerned that some will read in this the wrong points regarding the need for
preparedness and a strong national security position. We must not have nego-
tiation as the only pillar. The P said this is the beginning of a dialogue, and it
does not change the power position in the world; we must maintain our defense
posture.
These talks will take place, but nothing's changed regarding the need for
defense. We will change only when the situation changes, but the Chinese are
very sensitive to tone, nuance, and timing. We have to avoid building up great
hopes.
The P also came into the staff meeting and practically drove Henry nuts
because he said he was only going to stay in for a minute and a half, and he
stayed for twenty minutes, giving his opening remarks. During the process of
which, Henry got more and more nervous, and finally broke his pencil, he was
so distressed. The P's key point was that this whole thing is in our vital interest
and in China's, and those vital interests may in some areas coincide, but we are
both consulting our own vital interests.
The Connally flap, I guess, was settled today; the P had a two-hour talk
with him over at the EOB. Called me afterward, said he had a good talk, that
he took him on the mountaintop, by which he meant he talked to him about
the Vice Presidency. Turns out that another incident was rubbing Connally,
which was the hiring of a secretary. Connally told P he had total confidence
in E and total confidence in me. Said this thing just kind of built up, that he
had no complaint at all regarding me. They did get into the VP thing.
The P said there's nothing I should do to follow up now, but sometime
I should give him a call, tell him the P filled me in on their meeting, and if there
are any more picayunish things, he should call me. It was emphasized that any
problems he has substantively on domestic policy, he should talk to E, any
other problems he should at all times talk to me.

P had a Republican Leaders Meeting this morning. Briefed them on the China
thing and then had Shultz cover the economy. Apparently didn't go too well,
especially the economy The P was really fed up with the attitude of the
part.
leaders. He told me MacGregor that he's got to avoid letting these
to tell
Leadership meetings becoming a crying towel. He's got to brief someone to

step up and cheer a little bit. He made the point that if that had been a
Democratic meeting, they would have cheered the P's initiative and been
babbling all over about it. He sighed and said it's such hard work for the P to
have to buck them up all the time, which I can certainly understand.
324 H.R. HALDEMAN
Then he had Dole and Timmons in. Dole going through the motions of
getting his views on the convention site. The P immediately opened the meeting
by saying any of the three sites you have in mind is acceptable to me, and the
line you should use in going out to the press is to say we discussed this, that
the P left it up to the Committee to decide. He really does feel it's up to the
Committee. On that basis, Dole says the decision will be San Diego, although
he thinks the Committee really would prefer Miami.
This afternoon, after a session with K, the P had E and me over for a talk,
and made the point that he had decided to have E go with K and Bruce on the
September trip to China to handle the advancing. I didn't say anything at the
time, but when Henry came in and joined the meeting later, the P raised the
same point again. Henry was clearly shook by it. I too think it's a very bad
idea, but E is dying to go to China, and this is the one way he can get in on
the act, and he maneuvered it with the P this morning. Later this evening Haig
raised the question with Larry, and said K was absolutely furious about the
idea. We can't have a substantive person going over to meet with them, and
I think Henry will probably scuttle it, which is just as well.
The other problem on the China trip is that we're probably going to have
to take some Democratic visits to China before the P gets there. The Chinese
notified Henry today that it was very difficult for them to withhold permission
have been doing, now that our visit
to visit, for other political people, as they
is arranged. I argued strongly that we should still try to talk them out of it on
the grounds that they could welcome those people after the P's visit. The P, I
think, is resigned to the fact that we're going to have to let them do it, but he's
pushing hard to at least hold Mao in reserve and not have them meet with him.
The P made the point that the Chinese have to have this trip, they initiated
it. We need to maintain our bargaining position, and we don't want to do
anything that cuts that down.
Made the point that we should change the name of Air Force One,
immediately, to "Spirit of '76" so that it's done before the trip. Then K came
in and the P raised with him the point of whether we ought to consider doing
the Russian Summit first, and Henry definitely says no. Instead, we should
plan on Russia in the spring, but announce it before we go to Peking; this is
the way he's put it to the Russians, and he wants to hang tight on that.
K reported on his interview with Sidey, and said Sidey was very much
with us all the way, but made the point that his editors are absolutely beside
themselves, that it's driving them wild to think that Nixon is the one to do this,
and they just think it's terrible, which is an interesting insight into Time/ Life.
Before he had come in, and again after he left, we had quite a discussion
on the VP thing. The P seeking John's and my views on what the situation is
and how to deal with it. His feeling is that the Democrats need an issue, now
that we've taken foreign policy away from them, and so they'll zero in on the
economy as the substantive issue, and the VP is the way of cutting us. Also he
got into quite a long talk about the question of succession. Making the point
that he may not live through even this term, let alone a second term, because
of the possibility of accident or ill-health. That raises the question of whether

Agnew is somebody become P. He enumerated some
that we're willing to see
of his problems, that he's dogmatic, his hidebound prejudices, totally inflexi-
ble, and that he sees things in minuscule terms. We then talked about what to
do to get him out, and we concluded that it's impossible for him to announce,
such as in January as he apparently is willing to do according to Harlow, that
he will not run, because that would open a horrible battle for the nomination.
Also, Agnew himself would be immediately dead once he does that.
The P then got around to raising the Connally question with E and made
the point that the only one we could put on the ticket is Connally; we couldn't
afford a battle, because out of that, Reagan would clearly come up with the
nomination, which would be disastrous. Conclusion then is if Agnew is not
going to be on the ticket, he must get off by resignation. Given that, the sooner
he resigns, the better.
Then the P told E and me that we were on the VP
to talk to Connally
problem. The P wants to stay one step away from call Con-
it, but I should
nally, ask him for a couple of hours of free time for John and me, and then we
should just sit down and talk the problem through, see if he's got any ideas on
how to approach it.

P had the day clear except for a scheduled meeting at 3:00 with Connally and
a group of us on labor. He came in late and went right over to the EOB, had
a long session with Henry, and then called me over. I used the opportunity to
go through the whole scheduling folder and get all of the backlog of schedule
stuff cleaned up. He agreed to do a quick trip to Iowa and Ohio. The following
week he wants to go to Maine and New Hampshire. He's still planning on
doing the California vacation.

We also got into some discussion of the China trip. Henry had hit him on
the idea of E doing the advance and had refused to allow E to go with him,
and is very much upset about E going at all. The P also thought we ought to
take a really hard look on what we want to do regarding press on the trip. We
talked about using San Francisco as the point of departure, stopping on Wake
Island on the way over, and stopping in Alaska on the way back and going on
to Washington. The P said he's going to take charge of the advance himself,
especially the Secret Service and staff thing, keeping it to an absolute mini-
mum, cutting down on the numbers; that there's no reason to mar this with a
lot of extra people.
The P washorrified by a proposal K made to go on a secret trip to Hanoi
after he leavesPeking on the next trip. The P's point being that Henry is now
getting carried away with his secret diplomacy, and going too far.
The P first raised the point of whether we couldn't develop a program of
issuing government bonds for purpose projects as a way to get big
special
things done, such as general research, cure for cancer, environmental ques-
326 H.R. HALDEMAN
tions, and so on. He says we have to find a way to do big things but without
raising taxes, and this might be the way to do it. The P raised the point that
Connally has a theory that it's good to have an enemy, and that one of the best
we could have now is John Kenneth Galbraith, who has come out yesterday
in favor of permanent government controls on the economy. The P feels that
we should have a concerted effort to blast him, as the economic spokesman for
the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, their chief guru. By hitting this, we
can turn the control argument our way. In other words, he feels we can win
this debate if we scare them enough on it.
The P added a sort of a long philosophical thing, then, making the point
that the ordinary working guy makes up two-thirds of the people in this
country who never went to college. In this period of our history, the leaders
and the educated class are decadent. Whenever you ask for patriotic support,
they all run away: the college types, the professors, the elite, etc. So he con-
cludes the more a person is educated, he becomes brighter in the head and
weaker in the spine. When you have to call on the nation to be strong on such
things as drugs, crime, defense, our basic national position, the educated
people and the leader class no longer has any character and you can't count
on them. We can only turn for support to the noneducated people.
He says look at Meany, Fitzsimmons, and Brennan. They're short-
sighted, partisan, hate Nixon politically, but they represent the constituency
of uneducated people which, plus the farm heartland, are all that's left of the
character of this nation. He's concerned whether the country really has the
character to do what really has to be done. He cited his meetings with the
group of college presidents, the new managerial business class, the science
advisory group, who have absolutely no character or guts. They're all per-
missive, with no character. The nation's editors and reporters have no spine
or guts left, so where do you go?
If you don't communicate with the labor leaders, they can go to the
masses, the rank and file of labor, and say we don't care. So we've got to
communicate with them. Plus they are men, not softies. So we have to find a
way, intelligently, to fight them where they're wrong. Go over their heads when
it's necessary, to their troops. He feels the country is in a great moral crisis, a
crisis of character, and we won't get leadership from our class. When we need
support on tough problems, the uneducated are the ones that are with us. So
it was generally agreed that we must maintain an open public communication,
regardless of how the labor leaders kick the Administration. There are many
ways to get the working people with us. Jobs is the main one, but the racial
issue and a lot of others can also be used. The P feels the Democrats will now
have to nominate an ultraliberal, that there's no way they can avoid it. They
will have trouble pulling labor in behind them, and that's our chance.
He then ended the meeting, all of that took about two hours, asked
Connally and me to stay behind. He raised directly the VP question, asked me
to report to Connally on my talk with Harlow about the VP's three-out-of-
four-chance evaluation that he will not run for reelection. We all agreed, as the
P and I had yesterday, that if he's not going to go for reelection, he's got to
resign now and let P appoint somebody. The P then made the major pitch
the
again for the fact that somebody has to be Connally; he's the only man who
can be P. The appointment has to be made on the consideration of the man
may very well become P. Connally emphasized, as he said he had with the P
two days ago, that he had no ambition for the job; he then went on to say that,
as a matter of fact, he wasn't at all sure he could stand being VP, that it seemed
like a very useless job, and he was much better off as a Cabinet officer. The P
jumped on that, emphasized that depended totally on who the VP was and
how he worked with the P. With the two of them and the relationship they
have, the VP could be an extremely meaningful job, much more so than it's
ever been in history. He would use him as an alternate P, and I'm convinced
he really means that.
He didn't try to push Connally into any kind of decision, in fact very
carefully avoided pushing him at all, but obviously is giving him a pretty good
shove in the right direction. It was in its way quite an historic meeting, and it
will be fascinating to see what comes of it. It's clear that Connally feels
strongly that Agnew does have to go, and he doesn't have any suggestions as
to who would be a replacement for him other than himself. He'll have a pretty
strong hand to deal from now, and it may be very difficult to work with him,
but it will be interesting to see.
The main today was the budget meeting process. I'm missing my notes
activity
right now on morning meeting; I'll add those later on this tape, so they'll
the
have to be picked up. They're quite detailed and important. I'll go on to the
period after that.
Before the afternoon meeting, I reviewed with the P a new Elmo Roper
poll, which shows that 64 percent of the people feel that things in this country
have seriously gotten off on the wrong track, and only 23 percent feel they're
going in the right direction. In asking what they feel the causes of the problems
in the country today are, 47 percent say drugs, 40 percent Vietnam, 33 percent
racial tensions, 3 1 percent people forgetting the golden rule, 30 percent the lack
of strong leadership, 27 percent the economic situation. It's kind of interesting
the way those stack up. The P was very intrigued by this, and came back to
it a couple of times later in the day. He feels that the reason for this result is
quite simple: that people are discouraged about the war, that they're mainly
discouraged about the kids. Also, there's been an unmerciful beating by minis-
ters, teachers, media, and leaders in general, saying that everything's going to
hell.
This is the basis of our Presidential approval problem. The country can't
approve of a president if they think things are bad. So there needs to be an
Administration offensive on what's right about America.
Some of our successes such as China, Vietnam, etc., should have an
328 H.R. HALDEMAN
enormous effect in this direction. Problem here is that if people are not satis-
fied, they will vote for a change in the Administration. have to hang We
Congress for the status quo, blame them for the way things are and not us.
Make the point that for the first time in forty years we'll have peace and jobs.
Then, after the budget meeting, he got into some follow-up on some of the
items he had covered in the morning meeting. He sums up the basic budget
thing by saying we've got to come in with, first of all, a lower budget; second,
a tax reform with a little reduction in taxes included; and, third, a 10 percent
cut in Federal employees. If we can develop that combination, we'll be in good
shape. He told me to get to E and have him work out a recommendation for
on busing that will enable him to take direct action a constitu-
legislation —
tionalamendment, an executive order, or a law, and he wanted to get the
whole PR group in to push on "the man you can trust with world leadership"
question.
For the afternoon budget meeting the basic subject was domestic-policy
budget, and the presentation was by E and his people. The P started by saying
he wanted them to reexamine all pollution bills in terms of their current
economic effect and put the brakes on where we can. On water pollution, he
told them to prepare a veto message if it's over $6 billion —
he'll veto it. Also,
he said to expect no health proposals to be passed this year. He gave an order

that there are to be no White House conferences anymore for anything no —
more commissions, no more councils.
E's group then made their presentation on what they considered to be the
major issues, going on the thesis that ideology is not important to the voters
but issues specifically are. They came up with their main issues being jobs,
taxes and inflation, crime and drugs, and then some specific issues for special
areas: Veterans, Agriculture, Environment, Education, Aging, and Health.
Regarding crime, it was pointed out that over half the violent crimes are
committed by teenagers; that the best things we can do are code reform, gun
control, and criminal rehabilitation. Next one is drugs. Basically our job is
supporting the present program, along with the tougher international line. On
veterans, they feel that the Vietnam veterans have been overlooked, and the
key is to move more things to them. On environment, the key is to balance
between environment and economy. On agriculture, the farmers feel forgotten,
but we're dealing with a two-sided coin here on prices. If we get them up for
the farmer, we also raise the cost of living. Education came in for quite a little
discussion. They proposed the voucher plan and tax credits; discussed going
for a constitutional amendment for private-education support. On aging, we
have some big opportunities in terms of population concentration in Florida,
Missouri, and Illinois.
The P said we have done great things, and we have great things to do.
We've got to make the point on peace and prosperity. We haven't had this,
without a war, for forty years. The country needs a purpose. Maybe we have
to demagogue it. We've been program-oriented, now we need to be purpose-
oriented.
E said we should relate all this to a keynote such as new direction. The war
is programs haven't worked. We need some new directions in this
over, the old
country. The P made a very key point: that the liberals have let the country
down, something that we can develop. The old liberals used to be for things
and move positively. The new liberals are totally negative and against every-
thing.
That's the end of the notes on the budget meeting. Obviously it was quite
a session, it went on quite a long time, I think a little over three hours.
The big stir this morning before the tax meeting was reaction to a story in The
New York Times yesterday that was based on a leaked memo regarding SALT.
The P had called E early this morning to really stir things up, told him to line
up everybody that had access to the memo and get them polygraphed before
the weekend was out. Cancel all their tennis games and trips to Bermuda and
order them all back in, line 'em up and run 'em through the lie detector. He
also got into quite a stir about some Porter leak that Henry mentioned to him,
or a leak about Porter's appointment to Paris, but in checking out I found that
wasn't really a valid one to be stirred up about. Brought Bud Krogh in on the
whole thing, and after some discussion, managed to simmer it down because
it turns out the Defense has a prime suspect on the case and will move on him
and then widen it as necessary, rather than going on a broadside attack. Poor
Al Haig was practically beside himself, afraid we were going to go ahead on
the original basis. Apparently they had some real flaps in Defense in the old
days about lie detectors, and Haig was determined to try and save us from a
repetition.
The P also was pushing hard to use the polygraph ruthlessly, also to set
up a system so that everybody who has access to the secret documents sign an
agreement ahead of time that they will take a polygraph test. He wants to move
immediately on this with State and Defense and NSC. Go to all the people, and
make the point that if any document which has been in my possession is
leaked, I agree to take a polygraph test as a condition of my clearance. So we

got some stuff stirred up that way.
We got into quite a continuing K-E flap, starting yesterday at the staff
meeting when Shultz and E jumped on me because Henry wasn't available for
the Defense section of the budget meeting, and was causing them to shift all
their plans around, etc. So I asked Henry to come in and join us. E then
jumped on him pretty hard, on not only that, but also the intelligence thing,
and the international drug problem, and the fact that Henry piles stuff up and
is not available to sign off on it himself and won't let anyone else sign off on
it. E says that since we have this logjam, there's nothing he can do but go
around Henry to the other people. At this point Henry blew and said as long
as he's here, nobody's going to go around him, and he is not going to permit
anybody to sign off for him on these things. E got a little more rough on him,
330 H.R. HALDEMAN
and that resulted in Henry saying E couldn't talk to him that way, and getting
up and stalking out of the meeting. I tried to stop him on the basis that walking
out wasn't going to accomplish anything either, but it was too late for that.
I talked to Henry later in the day yesterday, and told him I felt both he
and John had been wrong, and that we did have to work this out. He didn't
back off very much. Again, this morning we got into it a little, but Henry's now
on his way to Paris for another one of the secret meetings, so there isn't much
opportunity to get it worked out now. The problem still exists. I think a chunk
of it, from E's viewpoint at least, results from irritation on his part towards
Henry for being knocked off the China trip, which John feels is completely
unreasonable.

This is an insert of the budget meeting of Friday, July 23.was missing the
I
notes for the morning of the 23rd, and I'll add those
walked in late,
in here. I
and at the time I came in, the P was doing quite a powerful lecture on the point
that K has to really cut the Defense budget, but in the right ways. Leveled some
violent blasts at officers' clubs, Air Force excesses, and so forth. He told Henry
to take thirty days and really shake the trees.
On a general basis, the P said never has a country spent more for less on
defense than does America. Then he got to intelligence, said we've got to take
the same approach there, the CIA tells me nothing I don't read three days
earlier in The New York Times. Intelligence is a sacred cow, we've done
nothing since we've been here about it. The CIA isn't worth a damn. We have
to get out the symbolism, so a 25 percent across-the-board, get rid of the
disloyal types. Then he told Weinberger to cut the AEC (Atomic Energy
Commission) 25 percent in personnel, let the scientists go back to MIT and
steal documents. K committed for an NSC meeting in mid-August, on the
basis that they've got to hear this from the P. The P then turned to Connally
and enlisted his help on all this, too. He then defined intelligence on how to
spend $5 billion and learn nothing.
He wants a story that we're cutting 10 percent of the government person-
nel, that people will understand. So cut all civilian agencies 10 percent, Defense
5 percent, in such a way that we can announce it. Wants an example set at the
White House. As Cap Weinberger was jotting all these down on a pad, he said
in an aside to me, "This is the pleasantest morning I've had in years."
The P, in referring to the 25 percent cut in Intelligence, said it won't save
a lot of money, but it will do a hell of a lot for my morale. That was the general
thrust of that session. It shook them up quite a good deal.
Started at Camp David this morning. The P called me over at noon for a
session at Aspen. He had read a report from the Michigan Survey Research
Center that indicated he is not thought of as an activist president, but rather

as a pacifist.That got him cranking on the need for activism, but making the
point that there's a problem on the other side, that activism has negative effects
in terms of the letdown that comes later. On the other side of that, we have
achieved a cooling of the country, and that's the problem of a low-key Presi-
dency.
Then he got on the Pentagon Papers,
into the need for a continuing attack
getting the material that we've found out, leaked out, rather than waiting and
worrying about the legal cases on it. Feels that we've got to keep the Demo-
crats fighting on the merits of the Papers, regarding the Vietnam responsibility,
we need to keep the fight alive, and not be too subtle about it. They've had
their round, now we have ours, not fighting the press or the Times but keeping
the Democrats on the hook.
The Apollo shot was this morning; the P slept through it, but we put out
an announcement that he had watched it with great interest.

The P had an extremely heavy appointment schedule today, and I spent very
little time with him. Was in for a little while this morning and was talking
about the need to develop a schedule for radio talks because he wants to get
going on that as one of his activist areas.
K got back last night from Paris and filled me in this morning on his
meetings there. He had apparently a pretty good negotiating session with
the Vietnamese, and they're in agreement now on eight of the nine points.
The ninth point is that they insist that we agree to overthrow the Thieu
government; Henry will not accept, and told them there is probably no
need for any further meetings. Le Due Tho said there definitely was, that
they would come back in four weeks with a new proposal for a political
solution. Henry said he couldn't wait four weeks, it would have to be in
two, they settled on a compromise of three, so he goes back again. He also
met with his Chinese contact. They now are stalling a little bit, want to put
off Henry's next trip until late October because of their early October Inde-
pendence Day celebrations, their national holiday celebrations, which they'll
be preparing for in the latter part of September. Could be a stall, but prob-
ably isn't.

We had a pretty good flap on Arthur Burns last night and this morning as
a result of leakingsome stories that the P was being advised to expand the
Fed, and to bring it into the executive branch and eliminate its indepen-
dence. Also that he had refused Arthur Burns' request for a huge salary
332 H.R. HALDEMAN
increase. This got Arthur pretty upset, as it was intended that it would, and
he's now trying to find out ways to get in and around the problem for him-
self.
The VP returned from his 32-day around-the-world tour. The P asked Bill
Rogers and some of the Cabinet people to meet him at the airport. Rogers rode
in with him, the P met with him for about an hour at the White House, with
a photo on arrival, as being the best way to do it. After the meeting the P was
pretty discouraged because apparently he had to spend most of the time
bucking the VP up because of his distress about his press coverage, which of
course he had brought upon himself.
We had a stir today also because the conservative group, Bill Buckley
and his troops, plus the other Human Events types, met on Monday and
decided to issue a statement of nonsupport of the P, which they did today.
We had some discussion as to how to deal with that. The P is not too con-
cerned, although he wants answers communicated to them, but he makes the
point that we don't need to worry too much about the right-wing nuts on
this, we do need to be concerned about Buckley getting off the reservation,
and he wanted Henry to talk to Buckley, as well as having Mitchell talk to

Mahoney to make sure the Conservative Party doesn't get off the track in
New York.
The P was loaded this morning because we crammed a full day's schedule into
the morning so he'd have the afternoon clear to work on his speeches for the
weekend. He started his appointment schedule at 9:00 and went solidly
through until darn near 2:00 without a break. I had no contact with him at that
time. I did see him for a few minutes early in the morning to clear up a few odds
and ends that he had from last night and again late this afternoon. After the
schedule period he went over to the EOB and holed up for the afternoon to
work on the speeches.
Chotiner in to see him this morning, as a result of sending a letter in
saying he had to see the P personally. It was to report on the VP. Appar-
ently Chotiner had been in Spain at the same time the VP was, and Agnew
had pulled him aside and unloaded his troubles to him. He had launched
into a tirade on the Domestic Council and E, and complained that they
don't give him anything to do, and no responsibility, they don't ask for his
advice, and pay no attention to him. Said he was annoyed by low-level peo-
ple calling him. The clerks call and tell him to do things. Murray said the
VP was really uptight, that creates a problem for us because we can't have
him get into a huff and go off on that basis, so P wants me to talk to
Mitchell and see if we can't work out some way of handling it. Also he
thinks Mitchell and I should talk to Chotiner. The P asked Murray why he
hadn't brought this up with Mitchell to begin with, and Murray said Mitch-
Hi..
mm
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s
The author with

Rosemary Woods, BT :.
•
Nixon's secretary,
on Inauguration
Day, 1969.
lb
1 *
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v
MB r
wl
1
•*
*5
IB
With Henry
Kissinger aboard Air
Force One.
Everyone close to
the President was
assigned code
names by the Secret
Service. Here is
Wisdom (John
Ehrlichman), Wood
Cutter (Kissinger)
and Welcome (the
author).
The author, with his ever-reac
camera, filming a Presidential
motorcade. Besides a written
record of the Administration,
ir also kept an extensivi
filmed record.
-1
T -
1« ^^^^
^w
\ \ '
^^^JM
JH
,
B^ -
In China dur- \ '^M^^dfll

ing the his-
: toric trip. The
author with •>;#
Chou En-lai;
William
Rogers and
Henry
Kissinger
in the
background.
It'
V flf
*J
The day of the
Pentagon
Papers leak with
Ehrlichman
aboard the
Presidential
yacht, Sequoia.
Alexander Butterfield
and Dwight Chapin at
the South Portico of
the White House.
Attorney General
John Mitchell
with his wife,
Martha.
(UPl/Bettmann)
mf
/ >
mfifc
John Connally, one of

Nixon's closest allies, with
George Shultz and Elliot
Richardson. (Sygma)
Vice-President Spiro Agnew,

a constant concern for the
President. (Black Star)
The President, in a favorite
chair study in the private
in his
quarters of the White House.
(Burt Glinn/Magnum)
'* i
The President, heading

for the White House from
the Executive Office
Building, with a Secret
Service agent and the
author. (UPl/Bettmann)
A view from the Oval

Office, looking into the
Rose Garden, as the
President and author
walk. (Black Star)
The author in
his post-White
House years.
The author
and his wife,
Jo, with their
grandchildren
at home.
\
- !
r Mm
ell cut him off, and so I'm supposed to get that straightened out too. So the
problems never end.
The VP problem dragged me in today, as the P asked me to go over and see

him ( VP) to explore the conspiracy of the White House staff that he feels is
out to get him. I went over and had the meeting and the VP gave me a
document which purported to conclude that John Scali was the one who was
leading a high-level White House effort to try to make the case that the VP
didn't know about China, and that his attitude on China and the China
question was going to result in his being dropped from the ticket. I tried to
smooth the thing over a little, and didn't succeed very well, so left it that I
would look into it and see what we could develop on the actual facts. I talked
to the P about it later and he got all cranked up.
He got to talking about domestic policy, and made the point that he feels
deeply troubled that he's being sucked in too much on welfare and environ-
ment and consumerism. This all was a result of my reading to him a speech by
Tom Shepherd of Look, who hits pretty hard on the environment and con-
sumer issue particularly. The P feels that we've got to shift to a domestic
approach on the things where the P feels deeply, that we have to get some
sharp edges in domestic policy, and the only way to do it, the way he does in
foreign policy and on crime, is to have conviction. So we have to have the P
in the position where he doesn't feel uncomfortable. He now does feel uncom-
fortable. He feels we need to get into his speeches more of a sense of convic-
tion, not just mouthing the stuff that we are now. Also he wants to get
Shepherd in to talk to him, and consider maybe using him to edit material for
the P, to get off the mushy liberalism and get someone who writes like the P
thinks.
Then we took off for Canton, Ohio, where the P did the Football Hall of
Fame tour and then spoke at the Hall of Fame dinner. He did a superb job,
as we had expected he would, because of his unbelievable knowledge of foot-
ball. He really dazzled them at the Hall of Fame, and did a darn good job in
his remarks at the dinner, tying football and Chief Newman into the point that
America needs to be number one, and that the way to be a good loser is to hate
to lose and come back again to win. We had a big crowd at the airport, and
unbelievable crowds along the streets all the way into Canton, and even all the
way out and off to the motel in Akron, at 11:30 at night. There is obviously
a strong groundswell of support there, because this was not a generated crowd
by any means; it was people who were out to see the P on their own initiative.
The P was very pleased with it, and feels we've really got something going in
the heartland as a result of it.
As we pulled up to the hotel, there was a Vietcong flag in the crowd across
the street. The P said to get it down. Denny Shaw and a couple of the other
334 H.R. HALDEMAN
Secret Service guys went over and got it, and then came back to the hotel, came
in and chatted with the P for a minute, told them how they'd done it, etc.
We spent last night in Canton. This morning the P had me talk to Hodgson
to get an update on the steel strike and the rail strike. Guys have been
negotiating all night on both and still don't have settlements, and Hodgson
seemed pretty discouraged. Thinks there's a real possibility of failure and
definitely does not want the P to get involved, so we hang tight on those for
now at least.
We went on up to Camp David after returning from Iowa, and I did
another check on the strike situation, and it appears that we're still in a
problem. The P talked to Hodgson just as we landed at the airport. He says
the problem is still very difficult and problematical and he still doesn't want
Presidential involvement. Then late tonight Shultz called at Camp David and
said he wanted to wake the P up because we had to make a basic Presidential
decision on the steel deal. The negotiators were 1 percent or 1 Vx percent apart,
and Abel says he's as low as he'll go. The companies said to Hodgson, "Do
you want us to give in?" They're trying to trap us into telling them to. We then
were in the position of having to decide whether to go along with the settle-
ment or not, and Shultz felt that we should but felt that the P should make the
final decision on it, that we now have a chance to get a settlement, so we'll take
a stab at it.

At Camp David. The strike thing was the first question again this morning,
and Shultz had a more optimistic report. They had negotiated on both steel
and rails all night again last night. Steel postponed their strike 24 hours
because they were making some progress. Shultz thinks it was done without
getting us into too much of a box. It's mainly a matter now of clearing up
details. Some basically applies to the rail thing. George adds it up as being the
odds now favor contracts on both of them by Monday morning. Then, at 9:00
tonight, the steel people announced a settlement. So at least that one is done.
Rails are still negotiating.
The P called me over to Aspen at 1:15 today, as it was pouring rain. He
had called me earlier, and I was out playing tennis, so andhe told me to wait
come in an hour or so, but then the rain came, so I went on over. He had
ordered a fire in the fireplace, although it was boiling hot outside, and when
I walked in, his study was completely full of smoke and Manolo was running
around with papers trying to get the fireplace to draw. Kind of incongruous
in August in Washington.
He got to talking about scheduling a little bit, made the point that I've got
to protect him against overscheduling a day, especially a twelve-hour day. He

says the problem is wear and tear and
that he hasn't recognized himself, the
the emotional strain of all the problems that he has on his mind. That it's
different being P and moving around the country, because the candidate only
worries about the next speech, where the P's got to worry about that, plus all
the decisions, and the things that are hanging fire. He feels that a P can't take
as heavy a load as a candidate can, a point that I've been trying to make to
him all along, but haven't really scored on.

This was a big news day, with the Lockheed vote coming out in our favor in
the Senate by one vote. The P spent a lot of time before the vote, calling
senators to try to lineup the ones that Connally thought were winnable. The
P made the pitch to him, as to all the others, that he was talking with Reagan
who was really uptight about this, that if we lost the vote, it would be critical
to our chances in California in '72, and that was the appeal the P made to each
of them.
E met with the VP, who told him that his problem was not so much with
E, as it was his concern that he was not involved in the final decision process.
He thinks that under his particular circumstances, he should be handled differ-
ently than other VPs have been, and he made a plea for the P to cut him in on
the decisions. The VP apparently continually came back to the point of China,
and raised the question of how you'd feel if the P winked at his National
Security advisor when the subject of China came up, and then says he can't get
into a discussion about that, that we had some things going on, but he couldn't
talk about them. He feels that the P should have confided in him.
The P had a session with E and Morgan on the Austin school busing case,
and told them that they've got to get the point across that our filing an appeal
does not in any way mean an endorsement of the HEW plan or any other plan
for busing. The P then raised his question of a constitutional amendment. John
said it's possible, but there's a better alternative in the Emergency School Aid
Bill, because we can put a House amendment on regarding no use of funds for
busing. The P said we should take the initiative. He thinks that we may have
something so fundamental that we have to have a constitutional amendment.
He agreed with John that we could hold this until next September or put it in
the Republican platform in August.
He had a long session with Connally. The net of this is a huge economic
breakthrough based on the international monetary situation which would
provide for closing the gold window, a floating of the dollar, a wage and price
freeze for six months in the United States, a reinstitution of the 7 percent
investment tax credit, and the imposition of a 10 percent import tax quota.
These, Connally feels, would be self-balancing measures to control the econ-
omy, both the inflationary side and on the import side, as well as to meet the
336 H.R. HALDEMAN
international monetary situation, and get us away from being the victims of
the foreign governments that are arbitrarily floating their currency and leaving
us hanging.
This becomes a rather momentous decision, and it will be interesting to
see what develops. Mitchell appears to be basically in favor of it, and Connally
is pushing hard for it. Shultz will put some brakes on, but I'm not sure he'll
be able to be effective.

The P had his press conference, which totally swamped them. We pulled it with
no advance notice at 1 1:30 this morning. The P spent the morning over at the
EOB, getting ready for it. He opened with a statement on Pakistan, said he was
sending Rogers to the UN to deal with
and that shot the ground out from
it,
under any questions on that. The next several questions were on the China trip,
and that led into the Soviet-Chinese question and SALT. From there to a
couple of questions on Vietnam, and then they got into the economy, and the
final eight questions were on the economy. He was prepared for questions on
Agnew and his trip, the conservative revolt, and the whole busing problem,
especially in Texas, but didn't get any on any of these.
He drove Henry right up the wall when he said that he and Gromyko had
discussed the possibility of a Summit, and had agreed that it would be useful
only when there was something substantive to discuss. At this point Henry
practically panicked, and a few minutes later left the room. I found out later
that it was to call Dobrynin and tell him of this, and explain that the P was
saying it only to put the Russian visit in proper perspective versus the Chinese
visit.Problem was that the contents of the Gromyko talk have up until now
been secret, and it was agreed with Gromyko that they would be. Henry was
also terribly disturbed because the P, on the Vietnam question, got into the
point that we are very actively pursuing negotiations on Vietnam in established
channels and that the record, when it comes out, will answer the critics. He
really slammed them pretty hard on this, and it obviously tipped the press off
to the possibility that there was something going on in the way of secret
negotiations. Henry feels this is going to undercut his Paris project very seri-
ously.
P started out with a busy morning, prior to leaving on the weekend trip. He
had breakfast with Speaker Albert, then came into the office and made a few
minor schedule changes. Then went over to greet the Girls Nation group in the
State Dining Room. He did a superb job with them, speaking on the role of
women in government, and so forth, but then emphasizing that the real role
of women is as wives and mothers, and he gave a very eloquent pitch for
considering the importance of that role too, as contrasted to women's lib.
We left at about noon for the trip to New Hampshire and Maine. The P
got a spectacularly good reception in Manchester, NH, in spite of the fact that
Loeb Manchester Guardian) had written an anti-Nixon edito-
{publisher of the
rial in The motorcade from Manchester airport to
the paper this morning.
Nashua was spectacular, with people crowded on the road all the way. Good
tour of the nursing home, and the P did a superb job afterward in his remarks
on the importance of nurses. Then on to Bangor, where we had another great
reception, crowd at the airport. We choppered off to Minot Island for the
night.

At Minot Island. Things were quiet until 10:30 this morning, when P called,
asked where I was staying, and was surprised to learn I was on the island and
suggested that I mosey up to the house here. So I went up. He was in his little
sort of porch at the house with all the windows closed, and the door, although
it was a beautiful day outside. He was smoking his pipe and polluting the air
royally. We reviewed the reaction to yesterday. He felt that it had been ex-
tremely successful, and that led him into thinking about other trip kinds of
things that we might do.
Then he launched into a long general chat. He obviously had not had
anything specific in mind that he wanted to cover, so he rambled around a bit,
got to the end of his rope, and said that was about it. We did cover some
domestic policy items. He wants to shift more to a conservative stance. For
instance, Maury Stans has told him that there's $5 to $6 billion of private
industry investment that's being held up because of the environmental restric-
tions we've put on. P wants an objective look taken at it. His point is that we
need to look at things from a conservative standpoint.
That talk lasted about an hour and a half, and that was the end of it for
the day. The P spent the rest of the day just loafing on Minot Island, appar-
ently, and everyone had another lobster dinner tonight.

( White House) P had the morning and called me in at
clear, unfortunately,
8:45, and I was there wandered through odds and
for over four hours as he
ends with various people. He had Henry in for a good chunk of the time.
Talked about the question of the Chinese trip, vis-a-vis the Soviets, and some
of the media reaction, etc. Some of the negatives are starting to come in now,
but none of them seem to bother him very much. On the Hirohito visit, he
wants to be sure it's played just as a gesture, because of its being the first time
a Japanese Emperor has landed on United States soil, this is not a State visit,
it's got to be handled very delicately but put on with real style. He then got into
the media study that's coming out in September and had all kinds of ideas on
how we should be following up on that.
338 H.R. HALDEMAN
We talked a little about the plans for attending the opening of the
Kennedy Center, and he bought my idea of going a second night, not attending
the main concert and letting the Kennedys take the glory there. He got back
on the writers again, still concerned that they don't read any books, so they
don't get any background or inspiration, and he's not getting anything from
them arising from the mail; still needs anecdotes, still needs heart and fire, still
just dry dull statistics. Later today I learned that Connally was still in town,
although we had expected him to go to Texas. He had stayed here because he
didn't like the feel of the international monetary situation on Friday, and he's
going to stick around through today and tomorrow morning to see what the
reports are.

P started out the day with a little discussion with me and Henry on the Defense
budget, just prior to his meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on that subject.
Commented on New Hampshire that the crowd sizes become irrelevant, the
problem is the adjectives that are used. For instance, in reporting by the
commentators on McGovern and Bayh at the Democratic meeting, they all
slobbered all over them, and made their thing with 300 people sound as good
as ours with 30,000. Whether we get a good crowd report doesn't matter, the
question is the adjectives and the description that give people the impression
of what happens.
This evening we went on a dinner cruise on the Sequoia with Billy Gra-
ham. The P also had Mitchell, K, E, Rumsfeld, and Dent. The P and Graham
dominated the conversation, Graham reporting at considerable length on the
great success of his crusade in Oakland, particularly in interesting the college
youth from Berkeley.
The P went into considerable detail on his leadership decadence theory at
dinner, making the point that our real problem in this country is not the youth,
not the hippies, not the people that have fallen away, but rather our leadership
class, the ministers (except for the Billy Graham-type fundamentalists), the
college professors and other teachers (except for the old-line great teachers),
the business leadership class, etc., where he feels that they have all really let
down and become soft and that is where our problem lies; that we need to turn
that to a position of strength. Graham agreed with him, but expanded that
what this country needs from the P is a very strong challenge, rather than the
government giving them everything; in other words that he should hold forth
a call to the people that taxes them and requires them to sacrifice and work,
such as Kennedy did rhetorically but never did substantively. He feels that,
plus a recognition of the importance of the spiritual side of things and the
growing would be extremely effective and popular.
interest in spirituality,
Graham also expanded on his firm belief that it was absolutely imperative that
the P be reelected next year, or there wouldn't be any hope for him and his
movement or for the country. The P had Henry expound a little on his point
of the need for our being number one and taking a firm position of leadership.
The P is expanding this point quite strongly in private conversations, and I
think he's probably leading to a major public statement on it at some point in
time.

The staff meeting this morning started with a report on the busing problem in
Texas. Mayor in Dallas has said he wants to meet with the P, and we got into
the problem of the P's statement on busing making no sense, because the
Federal Government under the court order has forced busing, and then we
have come out under the P's order and are supplying no funds to do it, which
lends validity to the charge that the man in the White House speaks with
forked tongue.
There was a flap on the new White House Health Unit today, because
Congressman Shipley and his staff were investigating it, fired some cheap shots
about it being a "Roman Romper Room," etc., and this got the P quite
disturbed because he thinks it's the kind of story that is going to build and keep
getting thrown back at us. He went through quite a bit of agonizing over it this
morning, and kept coming back to it during the day. His main concern is that
we get off the idea that the P is using the Health Unit; he wants to be sure it's
known that he never uses a masseur, and make the point that he fired the
Johnson masseurs when he came in. We're going to try and do a job story on
the House gym to get back at them, because they, of course, have a much more
elaborate setup and all than we do.
Henry was in talking with the P about the Chou En-lai interview in The
New York Times, in which Reston really took some shots at the P. As a result
of this, P has ordered that Henry not see Reston at all, and that we enforce our
rule throughout the place of no contact with The New York Times and he's not
going to take them on the China trip. He feels that Reston's motive was clearly
to sabotage the trip, and we've got to recognize that. Henry was in, following
up on his meeting with Dobrynin
last night, in which he got a confirmation of
the Soviet Summit, and that led today into some schedule discussion of how
we go about both the trips.
Back on the busing thing, the P told Ziegler to say that, first of all, the P's
against busing period; secondly, that the Supreme Court has held that steps
must be taken, and they've held that busing could be used as one of the
methods of meeting their criteria. Therefore, the P will carry out the law, but
he has directed that every appropriate Cabinet officer is to carry out the law,
but because the Court does not require compulsory busing, they are to carry
out the law wherever possible without busing, and also he's asked the Congress
that no federal funds be used for busing. He's also to say that he's issued both
this. Ron put this out and got into quite a flap
a written and oral directive on
because nobody knew there was a written directive, and the press all started
asking to see copies of it.
340 H.R. HALDEMAN

Connally called me today to say he was going to come back up, he was in
Texas on vacation. He was going to come back up this afternoon as soon as
possible, because we had a bad day in the gold market yesterday and another
bad day today, and he anticipates a really bad one tomorrow. He says the
uneasiness is continuing in many countries and deteriorating daily. He says
there's no panic, but it is getting worse and worse, and we're losing the
initiative.
One factor in this: the British had asked for $3 billion to be converted into
gold. If we gave it to them, other countries might follow suit. If we didn't,
they might wonder if we had enough gold to support the dollar. In either
case, it was a major crisis.
So he came on up and met with the P at 5:30 today, after which P called
me I was out to dinner to say that they had decided to go ahead on the
while
whole move on Monday, and that we were going to pack up the key people,
including Arthur Burns and the key Treasury and economic group, go to
Camp David tomorrow afternoon, spend the weekend there and get it worked
out, and make the announcement on Monday. We'll cover the whole thing
when we do it, apparently, so it's going to be quite an earthshaking operation.
As a result of last night's decision on the economic move, today's schedule was
shifted substantially. The P went ahead with his NSC meeting on Defense
budget at 10:00 this morning and that lasted all morning. Then we set up a 2:30
departure for Camp David, took the Quadriad with the P, and announced
there'd be a Quadriad meeting up there. Had the other people go up on a
separate chopper from Anacostia so we wouldn't create an undue stir about
the attendance. We went round and round on the schedule for the meeting and
various arrangements of cabin locations and all that sort of thing.
Because of the enormous worldwide economic significance of the decisions

that were to be discussed, this whole Camp David weekend was set up under
conditions of total secrecy. In order to avoid any premature leaks, all of the
attendees were instructed to tell their staffs and families that they were tied
up for the weekend, and could not give any information as to where they
were, with whom they were, or for what reason.
Right after we arrived at Camp David, we started the first meeting at the
P's lounge in Aspen. It started at 3:15 and didn't end until 7:00. The P,
Connally, Burns, Shultz, McCracken, Stein (from the Council on Economic
Advisors), (head of the International Economic Policy Peter) Peterson, (Trea-
sury Undersecretary Paul) Volcker, Safire, and E were in attendance. The P
opened the meeting, after a brief updating by Volcker on gold loss problems
in the market today. Agreed that we must act on the international money
situation; there are many options that are now closed to us, so there's no point
in reviewing those.
He made the point, then, that no calls are to be made out of here except
to get information, and then you're to cover it so we don't get any leak out of
here as to what's going on, leaks in the past have compromised our position.
Between now and Monday, everybody here is to say nothing. If you talk to
someone, you assume the responsibility.
He said there was general agreement that action is needed: first, on the
international monetary situation, second, to deal with its causes domestic —
inflation, fiscal problems, tax problems, and wage /price problems; third, an
import tax that we would send to Congress, but make retroactive.
He turned the meeting over to Connally. Connally said it's clear that we
have to move in the international field, to close the gold window, not change the
price of gold, encourage the dollar to float. If we close the gold window, we'll
need an import tax of 10-1 5 percent. This will keep foreign products out and be
inflationary, so we'll need a further stimulant: we will reinstate the investment
tax credit at something greater than 7 percent, such as 8 percent or 1 percent. He
feels there'd be no problem with Congress, and business will react, of course,
very favorably to this. There's a problem in the automobile industry, especially

relating to imports; there's no reason for an excise tax on autos, so we'll repeal
the excise tax on autos, with the assurance from the industry that they'll pass this
through in price reductions. This he feels should affect 1 million people who will
be new-car buyers this year. We'll move forward the increases in personal
income tax exemptions, we'll remove all the financial controls that we've
promised to remove, we'll also ask Congress to change the antitrust regulations
to exempt United States industries doing business overseas, and we'll impose a
wage /price freeze until January 1 Such a program will leave a clear impression
.
that this has been analyzed in depth, not just a reaction to pressure. It will be an
act of great awareness, great statesmanship, and great courage, and must be
presented to the people this way.
A detailed discussion of the import tax followed.
The P said, now let's turn to the gold-window question. Arthur Burns'
view is correct domestically. The argument from the other side is to take the
rap now.
342 H.R. HALDEMAN
This got us up to 4:00, and Arthur Burns then took over for the next 15
minutes with a lecture on the whole subject. He said that Volcker and Connally
may be right in their view regarding closing the gold window, but I think
they're wrong. If they're right, there's still no rush to close the window. We
should analyze the steps we take this weekend; these are dramatic steps,
wage /price freeze, border tax, government spending cuts, tax cuts. These will
not augment the budget deficit. These will electrify the world, and the flight
from the dollar will cease, so we don't need to close the gold window. On the
other hand, there are grave risks in closing. First, political. If we do this now,
Nixon will get the blame. He'll be responsible for devaluing the dollar, for
dropping gold. Pravda will headline this as a sign of the collapse of capitalism.
It will be exploited by the politicians, hated by business and financial people.
The second risk, he felt, was economic, and that would be very hard to
evaluate. Question of what will the stock exchanges do? Up or down, you can't
predict. Once the dollar floats, the trade basis will change. The risk to world
trade would be much greater. The profit margin in world trade, which is
already very narrow, will vanish. There'll be retaliation by other countries, and
ill will. The bankers feel it would follow quickly. Foreign exporters will clamor
for action. We release forces that we don't need to release.

He recommends, therefore, that we take the other actions, and send
Volcker abroad to explain them. Then Volcker and the Fed start negotiating
on exchange rates, but without closing the window.
The P answered Burns by saying that speculators would start a run on the
dollar. Burns said if that happens, you can close the window the next day, but
you could try to get by without closing. The P said the argument on the other
side is that the gold window action is needed for domestic opinion, and he
recited the range of arguments on this. Burns says, so it all works, then how
do you know? How do you know it won't collapse two months before the
election? You must realize that you're taking a uniquely powerful action.
Connally said, what is our main problem? The international gold situation, so
we must act on it. Why do all the stuff to ourselves domestically and still stay
exposed to the mercy of the world by not acting on the gold window? We can't
cover our liabilities, we're broke, anyone can topple us, and he recited the
headlines all over the world regarding closing of the gold window; they've
already reacted to it. Burns says, well, all you're demonstrating is that this is
widely expected, but for the other countries, you've taken unilateral action,
contrary to their interests. Volcker said he agrees with Burns, but this is not
the disaster that he thinks, except in international banking circles. What every-
one would dislike is closing the window without trying promptly to negotiate.
Connally makes the basic argument again, and Burns keeps rebutting.
Further discussion followed concerning the reactions of business, labor,

economists, and the media.
Connally recommends that we talk as if we have alternatives, but we don't

have alternatives, we have to recognize the problem and face it. We should say
that this will make us more competitive in the world. That's the purpose of
doing now, while we have a cover for it, so we should not wait a day or a
it
week we should do it the same time we do wage /price and the other
later,
domestic actions. If you wait, then you are in the hands of the money changers.
Burns says, you must realize you're dealing with the money changers, the
central bankers of the world. They won't ask for gold if you take the other
steps, and you'll solve the problem that way without having to take the drastic
action. Burns says, I get reports from the central banks the world over, every
day. If we take the domestic steps, they'll applaud it, and they won't hit the
dollar. Connally says, they may not hit it, they'll just nibble it to death.
At this point we put the gold question aside, and the discussion focused on
budget cuts and a new tax package.
The P then turned to the wage /price freeze, and asked Shultz to cover it,
and then Burns to follow up on it. Shultz said 1) the wage /price freeze will have
the most immediate and significant impact, 2) it works best when related to
international crisis, 3) whatever device is used, it has a short effective life, 4)
consider how you stop once you start (the P injected, especially if it's working),
5) how to get labor cooperation; it blows up when labor walks out. The plan
is for a freeze, not to last too long, but simple, no exceptions, short so that you
don't need a bureaucracy. The P expressed his concern that an economy in a
straitjacket with the bureaucrats would be a disaster.
Shultz suggested a tripartite board, seven members, to set criteria, spin off
the problems on the specific areas, maybe create a governmental body to refer
cases to the board. The period of effectiveness for the board would also be
limited. Shultz said this structure would be minimal employees, that is, about
a thousand, and it should be kept small.
Burns says it could be done with less than a thousand. Burns says Shultz's
ideas are remarkably similar to mine. I think we should set a freeze for only
three months, the purpose is shock value and to get time for the machinery,
then set up the machinery. Peterson raised the question of whether an an-
nouncement of a period of a freeze, in advance, is a good idea. Burns said,
don't lose your advantage as the apostle of freedom. McCracken said, there's
a problem if you announce a freeze without the duration stated, because you
throw people off balance if they're caught. Shultz said, the shorter the freeze,
the less pressure builds up, and thus the better chance to avoid upsetting
equilibrium. Burns says, the authority expires next May. Shultz says, no, we
have two years. Peterson says, what are the P's legal sanctions; Shultz is not
sure, thinks fine and
jail. Burns says, you don't need enforcement, the period
will end before enforcement is needed. Stein says, don't underestimate the
344 H.R. HALDEMAN
difficulty of transition from a freeze to a board; you'll need more sophisticated

rules and more power.
The P made a little speech about prosperity without war; we have to find
a way to direct, stimulate, divert the American energy in peacetime to provide
full capacity. The P then went into his approach to the speech, and said the
way to kick it off is to start with subject A, which is peace. The United States
at long last enters an era of peace. We all welcome this, but it presents
enormous challenges. It's a very competitive world. Is the United States going
to continue to be a great nation, number one? Don't assume that, unless we're
ready to meet the challenge.
The United and what do we find? First, the problem
States looks at itself
of unemployment. We
need to take steps to absorb the 2 million people that
we've released from the defense industries. Second, as the rest of the world
becomes more competitive, the international speculators attack our dollars.
What can we do about it? There's nothing to be frightened about, but we're
not going to allow the dollar to be destroyed, so we'll impose an import tax
and tax problem of jobs and keeping America competi-
credits to deal with the
tive. Third, we have war and inflation. We've made
the inevitable heritages of
some progress, but not enough, so we take new actions. Freeze wages and
prices. This requires that the American people give their total moral support.
We talk about what can you do. The general public can support the freeze. The
businessman can invest in America. The consumer can buy products.
As a side note, Burns stayed afterward to make a personal pitch against
floating the dollar, and asked for a private session with the P later, which the
P hedged. Arthur then left and the P kept me for a few minutes to say that he
wants E and Shultz to know that he leans to Arthur's view about not going
ahead with the gold window, but to do that we'll have to bring Connally along.
He wanted E and Shultz to work on Connally this evening, and see if they
could bring him along on this. I then left the P's residence, and we went over
to Laurel and had dinner at 7:30.
At dinner, during a discussion of the need for secrecy, Bill Safire recalls that
Paul Volcker made the point that the necessity for avoiding leaks was that
"fortunes could be made with this information." Bill mock-
says that I,
serious, leaned forward and whispered loudly, "Exactly how?" which broke
the tension of the moment.
Connally took complete command

at the close of dinner, clanked on his
glass, made them what rooms to go to, and they divided
the assignments, told
up into the three working units and used the three rooms of Laurel for their
meetings. At 9:45 the P called me and said in view of the lateness of the hour,
why don't you let the work group go on working tonight, and I'll be available
anytime after 8:30 in the morning to meet with them. Nobody had any inten-
tion of meeting with him further tonight, but he seemed to think they might,
so he was turning it off.
At 4:30 this morning, I was awakened by the phone ringing. It was the P, who
said he was sorry to wake me up, that he was working on his speech, and that
he'd be ready to talk first thing in the morning. He wanted to see Safire first
thing in the morning. He wants to put a little more zip into the speech that he's
drafted, but he doesn't want any cuties from He says the major problem
Safire.
is the one Arthur raises, regarding the gold window, and that now he kind of
thinks it may be good to go ahead with it.
That conversation ended at about 4:40. He called again at 8:40 and said
he'd stayed up rather than going to bed after he talked to me earlier, and had
finished his notes on the dictating machine and sent them to Rose.
He wants Safire to know that the form and structure of his notes should
be followed. He knows the outline is right. He likes the gutsy rhetoric, and he
wants to keep that feeling. Safire is to show it to no one except for the technical
points. He doesn't want to get people into the rhetoric. Then he had a great
line for Safire: "Don't make it brutal and beautiful, rather, brutal and effec-
tive."
Said he had gotten up about 3:00 last night and worked on the speech and
then called me and He had come out with the tapes to
then did the dictating.
get them to Rose and was looking for someone, came down by the pool and
saw a chief coming out of the sauna, and said, "Good morning, chief," and the
chief said, "Yes, ma'am. I mean, yes, sir!" The P was quite amused by that; he
said he scared the hell out of him.
During the morning, Connally had been meeting with his separate groups,
and he assembled everybody at lunch at 12:30, sort of got the reports together,
formed four groups to meet with the P starting at 2:30: first on budget, second
on wage /price, third on taxes, especially import, and finally the mop-up crew
to cover the overall aspects from yesterday's meeting. He pointed out that the
decisions yet to be made were the gold window, capital controls, and the
antitrust amendments. The groups started their sessions at 2:30. 1 stayed up by
the pool working, and didn't go down to Aspen until about 4:00.
The P then kicked all of us out except the Quadriad, and settled down to
a discussion with them of whether to close the gold window. By that time he
had decided to do so, and the point was to sell Arthur, so that he would go
along with it. At 6:00, the meetings ended, and the P called me over, he was
down by the pool, smoking his pipe. He told me to talk to them tonight
regarding the information process, who calls whom, the briefings, etc. This was
a brief meeting, and I went back over to Laurel for dinner. The P called me
at 7:15, said we could set up a picture of the group at 10:00 or 10:30 tomorrow
morning.
I ran staff the review on follow-up, the discussion getting our spokesman
346 H.R. HALDEMAN
on the air afterward, notifying the key publications to hold their front pages,
the press briefings ahead of TV, the basic assignments, and so forth. We got
the basic plan worked out on that. Then E, Weinberger, and I went over to
Aspen at 9:00.
We walked in and the living room was empty, the P was down in his study
with the lights off and thefire going in the fireplace, even though it was a hot
night out. He was one of his sort of mystic moods and, after telling us to
in
sit down and informing Cap that this is where he made all his big cogitations,
he said what really matters here is the same thing as did with Roosevelt, the
second Roosevelt, we need to raise the spirit of the country, that will be the
thrust of the rhetoric of the speech. We're at a time where we're ending a
period where we were saying that government should do everything. Now all
of this will fall unless people respond. We've got to change the spirit, and then
the economy could take off like hell. You must have a goal greater than self,
either a nation or a person, or you can't be great. Let America never accept
being second best —we must try to be what it is within our power to be.
The P delivered the speech about the economic moves on television Sunday.
—
Most of the response was favorable though not all.

The working group started again at breakfast this morning. Got things
wrapped up pretty well, then went over to Laurel for posed pictures with the
P. He was in pretty bouncy shape and set up the various shots that he wanted.
He decided not to go back with the group, he wants them to go on ahead. He
got into considerable discussion on various arrangements and details regard-
ing the speech and the follow-up.
We had staff meetings this afternoon, a good briefing by Connally, and
then I went over the logistic plan, both with my operating unit and then with
a full staff unit. I think we have everybody tracking extremely well. The P
stayed out of touch until time to go on the air; he called mewent
right after he
off. Seemedto feel pretty good about it. He said he was trying to get some
emotional lift into it, he especially liked his line regarding what the guy had
written in 1775 about America having seen its best days.

Today started with the Cabinet meeting, although the P had me in for a few
minutes ahead of time, generally reviewing the things from last night. He made
the point that we should release the picture of the Quadriad as the men that
made the decision. At the Cabinet meeting, the P opened, then went into some
of the details of the meetings at Camp David — what a marvelous team effort
it was — and that he will always be grateful for it. He referred to how helpful
Arthur was in the process and said that he needed strong support from every-
one in the Cabinet.
He decided at the last minute to shoot over to the State Department and
open the sub-Cabinet briefing that E had set up. So he did that, then came back
to the EOB, changed his clothes, and went out to Burning Tree to play golf
with Bill Rogers. Had me ride out with him to Burning Tree. We had a
ridiculous motorcade going out there with a huge police escort, which was
really horrible, and they drove right into the club grounds and up in front of
the caddie house, which was very embarrassing, and then it was topped off by
(UPI correspondent) Helen Thomas getting out of the car and standing there
watching him, when the press car wasn't even supposed to come in and no
women are allowed at Burning Tree.

Got going morning (on the plane out to Illinois) on the speechwriting
this
problems. He wants Price to go back and look at his various extemporaneous
speeches to see the way the P does these things. He talks in gutsy terms, and
he wants his stuff to be closer to Harry Truman than to Harding. He doesn't
want beautiful prose, he wants memorable prose, not trick phrases, because
they're too contrived. He says the speechwriters have good ideas, but they
don't get them in the right style, and therefore he has to shift them to his style,
and that he shouldn't be required to do.
The Illinois visit went very well, with huge crowds in Springfield, along the
motorcade routes in front of the Capitol, and at the State Fair. The P gave an
outstanding extemporaneous talk at the old Capitol on the occasion of signing
the bill to set up the Lincoln birthplace as an historical site. He was completely
mobbed by the crowds at the fair, all of the reaction was positive, and there's
again a strong feeling that you can't help but get from this, that things are a
lot better in the country than they were.
In Idaho he also had an exceptionally good reception at the airport before
we helicoptered Grand Tetons to spend the night. He came up with
up to the
the line on our counterattack that we ought to tie Meany to Muskie, and talk
about the Meany-Muskie partisanship, which would hurt both of them, upset
both of them, probably cause them to deny it, which would create even more
problems.
The TV tonight was very good on our coverage of all of the trip stuff. We
got a lot of mileage out of it, except for one bad shot by Daniel Schorr, who
kicked us on the fact that we haven't done anything about aid to parochial
schools; we were just talking about it. The P had a beautiful cabin overlooking
the lake. He call me over before dinner for a brief review of the day, and then,
I presume, folded up early.
348 H.R. HALDEMAN

We started out early with the P calling me over while he had some trout for
breakfast. We had and again for breakfast, too. He
trout last night for dinner
was talking about really moving on this Schorr deal, on the basis of, it's typical
of what the media did during the campaign, where they kill us on something
we do that does us some good, by saying that we haven't really done anything
about it, we're just talking about it.
We went on the boat tour of the lake. The scenery was beautiful, but the
timing and logistics didn't work out too well, and the P wasn't very happy with
it. We cruised across the lake for about a half an hour, then visited a little
village near a campsite, then went back to the P's cabin, left a little later, and
headed for Dallas.
Labor problems continue to our group met this morning with the
build, as
AF of L "Today" show, Connally was asked, as his
Council. Earlier on the
first question, what we were doing on the problem of labor, and Connally
cracked that he always thought and M M

was a candy, but now he understood
what it really stood for, which was Meany and Muskie.
Dallas went reasonably well. We helicoptered right from the airport to the
stadium and back, so we had no crowd situation anywhere, and to avoid any
demonstrations on the busing problem. We landed on time in California, and
the P headed for San Clemente by helicopter and I came home.
On the plane to California he got into a discussion with E and me on the
follow-up strategy on labor. He feels that we should
wedge in, to try
drive the
and separate one union from another on the basis of their support and also to
separate the bad union leaders from the rank and file. He's now expanded his
M and M, the Meany-Muskie thing, to the three M's: Meany, Muskie,
McGovern. He makes the point that we've got to make a virtue out of neces-
sity: if the labor people are against us, we might as well take them on, and we
might as well try to get some mileage out of doing it. We landed on time at 6:00
in California, and the P headed for San Clemente by helicopter and I came
home.

(San Clemente) P came in just before 10:00 this morning. He had a 10:00
appointment with Ambassador Porter, which he didn't realize he had. He
came in wearing a sport shirt with no tie. So he shifted the Porter appointment,
chatted with me, changed his clothes, met with Porter, then with John Mitch-
ell. Mitchell reported on his dinner with the Reagans, at which there was a
great deal of carping about a lot of trivia, mainly from Nancy Reagan. They're
concerned because there's a conservative meeting in Houston that's basically
a conservative rebellion, especially regarding national defense, and P got upset
about that, said the conservatives are aiming at the wrong target, they should
be hitting the Congress, not the P, that we need to posture in the public mind
that we are for national defense. We're getting a bad rap on that.
The P returned a call to Mayor Daley, who wanted to discuss the North-
ern Ireland Catholic problem with him, and at the same time Daley told the
P that he had made another statement urging labor not to play politics on the
economic deal and to support the P.
Henry was in, discussing the problem of the Vietnam election again,
which does pose a serious problem. The P is strongly toying now with releasing
the fact of our secret negotiations, blowing the channel, and forcing them to
deal with us publicly, and then attacking the Senate opponents, saying they
forced us to abandon our secret negotiations, and so on. K also got back on
the line of what a real heartbreak the whole war situation is because we really
won the war, and if we just had one more dry season, the opponents would
break their backs. This, of course, is the same line he's used for the last two
years, over and over, and I guess what all of Johnson's advisors used with him,
to keep the thing escalating. I'm sure they really believe it at the time, but it's
amazing how it sounds like a broken record.
In the forthcoming election in South Vietnam, Thieu was running for

President against Nguyen Ky and General Minh. The Communists had
strongly suggested the U.S. drop its support of Thieu or the negotiations
would be seriously jeopardized. As it happened, Thieu found a way to
disqualify Ky, Minh pulled out, and Thieu went on to win.
The P took off, called me late in the afternoon to report that the oil slick
from a leaking naval ship had fouled his beach, so he can't use it.

San Clemente. The P got into some odds and ends, he spattered out a few ideas
on poll questions as the day went along. He wanted to see whether they show
that people support Ralph Nader, and thus get into the advisability of taking
Nader on. He has a feeling that Nader probably has some strong public
support, and we should not take him on, even though we certainly should not
agree with him. Also he wanted to get some feel of whether the people like the
idea of the P going out to the country, and also among those who do not
approve of the P, as to why they don't.
He discussed Pat Nixon's schedule some, wants to be sure that we're
working up some schedule activities for her, and he talked a little about
fundraising in general. He wants me to talk to Kalmbach, because he's con-
cerned that out of Kalmbach's list of contributors, where he's raising $10
million, that $8 million is coming from money we already had, such as Mul-
350 H.R. HALDEMAN
cahy, Stone, and that we need to set a deal that broadens the base, getting
etc.,
some key people in New York, Palm Beach, and Chicago, to hit the elites
there. He wants to be sure we don't have a money problem, so that we can do
every little thing that we want to do.
He was pretty distressed when he discovered today that Henry K had
ordered the P's barber down to San Clemente for a haircut, and that got him
to questioning Henry's use of helicopters to get around in Southern California,
also. He put in pretty much a full day at the office, finally left in midafternoon.

I didn't go into the office. The P did call several times and I spent most of the
day on the phone. Someone told Rose Woods to take in to him a letter that
had been sent to him by Rose Kennedy, complaining that he wasn't attending
the opening of Kennedy Center. That got the P concerned that he should be
going, so we went back and forth on that. Then he called out of the blue, said
he wanted to invoke the Taft-Hartley on the dock strikes out here, and for me
to get it set up. I still can't figure out what prompted that, but I talked to
Shultz, who said this wouldn't be a good idea, and urged that we not do
anything until after Labor Day. I called the P back and he agreed to hold up
on it although he really wanted to give them an 8-hour ultimatum.

P came in late this morning. He was only in the office for about a half hour
before departure. He left a little after 11:30 for Ohio, then Chicago, then
Washington. Chapin called this evening to report on the trip. Said all had gone
well. Chicago crowd was tremendous and very enthusiastic, and he feels we
came out in good shape.

We're all back in Washington now. The P was in the office first thing, had a
two-hour meeting with the Committee on International Economic Policy, and
then spent the rest of the day supposedly getting ready for the Thursday
address to Congress. Most of it was spent haranguing me on schedule changes
that he wants made. Pat Nixon decided she didn't want to go to California
before the Alaska trip, instead wants to go direct to Anchorage; so the P's
changing the schedule to go out to Detroit on Thursday of that week, and just
go out and back, and then go directly to Anchorage. Then as the day went on,
he kept calling with various changes on that, finally ending up with the idea
of spending Saturday night in Seattle, going on up to Anchorage Sunday, back
to Portland for Sunday night, and then back to Washington on Monday. A
further complication is that Mrs. Nixon has to be back, she thinks, for the
Mamie Eisenhower salute Monday night, so it's really pretty royally screwed
up, thanks to her.
He had Colson in today, mainly to go over some general follow-up. He
wants to be sure he's attacking Muskie on the basis that he's panicked because
of his slump in the polls, that's what brought about his ridiculous tax proposal.
Also, he thinks someone needs to keep hitting Meany on the basis that he's a
great American, but it's sad that he's out of step. He asked me to talk to
Mitchell about Hoover, P wants a plan because he thinks now is the time to
get him to step down. I did so, and Mitchell agreed, and thinks we should move
ahead on that as quickly as possible.

P had the day clear to work on the Congressional speech for tomorrow, had
me over at 10:00 this morning during a break on speech drafts, to go over
schedule plans in detail, particularly the Northwest trip.
He raised the question with me of his concern on Henry's delusions of

grandeur as a peacemaker, in that he keeps hitting the P on the idea of his
going to Hanoi secretly to try and settle Vietnam. The P doesn't want him to
do it, first, because he doesn't think it'll work, and second, because he doesn't
think it can be kept a secret. He's concerned that it would be a disaster to do
it and fail, the risk is too great, and also there's no use meeting with Pham Van
Dong anyway, the P doesn't feel. He wants me to have Haig tout Henry off of
this. He feels Henry doesn't realize that the Communist method of working is
to keep talking and to screw you behind your back while you're doing it. To
them, talking is a tactic to win, not to work out an agreement, whereas Henry
keeps trying to work out an agreement with them.
He wants to be sure that crew blast Muskie on his busing
Colson and his
He doesn't want to leave them
statement, not for avoiding taking a position.
on an "I don't know where he stands" hook. He wants to hit him for holding
the wrong position, which is, that he is for busing. They want to get the
antibusing people to take him on with this.

P was fascinated this morning to get a report on the Kennedy Center opening
of the Mass last night. I described the program, and Bernstein's performance,
and after asking a few questions and making a few comments, he paused a
minute, this was over the phone, and then said, "I just want to ask you one
favor. If I'm assassinated, I want you to have them play 'Dante's Inferno' and
have Lawrence Welk produce it," which was really pretty funny.
He did a superb job on the speech to Congress, and all the reactions were
very good, especially on his presentation and delivery. He called right after-
ward on the phone and said, "Well, it was a damn dull subject, but that's as
good as it could be said," and then a comment that he feels we need a speech
352 H.R. HALDEMAN
doctor to go through and write in cheer lines, like FDR had, after the speech
is which is what the P now has to do.
written,
We had a little flap after his meeting with Connally. Connally was con-
cerned about a memo he received, signed by the P, telling him he couldn't go
over 20 percent in the Japanese negotiations on the yen. The P felt we should
never do a thing like this without checking with Connally first, and he was
upset with Alex and me and so on for putting this on. We tracked it down,
discovered it was a K proposal, so he called Henry in. Henry pointed out that
the directive said just the opposite of what Connally implied. In the first place,
the P hadn't signed it, Henry had, secondly, it had been designed for the
purpose of putting the responsibility into Connally's area and keeping the
other people out of it. K had read it to Volcker in a meeting and then sent it
over to Connally's office, asking if there was any problem, before he sent the
memo. So we're back to the problem of internal dissension in Treasury, which
I think is fairly substantial.
Tonight was the symphony concert opening at Kennedy Center. The P
went, handled it very well, called me after the concert at home. Said he would
have chosen a different program, thought the orchestra was quite good, but
that Dorati was trying to show off by doing the Stravinsky thing, that Stern
was wasted on a Mozart chamber music piece, and the great chorus was wasted
with an odd Schumann composition, so the only quote he put out was that the
orchestra sounded beautiful and the acoustics were great. He again expressed
his pleasure at not having to go to the Mass the night before.

We had quite a little discussion this afternoon on the whole philosophical
question of what kind of press coverage we want in China, the basic point
being whether we push for putting in a ground station so they can do live
coverage and transmit film directly from Peking. Ziegler of course arguing for
this, as is Scali and the others, but the P, Henry, and I all have the basic feeling
that we should permit theminimum amount of coverage possible within
China, and that this will give us much better coverage and maintain the aura
of mystery, etc. Nothing much settled on that.
this morning. Bill Rogers opened by congratulating

Cabinet meeting first thing
Mrs. Nixon on her TV last night (an interview on ABC). All the Cabinet wives
were present, and gave her a huge ovation. Shultz then filled in on the back-
ground of the economic program, emphasizing that things were good and
getting better, but ourmove was to consolidate it, rather than turn it around.
The end of the Shultz presentation, made the point that there was a
P, at the
big question of dealing with state and local government pay as well as Federal
pay. He caused a laugh by commenting that this is an area where there

certainly has been no increase in productivity.
The P turned the meeting over to Connally, asking him to cover the
domestic tax thing primarily, not to put too much emphasis on the interna-
tional, because most of us won't understand it. Connally said that's OK,
because I anyway.
can't explain it
The P then said that we need to have no illusions regarding the superiority
of our economy, that the impressive thing about the Communist leaders is
their total absolute conviction that they're going to win, and their determina-
tion to do everything to win. The point is, if they with their totally inferior,
oppressive system could have such dedication, we, with all we have, should
have at least as much. So as you go out, speak up, talk strongly for our system,
what it is, what it's done for the world. If you don't, I'll have you back to have
some of that fish.
After the Cabinet meeting he called Governor Rockefeller to tell him he

backed him to the hilt on his move on busting up the prison strike in Attica,
New York. He assured him he was right not to grant amnesty, and that the P
was behind him all the way. It turns out there were seven guard hostages killed,
and 32 prisoners, all black. The P made the point again to Rockefeller that we
can't tolerate this kind of anarchy, and that he was solidly behind him in his
move on it.
This afternoon he got into a little harangue on IRS investigations, saying
that he had been told by Billy Graham that the IRS is currently investigating
him. Fortunately, Connally was there when Graham said it, so Connally got
the notes on it, and was very surprised, but it is a problem. The P wants now
to be sure that we get the names of the big Democratic contributors and get
them investigated. Also the Democratic celebrities and so forth.

Henry got back from Paris last night and reported to the P. Came in, saw me
this morning, went over the plans. The North Vietnamese have closed off the
negotiations in effect because of the screwup on Thieu's election, at least that's
Henry's view, and he in turn has basically turned off the talks. He now wants
to go to Moscow and work the same kind of a deal there, or at least make the
record for it, so that when we do the pullout in January, we'll have that as a
final wrapup attempt to settle by negotiation. His logic is that if we're going
to pull out anyway, we might as well try to get all the mileage out of it that
we can.
Apparently his meeting with the Chinese went pretty well. They were
horrified, however, at his information that the press corps traveling with us
would be a minimum of 150 people. He didn't even raise the question of the
ground station, which would take another 100 people. I'm convinced, inciden-
tally, from a memo I got from Scali, that we should try to press for the ground
354 H.R. HALDEMAN
station if we can it, so that we can have live coverage of our

possibly get
morning activities in Peking. The Chinese did not go along with Henry's plan
to announce his trip and the date of the P's trip on September 21; instead they
want to wait until October to announce Henry's trip. They want to wait until
after Henry's trip to announce the date of the P's trip so they'll have some
substantive reason for Henry's making the trip. I don't see any problem with
this, and I don't think Henry does either, so we'll probably go ahead on that
basis.
The P me at home tonight and said that in his long talk with Henry
called
this afternoon,Henry had brought up the fact that (James) Reston (o/The
New York Times) was in to see him, or that Henry had talked to Reston, and
he had asked for an interview with the P. Henry was actually raising this with
the P. It's completely incredible, because several weeks ago, in the P's office,
Reston's stories came out and the P then made and

the point loud, clear,
solidly toHenry that under no circumstances would he see Reston at any time,
ever, and that Henry was not to see him at all, that we knew he would be
coming around trying to get an interview when he got back to Washington, but
that he was to be flatly turned down. Then next thing we know, Henry's back
and is talking with him. So I've got to hit him on that tomorrow.

MacGregor reported at the staff meeting this morning that he had heard from
Mel Laird that Senator Hollings told Tom Moorer that at a meeting of
Democratic senators, Mansfield made the point that the Draft Bill was a
straight-line, 1972 political issue, that any senators up for reelection who failed
to support the Mansfield position would not receive funds in '72. Also the
question involved here was who brought
the war to an end, and that they must
fight to make sure it's the Democrats in Congress, rather than the Republican
President. This, needless to say, stirred us up a bit, and we got some things
cranking during the day to get that story out. As a result, the thing backfired
and late tonight MacGregor called me to say that UPI was running a story
attributing the whole report to Safire. We had used Safire to leak it and one
of his sources had pulled the pin on him, so the word was out. I told him not
to worry about it, actually I think it works out pretty well, we got the story on
the wire instead of just leaked into one paper.
He (the P) was very discouraged that his long meeting with Mansfield
had apparently accomplished nothing in the way of getting any cooperation
from him, which, of course, is the usual situation when Mansfield's playing the
partisan role. He made the point that he wanted Colson and me to get together
this afternoon and develop a plan for an offensive against the partisan obstruc-
tionists, putting that label on the Senate Democrats.
The press conference went very well. He had a chance to answer most of
the questions he wanted to cover. He did a great job on the Draft Bill, which
was the first question, saying that if they tabled it, it would be one of the most
irresponsible acts on the part of the Senate that he could think of, that it would
jeopardize our peace initiatives, that a vote against the draft seriously jeopard-
izes United States interests around the world, and would make the United
States the second-strongest nation in the world.
In Vietnam, he hit very hard on the question of cutting off aid to Thieu,
and pointed out that of the 91 nations that we provide aid to, only 32 have
we would call a democratic election, so we
elected leaders in the sense that
would have to cut off aid to two-thirds of the countries if we followed that
theory.
Some good questions on China and he zapped Reston pretty hard by
saying nothing appeared in the Reston piece in the Times, that Chou En-lai
hadn't told K in much greater detail already. Ihad a staff dinner on the
Sequoia for all our key staff and their wives, which came off very well.

P had the bowling champions in this morning, and after greeting them in the
Oval Office, took them over to his bowling alley at the EOB for a press photo.
He put on his shoes and rolled his first ball, which went into the gutter, to
everyone's amusement. Then he moved to the other lane, rolled another ball,
and scored a which is now being billed as "Nixon's latest comeback."
strike,
He got going again on the need for human, warm-type follow-up, and said
he had spent a lot of time last night with the astronauts' kids. They had all
kissed him good-bye, etc., and the astronauts themselves were totally cap-
tivated by this.
Henry was in this morning about Vietnam. The P told him he thought it
was important to give them a hard shot now to create in them the fear that the
P may do more. So he ordered Henry to get a bombing attack going over the
weekend. Said to handle it on a low-key basis from a PR standpoint, that it's
protective reaction and dealing with their violation of our understanding
about crossing the DMZ. He feels that it's very important to make broadly the
point that he did in the press conference yesterday, that the way we got into
Vietnam was the overthrow of Diem, and the way to get out is not by throwing
out Thieu. Henry came in later to report that they had the attack deal worked
out and would go ahead with it on Monday, as an all-out blast at the DMZ.
The military want to take five to ten days of bombing, but we can't do that.
E was in on a couple points, in the process of which the P agreed to meet
with J. Edgar Hoover tomorrow to seek his resignation. The big news today
came from a call I had this morning from the Attorney General, saying that
at 3:00 this afternoon, Justice Black would be sending a letter to the P telling
him he would resign at the pleasure of the P. The Attorney General wants
guidance from the P on what he wants to do on a replacement appointment.
Feels that we've got to really think it through carefully and establish our
position on it. The P said to consider Arlen Spector as a Jewish seat. He would
look with favor still on William French Smith in California. It turns out that
356 H.R. HALDEMAN
Harlan is meeting with the Chief Justice this afternoon, and he probably will
resign, too, because of a serious health problem. The P later also talked to the
Chief Justice, and was sort of musing about the fact that we'll have two court
seats to fill. He wrote handwritten letters to both Harlan and Black this
afternoon while I was in his office.
P met with the Attorney General this morning At the

for quite a long time.
latter part of it he called E, and then later Colson and me, some in. That led to
discussion of the Pentagon Papers. The P making a point that everyone had
said this was going to tear the Democrats up, but this is only going to work
out if we keep it grinding.
On move to open Bay of Pigs and Cuban
another front, we could also
Missile Crisis,and we can do those right away without waiting for the Viet-
namese election. The question is how to open it up. We need to maybe put our
guy on TV, such as our CIA guy. We should take the next two weeks to
develop a scenario. The P ordered E to have the full Diem story on his desk
by the end of next week. Also, the total Bay of Pigs story. Also told me to get
Huston back to finish the bombing halt story.
The P and I left for Camp David. The P asked me to set it up to have
Hoover in for breakfast at 8:30 Monday morning. He's going to give him the
word on his departure at that time, apparently. Mitchell called me at Camp
David to let me know that the P had also raised the point of making Hoover
a counselor to the P, Mitchell thinks he got that turned off, but he was just
warning me. I didn't hear anything from the P at Camp David, except a brief
phone call while Jo and I were out playing tennis and the P asked if we were
watching the football game on TV and I said no, I was playing tennis. He said
UCLA was doing pretty well. They were ahead of Texas, 7 to 0, but that I
ought to get them not to televise the rooting section, because they were a pretty
ratty-looking bunch.

At Camp David. The P called me over at noon. He was in his study, with the
fire going in the fireplace. There was a thick fog or low cloud outside. There
had been very heavy rain this morning. He talked a little about Vietnam and
the point that he was sorry that we hadn't been able to actually end the war
directly, but made the point that there really was no way to end it it was —
doomed always just to trickle out the way it is, and that's now become clear.
He told me to talk to the Attorney General about the Agnew issue again.
It would be good to indicate his confidence in Agnew and say that if Agnew
so desires, he intends to keep him on the ticket. He recalled the damage that
was done to Eisenhower in '56 by his hesitation on keeping Nixon. It raised
hell with the Nixon friends and the conservatives, made Eisenhower look bad,
as these people pounded on it. The P's view is that Agnew is a liability,
although we can't prove it, and the only way we could check this is to run a
tandem trial heat process, but he still thinks he should indicate his support,
whether or not he intends to drop him later, and he thinks also, it's a good way
to get the P out of the black VP question, which is sure to arise. The advantages
of backing Agnew now would be that it totally mutes the press on the question
and it pulls the rug out from under the extreme right.

Mitchell called this morning to say the Chief Justice had called him to report
that the other Court resignation is forthcoming. It can be delayed if we want
to, we should weigh the question of when the impact does us the most
but
good. In any event, we can't hold it for very long. Mitchell's inclination is to
think we should face up to it and put the two vacancies together and put them
both out in the open, which I certainly agreed with and recommended to the
P. He concurred, so he called Mitchell and asked him to try to get the resigna-
tion in to him right away. Puts the P in the unique opportunity of appointing
two justices at once, which will give him his four on the court and darn near
control of it.
At around to reporting to me on his very much

the end of the day, he got
ofT-the-record breakfast meeting with J. Edgar Hoover. Said that it's "no go"
at this time. Hoover didn't take the bait, apparently, and is going to stay on
as a political matter. He feels it's much better for the P for him to do so. He
will then pull out at any point in the future when the P feels that it would be
politically necessary. He claims he is fully dedicated to the P's reelection, wants
to do whatever he can to ensure it, but feels that his departure at this time
would be counterproductive in that regard.
The we left for our Western trip, was the question of the
big item today, as
PacificCoast dock strike negotiations. The P had me up during the flight out
to Montana. He wanted me to make it clear to Shultz that his desire was to
use the Taft-Hartley Injunction process, and he discounts Shultz's argument
against that, which is that it doesn't meet the requirements, because he says
Labor always says that a strike doesn't meet the Taft-Hartley requirements,
and that actually the P can decide on that.
We had good stop in Montana. The main story out of that being that the
load of cement that the P and Mansfield were supposed to dump at Libbey
Dam didn't work right, and so the photographers got a great picture of the two
of them and the Congressmen straining to pull the rope.
The Portland session was a Q & A, which went very well. A good range
358 H.R. HALDEMAN
of questions and good pacing. The P opened it with an announcement that he

had met with Bridges and Flynn, which he did just before the media briefing,
and that they had agreed to go ahead with negotiations, try to get the thing
settled in the next week.
We had a group of demonstrators. Not very many in
fairly substantial
number, but very noisy, outside the P's room in the hotel, which created a
problem from 5:00, after the media briefing, until about 7:00, when we finally
had the Secret Service invoke the Federal law and move them out, which they
did without incident. Worked out fine, but it was fairly rough up to that point
because they really were making a lot of noise and were driving the P right up
the wall.
He had me into the room at the hotel in the evening and was talking
about the Supreme Court appointment and his feeling that he really should
go for a woman judge, if we can get a good, tough conservative. He thinks
this is the opportunity to score on that point, that we would make tremen-
dous political mileage in that while many people would be opposed to it,
nobody would vote against him because of it. On the other hand, a lot of
people who were in favor of it would change their votes to Nixon because of
such an appointment.

We left Oregon early this morning, but the P was up even earlier. Made a lot
of phone calls before we got underway, including a call to the Attorney
General on the idea of a woman judge. He said the Attorney General wasn't
very happy about it, but he is going to work on it some. Washington went very
well. He gave a good talk at the Hanford Atomic Energy site, making the point
that we can't consult our fears.
We had a good stop The Japanese Emperor visit went almost
in Alaska.
perfectly, as far as our operations were concerned. The Emperor himself was
a shaky as he stumbled coming down the stairs off his plane. Had to
little
have out of his hand by the chamberlain as a clue that it was

his hat pulled
time for him to read his speech, and then he had a terrible time getting it out
of his pocket and was a little ludicrous in the way he held it up and read it.
No substance to the visit, but great ceremony and certainly well worthwhile.
The Hickel reception preceding the Emperor's arrival went very well, with
a good, friendly greeting outside. Hickel did succeed in trapping us into
listening to a couple of Burl Ives songs, including one that sounded like it was
going to turn into a horrible peace song, but I think Ives left off the last verse
and it came out all right. Then Hickel caught the P on the way out and trapped
him in his den for a ten-minute talk, which the P later told me was fairly
satisfactory. He will support him next year, but feels he should wait a while
before he comes out with an open endorsement and should start building the
groundwork first.

Not much change between Washington and
sleep last night because of the time
Alaska, and then a long plane ride to Washington. The P took a nap on part
of it. When we got back into Washington, we had to go to the Mamie Eisen-
hower birthday party, and that was another disaster, with Ray Bolger going
on and on. Finally the Marine Band leader had to just interrupt him with
"Ruffles and Flourishes" in order to get the P in, and the P had to take over
at the close, after the Happy Birthday singing and the cake cutting, to bring
the program to an end by giving his little remarks, which Bolger had forgotten
to call on him for.

The morning was whether or not to go to Justice Hugo Black's
big debate this
funeral today. Mitchell, E, Dick Moore, Garment, etc., all urged that he
should go, that it would be very helpful in the current climate regarding the
Court and his relationship to the Court in showing respect for it, and would
counter the charge of a political attitude toward the Court. Very much against
his better judgment and mine, the P did, at the last minute, decide to go, on
the basis of no press and no advance notice. It turned out to be the wrong
decision, as the Unitarian minister who gave the eulogy gave a very political
talk about why Black disliked strict on the Court. It was
constructionists
directed pretty bluntly at the P and Mitchell, was very inappropriate, and the
P was quite distressed that he had gone.
He talked some today about his reaction to the Secret Service, coming off
the Alaska trip, where we did have a problem in the motorcade because they
thought there was a group of demonstrators that were going to rush the P, so
they wouldn't let him stand up in the car, and also they held the crowd way
back at the curbs, which they're not supposed to do, so we missed an opportu-
nity for some great crowd shots and a great crowd story. He now wants the
Secret Service ordered to change some of these things and he told me to stay
on top of it to be sure it's played right.
As far as the Justice Black funeral, he said he wanted the staff to know
clearly that he went under duress, that he feels it was a mistake, that he was
throwing his pearls before swine, that this was the result of the same kind of
thinking that got him to fire Hershey, to go to a black church on election
day, and to meet with college presidents. He obviously wasn't very happy
with it. Henry came up with a big problem on the China trip. Rogers is
opposed to his going, and he talked to the P about that. Rogers' argument
being that Henry should send a lower-level person and that he was worried
that it would louse up the UN debate because that comes at the same time.
Henry, of course, has to go because we're committed to the Chinese. He and
the P discussed that on the basis of my talking to Rogers and trying to get
360 H.R. HALDEMAN
him straightened out on it. It will be one of those continuing agony type
things.

Staff meeting this morning. Shultz was particularly concerned because we're
moving to an extensive control system and that the planners are working on
the assumptions that the P has implied in his speeches. The Cost of Living
Council is developing plans without authoritative guidance and the papers
that they produce will be Stein's, without any guidance, and they'll need
Presidential input before they're finalized. He's also concerned that the P
doesn't understand what Laird's doing regarding the Defense budget. As a
result of this, we squeezed in a meeting with Shultz in the middle of a fantasti-
cally loaded schedule today.
We had quite a discussion on the way down about how to
in the plane
handle the notification to Rogers of Henry's China trip. The P said that it was
up to me to notify Rogers and that I should do it by mixing it with the Soviet

trip and the fact that we can't change the signals now, after the meeting with
Gromyko, but he says that I should wait until Sunday to call Rogers so that
it's too late to do anything about it.
FOURTH QUARTER: OCTOBER— DECEMBER

Late last night we got rumors that Poffwas considering withdrawing, and that
was confirmed this morning. He made it irrevocable. Told Kleindienst to call
off the ABA consideration of his nomination, and he drafted a statement
hitting the controversy on civil rights and saying it would be divisive and not
in the best interest of the country, the Court, or his family to stay in.
The P says that he's going to go for a real right-winger now, that is
stronger than Poff on civil rights. The worst thing he could do is go to the left.
He wants to get someone worse than Poff and really stick it to the opposition
now.
Richard Harding Poff was a Republican congressman from Virginia, and

eventuallybecame a Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
On the Court, he came up with the idea of (Robert) Byrd of West Virginia
because he was a former KKK'er, he's elected by the Democrats as Whip, he's
a self-made lawyer, he's more reactionary than Wallace, and he's about 53.
The P left this afternoon for Grand Cay for the night.

The P had me in first thing this morning for some general schedule notes. The
more odd among them being that, in spite of all his sarcastic comments about
tennis and the people that are interested in tennis, he now wants to stage a
special tennismatch at the White House courts; putting up bleachers, setting
up linesmen, etc., having Billie Jean King and Stan Smith and some of the top
361
362 H.R. HALDEMAN
stars play. This springs out of his phone call to Billie Jean King yesterday,
when she became the first woman win $100,000. He also decided he ought
to
to have one "Evening at the White House" this season, and we should have
Lawrence Welk star in it.
He then met with Safire for a while to go over what he wants to cover in
the (Phase II economic) speech. Gave him some pretty good guidelines, on the
basis that he wants to refer to the fact that the freeze has been enormously
successful due to the cooperation and support of the American people, and
then that we're going to follow on with the continued program. He doesn't
want much detail on how it works, but we will have a Pay Board and a Price
Board.
Our goal will be to reduce inflation to 2 percent or 3 percent. This will be
great benefit to every American. There may be selfish interests that oppose it,
but he will count on the cooperation of the people. This is the way to provide
more jobs, new prosperity. Says the handling of profits is very ticklish. This is
the time not to assume that prices always must go up. The consumer should
get some of the break on productivity, too, so let's have some price reductions.
He wants more poetry than prose. Upbeat confidence, reassured; things are
going well.

We started out today with another series of K-Rogers flaps. Henry came
rocketing through the halls first thing this morning with a Christian Science
Monitor story that indicated Rogers had saved the China trip by his remarks
over the weekend, and that he had forced the Chinese to react, which was why we
had been able to make the announcement of Henry's trip yesterday. A little later,
he bounced up with a New York Times editorial that, in effect, said the same
thing, so he's practically beside himself, again with probably some reason.
The P spent the whole day at the EOB getting his speech ready for TV
tomorrow night. Had me over several times. He raised the point of "sum-
mitry." He was thinking about the Russian announcement next week, making
the point that he basically doesn't believe in Summit meetings unless they're
going to produce something, but these two meetings are necessary and they're
different, and the P is superbly and ideally qualified to handle these meetings
because: he knows the men on the other side; second, he knows the
first,
subject, third, he has unprecedented experience, and fourth, he is a tough,

realistic negotiator, but conciliatory and subtle.

The P spent the day at the EOB, getting ready for the press conference
tomorrow. He did come over midday to meet with the
for a couple of hours at
Italian Foreign Minister and an award from the Sons of Italy.
to receive
The P had me in and we spent quite a little time on overall schedule review
and also got into the China question and prep for the staff meeting we were
having this afternoon on the subject. He is very strongly in favor of the ground
station and having maximum TV coverage available, in spite of Henry's objec-
tions to all of that. He raised the question of Mrs. Nixon going, thinking it
might be a good idea because of the TV coverage she'd get, but if she does, it
would have to be understood that she would be the only woman going. Not
Mrs. Rogers or any other wives.
We then had our staff meeting this afternoon. Henry was furious because
I had included Scali in the meeting, so he at first didn't come and then did come
and sat and sulked and objected to our discussion of the ground station ad
nauseam, and left. So I finished up the meeting with Scali, Ziegler, Chapin, and
Hughes, then had Henry and Al Haig come back in and we went over the
whole thing, worked it out quite satisfactorily. He's agreed on a press corps of
150, including the ground station personnel, and basically bought our mini-
mum level overall approach, which I think will work out pretty well if we can
get it from the Chinese. Henry's concern on all this is that we not make a circus
out of it, and that we not appear to be staging the whole thing for the benefit
of domestic TV, which would cause people to react adversely, not only in
China, but in the rest of the world. He's obviously got some merit to his point,
and it's pretty hard to argue it, except that from our viewpoint, and the P
concurs in this, we need maximum coverage in order to get the benefit from
it, especially in the short term. Henry is very much of the view that we should
only be concerned with the long term, which, of course, is not realistic.

Press conference today to make the Soviet Summit announcement. The P
stayed holed up at the EOB all morning. Came over at noon for the press
conference in the press room with film coverage, but not live. He opened the
conference with the announcement of the Russian Summit, reading the joint
communique and then took questions.
He was up pretty tight during the morning getting ready for it, and
evidenced that by his reaction to the story yesterday, "killing the Byrd to the
Supreme Court" story from the weekend. He was very upset and wanted to be
sure that the Byrd story still rode. He had a chance to cover that at the press
conference and did it with a vengeance.
He felt strongly that after the press conference we should really go to
work playing the "Man of Peace" issue all the time,move all the other issues
to a lower level and really build that one up, because it's our issue and we have
to use it.

As he reviewed the schedules for this morning, he looked with considerable
disfavor on the discovery that he had to do a diplomatic credential ceremony
364 H.R. HALDEMAN
this afternoon and said he wanted to skip those from now on, and as much
other stuff of that kind as possible, so we cut the ceremonies down to eliminate
the 5-minute talk. The P simply
received the credentials and ushered the
Ambassador to the door. That gave him a little guilty feeling, and later in the
day he came up with the plan of having each ambassador bring his family to
watch the ceremony, but still eliminate the 5-minute talk. So we'll try that in
the future. He was very anxious to try and work out the opportunity to go to
Dean Acheson's funeral, but we can't do it. He did call Mrs. Acheson and gave
her a military aide, etc.
We had morning about China plans. He said

quite a long discussion this
that Henry's book, that he went over with him last night, is brilliant, but the
P now wants a brief memo that tells, first, what are our goals, and, second,
what will the Chinese want that we have to resist. He wants the book boiled
down to its essentials, to come directly to the point, and cut out the BS on
historical processes and everything and get it buttoned down. I covered this
with Haig, who immediately told Henry, who was in Chicago today. Henry
called me back for clarification, being somewhat upset by the critique.

The P had no schedule today. It was set aside for unscheduled meetings with
Connally, K, etc., and following up on economic
getting ready for Henry's trip
policy. Later this afternoon the P had Henry and me over to the EOB for a
discussion of the China trip. He went into the whole question of Pat Nixon's
going, making the point that people contact is more important than meetings,
in terms of public reaction here, and that Mrs. Nixon would be one way to get
some good people pictures, so he wants Henry to raise the Pat Nixon question.
If she goes, then the P doesn't have to go out into the people. If not, he will
have to. If she goes, she goes solely as a prop. No Mrs. Rogers along or
anything like that. Later, Henry summed it up that at some point he would
discuss this with Chou alone, making the point of the enormous interest in
America in Chinese people, and so on, that Mrs. Nixon would be going to
Russia, but that we recognize the problem and we want them to be honest with
us. This is an opportunity to convey the human side of the Chinese to the
American people. K is to feel his reaction and not press it on him.
The P said at the beginning of the meeting, he wanted his schedule cut to
three days and to stay in one city only, just Peking. He then expanded that to
four and then agreed to move it to five and to consider doing one other city
for one day, maybe on the way out. Hopefully, not overnight, unless the
Chinese want it, and will give us publicity and get us on TV and it will mean
a big public reception. He points out that on TV the American President
received by a million Chinese is worth a hundred times the effect of the
communique, and that we're not to miss an opportunity for the Chinese to give
a good welcome. There must be masses of Chinese people somewhere, and we
must have some chance for pictures with the people. Henry is to try to find
some way to get color into the trip. He should point out to them the receptions
the P received in Yugoslavia and Romania. He says sightseeing, no. Great
Wall, no. People, yes.
The P discussed with me his problem on the Supreme Court. Mitchell was in
this morning to see him, having told me last night that he had to talk to the
P this morning for a few minutes on a Court problem. It turns out that
( Warren) Burger has told Mitchell that he will resign if the P doesn't appoint
distinguished judges to the Court, and he doesn't feel the current list meets that
qualification. The P's view is, if that's his feeling, let him resign, that he will
not cater to Burger's demands on this kind of a thing and the P feels quite
strongly about it on the grounds that Burger would never have even been
considered for the Court, let alone Chief Justice, except by Nixon.
He then had Henry in for final guidance discussion on the China trip
before he leaves tomorrow. He made the point that he doesn't want to go to
any of the other cities just to see the leaders there, that the point of going to
other cities would be to get out to the people.
K argues that the Chinese have a different attitude toward foreigners and
they will not respect the kind of approach that the P traditionally would take.
The P still argues that he wants to let the people contact be the message that
gets through. Henry says it's tough to raise the question of creating crowds,
but he'll make the point in a complicated way, which probably means he won't
make it at all, but we'll see what happens.
The P was at Camp David, presumably all day, and apparently watched the
World Series this afternoon. He did call at 4:30 about the World Series, and
said, "I think I'll give up this business and start predicting baseball games." He
had predicted the outcome of this game, as he had the third game, very much
against the general prognostications.

Henry is Hawaii on his way to China, and the P raised some concerns,
in
particularly about a George Sherman story in the Star last week that implied
that Henry was dominating the making of all foreign policy. The P was quite
concerned about it, first because it's not true, particularly the China initiative,
for instance, was not Henry's. Second, that it would drive Rogers up the wall.
Third, it creates the impression that the P's doing all this for cynical reasons
and that he doesn't know anything about what he's doing, and fourth, he
thinks this results from the way Henry does his briefings and that it creates a
366 H.R. HALDEMAN
problem. In any event, he wanted me to talk to Haig and try to get that worked
out.
The P also reraised the public broadcasting thing again. He's fairly upset
at the inability of our people to get control of any of it, and feels that we've
got to find a way, somehow, to avoid letting them stockpile all the anti-Nixon
newscasters and subsidize them. We have Malek working with Colson and
Flanigan to try and get at The problem is, we don't have working control
this.
of the board and there's virtually no other way that we can take any effective
action. This evening was the opening of the Eisenhower Theater at the
Kennedy Center. The P attended. It was a good opening, I guess, but rather
a dull play: Ibsen's A Doll's House.

Back into the Court again. He met again this morning with John Mitchell.
He's now some different approaches and is not telling anybody
thinking of
what he's really up to, but he's forcing Mitchell to reevaluate. He's decided
now that if the ABA gives (California Supreme Court Associate) Mildred
Lilley a good rating, he'll go with her. If they don't he'll drop her and blame
them for it, so he wins either way. He seems to be intrigued with Howard Baker
as a possibility, which was a suggestion that came in from Len Garment, and
that I passed on to him yesterday when I was making my pitch for looking for
some more distinction.
The P started the day this morning by calling Malek and me in to ask whether
any of our recent high-level women appointees are lawyers, and if so, how
many years they have practiced and so on. This obviously relating to his
decision on the two Supreme Court appointments.
The P made several allusions during the day to the plans for nominations,
but never said anything specific and made the point that he wasn't going to tell
anybody this time, which apparently also includes me.
The P then called me again to say that he needed a fast writer to help on
his text for tomorrow night, so should enlist Safire. Said he wouldn't tell him
tonight who the nominees would be, get started on that tomorrow. He seems
to be pretty pleased about the nominations. I think he's going for people who
have not been on the list of six that was submitted to the ABA, and probably
who have not been speculated much about. My own guess would be that it
would be the fellow from Virginia who is the former head of the American Bar
Association (I can't remember his name) (it was Lewis Powell) and Howard
Baker, although I think it might well be one of those two plus Mulligan from
New York. The theory on the woman is that the ABA is not going to approve
her, and therefore he'll let her pass and blame them for it.
We talked also a little about China plans, and the P wanted me to be sure
to have Haig remind Henry that the P must see Chou En-lai and Mao alone.
Separately. Without K, because he has done this with all other heads of state.
He wants at least one meeting with each of them, with only interpreters
present, and these are to be in addition to all other meetings. We must have
them on some occasion. He makes the point that not only do we need to do
it because of the other countries, but so as to make it clear that Henry isn't
manipulating the entire operation, but rather, the P is clearly in command.
The whole thing today was the Supreme Court announcement. The P went
over to EOB first thing this morning, spent the whole day over there, except
for a couple of midday appointments in the Oval Office. He made quite a point
of not telling me or anyone else who the nominees were, except Dick Moore.
Then he had me working with Dick Moore to get things organized over at
Justice and, of course, Moore assumed that I knew and spilled the beans to me.
Turns out that they were set on Powell, the guy from Virginia who I expected,
and thought they were set on Howard Baker as the second seat, but appar-
ently, at some point toward the last minute last night or this morning, the P
decided to go with Rehnquist instead of Baker, and they shifted over, even
though Baker had been made the offer and they were waiting for his response
at 9:00 this morning when he was supposed to have it in. He didn't call until
about 9:30, at which time he said he would accept. By then the P had decided
to go the other way.
The P was very firm on making the notifications late this afternoon or this
evening.
The P decided not to have anybody work with him on the speech, and he
wrote it himself. He came out several times during the day with the need to
make the point of a stacked jury at the ABA, that there were no women on the
selection board. He wanted them hit hard on the fact that we learned from
inside the ABA that they considered Mildred Lillie the best-qualified woman
that we could have submitted, but then they voted 1 1-1 against her on being
qualified for the Court. He also wanted to hit hard on the point that the ABA
does not have veto power; that the Constitution requires the advice and
consent of the Senate, but does not require the consent of the Bar Association.
He was shocked at Willy Brandt's announcement yesterday as the Nobel
Peace Prize winner. Made the point today that we've got to watch out now that
Time, in order to needle us, may go for K as the Man of the Year, which would
be very bad, so we should try to swing that around a different way.
The P did a superb job on the announcement, which ran 15 minutes.
Reaction was very good overall, especially to Powell, because everybody con-
siders him outstanding. Most of the people we checked with were not familiar
with Rehnquist, but said he sounded good on his qualifications. I talked to the
P a couple hours after the broadcast and said I thought he had scored another
10-strike, and he said, "Well, probably so, except for my wife, but boy is she
368 H.R. HALDEMAN
mad." Apparently Mrs. Nixon really hit him on his failure to appoint a
woman, because she felt she had a commitment that he would do so and didn't
buy the argument of the Bar turning her down. So that apparently was the only
really sour note.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, October 23, 24, and 25, 1971
The P spent the weekend at Camp

had no contact with him at all
David. I
through the entire weekend, while I was down in Florida at Disney World.
Apparently things went well up here. The big blow was late Monday night,
when we had the UN vote expelling Taiwan. That'll create quite a stir, I'm
sure, tomorrow.

The main action today was on the UN vote. Reagan had been very upset last
night and tried to reach the P after midnight and the P returned the call this
morning. Reagan feels that the P should go on TV and make a big thing that
we won't abide by any UN votes in the future, etc. The P explained to him why
we couldn't do that and that apparently didn't calm him down much. Rogers
called Reagan later and thought he had made some headway, saying we're
going to sleep on the whole thing and see how it works out, but then Reagan
saw Rogers on TV later, saying that we weren't going to suspend funding of
the UN because of the vote, and that got Reagan all upset again. He talked
to the Attorney General after that and said that he thinks we've at least got
to callBush down for a consultation. Goldwater was in Tucson last night and
said there was quite an uprising over the news, and also a problem at the
Republican luncheon today. That he thinks that now that we're pulling in our
horns on foreign aid and the currency reform and all that sort of thing, that
the little nations are now flaunting their independence.
The P called me at home later this evening and said that he had his talk
with Henry, who was back from China, and that Henry had called Reagan as
I asked him to do, and will also call Buckley. The P makes the point that we
need to keep the right wing on track. The plan is Bush down here two
to keep
or three days, which will shake them up a little at the UN
and, in some way,
we'll say we're disgusted by their performance. He feels that, beyond that,
there's nothing it. We just have to ride it through. We have
we can do about
to see if K can
keep Reagan in line and try to do so with Buckley also, and
we've just got to keep Reagan from jumping off the reservation. He does want
to make it clear to the conservatives that the P fought the China battle as hard
as he could, and the right wing should understand that, and that the point is
that we mustn't be defensive with them. They've got to face up to the fact that
we have common enemies and that the people they should be after are the UN,
not the P.
The P had his breakfast with Rogers and K this morning to let Henry fill
Rogers inon the China trip.
Henry is convinced that Rogers pushed the UN vote for Monday night
so as to downgrade Henry's trip and give Henry's trip the blame for the
Taiwan loss. The P's point is the problem is not Taiwan, it's the UN, and he's
concerned that the Democrats are going to seize upon this as the reason to
blame us for the defeat, that we put on too much pressure because of the China
trip. Apparently Rogers accused K of being too soft on his dealings with the
Chinese. The P said he definitely decided he would travel in a Chinese plane

in China so we could work out the trip to Hangchow with Chou En-lai
accompanying us. Chou will not travel in an American plane.
The P also told Henry to call Ronald Reagan today and try to get him
straightened out. He then had Ziegler in and we talked about UN funding. He
told Ziegler to back Rogers' statement. He should refer to the glee displayed
at the UN would have a detrimental effect on the United States people in the
Congress. Said the P does want to get into a position on this, saying the
conduct was a disgusting spectacle. The delegates of many countries the
United States supports were gleeful and all. That the UN was very seriously
impaired in terms of support from among American people and the American
Congress. Ron picked up that line and used it today and it had quite a big play.

George Shultz came up with a theory at the staff meeting this morning, and
reexpanded it our dinner meeting this evening, that there are a lot of deep
at
currents beginning to flow now, that we have cut a lot of our basic moorings
and we don't know exactly where we're headed. For instance, there's opposi-
tion building to a controlled economy, or the idea of one, and to the loss of
foreign aid and to the China seat. He thinks we should lay out all these and
look at them as a tableau and consider the whole picture, not just the pieces.
He thinks the P has unleashed a lot of new forces, so that every little nuance
now becomes important, and we must be very careful regarding their reaction.
Thus it's a very difficult time and delicate time. He comments that the P tends
more than anyone to play the whole mosaic, while the others play the specific
little items with which they're personally concerned.
He (the P) got into quite a few discussions of personnel today. For

instance, the problem of the Attorney General and whether we can let him
leave to run the campaign. He talked about the problem of Kleindienst suc-
ceeding, feeling that we can't get him confirmed, so maybe the thing to do is
leave Mitchell at Justice, and have Kleindienst come out and run the campaign
under Mitchell's guidance. Or leave them both at Justice and let Mitchell run
the campaign from there, or maybe have Mitchell take a leave of absence, or
as a final alternative, have someone else run the campaign. He discussed Elliot
370 H.R. HALDEMAN
Richardson and made the point that he would be an outstanding Chief Justice,
and that since he's now got the two conservatives set for the Court he would
be willing to go to a middle-of-the-road guy, and if anything should happen
to Burger, he wants to keep Richardson in mind, because he thinks he would
be a towering, historic Chief Justice. He also got into the Hoover question. The
P feels we have to delay the removal now. The P's feeling is that we just let it
go and announce sometime next year that Hoover will be resigning after the
election and after his successor has qualified. That will put the heat on for
Nixon's reelection to make sure he's the one that appoints the successor.
We had a meeting this afternoon with the Attorney General and Shultz
regarding the Hoffa question. Mitchell raised the point that the time has
probably come for the P to exercise executive clemency. He suggests burying
this in the Christmas list in a batch of 250 or so. The P was trying to get at the
point of how you position it. The question is what our political benefit is, and
what is in the balance. The inevitable charge will be that this is done for
political support. The line the P would use is that he's met the normal require-
ments for release and there should not be discrimination against him because
he's a labor leader.

The P spent the day at the EOB office with no He had me over
set schedule.
there virtually all morning, with K, E, and Ziegler and out during the
in
session. He spent the first part of the day following up on yesterday's local
election results. Primarily calling the winners, including Rizzo in Philadelphia,
who apparently, although a Democrat, is totally for the P and in effect told
him so. The P told all of them that we want to work with them, and that E
would be in touch with them to set up the ways of doing so. He wants to be
sure that we pound home the fact that the mayor races prove our political
strategy, that the place for us is not with the Jews and the Negroes, but with
the white ethnics and that we have to go after the Catholic thing.

The main event of the day was Mrs. Gandhi's visit. The P was particularly
pleased with his welcoming speech, and hoped that we'd get some people to
pick it up, make do these without any notes, with
the point of his ability to
great simplicity, eloquence and brevity. He wanted to see if we could get a
column on it. He had a good line, making the point that our commissions are
not bound by a treaty because we have a special relationship that doesn't
require a treaty. He made the point that we need to get the whole story of his
toasts and arrival statements out at some point.
Overall he's in kind of a strange mood. I think mainly because he's sort
of in between things here, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Also he's very
much concerned about Henry's attitude and mood, and as a result of that
asked Henry to go to Florida with him. He's also got Mitchell coming down
for a political meeting on Monday. His whole approach is one of sort of
bouncing around on loose ends at the moment.

Called me in at 7:45 this morning. He was in the office early, even though he
had the Gandhi State Dinner last night.
We had a long Cabinet meeting this morning. The P opened it to launch
the subject of politics, and said this was the 25th anniversary of the day he was
elected to Congress the first time, November 5, 1946. He made the point that
the men around had worked for three years and contributed enor-
the table
mously to the Administration and the country, especially on the domestic side,
and they may wonder what recognition they've gotten. The foreign policy
initiatives have gotten some acclaim. Some domestic initiatives also deserve it
but they don't get it. On the domestic front, generally, this Administration, as
far as people are concerned, is dull, gray, unimaginative, and status quo. This
is not the fault of the people around the table; it's that everything is relative.
We are responsible button-down people, we don't demagogue, and we're naive
to think that we'll get credit for doing a good job. There is some need to change
policy and attitude; the Cabinet is very positive, honest, responsible, but
already the drumfire has begun. The Democrats don't have to be positive or
responsible. We have to understand that in order to make news you have to
hit somebody, not an unfair or irresponsible way.
in
(After P left, John Scali said) The most important thing you can do is
become zealous defenders of Nixon. Articulate advocates, reacting to the
partisan political attacks and recognizing the necessity of defending one man.
Nixon sits there day after day, listening to the tirades against him, and he can't
reply personally. You must respond automatically, without a signal from the
White House, to these charges. It's necessary that each of you learn how to
wrap up the points that you want to make in 30 seconds or less. This can be
done on any subject, but you have to decide what is the key point, write it in
simple language. The way to do it is to start with a subject, then a predicate,
then end it and lower your voice so you know it's the end. It's essential to a
film editor for you to do this, and on that basis he'll give you the free time
you're after.
He made the point also that from December 10 until the time of the new
Congress you have a unique opportunity to dominate the news, and we should
have news conferences with Cabinet officers every day. He said he was im-
pressed with the number of problems that end up on the P's desk. You all have
many problems that you solve alone in your departments, but your tough ones
all end up here, on the back of one man. He wanted to be P; he's not
complaining. Then he told the story of the farmer whose cow went dry. He
tried all the remedies and the vet couldn't cure her, so he got in a headshrinker
who went in and spent two hours with the cow alone in the barn. All of a
372 H.R. HALDEMAN
sudden there was a terrible roar and out came a tidal wave of milk. The farmer
asked the headshrinker how he had done it. The headshrinker said, how long
have you had this cow? He said eight years, giving a record crop of milk all
those years, and the headshrinker said, well, during all that time that you were
sitting there squeezing that cow's tits did it ever occur to you to say I love you?
He then said to the Cabinet officers, keep in mind that farmer.
He says the single most important thing you can do is play an important
role in the reelection. You must use the talents of your department better than
you have. Advocate and defend this man. The history books will write Richard
Nixon in large letters. Your name will be there with his if you measure up to
the challenge and make it possible to reelect this great P.

The P worked at the Residence this morning. He told Time to come over and
meet with Earl Butz, the new Secretary of Agriculture nominee that he an-
nounced this afternoon. He then went to Arlington Cemetery to place a wreath
at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the occasion of the 50th anniversary
of the placement there of the unknown soldier. There was a nonspeaking
ceremony. Very impressive and came off very well. He then spent the rest of
the day at the EOB in preparation for the press conference tomorrow, except
for the Butz announcement at 4:00 this afternoon. He had Henry and me over
to discuss the European trip plans. We've got a problem now of a place to meet
with the French because Pompidou won't come to French Guyana and doesn't
want to come anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
We elected that Henry would try and work it out with Pompidou, see
what we could develop. That got into a discussion of the international eco-
nomic situation. K kept raising the point that we have to settle the European
economic situation. The P told him to talk with Shultz. He also told him to
drop the Burns line regarding return to the gold standard and so on, but Henry
argues against Connally's strategy because he thinks that we're linking struc-
tural problems with special interests and that this makes a mistake. He feels
that Connally is like all Texans, and is just basically antiforeigner. He argues
that we should what we want to the other nations and then start negotiat-
state
ing on the an established strategy. The P told Henry to see Connally
basis of
immediately when he gets back, and to get into this with him. See if he can't
get him lined up.
Henry thinks that Laird has sabotaged us as usual on the troop with-
drawal announcement for tomorrow by leaking a stronger position than the
P is actually going to take. He also thinks that Rogers has declared total war
on him and is maneuvering to sabotage him on all fronts except Vietnam,
which is an area that Rogers isn't interested in. He's convinced that they're
moving on Middle East, India, Pakistan, and other areas without our knowl-
edge and it's driving him right up the wall. Probably some merit to it, but
there's no way I can evaluate that. The P called at 5:30 to say he didn't want
any more phone calls, but both Rogers and Laird were trying to reach him and
obviously just wanted to get in their views on the record before the group
announcement thing, so he said to tell them he was tied up in a crisis on the
Pay Board and wouldn't be able to talk with them this evening.

The P spent all morning preparing for his Vietnam announcement press con-
ference this afternoon, and didn't seem to have any particular problems in
getting ready. He did a superb job at the press conference. I think it was
probably one of the best ones he's ever had. He used the pressroom and was
on film for the entire conference, opening with the Vietnam announcement (of
45,000 troops to be withdrawn by February 1, 1972) and then taking questions
for half an hour.
Also in the press conference, they asked if he would consider amnesty for
the draft dodgers who had gone to Canada and he answered with a simple no.
In talking about it afterward, said that the line there is that serving in Vietnam
is a difficult problem for young Americans, but 2.5 million chose to serve and
45,000 of those who chose to serve died for their country. On the other hand,
a few hundred chose to desert their country, and they have to live with their
choice.

The P called me over to Dogwood at 10:30 for a couple of hours of general
discussion, starting with plans for Mrs. Nixon's trip to Africa. The P had a lot
of idea on how to structure the trip mechanics, such as how to set the plane
up. A little later Mrs. Nixon and Julie joined us and agreed with the basic
plans. Julie suggested we one network on an exclu-
try to sell the coverage to
sive basis and wants Ziegler to explore that. The P
said Mrs. Nixon should
have a talk with the President in each country where she goes, and he said he
wanted to have her entire delegation in to meet with him before they leave. He
also got into some discussion on the plan we have for a TV day in the White
House and he had a lot of good ideas on it, improved on most of ours. He
wants to be sure we bring the dog in. We got into quite a thing late in the
afternoon because he discovered that Julie didn't have adequate preparation
material for her trip. He wants me now to put ( speechwriter John) Andrews
on it, and get some really good Q&A things worked out for her and some
talking points on Administration programs and achievements, the kind of
points that we want her to get across such as we would give a Cabinet officer.

Henry was in quite a stir this morning because of the story in The New York
Times that obviously had been leaked by Defense, giving the figures on ulti-
374 H.R. HALDEMAN
mate troop withdrawal numbers and strategy regarding residual force. We got
into quite a discussion of it with the P and it was decided I should call Laird
and hit him on this. Which I did, not getting to him until quite a bit later in
the day. Laird finessed the whole thing, blaming it on all sorts of other people
and ranting and raving about how he's really clamping down on the Joint
Chiefs, etc.
The P decided this noon to break the ice with Peterson on Commerce and
tried to callhim to get him in to tell him. Peterson was out to lunch with
Schweitzer, of the IMF, which made the P a little bit upset. He later got him
in at 3:30 this afternoon with Shultz, E, and me, and did an absolutely terrible
job of telling him he had decided he was going to move to Commerce. He
didn't even offer the job to him or give him the chance to discuss it. He just
said that's what we've decided and didn't even do that in a very enthusiastic
fashion, but I guess Peterson swallowed it all right.
A lot of discussion during the day on whether or not to do the AFL

Convention. The P's gut reaction this morning was not to, because he feels we
can't let Meany have it both ways. He's been kicking us around, especially on
foreign policy, and the P doesn't feel we should go down. Colson on the other
hand feels very strongly that we should. That the atmosphere is not wrong. A
lot of the delegates support the P and he could score a smash hit, and that he
shouldn't let Meany scare him off.

Staff meeting started out this morning with the AFL question, whether the P
should go down to the convention. E has now shifted to being conditionally in
favor if it is made unmistakably clear that the P has not sold out to Labor in the
past. In other words, rewrite the history of what is believed, but do it in the
presence of Labor. Shultz also votes to go. They both feel there should be a
maximum buildup on the "Daniel into the Lions' Den" thesis. The question then
came up with the P, who basically had the feeling he should not go. That it's a
question of throwing pearls before swine and he just doesn't think we should.
Also he reviewed Cook's first draft of the speech, or actually the fifth draft, and
he has totally the wrong idea because it's the kind of speech the P really wants to
give, whereas his plan was to have a written speech that was basically the dull
routine standard speech that they would be expecting, and he would then not
deliver that, but he would say that he stands behind it and speak extemporane-
ously. Also it praised Meany to the skies, which is, of course, ridiculous.
The thing then went on through the day in some doubt, but he decided he'd
make up his mind at 7:00 tonight whether to go or not, and if he decided to go he
would leave at 9:00 tonight, go on down to Florida so he would be ready to speak
at noon tomorrow. At 7:00 he said he would go. He told me to go ahead and get
it set up. We had that preworked out with Shultz, and it was then his task to call
Meany and confirm it. It took him an hour and a half to reach Meany. In the
meantime we had run out of time, really, as far as leaving tonight, but at 8:30
Shultz finally did get Meany, and Meany, in effect, said the P can go to hell. That
tomorrow was his day at the convention and he wasn't about to let the P come
in and upstage him, and he put it really on the basis that the schedule was all set
and he couldn't change it. He did say he could speak at 4:00 tomorrow or at any
time he wanted to on Friday. Our recommendation then was that he speak at
10:30 Friday morning, and after some discussion the P agreed. Colson and
Shultz were pretty furious with Meany's attitude and were practically tempted
not to go. Felt that we shouldn't let him get away with this kind of approach to
the P, but actually, when you get down to it, it was really pretty logical and
understandable that he would take that position.
We had some discussion during the day today on the Peterson problem.
He told me to tell Shultz to take Peterson totally out of the play on interna-
tional financial policy. This arising from Connally's feeling that we're speaking
with too many voices. He said that Peterson is to quit talking to people such
as Schweitzer, who he had lunch with today. He's to have no more external
talk, especially to foreigners. This is to be done under the assumption that
Shultz, McCracken, and Peterson are all told to have no more discussion with
foreigners, but actually the one he's after is Peterson. He got into this after the
whole thing of asking Peterson yesterday to take the Secretary of Commerce.
All of us, incidentally, agreed that was about the most graceless exercise we
had ever seen. Really on both the P and Peterson's part.

We had another round on the AFL question this morning, since Shultz was
due to call Meany, and I wanted to check with the P first to be sure he was
still on track regarding making the trip. He was a little annoyed because he
felt that we ought to get a commitment out of Meany that they wouldn't
walk out on the Pay Board before we agreed that the P would go, which, of
course, we can't do. He ended up agreeing to go, however, and Shultz called
Meany this morning and confirmed 10:30 tomorrow, and we went ahead and
announced it.
Today was the day of big Congressional problems. We have another
batch of antiwar amendments in both the House and Senate, and the campaign
spending thing has become a serious problem since the Democrats have put in
a one dollar checkoff on tax allocation, which would be the worst possible
thing that could happen to us because it would automatically raise $20 million
for each party, which we don't need, but the Democrats would be saved by it.
We flew down to Key Biscayne this evening. The P worked in his cabin
all the way down and didn't have me up at all, which sets a new record.

The day started in Key Biscayne with the AFL speech. The P looked pretty
tired when he got on the helicopter and all of us felt he had probably not slept
376 H.R. HALDEMAN
much, been up most of the night working on the speech. He used the whole ride
over on the helicopter to work on his notes again. The whole deal in the hall
was somewhat incredible. He walked in without any announcement, Meany
had canceled the band. Refused our advance man's suggestion that they an-
nounce the P before he came in the hall. Had him sit in the second row on the
platform. We learned later he had tried to get the executive committee to not
sit on the platform with him, and he had instructed the people not to do any
kind of response, positive or negative. They did stand and applaud when the
P came in and again when he left, and interrupted the speech a couple of times
with applause because they really couldn't help it, but overall they followed
their rules pretty effectively. The speech was a real masterpiece. He followed
his plan of saying he had distributed the text to the press and he stood by it,
but he was going to throw it away and speak to them straight from the
shoulder, the way they like to hear it. The text of the speech is well worth
studying in the style of going back and forth that he used, and it was quite
effective. They managed to avoid any reaction in the hall to the extent they
could.
When we got back to the hotel he called to say that he had forgotten to
mention that it was important that we should have Moore and Scali follow up
on this and he hoped they were there. They weren't, and he felt that was quite
a mistake and obviously was a little pushed out of shape on that. Made the
strong point to me of the need to get the whole drama of the moment over, that
it's not a spot news story. The real point is the color and drama of his moving
into this hostile situation and so on. I got Colson and our crew on the phone
up north. There was then considerable telephoning from then until departure
time. With the P coming up with more reactions, ideas, things that ought to
be followed up, and I was lashing the Colson crew to get things moving, but
there isn't an awful lot they can do except get some of these background items
about Meany's rude treatment out.
The networks tonight gave us what appeared to be pretty bad coverage,
in the sense they emphasized the hostile reaction. They did play our points on
the rude treatment and the specifics about no band, no announcement, and so
forth, and they made a big thing out of the fact of the P shifting at the last
minute and returning to Washington instead of staying at Key Biscayne.
The P was morning and cranking away again on AFL

in to the office early this
reaction. He was New York Times coverage, which
pretty distressed with The
was all he had seen. We gave him the report on the networks and that didn't
seem to help very much. He still feels we missed the point. The point is that
we have to override the cool reception story and change it to a "labor is rude
to a courageous president" story.
One break that all of us was monumentally valuable to us is that the
felt
executive board raised Meany's pay from $70,000 to $90,000 and we had a lot
of discussion on how to handle and whether to take advantage of that. We

need a clear attack by the He also made the point that we should be sure
P.
that someone gets pictures of Meany at the racetrack, playing golf, and getting
in and out of his limousine down there. We should set them up as the "bloated
barons of labor."
He called later in the afternoon to comment on the UCLA football game,
saying the Bruins were really holding on and playing in a spirited way. That
SC was really loaded with talent. Game ended up a tie. He said he'd been
looking at the telegrams (supporting P against Meany) and was really quite
excited about them. Read me quite a few of them and they really are strong
and emotional. So he thinks we've really got something going now, which is
exactly the point I'd been trying to make from right after the speech yesterday
on. He feels now that we've come to three conclusions. First, that we can't
make peace with the labor unions. Second, that the Pay Board must be tough
and not back down to them, and third, that it'll be very hard to make the Hoffa
move right now, under these circumstances.

Henry burst in at noon to say that the radio and TV reports that India has
attacked Pakistan. He has no confirmation. Bystill didn't have
9:00 tonight he
any confirmation. Our vast intelligence network doesn't seem to be able to tell
us when a couple of major nations are at war, which is a little alarming, to say
the least.
East Pakistan was in rebellion against Pakistan, and India had taken advan-
tage of it by attacking East Pakistan. What was especially worrisome was
that India had become aligned with the Soviets, and Pakistan with the
Chinese. The situation was very volatile. The P expressed his displeasure
very strongly to both India and the Soviets.

The question came up this morning at staff meeting on the tax-bill strategy.
The principal concern Shultz has is that the bill is going to be managed by the
Treasury when it goes into conference. Connally will be gone, which means it's
up to Treasury stafT, and he's very concerned that they won't handle it in the
P's interest.
The P decided this afternoon to go out to a Redskins practice without any
announcement, but at the last minute had me go along. He went out and spent
about 20 minutes there. Did a great job and really jazzed them up. It should
be good for some excellent coverage and great photos. They gave him a big
cheer as he came out on the field. He completely befuddled them with his
378 H.R. HALDEMAN
tremendous knowledge of football, as he went through all of the comments he

had to make about each of the individual guys, etc.
The P had a super solid schedule of meetings today as a result of restacking

the schedule to set up for early departure, although it was all to no avail
because he then postponed the departure until 5:00 so he could have a second
meeting with Connally this afternoon. All of this mainly on budget, domestic
and foreign policy, with E and K in on parts of the meetings. He agreed to
move on Taft-Hartley on the dock strikes in the EastCoast and Gulf ports and
told Shultz to put that into motion.
On the plane out to California this evening the P had me in. He had talked
to Colson on the phone and was concerned because we had tentatively decided
to go ahead with the Federal pay increase. The real question is the psychologi-
cal effect of the P agreeing to raise pay, and the detrimental effect on holding
the line against pay increases. This being a bad time to do something like this.
We now have the letter in hand confirming his selection as Time Man of the
Year, so he's agreed to do an interview with Time but wants to make it as late
as possible so that it'll be as timely as it can be.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, November 25, 26, 27, 1971
We've been in California. I've been over in Palm Springs for the entire week-
end and have had no contact at all with the P.
On Friday night I was called at 11:00 by the VP who said they had a
problem on the golf game tomorrow because there was something going
between Hope and Sinatra. Paul Keyes had gotten into the problem of who
rides in the cart with the P. Keyes had told Hope that the P wanted Sinatra to
ride with him and that this apparently had Hope's nose out of joint. In any
event I told the VP that I had nothing to do with setting it up. Rose Woods
had handled it all for the P and that he should call Rose, which he agreed he
would do in the middle of the night.

No contact again today until we were on Air Force One back to Washington.
The P had me up just for a short time during the flight, mainly to cover some
schedule items. We're setting the Trudeau visit and he wants to give a dinner
for him, stag, with a certain amount of show, primarily for the NBC TV, since
that's theday we're having the "Day in the Life of the President" coverage. He
raised the problem of Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. Apparently there was a
flap, and they got into a sticky thing on how to handle that at Palm Springs.

Back in Washington. He had an 8:30 meeting this morning with E, MacGre-
gor, Timmons, and the Attorney General regarding the campaign checkoff
problem and as a result they decided not to meet with the Congressional
leaders, but rather have MacGregor do a press conference at noon and put out
the word that we probably will veto. He had Ziegler and MacGregor in
afterward to get a report on it, apparently it went pretty well. The P then said
why don't we screw the networks? Why don't we put in a plan to provide for
free TV time for Presidential candidates and take the revenue out of the
networks and give us a counter ploy? So MacGregor is going to work on
developing that.
As to the Federal pay raise, Congress passed it at 5.5 percent effective
January 1, so our view didn't make any difference. It passed by the Senate,
70-1 or something like that.

This is the P's NBC "Day in the Life of the President" for TV, and he really
came on like gangbusters. They started the Congressional leadership breakfast
meeting 15 minutes early at 7:45 and the P went full tilt, without a pause, from
there through about 7:00 PM, when hewent over to the Residence to
finally
get ready for dinner. Then the dinner started at 8:00 and went through to
10:30, when he went upstairs for his interview with Chancellor, which ended
a little before 11:00. All in all it was quite a tour de force. He had the TV
cameras in the office much longer than we'd expected them to be, and so they
got considerably more coverage than they had planned or we had planned to
give them, which is of course all to the good. His attitude was a little snappy
at the start of the day, but it picked up considerably, and when he had me in
at 9:30 for the staff period, he was cranking under full steam. He was talking
to Bush on the telephone at the UN telling him to hit hard on our India-
Pakistan position and making that very clear. Then he moved to set up a
meeting on India-Pakistan with Rogers, Connally, Laird, Moorer, etc., which
had not been on the schedule for the day, so that filled in the noon hour and
ended up with no break at all at midday.
John Chancellor and the NBC people were ecstatic with the way the
whole day went, particularly with the amount of time the P was letting the crew
stay in his office. Apparently he was putting on the same kind of performance
right on through the day. He had the Trudeau meeting at 4:00 for two hours
and then the Trudeau dinner tonight.
At the dinner tonight, the P decided to launch into calling on people to
make little talks, and he closed it with his "300 boys dying in Vietnam three
years ago" talk before he finally broke the dinner up and headed upstairs for
his wrapup interview with Chancellor. All in all it should be a fantastically
380 H.R. HALDEMAN
good show for TV and obviously was well worth doing, although I'm sure it
really took a lot out of him.

At the staff meeting this morning, Shultz reported that a good friend of
his has seen Meany and gave him a pretty good report on the
in the hospital
true situation. Apparently Meany is in a coronary emergency section. He did
have a serious heart attack. He's feeling good now, but he's still in very serious
shape. The doctors say maybe he can be out in six to eight weeks but they
aren't allowing him to read the papers or see TV, and O'Connell thinks he's
pretty well through as far as any active leadership is concerned. He also says
that the labor people generally think Nixon is going to win and we therefore
should be dealing with the international presidents, since some of them, at
least, want to cooperate with us, especially with the thought that we might win.

Main question today was monumental K flap. He came in at midday and
a
told me that, as me some time ago, if we got to a substantive
he had warned
impasse where State actually screwed something up on a substantive basis and
he felt he couldn't deal with it that he would resign. He has now reached that
point.
He says that he would like, therefore, to wait until Congress leaves and
then announce that he'll be resigning next year at around June, before the
political campaign. He's rationalized some thought that this would all fit
together and work out fine. Obviously he wants to get the drama of the
resignation, plus the benefit of staying on through China, and then get out
before the heat of the political campaign. I talked to him a little bit about it
without making any attempt to dissuade him, and then, because the P recog-
nized there was a problem by the way Henry was talking with him, I filled him
in on what Henry had and he was, of course, considerably concerned
said,
about it, but felt we should take a hard line with Henry and not back down
to him. I talked to Henry again later in the afternoon. He came bouncing in
before his backgrounder and I tried to push to see what the problem is. The
trigger was Rogers' talk at the dinner last night, which wasn't helpful as far as
India-Pakistan was concerned, and mainly it's an ego problem with Henry
resenting Rogers being called on, both last night and yesterday afternoon,
when they were doing the TV filming. He says now that this indicates, as do
other State actions, that they're not going to help in carrying out the plans. He
points out that he can bring off the other things alone.
I talked later this afternoon with the P about the whole thing again. He
feels, as do I now, that there's more and that
to this than just India-Pakistan,
there may be personal problem with K or maybe it is really just the hangup
over the dinner last night. In any event, I talked again with Henry and played
it a little brutally with him this time by saying that if he was going to announce
his resignation in December, he should resign in December. He couldn't just
announce it and then hang on, and he said, oh no, he couldn't do that because
he couldn't leave the P alone to go to China, and I said you couldn't go to

China with him, having announced your resignation, that would put him in a
much worse position. So I think I've given him something to think about and
we'll see what develops. I'll try to spend some time with him tomorrow and get
a better reading.

Henry has a note from the Soviets on Pakistan regarding a possible cease-fire
agreement, and it looks as if things aren't all lost, as he thought they were
yesterday. The P told him to develop a game plan as to where it was we want
to end up and what we want to accomplish, and then to work that out. Henry
then made an urgent pitch that the P see the Soviet Agriculture Minister who
was here today, because he's a strong personal friend of Brezhnev's and has a
message from Brezhnev and also the P can give him a message back, laying it
out very sternly.
We had received information was planning to attack West Paki-

that India
stan as well. Yahya Khan had no longer defend East
realized he could
Pakistan and had accepted the UN call for a cease-fire. India had not,
however. The P authorized a task force of 8 ships to the Bay of Bengal, and
sent another message to Brezhnev. Then we waited for a reply.
Henry also said, as Haig confirmed, that the P will have to meet with the
WSAG ( Washington Special Action Group) this afternoon because they're in
open rebellion against Henry and the P's position, but that will depend on
what position they've decided on at their noon meeting regarding a game plan.
The P agreed to do this as he's sort of going along with Henry now and trying
to get any problems resolved.
Haig came in to see me on this whole question. He agrees basically with
the general conclusions that the P and I had come up with yesterday, that is,
Henry is physically tired, that he does realize he's at fault in the failure in
India-Pakistan to date and doesn't like that feeling. Also Haig points out that
Henry basically is bored. He's just tired of fighting the bureaucracy on all of
these things, but Al shares my belief that Henry isn't about to quit, no matter
what kind of threats he makes, even though this time he says he's deadly
serious and claims he's going ahead with it. The P is resigned to our taking a
hard line on this, and if Henry quits he'll just have to quit. I personally think
that's the only position he can take and that there's no great danger in it,
because I don't think Henry has any intention of walking out before China,
and the P won't let him make any announcement or intention to do it if he
wants to go to China.
The P again went round and round in trying to analyze the problem.
382 H.R. HALDEMAN
Henry's ego, his way of working, etc. It's very hard to pin down what specifi-
cally wrong and I believe Haig's right, as are we, in our analysis that it's a
is
combination of a number of these factors, but I think my position with Henry

of hitting him very hard on the fact that if he's going to announce he's leaving,
then he's got to leave, whether it's now or next June or whatever. He can't
announce now and then leave later because it would leave him as a lame duck
with no power influence or ability. Also I pushed him on the point that if things
are in such a bureaucratic mess, he obviously can't leave. He's got to get things
untangled and then leave. He can't just walk out leaving the P sitting with
first
a disaster. He seemed to be in a much better mood today and I think as action

is starting now, he's developing a plan and getting into carrying things out,
that he's much better.
On
an unrelated matter the P apparently met with the Attorney General
yesterday and agreed to pardon Hoffa.

Shultz raised the problem today of the Defense budget. He's concerned that
K hasn't closed the deal with Laird on the budget as it's supposed to be, and
Laird is pushing for an $82 billion budget and Shultz is convinced that Defense
can't spend over $74 billion, no matter what they do. In any event, he feels he's
being pretty much dealt out of the action on this, and is unable to get to Henry,
who is supposed to be handling it.
We had a big flap today on the plan for Julie's Christmas TV special. She
decided not to do it apparently because Pat Nixon told Julie it wasn't a good
thing to do. We rattled through it on and off during the day. The P felt strongly
Julie should do it. Especially since we've gotten into the flap with CBS yester-
day on the blackmail question of whether they would even do the Julie show
unless the P agreed to do the one-on-one. We then agreed to do the one-on-
one, and now Julie's talking about cutting out of her show. I finally got to Julie
at the end of the day, when she got back from North Carolina, and told her
what the situation was. She agreed to take one more stab at it with her mother,
and Rose called a little later in the evening to say that Julie had done a superb
job. Had Mrs. Nixon sold on it and they were going ahead with it.
K was in with the P this morning on the Pakistan question. K says
Pakistan will be all over by Sunday, and that the P turned it around yesterday
afternoon in his hard line with the WSAG group. The P pushed Henry hard
on following up more on protesting the Indian strafing of our planes and
Indian bombing of the orphanage and all that sort of thing. He thinks our PR
apparatus on foreign policy is lousy, and that we're not getting the kind of
mileage out of these various incidents that we should, and would, if someone
were riding hard on them and following up.
The tax bill signing became a big issue today as we went round and round
on the signing statement, and the P did end up signing it, feeling that we'd get
some substantial mileage out of it. The P was supposed to have a half-hour
interview with Jerry Schecter of Time this afternoon, regarding the Man of the
Year cover, and he extended it to an hour and ended up by saying he'd take
him up to Camp David tomorrow to look things over up there if he'd like to
do it. At 8:00 he called me at home to say he was going to drive up to Camp
David at 8:30, and he seemed to be very pleased with the whole day and the
way everything had gone.
Sunday, December 12, 1971

The P did his bit with the CBS TV people for the Christmas tree thing this
morning. Apparently felt he did extremely well on it, because on the plane to
the Azores this afternoon (to meet Pompidou regarding international financial
conditions) he called me up wanted to make some effort to get more
to say he
coverage on the show than was originally planned, and to try to get CBS to
use his particular commentary as a separate piece. Apparently he went into
quite a thing on the meaning of Christmas, the background of Christmas, and
relating it to peace with the point that in spite of the teachings of Christ all the
wars we've had since Christ have been basically involving Christians, and that
maybe we're arriving at a new stage now where Christians will be able to avoid
war instead of getting into them.
On the flight K P wanted Rogers to do a press briefing
discovered the
tomorrow in morning meeting. He thinks that will ruin the
the Azores after the
whole Pakistan effort because Rogers will say the wrong thing and blow it.
That was bad enough, and then the P ended up having Rogers do a briefing
of the press on the plane and that had Henry really up the wall, but apparently
it worked out fine and caused no trouble at all. Henry was in and out of the
P's cabin as were Rogers, Connally, Dave Kennedy, etc. It was a fairly difficult
five-hour flight since he felt he had to be involved with all of them. He seemed
to be very relaxed and not really put upon it all, however. The arrival went
according to plan and we're settled down at the Air Force base in the Azores.

The schedule on meetings went pretty well. The P got a good
for today
reception, very enthusiastic pleasant crowds in the streets in the town where
the meetings are. After we choppered over from the Air Force base, he met
Pompidou in the garden and went in according to the plan. Henry said to me
during the photo session that he thought he'd step out of the meeting and wait
for the P to call him in, and I said he shouldn't push his luck, he should just
go in and settle down. As it turns out I was right, because the entire morning
meeting went through its full course of two and a half hours and the P never
did call Henry in, so he sat in a little room outside stewing. He wouldn't go
into the Rogers meeting because he wanted Rogers to think he was in with the
384 H.R. HALDEMAN
two presidents, and that backfired when the Rogers meeting finally ended and
Bill came out and went into the room where Henry was, and thus discovered
that Henry was not in with the P.

This day started pretty early. In that half hour after midnight last night,
when the P returned from the Pompidou dinner and after I had gone to bed
and gone to sleep, he asked me to come over, so I had to get up and get
dressed. He decided to try to figure out return plans so that he could proba-
bly go to Florida tomorrow. Put the other people on the other plane, as he
was planning to do anyway so that he wouldn't have to ride with them, but
he does want Henry to go with him so that he can have a chance to talk with
him and also get him calmed down. He feels that he's had quite a problem
keeping Henry on track through this whole session and wants to sort of
wrap it up with him on the plane on the way back. I talked to Henry and to
Chapin after that talk about 1:00 this morning and got things reasonably
well on track for setting up for the P to go to Florida, although Henry's still
reluctant because he feels it'll be a bad signal in his maneuverings with the
India-Pakistan situation and that it would be better for the P to go back to
Washington.
Then at 4:20 this morning the P called me again. He had been up all the
time listening to the Redskins /Rams football game on Armed Forces radio
and he was calling to tell me that first of all he'd decided he'll go to Washington
tomorrow definitely. That we should leave the Cabinet guys on the P plane so
that he has a chance to chat with them on the way back. Then he said
incidentally the Redskins beat the Rams, 38-24. They had an 80,000 capacity
crowd. He was all excited about the whole thing. I could hardly believe it, since
I didn't even know they were playing. I guess it was a big victory. He tried to
reach George Allen by satellite telephone, but wasn't able to get to him. Then
at 8:15 he had me over again before he left for the final Pompidou meeting, so
that he could go up to Camp David as soon as he got back to Washington and
spend the rest of the week there until it was time to go to New York on
Saturday.
He says K's still trying to find out whether we've got a deal or not on
India-Pakistan and that he won't know for a few more hours. He's going to
have a long talk with K on his attitude and all. He feels that he's been a
problem on this whole exercise and he doesn't want to have to keep putting up
with that.
Henry, by midday, was in good shape because he had the Pakistan deal
put together and he now feels he's got that solved.
On the way back P
said that he thought he'd probably go to Florida
tomorrow, since the Pakistan thing is pretty well settled and Henry feels he's
no longer required to stay in Washington. After he got back to the house, he
decided not to go to Camp David tonight. He went up to the solarium and

watched the taped replay of the Rams-Redskin game.

At the staff meeting this morning K got into the India-Pakistan question.
Made the point that we need a maximum attack on the Hill against India, and
felt that we needed to get a Congressional meeting cranked up with Connally,
to try to get this kind of reaction going. Things are really on track and he's
practically ecstatic. He thinks that the deal has been made with the Russians
and that it's primarily his maneuvering that has backed them down. There was
some discussion about the threat in his backgrounder that we would call off
the Soviet summit, which CBS made a big thing about.
The Soviets so far had replied only with vague assurance that India would
not attack Pakistan. On the plane from the Azores, K had hinted to report-
ers that P might call off the Soviet Summit if they didn't restrain India.
The P told Ziegler to cool that on the grounds that the issue hasn't
reached that point and that might later if the Russians don't act to stop the
it
cannibalizing there. Henry argued that his Summit threat was good because it
showed that the P is now in this. So when we get the settlement, which we are
going to get, the P will get the credit for it, and he thinks that what he did, while
he didn't intend to put that line out, it does work to our long-range benefit.
The P called at 1 1:30 and have declared a cease-fire in West

said the Indians
Pakistan. Haig called Rogers was sensing a PR coup in this whole
me to say
thing and trying to get into it and get on top of it, but we should keep it for
the P. The only other development during the day were the progress reports
from MacGregor on the Congress. He was very pleased because he got a
House up and down vote on the Mansfield Amendment and it was defeated
130 to 101.

E called,
said that he and the Attorney General had to meet with the P and me
immediately upon our return tonight, which we did. It turned out that in their
investigation of the Jack Anderson leaks, they had uncovered the fact that a
yeoman in the NSC shop, assigned to liaison with the Joint Chiefs, was the
386 H.R. HALDEMAN
almost certain source of not only the leaks, but also the absconding of infor-
mation from Henry's and Haig's and other people's briefcases, which were
turned over to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The P was quite shocked, naturally,
by the whole situation and agreed that very strong action had to be taken, but
very carefully, since we don't want to blow up the whole relationship with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Apparently they had set up this system for getting the
information to them. The question is, who at the Joint Chiefs was aware of it?
In any event, Mitchell is going to proceed on the basis of having Henry
tell the Admiral that works for him now that he can go ahead and answer
questions. The Admiral has refused to answer some of the key questions on the
grounds that his personal relationship with K precludes it. In the meantime
they've sort of semisuspended the yeoman and figure that they don't want to
prosecute because that would just accelerate the situation. So it's a tough one
to figure out.
The previous week, columnist Jack Anderson had printed verbatim tran-
scripts from the WSAG meetings on India-Pakistan, revealing K and P's
pressure to "tilt" toward Pakistan despite official neutrality. It had created
an uproar and during our investigation we discovered that a
in the press,
Navy yeoman on NSC
staff had actually been copying classified docu-
the
ments and passing them to his superiors in the Pentagon.
We had a long session this afternoon with the Attorney General, John E, and
David Young on the NSC security leak problem, which was quite interesting
because they have now tracked the thing all the way through. It turns out that
Admiral . . was taking the material that the yeoman was stealing from
.
Henry's briefcase and the burnbags and all other sources, sorting it out, and
transmitting the pertinent things directly to Admiral Moorer. This creates a
highly sensitive situation, since it's directly tied to the fact that the yeoman was
also transmitting the India-Pakistan stuff to Jack Anderson, who was running
it in the columns. So we have a clear breach of security that's actionable.
Although the yeoman hasn't admitted it, his polygraph makes it clear that he
did it, plus all the other circumstantial evidence. The P said that E and I should
get together with Henry and move on the thing with him, and the P was
particularly concerned because Henry and Haig had not raised it with him,
although it was such a clear security problem. He can't figure out why they
didn't do this when they do know at least some of the particulars. Laird
apparently is trying to shut it off completely, and there will undoubtedly be a
monumental hush-up all the way around on it.
We had a meeting with the Attorney General on general politics, particu-
larly theproblem of working out Stans' move to RNC finance, but the P
agreed we should meet his conditions and get him moved over there.

I had a long talk with Scali at his request this afternoon. He is deeply emotion-
ally upset, partly as a result of bruised ego problems, because he isn't being
brought in to the degree that and thought he would be, but
he wants to be in
the real problem is that he's convinced that Henry has practically taken leave
of his senses. That he's lying to the press, lying to the Secretary, and worst of
all lying to the P, particularly on India-Pakistan. He thinks there's going to be
a substantial problem for Henry with the press because a number of them
realize he's lied to them and are out to get him, and that Rogers also realizes
this. He has confronted Scali with the fact and John just doesn't know how to
cope with it. On the other hand, Henry had talked to me, saying that he
suspected Scali was leaking. There is a valid problem here, and one we're going
to have to figure out how to deal with. I told Scali I'd work with him on it, but
that I needed some time to figure it out and that I probably would have to wait
until a time when I could spend considerable time on it directly with the P,
which is what I intend to try to do.
Rogers had a press conference and Henry called me tonight because he
says Rogers has shot us down on two principal issues. First, saying that there
was no danger of cancellation of the Russian Summit, which Henry was using
as a threat, and second, saying there was no agreement to defend Pakistan,
which the P had told Henry to get out that there was, to show off Kennedy's
involvement in Pakistan. So the thing seems to get more tense and less solvable
all the time.
I didn't go in the office today as it was a holiday. The P was in a good part of
the day, bouncing around, touching base with people. He called in the after-
noon to say we were still dealing with the K problem. Basically it's Rogers in
India-Pakistan. The P made the point to me that there's going to come a time
when K's going to have to shape up and start worrying about the P instead of
worrying about himself, and he feels that K should now stay out of the line of
fire and avoid backgrounders and the press, and that we should let Scali know
that we'll get him out front at the proper time. I covered with the P my talk
with Scali yesterday, in which John expressed his view that Henry had really
become so obsessed with all this stuff that he was irrational and thus doing
some real harm. The P didn't seem unduly concerned about that and I don't
think gives it too much credence, but does feel that we've got to find a way to
deal with the K-Scali problem. So that was it, other than wishing me a Merry
Christmas and then he called me late tonight after The Julie Show to ask how
388 H.R. HALDEMAN
it had gone. I gave him the details on it. So he had something to talk to Julie
about. Overall it was a darngood half-hour program and we came off ex-
tremely well, I think, which is what I told him.

The P is inKey Biscayne. I stayed in Washington today and then went
down to Key Biscayne this evening. We had a problem of the (Vietnam)
Veterans Against the War
Demonstration. They occupied the Statue of Lib-
erty today and E decided to send the park police in to bust them out at
5:30, then the court didn't uphold the injunction, so we weren't able to
knock them out The P called this afternoon from Key Biscayne.
after all.
He said he made an enormous number of phone calls over Christmas. The

best one of the bunch was to the Redskins when they lost because no one
expected him to do it. He's worried about K, who's got the flu, and he
wants me to try to help keep him in bed and out of the line of fire. That'll
be good for him to get some time off.
The P had me over morning for a couple of hours, general discussion,

this
scheduling. Sort of odds and ends. He confirmed the plans for the First
Lady on Africa and wants to go ahead with some scheduling himself in
California. We changed the Japanese schedule to drop the Annenberg golf
game since the Japanese don't want to do that. Instead the P will give a
luncheon at his house.
this afternoon Henry came over to talk to me. He says he's going
Late
through a period of very deep thinking and serious evaluation as to what
his position is and how he's going to go at things. He feels that the P has
lost confidence in him and that he's being maneuvered by the P in the same
way the P maneuvers Rogers and others, and this worries him. He wanted
to talk through the whole problem with me. I told him I didn't feel there
was any question of loss of confidence. That there was a problem on the P's
part in knowing how to deal with the personal battle between K and Ro-
gers and that would always exist as long as the battle existed. He seemed
very uptight. He admitted that he was egotistical and nervous and all that,
but also said that he felt he was a great value to the P and that he wouldn't
tolerate the kind of battle he'd been fighting. That maybe he would just
move to a very low-key position and do the best he could there, but he then
tossed in the thing of his being essential to the China trip and so on. I
didn't say much. I let him talk through his concerns at this point, as appar-
ently he and E did on Christmas evening. I told him that I felt we ought to
talk about it some more out in San Clemente when we had more time and
that's what we'll do.
The P called on the phone before we left Key Biscayne. Was concerned about
the phone list we had turned in because he still wants the top contributors on
it and also he wants a breakdown list for each of the nine major states showing
the ten most important people on a power basis in those states.

He got into some schedule questions as to when Hubert and the others are
announcing and whether we can shift our New Hampshire date around. He's
obviously trying to work out the Vietnam announcement schedule. He wanted
to see if we could change our dates so that he could readjust his plans. In
answer to Rather's question as to whether the P would like to meet with him
before the broadcast (of a one-on-one interview), the P said to tell him no, that
he feels it's important for the credibility of the thing to be able to say that they
didn't talk before the program. Of course Rather is free to ask anything he
wants, and that both of them have an interest in making the program as good
as possible. He said to be sure to be very cordial with Rather when I gave him
this answer.
1972

K called from New York all disturbed because he felt someone had been
getting to the P on Vietnam. He said that the P seems to feel, in conversations
Henry's had with him, that he's under terrible pressure on Vietnam. He there-
fore wants to give an all-out speech prior to Congress returning. K thinks this
is a mistake because it'll just focus Congress on Vietnam rather than letting
them wallow around for a while undirected. He we shouldn't worry
thinks
about the Congressional resolutions that are coming up and that we should do
our Vietnam announcement at the latest date possible.
Henry's concerned that the P's looking for a way to bug out and he thinks
that would be a disaster now. His instinct is that the North Vietnamese are
ready to give, so we'd be totally wrong to show any nervousness. If we do the
peace plan early in January, it'll spur the opponents to tear it to pieces. We
need to do it as late as possible but before they have another rallying point. He
didn't want me to talk to the P about this but obviously just wanted to talk
it over with me to review his concern.

I talked to the P on the phone today, namely on minor
a couple of times
details. He was concerned about news summary that
a report in Buchanan's
told about the Daniel Schorr story last night (on CBS), saying that Con-
nally and the P were having a falling-out. The P said he wanted to see Con-
nally for dinner Wednesday evening in California and suggested I give
Connally a call to make sure everything is OK there. I did so and Connally
couldn't have been more cheerful. I asked him if he thought we had suffered
from the North Vietnam bombing this last week and he said not at all, that
391
392 H.R. HALDEMAN
the story only lasted a couple of days and in ten days from now no one will
remember we did it.

The P me in at 8:00 in the morning. He was up early and obviously
called
hadn't had much sleep because of the reaction of the TV last night (the
Rather interview), and he was pretty antsy. He kept me in until about 9:00
and then we both went into the morning staff meeting. He talked with them
about the press mainly. Said that the staff had done a remarkable job last
year. He referred to Rather in his interview and made the point that in spite
of all we had done, Rather sort of piled it all up to what has to be done this
year.
Later in the afternoon the P and I met with the Attorney General for what
was supposed to be an hour meeting and ended up going for about two hours.
The Attorney General had breakfast with Henry this morning, so he had the
latest batch of Henry's input, although I had met with Henry also during the
day today. Henry boiled it down to the point that he's got to have his demands
met. First of all, that Rogers has to understand that any attack on K by the
State Department or any of its people is a direct attack on the P. Second, that
all cables and communications out of State must be cleared at the White House
first. Third, that there is to be no communication between State and the Soviets
without prior knowledge of the White House and without a memcon afterward
summarizing everything that was discussed. Henry feels these are probably
impossible demands and therefore he'll have to leave, but he won't do so until
after the Russian trip. In discussing this the P understood Henry's view. I went
further than the Attorney General and told the P about Henry's further view
that the P had lost confidence in him and that the evidence, at least to Henry,
was the fact that the P was constantly trying to butter him up and keep him
happy and was not really getting into the nitty-gritty of foreign policy any-
more. Henry sees this as a slippage in his own standing and that probably is
what worries him more than anything else. That, plus the fact that he knows
he made the mistake in India-Pakistan and doesn't know how to cope with it.
In any event the P agreed that we should put the ultimatum to Rogers and
agreed with my recommendation that Mitchell and I do it as soon as we get
back from San Clemente. Then Mitchell and I are to meet with Henry as soon
as he gets back, later in the week, next week, to lay out to him the fact that
he's got to get in line too. I don't know whether it'll work but I don't see any
other solution at this point.
On Vietnam announcement, the P
the discussion about the plan for the
now decided go on the basic announcement of troop withdrawal on the 13th
to
and will do that on a pretty low-key basis. Probably just going to the press-
room in the afternoon, and giving the three-month figure of another 70,000
troops out. Then he'll wait until the 18th, the day Congress comes back, and
at noon announce major foreign

that he'll address the nation that evening in a
policy statement. Then on TV, review all of our peace
the plan will be to go
overtures and then publicly make the offer that we have already secretly made
to the North Vietnamese. This he figures will be a major blockbuster on the
Vietnam thing and that it'll be especially effective because the first announce-
ment will suck all the peaceniks out and the second move will chop them all
off. The bombing reaction has done some of that already.

The Anderson papers (on India/ Pakistan) are now back again as a big flap.
E and I had a long session with Henry this morning and then some more
discussion with the P. Henry's staff got him all cranked up on the basis that
the story in The Washington Post had totally destroyed Henry's credibility and
there was nothing left for him to do but quit. He, of course, soaked that up.
We jumped on him pretty hard on the point that he couldn't go out to the press
and defend himself and his credibility, which was one alternative he had
decided to take, and that we needed to determine whether there was a credibil-
ity problem. Henry was full of the usual charges of nobody on the staff defends
him, but I don't think he really believes that much anymore. He just tosses it
out. The P talked to him later and told him the same thing. He told him not
to do anything now and not to talk to the press. So we've probably got it pretty
well bottled up for the moment.

Sato arrived on schedule and everything went according to plan. Seemed to be
very well done. The P spent the afternoon and evening with him.

Ross Perot called today, ostensibly Clements for Undersecre-
to endorse Bill
tary of Defense, but really because he wanted to make a pitch to me to talk
with the P. He made the point that he's never had a personal relationship with
the P. He's never asked his opinion on anything, on the economy, or Wall
Street, and so on, even though he talks to lots of other people, and since Ross
is willing to take risks on the P's behalf he should be able to put in some input.
He said he does have ample contact with all the other candidates but the one
he really supports is the P and he would like to feel he had a relationship with
him too. This is actually a little farfetched because Perot, of course, has
reneged on almost everything he's promised to do for us but I told him I'd see
what we could work out.
394 H.R. HALDEMAN

Shultz called this morning, on the F-l 1 1 question. The problem being whether
to continue it another year; if we shut it down then we'll close out in the fall
of '72 just before the election, it will cost $160 million in fiscal '73, plus $20
million in '72, to continue it. The Air Force doesn't want the plane and doesn't
want to continue it, but Laird says Defense won't make the decision, that this
is a White House political matter. I checked it with the P, he of course said they
should go ahead with it.

The dominating factor today was K morning
again. Starting with a call this
to me. He said he on
had talkedthe troop announcement,
to Laird and Laird
was dragging his feet, saying the P couldn't go as high a number as he had
planned, but he would review it and confirm it this afternoon. He also said
Laird was raving about all the papers that the Joint Chiefs got from us legally,
and the big problem we had on that.
He then got into his general basic problem again, saying that now he
can't brief anymore because of terrible coverage he got in the magazines this
week, and his credibility was destroyed, and so on. He abruptly at one point
said he didn't choose to discuss it any further, and hung up on me. He
apparently immediately called the Attorney General, because I tried to. It
was busy, then I got to him a few minutes later, he said he had been talking
to Henry also.
I filled the P in on these problems this afternoon over the EOB, and he
picked up the phone, called Laird, and then told him he's going to have to
go for the 70,000 troop withdrawal, that they'll announce it Thursday morn-
ing, and he wanted Laird to go out to the press with the P. Henry had
reported this to me earlier, saying as usual we're following our policy of
rewarding traitors.
P pondering the whole thing also wondered about the question of how
in
big an issueK is in the public mind, or whether this is something that we're
worried about internally. I talked to K a little later, and he said that the latest
thing today, now, is that there are rumors all around that he's resigning, and
he said the real question that they ask is why is a Presidential assistant under
attack with no word of support from his boss? He says we may be beyond the
point where anything can be done, that there's clearly a major campaign
working on the combination of leaks and briefings. The whole thing is a
complete disaster.

P didn't call me in till 1 1:30 this morning. He came in late and worked alone
for quite a while. Raised the question of our meeting of Attorney General with
Rogers, then me. The P has every confidence in Rogers, but the State Depart-
ment leaks like a sieve. Said we should tell him we will keep Rogers posted on
China, but not down to the bowels of the State Department. Point out that
Rogers has got to be ruthless and selfless. Let Rogers know how much han-
dling the P has got to do.
Armed with this advice, we set up the meeting. Made the points that the
P suggested, and said we have got to work out a means of dealing with all of
this. Rogers said the basic problem he has is that he simply doesn't trust
Henry, that Henry has lied to him, saying he was lying under orders, and that's
the only time. Bill feels, therefore, that when he gets instructions from Henry
or any kind of information, that he's got to question it, and that up a very
sets
difficult working relationship. He also said that he's got to have a direct line
of communication with the P, so that when he does question something or

wants to raise a caution or something, he can do it directly to the P without
going through Henry. Next he and I agreed that he can use me as his conduit
to the P directly, and Rogers thought that was fine. Then we agreed we had
to set up a method so that Rogers would keep us posted on all the meetings
he has with the Soviets or the Israelis, etc. Rogers agreed that he would, if K
would notify Rogers about all of his meetings, unless the P tells him not to
notify. The basic principle to apply is whatever one of the three knows on
foreign policy, all three should, between K, Rogers, and the P.
P called me at home to see how the meeting had gone. He said we do have
to find a way Rogers in on the China things, we should tell Haig to
to bring
find a way to without giving in to the sensitive parts of it. He said
present it
that Mitchell and I should now meet with Haig and K together.
He said he had been thinking about the campaign, what he would do in
the last two weeks was six huge night rallies in the Astrodome and such places,
to show huge crowds and great support, but now he's thinking maybe that isn't
the best approach. He thinks maybe we need to poll the question that Hallett
raises on Muskie's image of a strong, thoughtful man versus Nixon as pure
cosmetics. He said he might want to consider the possibility of a joint appear-
ance with Muskie, I don't know why in the world he would do so. About
youth, we have to find a way so that they're not all against us. We need some
action on the bomb Muskie crew, especially Agnew, he's got nothing to gain
in fighting the press anymore, but he should brutally attack Muskie, leaving
Hubert and Teddy alone for now, since Muskie's way out in front.

The P, after going back and forth a couple times, decided to come down from
Camp David and be here work on whatever Ray (Price) came up with, and
to
get his appointments out of the way this afternoon and then to go back up to
Camp David tomorrow afternoon after Mrs. Nixon's tea. This evening he
called in a big stir about Mrs. Nixon's tea, which was with the Russian
Minister of Culture, saying he wanted to invite the whole Russian ballet
396 H.R. HALDEMAN
company. Then he called back again and said he wanted to be sure that all of
them are going to get pictures of Tricia backstage after the performance. He's
really make
anxious to a big public thing out of his cultural tie with the
Russians. He made the point that since we're hitting them so hard on the
substantive stuff, it's important for us to be very friendly and open to them,
and the soft stuff such as the cultural thing.
I had a meeting with the VP

today to work out campaign relationships. He
says he trusts only me
White House and wants to deal directly with me
at the
on any orders he gets from the P. He also has an idea to come up with new
legislation for our Top Secret classification, that will be declared only by the
P, and not subject to question as to substance, so that we'll have a way to
convict people who leak stuff.

P's at David. We had some bad economic news today, the GNP figures
Camp
revised downwards will be out, also the wholesale price index is up eight-
tenths, which means the '72 deficit projection will be way up. We had an-
nounced in September it would be about $28 billion, now it turns out it's going
to be over $35 billion, which will be a tough one to live with.
This morning Attorney General and had our meeting with Henry and
I
with Al Haig as a follow-up to our meeting with Bill Rogers in an attempt to

try and solve that problem. Henry said, "Tell me what your proposition is,
and I'll do it, I'm not here to strike a treaty with the P." Every time when we
tried to tell him, he'd interrupt again. He made a lot of sort of random
points.
K
says he's caught in a dilemma with the P, because the P doesn't want
detailson any of the matters, so K does them, and that creates an endless battle
with the State Department, and then when the things blow up, the P wants to
go through the whole thing and find out what happened and get in the middle
of it.
When it was all over, we ended up not having accomplished a great deal,
but at least we didn't lose any ground, I don't think.
K called this morning, and he's now concluded that he can't leave the govern-
ment now because of the country and the P. He said he's sent Rogers an order
that all communications have to be cleared with him. He wants me to back up
the directive, and also make the point to Rogers that he's got to deal with K,
and he's got to have advance notice on any meetings that they set up.
P called at noon, made the comment about poor old Ashbrook and
McCloskey, up there trekking through the snows of New Hampshire (conserv-
ative Representative John Ashbrook and liberal Representative Paul McCloskey
were opposing P in the New Hampshire primary ) reflected on the real problem
,
of the Democrats, which is, where do they get their dough? He can't under-
stand how any of them can get enough money to campaign at all, considering
the deficit the party has.

The P called at noon to see how things were going. He was amused by the
Howard Hughes story in the paper today referring to the Nixon loan, said he
had never met Howard Hughes, that he had talked to him once on the phone
about sending a 707 to Russia.
Rogers called later this afternoon, first, to say that Muskie did pretty
well on TV, that the reporters went after him hard but he came out very well
on it. He kept his cool as they interrupted him, and so on. What he was
really calling about was the memo from K. Said I have a peremptory memo
from Henry and I won't take it. I have orders from the P and I'm following
those.

There's a building story again on the reopening of the Howard Hughes loan.
P said we should get out the facts, as we did in '62, point out that the loan was
repaid by the transfer of property, but don't let the impression of guilt build
up, as responded to in '62, and there's nothing to it now. Figures maybe we
should have Klein handle it, and we discussed the possibility with Ziegler later
in the morning.
He had a fairly long session with Henry in there, during which he sent
Manolo over to the house to bring his H. G. Wells bookand he
over,
skimmed through it and found a devastating quote about the militarymind
and the fact that by definition,
it is, mediocre because nobody with any real
intellectual talent would submit himself to the military career. He also said
that, of course, Wells has the feeling that the solution to all problems is
education for everyone, and that's a terrible idea, especially for women, says
the P.
P then had me lay out the Buchanan thesis that maybe the "professional
President" is the wrong political posture and that rather we should be a
"fighting President" and find someone or something to do battle with. Con-

nally said until after the trips, or at least until after China, the P should take
on no enemy, but at the right time, he has to come out as a fighter, and he
has to have an enemy. P said both parties have had it, that is, Eisenhower
told him once in this office after the '56 elections, damn the Republican
398 H.R. HALDEMAN
Party, what we need is a new party. P thinks maybe we should form that
party after this next election, and he cites the growth of the Independents
versus Republicans and Democrats. Then says to Connally he needs good
advice as to what is the right posture to take. Connally says the reason the
polls aren't greater at this point is people don't think they know Nixon, so
they don't go all out for him regardless of what the consequences are. They
don't know how to judge Nixon. Kennedy had them mesmerized in that
regard. Connally says that if the naturalenemy shows at any time, we should
grab it, but it would be better to wait until after the conventions. If we do
anything now, we should take on our Republican opponents, but it's better
not to have a fight now.
to his earlier point and says how do you get people to know
P went back
the P? Connally says you have to change your way of doing things. Like once
a week you should pick a group and meet with them. Maybe have a stag dinner
here of 100 people. Mend fences with the hurt folks that we've let down.
Should have them for dinner and have a real hair-down session, tell 'em you
need their help, and ask 'em how they think you're doing. P said that's fine for
the leaders, but how do you break through to the masses? Connally said by
becoming a fighter. P asked if he meant using more press conferences, and
Connally said no, that won't do it, although you should have one of those a
month, but you need to be strongly for and /or against something. You need
to do it fairly soon, to start preparing. Something that touches the lives of
people, like taxes or the bureaucracy. He says all people think the P's doing
an excellent job, but no one loves him, fears him, or hates him, and he needs
to have all three. The good "professional" president doesn't appeal to the
motivating emotions.

P called at 6:45 to say Safirehad done a fine job on the Vietnam speech, it
improved on the it done on time, and he was really pleased. He
P's outline, got
says he's finished with the State of the Union and he'll get a final copy from
Ray at noon tomorrow. I talked to Price this morning about the Connally and
Buchanan political strategy. Ray feels that none of that indicated any change
in the State of the Union, that they're right about the need for an enemy, but
it should be later, but if you heat up too much too soon, people will get sick
of it. Says the State of the Union isn't a fighting speech now, it plays against
the political mood today, and he thinks it's a good posture to be in. He thinks
that Connally's thesis is partly valid and partly not, but in any event feels the
combative mood set now would be bad. 'Cause it can't be maintained for eight
months. That we should build our credibility now for an attack later. Our
weakness is our credibility and political image and just general suspicion of
government and other institutions, so the time for attack, crisis, battle, etc., is
further down the road.

During the staff meeting this morning, Shultz and E and I got into a discussion
of the whole Connally situation, with George basically raising the issue. Look-
ing at it realistically, we're moving to a position of Connally functioning as
Deputy President for International Economic Affairs, he already is Deputy
President for Domestic Economic Affairs. Still he is also the Secretary of the
Treasury, with vast responsibilities which he is not carrying out, and he's the
Chairman of the Cost of Living Council.
It's hard for anyone else to do anything. Connally has no staff and no time
to do it. So in effect Shultz now reports to Connally not the P. Shultz says he
realized yesterday in the meeting with the P how disconnected he has become
from the P. Question is, are Shultz's orders now to report to Connally? The
problem is Connally doesn't have the depth, breadth, or ultimate responsibil-
ity. Also, he has a strong interest in having no strength in the White House,
therefore, he won't deal with anything that builds the White House. He goes
off on his own. They feel the P needs some people in the White House who are
his own who know what's going on, for example, Shultz knows noth-
people,
ing about what's now going on in international trade. Connally has the ball,
he doesn't consult, he operates.
We little later in the morning to resume the discussion,
reconvened a
after Shultzwas again available. Made the point that the question really is
how the P sees the White House staff at this point. He has to come to grips
with the way he's setting up Connally. He says Nixon is a much deeper,
more subtle man than Connally, has values, Connally doesn't. Connally has
much less judgment. We are all Nixon men, not Connally men. I had the
thought as we were talking about this, that the P really is putting himself
hostage to Connally, unnecessarily, as he's also done with Rogers, also un-
necessarily.
I had an opportunity a little later in the morning to get into all of this
with the P, which I did, reviewing basically all the points that E and Shultz
had covered with me. P was very thoughtful about it and seemed to appreci-
ate this.
He then said, after thinking a bit, that he'd like to talk to me in a different
dimension and he said he hadn't intended to tell me this, and he had not told
anyone else, and was not going to tell anyone else, but that he had a very
difficult time with Connally in California. That the night they had dinner at the
P's house, Connally told him he had spent his time in Texas going off on a
horse, thinking through his future, and he had concluded that he had com-
pleted what he had come here for, the job that was needed, and he would be,
therefore, leaving at the end of January. This he had talked over very firmly
with Nellie, and there was a firm decision. P really had to go to work on him,
apparently, to make the point that this was not in the best interests at this time.
P's feeling is that we can't afford to let him go now, that we've got to pay the
400 H.R. HALDEMAN
price that's necessary to keep him, so he really is, in a sense, a hostage to him
as I had suspected earlier today.
P spent the morning over at the EOB, called a couple of times prior to State
of the Union time. Was concerned that we not let the staff get depressed by
setbacks, that we should just remember that something else will be the head-
lines next week. We find out it's important to remember the great capacity of
MacGregor and Colson, who were both fighters and realists, and know the
importance of not getting down in the mouth. State of the Union went well,
and he had MacGregor, Colson, and me in afterward to analyze reaction. We
all agreed that he accomplished exactly what he was after and that it was the
best possible way to have done it. He does want to be sure our Congressional
types follow up with a very rough, positive attack.
We
had a dinner for the Cabinet, particularly in honor of Stans and
Hardin tonight, and Price, Harlow, and Pat Moynihan each gave very good
clever little talks. Stans gave an excellent, fairly serious talk about the P and
then the P gave an outstanding talk about the accomplishments of the Ad-
ministration to date and the fact that we're now about to start the fourth
quarter, which is when the decision will be made as to who wins the game.
Text of his remarks should be in the file with reference. It was extremely
impressive and had many of the people in tears, or very near it, and was, it
seemed to me, almost completely ad lib. Obviously he had done some prep
for it, but it was one of those that was not polished in the way that his
prepared remarks are, so must have been developed pretty much as he was
delivering it. After the dinner we left for Key Biscayne, arriving there about
2:00 in the morning.

At Key Biscayne. P called at 10:00 this morning just to check to see how things
are going. Said he had gone for an early swim. This afternoon he went over
to Walker's (Cay, in Florida) and I heard no more from him.

P stayed over at Walker's last night. Got back today, was interested in compar-
ing the press reports on the Vietnam war with the press reporting of II. WW
I had made the point to him that there was nothing about Vietnam until you
got to the Third Section today, because the news was good news, so they
buried it. He was thinking back to WW
II when they really played up big the
good news and played down the bad. Just the opposite of now.
He had a directive that Henry wanted sent to Rogers about the planes to
Israel and the Israel-Egypt negotiations. P decided that I should handle the
directive rather than Mitchell in order to keep it out of politics. He wants

Rogers to know that he expects him to play it politically, that we can't have
the American Jews bitching about the plane deliveries. We can't push Israel
too hard and have a confrontation, so he's to keep Sisco slowed down. I'm to
say that he's doing the plane paragraph in the memo, for the record, so that
he can tell his Jewish friends that it's been ordered. We must not let this issue
hurt us politically.

Budget message day. P also released a statement calling on Congress to set a
ceiling,which stirred things up a bit. He met with Rizzo, the Mayor of
Philadelphia, who was in to see E, and P had John bring him in. Rizzo flatly
informed the P he would back him, would announce at any time he wanted
him to, and felt he could deliver Pennsylvania, so this was good news. P told
him not to announce now, they'll just pull the Democrats along for the time
being, wait till after their convention, and then come out for Nixon, which is
the plan.
E came up with a startling thing as a result of K's breakfast with Laird
thismorning, which I guess was over the weekend. Laird told Henry that the
White House had asked for his security jacket, but Laird assured him that he
would protect him and not send it over to us. Very curious. Nobody at the
White House has asked for it and in any event, we wouldn't ask Laird, he
doesn't have it.

P was in the office this morning, spent quite a little time in just general
conversation, since he had the speech pretty well wrapped up for tonight. He
was concerned about a news summary report about a Sidey column (in Time),
saying that the P had too much access to TV and other facilities, which made
it hard for the other candidates. P's reaction was that we ought to explore the
question of whether Sidey ever deplored Nixon's problem for the eight years
while he was out of office, when he traveled around the world alone with his
briefcase, got no coverage, a lot less than even Scoop Jackson gets now. Did
Sidey at that time complain about Kennedy dominating news? Did he argue
for equal time for the Republicans? It's kind of curious to explore the double
standard.
K was in for quite a while, we talked about the speech for tonight, making
the point that we've got to realize that the press is going to kick us on Vietnam,
not because they think we're wrong in what we're doing on this, but because
they know we're right, and are furious because we're the ones who are doing
it, the same way they did on Cambodia, and to an extent on China.
We reviewed also the question of probability that North Vietnam will
create a real crisis in the process of this. One of the reports said that while the
402 H.R. HALDEMAN
P's in China, they might very well move to cut Vietnam in half and create a
super crisis that we would have trouble dealing with. Henry made the point
that this was quite possible and we have to figure that could happen. Also,
we've got to prepare a plan for our approach if the Viet Cong or North
Vietnam turn down our peace offer, and we've got to go on the basis that we
stick solidly with the position and don't waver at all. Attack our opponents
and keep the heat on for consideration of our proposal. We have to establish
the point that the P has done exactly what he said he would, and try to get this
across somehow.
We had quite a thing with Laird about a Washington Post story this
morning that quoted Pentagon officials and officers, in quite vehement criti-
cism of the White House's orders of bombing raids on North Vietnam. P told
me to hit Laird on this, saying we want to know who put it out, and establish
the facts that the Joint Chiefs are the ones who wanted the five days, where the
P originally ordered a three-day bombing. The article said the White House
insisted on five, which was not true, the Joint Chiefs did. Also, it said that the
White House had screwed up the target selection, whereas the White House
had approved all of the targets from the Joint Chiefs. Also told me to call
Moorer and make the point that the P has been standing up for the Joint
Chiefs and it's up to Tom to find out who did this, or we'll have to skewer the
Chiefs from the White House.
I made both calls, got Laird midday, and Moorer this evening after he got
back from a trip. Laird immediately joined me in complete indignation about

the whole thing, said it was just terrible, and they'd checked it out, and that
the Post reporter had gotten his stuff from military offices on the Joint Staff.
He's just going to try and work something out. Then when I got to Moorer,
he said that they had checked it carefully and it was nobody on the Joint
Chiefs, must have been somewhere else, so as usual they're all denying it and
we get nowhere.
We set up a series of K briefings this afternoon. Fortunately, the first one
was a staff meeting, and it didn't go well at all, because Henry started with a
long reiteration of his negotiations and made sound like a dismal
the thing
defeat rather than a strong, positive move. It was lucky it was the staff, because
he got considerable questions and criticism, as a result of which we regrouped
for an hour and worked out a totally different approach, which he then used
with a State and Defense group, and hopefully with the press.
The speech itself went very well, and P did an excellent job in his method
as well as content of presentation. The phone reaction afterward was as good
as any we've ever had, and I think we've probably scored at least a minor coup,
maybe even a major one in terms of public opinion and reaction.
Editor's Note: The speech revealed the secret negotiations K had been
having with the North Vietnamese, and the details of the latest peace plan.
It linked a withdrawal with a POW exchange, a cease-fire, and new presi-
dential elections in South Vietnam. The dramatic disclosure was meant to

break the deadlock.

We spent some time this morning on speech reaction. He's very concerned that
we don't assume that the reaction's going to get across and that we realize we
have to ride it. He was not pleased with the Post and Times headlines saying
reaction had been mixed, although basically they were as accurate as could be
hoped We're moving to get out the positive response. All the analysis
for.
indicates the speech scored extremely well, and now it is just a matter of
working the follow-up, the thoughtful people and so on. He was very dis-
tressed by the VP's performance at the Leadership Meeting, because he appar-
ently was critical of some of the facets of the announcement, and said so in the
wrong way at the wrong time. P talked to Bill Rogers about this later in the
day, and Rogers agreed it was a problem, but nobody seems to know what to
do about it.
Back some more speech follow-up today. The P's furious with the Washing-
to
wants Henry to write a letter to the Post rebutting it. Also,
ton Post editorial,
said he's taking the Post off the China trip, and that Ron is not to come
simpering and arguing about it. They deliberately screwed us, and we're going
to have to get back at them. Ziegler's not to tell any press people they're going
until the P reviews the China list again.

P stayed at Camp David came down this morning in time for
last night,
schedule today. He memos last night at Camp David, a long
did a bunch of
one to E outlining his decision on how to handle his integration /segregation
issue. He's decided to take the hard line against integration, and wanted me to
get the line out on Vietnam that the critics are now "consciously aiding and
abetting the enemy" as contrasted to prior to the announcement, when they
were just echoing the enemy line unconsciously.
P and I met this afternoon with the Attorney General on the overall
of his departure. It was agreed the
political plan, particularly the specifics
announcement would be made the 16th, effective March 1, and that the P at
the same time would announce that he was sending the Kleindienst and Pat
Gray nominations up for Attorney General and Deputy, respectively.
The other question discussed was whether Mitchell could go into the law
firm, which he wants to do. Everybody else has felt that he should not, but he
talked the P into his viewpoint on the basis that we're going to get criticized
404 H.R. HALDEMAN
anyway, and it won't be any worse if he's in the firm than if he's not. I don't
think that's right, but that was the decision.
I did a nearly two-hour interview today with Barbara Walters for the
"Today" show, the whole thing in my office for use next week. I'll probably
really bust thingsopen because I used the conscious "aiding and abetting the
enemy" line in answer to one of her questions, and I'm sure it will create quite
a stir when it comes out.
The big news today was the flap over the Wallace dinner last night, one of the
girls pulled out a "Stop the Killing" sign from her dress and read a speech
about ending the war, which thoroughly shocked everybody there. P was
talking about it this morning, felt that it really hadn't done us any harm,
although Mrs. Nixon was pretty disturbed about it.
We got into quite a discussion this morning on the Connally problem.
He's apparently home sick with the flu. P wants to be sure that we don't let the
White House staff throw their weight on him. Wants me to have Alex go
overboard on Connally, that is, getting him to Camp David and all the other
perks, have him use the Eagle any time he goes. Wants the Attorney General
to go over and talk with him about once a week on politics, put his feet up and
chat. Get his advice. Don't try to use him, just chat with him. Wants to be sure
K keeps in touch with him. Wants E to watch him like a hawk, not just get
sign-offs from him, but go over things with him and get his judgment. If
Connally's not for it, then the P won't do it. Wants me to make the point that
the P's concerned about how hard he's working.

P called this afternoon to get some information on Laird's performance on one
of the talk shows today, so he could call and congratulate him. Called me later
to say that the operator called and said that Don Nixon was calling, and he
didn't want to talk to him, of course, so I told him, of course. I'd have E handle
it. E called me later to say that the reason Don was
was to say he was calling
going to be having an interview with Jack Anderson tomorrow, just wanted to
check in to see if there was anything particular he should cover. Rather
fortunate he had it turned off.

Rogers called this morning, on the China trip planning, said that Henry was
having the State people over for planning meetings and Bill would like to be
included in these and feels that the P should get himself involved. I raised this
in a meeting later in theday with the P while K was there, and Henry was
horrified at the thought, but P said to call Rogers back and tell him that he
knows how the P abhors and that he learns much better from the
bull sessions
written word, so he them to get their papers in first, let the P have
would like
time to study them, then he'll meet with the group, and ask his questions and
so forth, but he'd like their papers in before this weekend. Henry was delighted
with that solution.
Attorney General called today about the Howard Hughes problem. He's
gotten a report from the United States Attorney in New York, who has a draft
of the Noah Dietrich book, that indicates that Hughes apparently contributed,
or made a gift of, $195,000 to Nixon, after the '60 election, and said it could
be considered a belated campaign contribution. Mitchell's concerned that we
get the background on that. Wants me to talk to Rose on that and see what
we can find out, which I will do. P got into the whole Connally problem this
morning, he wanted me to call Nellie and see if Connally would like to go to
Florida and stay at the P's house for a while to recover from his cold. Also,
he wants me to sit down and
talk to Connally and say that the P says, because
he's carrying such a burden and the P considers him the indispensable man,
that I'm to see that his path is as easy as possible within the White House staff.
We also talked a little about the idea of getting Connally to head up the
Democrats for Nixon, using that as a campaign role for him.
The Don Nixon problem arose again as E reported to the P on the
Anderson thing (Jack Anderson interview) and we had some discussion on
how to handle Don, and agreed that it's got to be done through (Nixon's
lawyer Herb) Kalmbach.

E reported this morning that the latest with Don Nixon is he's now learned
that the story Jack Anderson has on him is that there's a development in San
Clemente in which Don Nixon has an interest. It has some Federal funds in
it, and also that Don's involved in some sort of land deal in the Bahamas.
That's the latest horror story from there.

P did a good job at the prayer breakfast this morning, and had Billy
Graham into the office afterward for an hour and a half. There was considera-
ble discussion of the terrible problem arising from the total Jewish domination
of the media, and agreement that this was something that would have to be
dealt with.

P was somewhat disturbed with the Bob Semple piece in The New York Times
on describing day yesterday because it concentrates on his seeing Boy
his
Scouts, football players, and Republican governors. Makes it appear that he
does nothing of substance, and he thinks we've overreacted in trying to get out
the personal interest stuff. I think basically he's right.
The big thing today was Muskie's speech, he was supposed to give an
406 H.R. HALDEMAN
environment speech to a churchwomen's group, and at the last minute
changed it to what he major foreign policy address and used it as

billed as a
a platform to blast the P on Vietnam. We spent considerable time working on
the approach to answering him. The feeling is that we need to take him on
pretty hard. The P wrote a memo covering some of the points he felt ought to
be covered. We ended up having some senators hit him today and Rogers is
going to go at him hard tomorrow if Scali's successful in getting him to do so.
This will be a good chance to smoke Rogers out also on whether he really will
do this.

After breakfast K on how to handle Muskie, and
we had a long discussion with
as a result I put the heat on Colson and had a strategy session with them,
Scali,
got a number of things going, and Colson and Scali did a good job of getting
Rogers programmed, and he got really cranked up, went beyond where I think
he intended to go, at noon today at his press conference, really blasted Muskie
for jeopardizing the peace, and so on. It was a very good, strong attack, and
because it came from Rogers, it created quite a major stir.
P went on to Key Biscayne tonight after the reception for the drug-abuse
athletes. I'll go on down tomorrow per his instructions although I had hoped
to be able to stay home this weekend.

Talked to Colson after I got to Key Biscayne just
on the day's
to get a report
activities. He says Rogers needed a lot of propping up, really shook
that he was
by the Scotty Reston column today (in The New York Times), which took
Rogers on as being "un-Secretary-of-Statesmanlike." They're working the
columnists, Stewart Alsop's going to bomb Muskie in Newsweek. Brock's
doing a tough speech on Monday, Scott kicked Muskie hard on the floor
today. Jackson took him on. Things look pretty good.

P had me come over about and wandered through a number
three hours today
of things. When I was just taking a phone call from Henry in which
arrived, he
he had a long discussion about the Vietnam military plans that he wants. He
told Henry that he wants some nonroutine approaches rather than the usual
military thinking. For example, a 48-hour stand-down all over Vietnam, and
then a 48-hour total-force attack against one area. For instance, hit everything
there is in the B3 area. In talking about this, he referred to the historical battles
of various wars, and what ought to be done.
He got into the question of campaign strategy as to whether we should
consider more appearances out in the country to counteract the adverse media.
Thinks that maybe our campaigning in the country will be indispensable to

combat the standard coverage that we get on the media side. Then he wanted
us to go back over '61— '69 and make the record as to when the networks
provided equal time or fairness to Republicans other than State of the Union.
The record will show, I'm sure, that they provided none.
He got back to the idea of moving back into the country, and said he veers
away from Price's concept of serenely soaring above the battle.

Feature of the day today was my blast on the Vietnam critics, which appeared
thismorning on the "Today" show. Escalated gradually during the day to the
point where it ended up being the lead story on all three TV network news
channels tonight. Mansfield has blasted me, Scott's defended me, and the thing
has turned into quite a donnybrook. Ziegler was concerned about how to
handle it, but seems to have come out all right in trying to sort of semi-waffle
it, in the middle, between repudiating me and escalating the attack.
P made a point late this afternoon when I was over at the EOB, of getting
a chance to tell me not to worry about the whole thing. That it would blow
away and it was his very thoughtful way of trying to make sure I wasn't
worried about which basically I wasn't.
it,
We had a session with E and Rose in part of it, about the Don Nixon
problem this morning. That's come back up now, because Don's now demanded
that he see the P, this week, and he's going to go see Anderson also. It was agreed
that we cannot allow Don to see Anderson under any circumstances. Then John
reported that the Attorney General said that Don Nixon should see Anderson,
but then he reversed it and said he would turn it off. P made the point that he has
to save himself as the big gun for the big problems, therefore, he can't even know
what's going on with the Don Nixon calls.
Later in the day, E discovered that Don had already talked to an Ander-
son reporter who he thought was just a personal friend of Johnny Meyers from
the Howard Hughes organization. So it spilled the whole bundle of stuff to
him, which Anderson has and is going to run in a series of three columns
starting later this week. Don now knows this and that's why he feels he has to
see Anderson.

P started with a combined Cabinet /Leadership Breakfast this morning, which
I did not attend, but which apparently went very well. We had spent some time
yesterday making sure that it was programmed to be a very upbeat session to
get people off on the right foot before the Lincoln recess, rather than a bitch
session of any kind. Rogers did a very good job, apparently a superlative job,
of building up the P's role as the man of peace. Connally did a great windup
on the P himself, as well as the economy, but the star of the day I guess was
408 H.R. HALDEMAN
Hugh Scott, who good form and did a very good job on making
really got into
the whole P against his critics, etc. Scott also went out
pitch, defending the
before the press, along with Gerry Ford, afterward, and of course got hit with
the Haldeman "Today" show question, but handled it very well.
Everybody's basically taking an approach that they're not repudiating me
in any way, although nobody is going as far as I did, or saying that they
specifically agree with my precise point.
Wehad considerable discussion on and off during the day on the whole
Vietnam question, as stirred up by my speech, as the reaction starts building
up. P feels that the Democrats really have a problem on Vietnam, because
they've got to decide where to put themselves. The point now that we've got
to make is that they're postponing the peace.

By now, my "Today" show thing has really escalated into a super-confronta-
tion type of thing. P is dealing with it very well. He makes the point that
Muskie's now trying to hit him on the basis that his call for silencing critics
doesn't make sense because he attacked Vietnam in '66 and '65. P makes the
point that Muskie can't get away with that, because Nixon didn't attack
anybody in '68. He also can't get away with the point that I didn't qualify my
statement in trying to say that I was speaking for the P.
The P taped his State of the World announcement today and in the speech
wrote in a paragraph of his own that basically answers the attack on me. P says
he woke up at 3:00 in the morning and dictated this section, which is a strong
defense, really, of my position. P made the point that I stand behind my people
when they make a mistake.
He had me call Bebe to suggest that he talk to George Wallace's cousin,
and point out that he has a real opportunity in Florida for Wallace, so that he's
not just a one-issue man, that Muskie has opened himself up now, and Wallace
can say that he didn't criticize Johnson, just as Nixon didn't in '68. He can take
Muskie on for undercutting the P, and the chances of peace, and calling for
surrender and so on.
After Ziegler's briefing and the talk this morning, P concluded that we're
in a good position now. He told Ziegler to whack the staff for hitting me. Got
into some other items on making sure we have some of our blacks in the Secret
Service, the stewards, and so forth, on the trip.
E, Mitchell, and I met with Don and Ed Nixon to go over the Don Nixon
problems, had a rather rough two-hour meeting that at least opened Mitchell's
eyes to the real problem we've got with Don. He just has no realization of the
position he'sin, or the super care that he's got to exercise. He's clearly not
badly motivated in any way, he's just not smart enough to exercise this super
caution that he should exercise. Ed Nixon, while playing an adversarial role in
the meeting, got E afterward and said he'd work with us to handle it, that we'd
gone at it just right.
P our whole Haldeman flap gave the State of the World some
feels that
and that was probably a good thing. He got back onto the subject
visibility,
tonight on the plane going back to Key Biscayne, and made the point that it's
imperative that everyone follow the line that he took in the press conference
today, which was really very good in that he made it clear he wasn't question-
ing the patriotism or sincerity of any of the candidates, but that he was a
vigorous critic of the policies that got us into Vietnam, and the actions that
contributed to the assassination of Diem and the conduct of the war. Once he
became a candidate and the peace talks began, he said that as a man seeking
the Presidency, he would say nothing that would in any way jeopardize the
peace talks, and that's the position he feels a candidate should take.
Press conference overall went very well, it was an in-office deal, and the
press was more than usually surly, partly because it's been so long since they've
had a press conference. Jim Deacon, after the "Thank you, Mr. President,"
asked if they could have more questions, and came in with a couple of snarling
ones, but the transcript on the press conference is fairly interesting.
Rogers was very concerned this morning before the press conference
because President Thieu had attacked him on the basis that he'd said that we'd
be flexible on the question of when Thieu should step down before a Viet-
namese election. Rogers obviously did have a blooper there, but wanted the P
to stand behind him. Actually the P couldn't strongly stand behind him, but
he did handle the question in such a way that Rogers could have no dissatisfac-
tion. As a result of that, the P filed out of the press conference, we came out
in very good shape on Vietnam and on Thieu.

P had me come over early this morning about 9:00. Wanted to get into the
basic line for our people to use, mainly that we've got to be careful that the
Democrats don't succeed in making the point that they're more for peace than
we are. The answer there is that they're prolonging the war and hurting the
peace. The answer with Muskie is, who has the best credentials? Those who
stood silently by while we were getting into the war and the deaths were going
up? Those who were part of the group that got us in, or those who were getting
us out? Who are you going to trust, the one who stood by silently while we
were getting in, and now criticizes the peace, or the one who said he would get
us out and is doing so? Somehow, in other words, we've got to get over that
we're more for peace than they are.

The Attorney General stopped by this morning to give me his letter of resigna-
tion and talk a little about the procedure for handling it. We'll announce it
41 H.R. HALDEMAN
tomorrow, effective March 1 . P dictated to me a little later some thoughts on

what to put in the official letter of acceptance. Then he's going to write a
handwritten personal letter to him, not for release.
K was in at midday. Henry got into a discussion with the P on his latest
report in Paris. He's ecstatic because (General Vernon) Walters called to say
that the North Vietnamese had called him and had been the most pleasant
they've ever been, said they wanted to invite Henry for a luncheon meeting
on March 17, exactly thirty days after the day we leave for China. Henry
was particularly ecstatic because they said it would be for lunch. They have
never had any American official for any meal before in all of Henry's meet-
ings with them, although they ran from 10:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the
afternoon. He thinks this is a significant time. Xuan Thuy and Le Due Tho
will both be there, and so he thinks at the very least this will insure no major
offensive, as we've been fearing. Quite possibly it may even lead to a break-
through opening the peace talks on a serious basis, which would be a
in
—
spectacular break actually, the fact of not having an offensive is spectacu-
lar in itself.
He and the P then got into quite a discussion on the whole question of
these dealings, plus dealing with the Chinese, and P questioned Henry pretty
strongly on the whole point of why he thought
there was any real significance
to this, that it wasn't just a North Vietnamese ploy. Henry feels there has to
be some element of seriousness this time.
They then had some discussion also about their technique of dealing with
the Chinese, and how they're going to go about that, and P emphasized that
he's going to take a very strong position all the way through on that. Henry's
afraid, I think, that the P's going to take too strong a position, though he
wants to be sure that he does all the necessary philosophizing and everything
with the Chinese and doesn't just charge in on a hard-line, fixed position. P
feels that the progress that we've made with the North Vietnamese can be
attributed in no small degree to the heavy attack we've laid on the peace critics
here at home, and that would include my attack last week as well as the others.
He felt had we not done that, they would have figured we were back in
that
a weak position. By fighting back hard instead of just being kicked around by
our critics, it was clear that we meant business on the peace proposal, and so
there's a real chance that will buy us the relief from the offensive. Also, he
thinks our current heavy bombing of South Vietnam must have had an effect,
as well as moving the three carriers into position and that sort of thing. Henry
feels the same way and thinks that it all adds up to very positive situation for
us at this point.

P seems to be gradually moving some grasp on the China trip
into getting
details and planning, but still not very much, and this has got Henry somewhat
concerned because he feels that he's really going to need to focus on it. I
pointed out to him that he's got six solid days to work on it, that he need not
be too concerned that the P's got to take some time on these things to get into
gear, but once he does, he'll really plow into it.
In the meantime he's trying to get his sleep caught up and get himself in
a good physical condition for the whole trip, which is a darn good thing for
him to do.

P spent most of the day, till 3:30, at Camp David, working on his China
briefing. Called several times just to check in and to review plans for departure
and Hawaii and Guam stops, mainly the question of whether he had
for the
to speak, which he does not want to do on arrival, but will have a brief
comment on departure for each place. He got down here, met with E and
Kleindienst, and got his hair cut, did Dr. Riland, etc., to get ready to go. He
had me in for a little while, just on a general wrap-up of odds and ends before
departure, cleaning up a few ambassadorial appointments, etc.
Thursday, February 17, 1972 — China trip
The departure ceremonies and the takeoff from Andrews all went very well,
with no problems. P seemed to be in great spirits on the chopper going over
to Andrews, as he too felt the whole thing had gone well. Leadership meeting
had been very positive and upbeat. He received a standing ovation, and
everybody, even including Fulbright, had wished him well on the trip, so things
seem to be off to an auspicious start. We saw a little bit of the TV coverage
after we got on the plane, because they had the set on the table in the staff
room, and it appeared that coverage has been extremely good, according to
those who had watched it, by getting out to the plane early. It was kind of an
odd feeling because they covered the actual takeoff of the "Spirit of '76" and
we were on the plane watching the TV covering the takeoff, which was sort of
fascinating.
Called me up at and kept me up till 2:10, so I had three solid hours
1 1:10
in the cabin with him, starting about a half hour after takeoff. P emphasized
the need for close discipline on the press during the week, that no one is to talk
to the press unless we decide to do so, that we've got to create the impression
that this is a very tough bargaining session, not all peaches and cream. He then
raises a subtle point that someone can make, but not us, which was that the
last visitor the Chinese had who came from Camp David was Khrushchev, and
that wasn't a good experience —

we hope this one will be different.
The Hawaii arrival got a little botched up, since there was a huge crowd
at the airport, and the P felt he had to go to the fence, although it was agreed
he wasn't going to. He did, but very briefly. The P was obviously in great spirits
as a result of the departure activities and all, and seemed to Henry to be doing
his homework and in very good form also.
41 2 H.R. HALDEMAN

In Hawaii. The day dawned dark and cold, and stayed pretty cloudy all day
with a amount of rain, and a very cold, very strong wind. P called me over
fair
at 10:00 this morning. He discussed some of his tactics for handling the
meetings, and the techniques he's going to use. He says Henry's urging him to
do it Henry's way, which is to get into the long, drawn-out historical and
philosophical discussions with Chou, which the P is not inclined to do. Henry
is also urging him to start in the plenary session with reading a written
statement, which the P also is not inclined to do, and intends to follow his own
technique on this rather than Henry's advice.
In Hawaii. P had me over some domestic

at 10:00 this morning. We got into
questions on the busing thing, the Poverty and equal
Bill, the dock strike,
employment opportunity. Talked to E while I was with the P and covered some
of those points with him. P also mentioned that he wanted me to go out and
buy a large supply of Chinese mementos for him, in varying price ranges, to
give to people when he gets back, so I'll do that when we get to China.
Sunday, February 20, and Monday, February 21, 1972

In Guam in the morning, and then on to China. Losing a day in the process,
so it's now Monday, the 21st.
This morning in Guam I talked with Hodgson, on the dock strike, and he
said that the thing is settled, that the P should sign the bill in China. We left
it that the P would sign it tonight after the banquet, which would be at midday
Monday in Washington.
On the way to Shanghai from Guam, the P called me up. He's very
concerned that the whole operation at the Peking airport be handled flawlessly
since that will be the key picture of the whole trip. He doesn't want anything
to be blown on it, so I had to work on getting every detail of that set out exactly
right, so there are no dangers of slipup.
We and went through the airport ceremony just as the
arrived in Peking
original plan had been laid out, and we didn't have any untoward circum-
stances. The P greeted Chou exactly as planned, went through the ceremonies,
got in the car, drove rapidly in from the airport through the town and out to
the guest house, with virtually no public attention at all. It appeared as we
drove through the streets, particularly in the downtown area, that people had
actually been kept away from the motorcade route, because as you looked
down the side streets, you could see quite a large gathering of people one block
away, being held off by a barrier. There were some pedestrians and bicycle
riders, etc., on the main streets that we drove on, but they studiously paid no
attention to us, and it almost appeared that they had been put there for the
purpose of ignoring us. It's hard to imagine that a motorcade the size of ours
could whip through town without creating any attention at all; it also appeared
that the people on the barricades had gathered there to see what was going on,
but weren't permitted to do so.
We arrived at the Residence and were escorted into a reception room,
where Chou En-lai greeted us, then we all sat down in a horseshoe, with the
P and Chou at the couch at the head, the rest of us ranged down the two sides.
Had tea, cookies, etc., and the P and Chou engaged in a fairly extended
conversation while the rest of us sat quietly and listened. It was mainly an
exchange of general humor, no real substantive points, some chitchat about
the advance party, the original early arrangements, and that sort of thing. Both
seemed to be very friendly, but noncommittal. They didn't get off of the trivial
ground at all during that session.
The P called me up to his room as soon as we got in, or as soon as the
tea party broke up, and just wanted to review things in general. We talked a
little about getting out the line that we weren't concerned at all about the lack
of people in the streets and so forth. The P wanted to be sure that we got that
line out, that this was exactly what we'd expected, and point out the signifi-
cance of other things, such as Chou En-lai being at the airport, their playing
"The Star-Spangled Banner," and that sort of thing. A little later I got a phone
report from Mort Allen on the news coverage and it turned out that the
networks handled it exactly the way the P wanted, there was no need for us to
put out any further line.
I left the P around 2:00, then came down and had a chat with Henry, who
was concerned and wanted me to talk to the P about the problem of the P
making quips about him at the little tea gathering here at the guest house with
Chou. Chou paid several compliments to Henry, about his good work in
setting up this meeting and so forth. Then the P made some quips about it,
saying which one of our advance people did the job, which had Henry dis-
turbed that it would put him down in the eyes of the Chinese. He wanted me
to talk to the P about that. During this time Henry was kind of wandering
around with nothing much to do until his meeting with Chou at 3:00.
At about 2:30, or maybe a little bit before, apparently Chou En-lai ap-
peared at the guest house, unannounced, got a hold of Henry, and said that
Chairman Mao would like to see the P, if he would come over. Henry rushed
upstairs, told the P, he slapped on his coat, the two of them went out, grabbed
Bob Taylor, on the way, and took off for Mao's Residence unbeknownst to
anybody else. Taylor came into Chapin's schedule planning meeting and said
this is what they're going to do. He was very concerned about it, but that he
was under orders to tell no one, and that they were not to tell Ziegler or make
any public thing out of it until they got back. So Dwight came right down and
told me. We debated how to handle the thing for a while, called Ziegler, and
had him come over. I told him. We spent a very long hour and a half trying
to figure out what the various contingencies were, since we had no idea when
they'd be back, or what would happen in the meantime. The press was on its
414 H.R. HALDEMAN
way over to the Great Hall of the People to set up for coverage of the arrival
of the P for the plenary session with Chou, which was scheduled for 4:30 now,
then postponed. The networks were planning to cover the arrival live, and the
press pool was on its way over here to the guest house to cover the P's
departure. Since we couldn't announce any of this, we didn't exactly know how
to handle it. We back and forth as to what to do. Also speculated
debated it
on all you have when you're sitting in a

the wild range of possibilities that
Chinese guest house with Red Army troops guarding you outside, and you
kind of wonder if the P's taken ofT alone with no staff, no security, except one
agent, no doctor, etc., but the worries generally turned out to be unfounded
since the P returned shortly after 4:00, and they delayed the departure for the
plenary session another half hour. We just kept the press waiting, saying the
thing had been postponed.
In the meantime, of course, Bill Rogers had called me and was very
concerned about the delay of the meeting, so I just had to stall him for a while.
I went up to see the P at 4:45, just before he left for the plenary session, and
he approved my suggestion that I call Rogers and tell him that the P had met
with Mao. I caught K on the way in, and we worked out a plan for announcing
the meeting, because Mao had agreed that it could be announced jointly by us
and the Chinese.
It's kind of funny: when I had called Ziegler in here to begin with, I sat
him down in my room and told him not to go up the wall when he knew we
had to be prepared for surprises, and that he should just be calm, but I wanted
him to know that the P at that moment had left here, and was over meeting
with Chairman Mao at his Residence. Ron was holding a tangerine in his
hand, took a bite of it, getting about half the tangerine in one bite, peel and
all. He was, to say the least, a little startled.
Anyway, the P called me up and told me he had been over to see Mao.
Obviously, he was very impressed with the whole thing, but didn't get into any
details at that time. He said that to explain it to Bill on the basis that the reason
that the meetings were delayed was that Chou came by unexpectedly, and
asked the P and K
go over for a private meeting with the Chairman prior
to
to the plenary session. Henry is now working out the plan for release, which
the P discussed with Chou on the way back.
in the car
K came in 40 minutes later. was still up chatting with the P, he was just
I
back from his meeting with Chou. They had agreed on the release and so forth.
Then the P read his toast to Henry, also. Henry made a couple of suggestions
on some deletions of things he felt would be offensive to the American right
wing, and with which I completely agreed. Then it was time to leave for the
plenary session, so I gave the corrections to Rose just as we were going out,
then rode over to make sure the session got started right. P mused a little bit
more, just before he left, on how impressive the Mao meeting was, but again
didn't get into any detail.
After he came back from the plenary session, we had to get dressed
quickly for the dinner. I was up there for a little while, working out some minor
details with them on that. Then we left which worked out fine.
for the dinner,
Very good Chinese meal. We went through the whole handshaking business on
arrival at the Great Hall, and down some receiving lines. Up a spectacular
grand staircase to the banquet hall area. The toasts went extremely well. It's
a little awkward at the Chinese dinners, because they have a glass of wine, a
glass of Mao Tai, and a glass of orange juice at the table, and your Chinese
hosts keep drinking to your health in Mao Tai, and you're supposed to
respond, which is not too bad until they call gan-bei, which means "bottoms
up." At that point you're supposed to empty your glass, which I explained to
them I couldn't do for religious reasons, but I did finally get away with it,
although it was a little difficult making it stick, and they kept trying. They
obviously delight in going all out on the toasting bit.
The Chou En-lai toast was very good, and after the toast he came down
and made the rounds of all the official party tables, individually toasting
each American at all those tables. The main toast he gave was in the middle
of the dinner, and the P's was between several of the latter courses. P fol-
lowed the same pattern that Chou had in toasting the individual Chinese at
the official party tables, which took a lot longer, since there were about eight
Chinese to two or three Americans at each of the tables. P did a superb job,
he's really impressive. As he completed his toast and they completed the
Chinese translation, the band, which was also superb, the Red Army band,
struck up "America the Beautiful." It was quite an emotional moment. The
P then made the rounds, and he was really charged up. He moved very
forcefully, took a firm stand in front of the individual, looked him squarely
in the eye, raised his glass and clinked the other person's, took a quick sip,
then he raised his glass again and gave a little staccato bow to the individual,
and then he turned, marched to the next individual, and repeated the per-
formance. It was really quite spectacular, as "America the Beautiful" was
playing in the background.
Then the dinner concluded, the P and most of the rest of us in the
American party moved through the hall to the other side, to thank the band
for their performance. They had played "Turkey in the Straw," and an "Amer-
ican March," and "Home on the Range" as well as "America the Beautiful"
and our 'National Anthem at the beginning of the dinner. It was very impres-
sive and quite overwhelming, even to the cynical members of the press corps,
apparently. We then came back to the Residence, and the P had Henry in for
quite a while. I had got undressed and was just ready to go to bed, when he
had Henry tell me to come up and we sat and talked for about an hour. He
was sort of just looking back over what was obviously a rather overwhelming
day. I was able to give him a report on the general press coverage, which had
been extremely good, and he was very pleased with that.
He got to talking some about his meeting with Mao, which obviously was
quite an experience for him. He said Mao was basically in pretty good shape,
although he had trouble walking. His mind is very sharp, has a very good sense
of humor, and he felt they had a very good first session. He was particularly
416 H.R. HALDEMAN
impressed by the fact that at one point Mao reached over, talking, and
grabbed the P's hand and held it for more than a minute while he made his
point. P felt that was rather significant, and was especially pleased that the
Chinese film cameras had managed to cover it. The Chinese had agreed to
make the film and their still photos available to us for release, which Ron got
later tonight and put out. So we should get some great coverage as a result of
that.
P finally decided to fold up day after we reviewed the schedule for
for the
the week again, and that's the end of a very memorable day in American
history.

P called me up at 9:00 this morning. We reviewed the news summary, and he
was extremely pleased with the reaction. The shift in coverage has been very
good. While they responsibly reported the low-key arrival ceremonies yester-
day, they're shifting to almost euphoric reporting of the banquet and the Mao
meeting, both of which had enormous significance, which interestingly enough
was realized by the networks and the wires and thoroughly reported. The
network coverage of four hours, live, of the banquet period was apparently
very impressive and they got all the facts the P wanted, such as his use of
chopsticks, his toast, Chou's toast, the P's glass-clinking, etc. So that came off
very well.
P made the point to me when he went down to clink
that after his toast,
Chou's glass, Chou said to him
had the band play "America the
that he
Beautiful" because the P had it played at his Inaugural, and he assumed it was
one of his favorite songs. He then said here is a toast to your next Inaugural,
which is obviously very significant.
In the tea party meeting at the arrival at the guest house yesterday, Chou
had made some comments regarding the need to stand for election, as
P's
contrasted to the situation in this country, where they don't have to do that.
There was some light quipping about the difference in the two political pro-
cesses. Also, at the opening of the plenary session yesterday evening, Chou
made the point that the P's party was very young, he said our men here are all
quite old, your people are all very young, and he specifically referred to Chapin
in that context.
This morning at 9:45, Henry joined us and again reviewed the press
reaction and meeting with the counterpart guy this
his general plans for his
morning, to get agenda prepared for this afternoon. P and Henry both in
his
very good spirits, feel they're off to an excellent start, but all of the indications
so far are extremely significant, particularly the Mao meeting, and Chou's
attitude, and so we're doing well so far.
The afternoon session went as scheduled from 2:00 to 6:00, and appar-
ently went very well. I went out shopping. Fascinating session as we went into
the bank money, and went through the whole involved pro-
to exchange our
one girl at the first desk behind
cess of the operation of the Chinese bank, with
the counter, who took our order, had us sign the form, then handed the form
to the next lady, the lady at the next desk, who fanned out the money and
counted six hundred dollars in almost unbelievable quick time. Then they ran
some calculations on the abacus, and counted the money again, then handed
it across to a man at another desk, who counted it again, looked all the papers
over, and stamped it three or four times, then the girl at the first desk handed
them me, insisted that I count them again. The total honesty is astonishing,
to
there's justcomplete determination not to cheat anybody.
We had dinner at the guest house, apparently a standard Chinese dinner,
then went to the evening ballet performance, which was quite an experience.
We drove to the Great Hall of the People in a motorcade and were ushered
right up to the entrance to the theater, where we went into a little room and
sat down, that is, the top members of the official party sat down for tea and
refreshments, after going through the handshaking process. Then we went into
the theater, which was quite a small one, with the usual applause from the
gathered group. We applauded back, took our seats, and comfortable easy
chairs with tea tables in front of us, and tea on the table, and watched the first
three acts of the ballet "The Red Detachment of Women." We went back out
to the lounge room for tea at intermission, then back in for the rest of the ballet
and then home. The ballet itself was just as we had been led to believe, a
complete propaganda operation, extremely well done. Music was very good,
a modernized form of traditional Chinese music. As was the ballet, a modern-
ized form of traditional Chinese ballet. The interpreter seated behind me
explained the ideological aspects of the ballet all the way through, and wanted
to be sure Iunderstood all the points. In fact all of the Chinese kept asking all
of us if we were understanding the point that was being made, but it was a
ratherodd sight to see the P clapping at the end for this kind of thing, which
would have been horrifying at home, but it all seems to fit together somehow,
here.
He had me up to the room afterward, and obviously was very much
impressed by the performance and by the music.

When I woke up this morning, it was snowing, and it snowed all day. There
was a white ground cover, which makes the usually totally brown Peking much
more attractive. P again had no schedule in the morning, and worked here at
the house. For the afternoon session today, the P invited Chou to come to the
guest house, so the session was held here, from 2:00 to 6:00. Once again, I went
shopping for that entire period, in, at times, a driving snowstorm.
Tonight at the guest house, we had a delicious American dinner, which
was very thoughtful of our hosts. We had a fish course, delicious fried fish, and
418 H.R. HALDEMAN
then a steak, little fillet sort of, with green beans, carrots, and fried potatoes,
and cream and a pastry for dessert. After dinner we went to the gymnasium
ice
for the athletic exhibition, which also was very good. Again, we gathered for
tea outside first, then we marched in while the 20,000 people in attendance
clapped and we returned the applause. Again, we were seated at an area where
the counter was in front of us, with the teapots on it, and also wet towels,
which were changed three or four times during the performance. The P seemed
to enjoy the whole thing thoroughly, as did Chou. Fascinating in the preper-
formance sessions, the way Chou is so relaxed and a great master of small talk,
as he greets each guest and has various comments on a personal basis for each
one, or for most of them. Any that he hasn't shaken hands with before we get
into the room, he leaps up and comes across the room to greet, as he did with
me this evening, and it's really very impressive.
The impression from the gym show was one of total control, the hall was
packed, every seat was filled. They were filled by sections, with the big section
filled with an Army group in green uniforms, another section for an Army
group with blue uniforms, other sections for people in civilian clothes, a
section for athletes in red sweat suits, another for athletes in blue sweat suits,
etc. Also, they had a lighting system that enabled them to turn on sections of
overhead lights for the television cameras, and as each section was lighted from
time to time, the people in it would all automatically start cheering for the
camera. The regimentation enormous. The athletes themselves march in
is
with a big strut and swinging arms, stand at attention and face the Premier
before they start their particular event.
After returning from the gym, late this evening, we learned that Chou had
decided to give a Peking duck dinner for the official party at the Great Hall of
the People tomorrow night, to which the P also was invited, which creates
problems, since P was counting on tomorrow night as his one night off with
no event and no dinner, but he'll undoubtedly have to accept, there's no real
way to get around it.
Onebuilding issue is the problem of Rogers. He called me today to say
that he was concerned about the news reports as they were building at home,
which pointed out that he wasn't involved in any of the important meetings,
and was being kept out of things. He was obviously uptight about being left
out of the meeting with Mao on Monday, and made the point that if there's
any other meeting with Mao, he wants to be sure that he is included. He also
was carping about the fact that Henry had two NSC people in the Chou
meeting with the P, while there were no State Department people there. Later
today, Henry charged in, furious, because he'd learned that Rogers had raised,
with the foreign minister, the question of their participating in writing the
communique, and the Foreign Minister had said no, that Prime Minister Chou
had assigned it to Dr. Kissinger, and Mr. Chiao. So it put Rogers in a rather
embarrassing position. This is a problem that's going to continue, I think, on
a similar basis. Scali got me before we went to the gym, and complained that
his talents weren't being adequately used, and that we ought to be consulting
with him on press problems, and that sort of thing. So we have a problem
there, too.

This morning we were up early to go out to the Wall. The snow had stopped,
but was on the ground, which resulted in a longer driving time to get out
still
to the Wall, but didn't really create any problem. As a matter of fact, it worked
out fine. There was no wind, and it was warm and sunny at the Wall, so we
had a beautiful visit there, and at the Ming tombs. After we finished the Wall
visit, we had to stop at the little house at the bottom to have tea, which we all
sat around and did. Chou did not go out, but the Vice-Premier did, as well as
the Foreign Minister. Then we went to the Ming tombs, and went into a little
house there, where they served a fantastic lunch. Although it was supposed to
be just a snack, they had all kinds of meats, pastries, etc. Most of the pastries
done in the shape of little animals of various kinds, and the girls just kept
passing one after another, topped off with a delicious sort of chocolate jelly roll
sponge cake.
The Wall and the tombs were basically as expected. was funny, on the
It
way into the tombs, the park area surrounding them, they had staged groups
of people playing cards, children doing jump rope, a family eating, so that
photographers had ample material as they walked along.
After the dinner tonight, the P had me up for a little time killing. Got into
the question of tomorrow's schedule and wants to cut the tour of the Forbid-
den City down as much as he can, and wanted to try to eliminate all the
handshaking and glass clinking at the dinner tomorrow night, but at that point
Henry came in and felt that was a mistake, that it was the Chinese way, so we
probably will. Also, we're going to have a plenary session tomorrow, to bring
the Foreign Minister types in.
He Henry on the communique. They're still

got into a discussion with
having a terrible problem on ironing out the Taiwan question, and Henry is
meeting with this guy tomorrow night at midnight to try to work something
out. We ended up agreeing to do the communique release on Sunday night, in
spite of the disadvantages of that from the viewpoint of delaying it for our
newsmen, who are becoming rather restless. We had a discussion of that
situation, and the P and Henry both feel there's really nothing we can do about
it, except sweat it communique will cure it
out at this point, figuring that the
when They talked about the general attitude here. Henry feels
the time comes.
that everything's going very well, and that we're going to come up with a good
communique, but the P made the point that we just may have to end up with
no communique at all, if we can't get Taiwan worked out, and we may not be
able to work it out. Henry agreed it was a possibility, but didn't think it would
happen, because they've committed to a communique.
420 H.R. HALDEMAN

P called me up at about 7:30 morning, was upset about the toast for
this
tonight because the research group had given 800 words instead of the 200 that
he wanted, and hit the point that the hardest work is editing, and what they
should do is take one idea and develop it. He then went through the "Oh, I'll
have to do it all myself routine, and apparently proceeded to do so, since he's
dictated the toasts down that he's going to give. He also debated whether to
read it or not, depending on what Chou's going to do, but ended up deciding
that he would readAt that point Henry came in and there was some
it.
discussion about the communique, main problem being the paragraph on

Taiwan.
P commented that it was fascinating the way Chou
picks up colloquial-
isms and jumps on each one of them that and he obviously was sort
is raised,
of fascinated with that. He made the point, as Henry was talking about the fact
that he'd have to go through this thing all night tonight again, that you two
are young, and don't need sleep. He said that he had a really tough time
sleeping and he really did look tired this morning, not really as sharp as he has
the past mornings. He's also in kind of a strange mood, as he discussed all
these things and sort of brooded over the problems he was dealing with, the
lack of understanding of him by the press and others that are here.
After this morning's session, the P had the visit to the Forbidden City,
which worked out pretty well. Then Henry reported that Chou had just come
over here to meet with him, but they had postponed this afternoon's 3:00
meeting to 4:00, and that Chou had instructed Chiao to work out the com-
munique with Henry. They were going to meet at 2:30 and try to get it done
before the 4:00 meeting, at least the one tough paragraph. They still have a few
sections on trade that Henry says they can easily finish up tonight.
The P's attitude was much more positive than it had been this morning,
and we reviewed some of the domestic news as well as the coverage of the trip,
and then, I think, took a break for some rest before the 4:00 meeting. The
afternoon session today kept getting delayed more and more as Henry kept
working on trying to get his communique thing worked out. Having originally
been set for 3:00, then moved to 4:00, then moved to 4:30, it ended up starting
at 5:50. P had me up at about 4:30 to 5:30, just killing time, waiting for it to
start, and he was just sitting there on an alert basis, waiting to go to the
meeting whenever Henry finished his thing and they were ready to meet. So it's
kind of a long wait for him.
now because Henry's told him that Rogers has
He's particularly upset
come rewording of the communique that revises even the State
in with a
Department wording, and he's submitted his material, saying that we must not
go any further than what he's said. The whole thing re-raises the basic Rogers
problem. He mused over how to handle it, and I told him that the only possible
way is that the P's going to have to sit down and talk with him, and just flatly
explain to him how the thing's going to work, and make him understand it. I
think that will work, but the problem is getting the P to do it, and I'm not at
all sure that he will.
The dinner went well tonight, and both the P's and Chou's toasts were
very good. The P did end up reading his, and it's good he did because it came
over better. Chou made a strong commitment to Chinese-American friendship
and Henry felt that was significant, especially in the way he phrased it. Before
dinner, P called Rogers, Henry and me over while we were waiting for the
picture-taking session, and told Rogers that there would be a plenary session
at the airport tomorrow at Chou's request, and Bill didn't seem to spark much
to that. He obviously was in pretty bad spirits. Then Rogers raised the ques-
tion about another meeting with Mao, and the P said he didn't think there was
going to be one, and was sort of leading Henry on. Henry took the bait in the
wrong direction and told Rogers the reason was that Mao wasn't well, which
we're not supposed to say anything about.
Later tonight, after the dinner, P had Henry and me up in his room, and
told Henry he was concerned about having told Rogers about Mao, and to say
that I should go see him and get that straightened out, that he's not to say
anything to anybody about it. So then the P spent quite a little time agonizing
about how to get Rogers in line on the communique, etc.
Henry left to go down for another meeting on the Taiwan section, came
back up about a half an hour later, with a victory. He has the statement
basically the way we had ended up wanting it, so the P approved it, Henry's
now got that locked, which means we will almost certainly have a communique
by tomorrow, which seems in good shape. We talked about the question of
another Mao meeting and agreed, as I told Henry earlier, that there was no
need for one from our viewpoint.
P called me in at 7:30 this morning to do some general talking. He had

awakened at 5:00 and then called Henry to see how the communique was
going, and Henry apparently locked it up at 3:00 this morning, with nothing
left now but word changes. It was agreed that the P would see Rogers at
Hang Chow, and go into details with him there, so that he won't know that
it's an accomplished fact and that it's up to him to go along with it and
support it.
The communique stated the differences between China and

Editor's Note:
the U.S.on Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. However, the U.S. ac-
knowledged that Taiwan was part of China, and expected the "Chinese
themselves" to settlematters peacefully. The communique also provided
that neither nation would seek to dominate Asia and would oppose the
efforts of other nations to do so.
422 H.R. HALDEMAN

P started early again thismorning in the Hang Chow guest house and
asked me to come but I went ahead and had breakfast first, and
in early,
then went down to his room. By the time I got there, Ziegler was already
there and he was just reviewing some of the general news coverage. I gave
him the report I had just gotten about Muskie, which was rather fascinating
regarding his breaking down in New Hampshire. (There were reports that
Muskie had wept during an outdoors news conference.) He was intrigued
with that, but we couldn't get into it much because it was time for him to
leave for the airport.
(In Shanghai) things sort of started moving. Rogers is saying that the
communique is going to pose a lot of big problems even though last night
Henry fought over the points Rogers wanted, and got all of them except the
things on Taiwan. Rogers arrived at the suite, and said he wanted to see the
P. The P originally first said, tell him I'm asleep or something, then he
agreed to see him, and had him come in. Rogers made the point that he
wasn't trying to undercut the communique, that he would support it, but
Rogers did want it understood that there were, in his mind, some real prob-
lems. He enumerated some of those and the P spoke in great detail about
each of those points, and obviously was far more familiar with them than
Bill, and was able to answer his objections, although I'm sure not to Ro-
gers' satisfaction. Then P clearly hit Bill hard, and said he expected him to
instruct his bureaucracy to stay behind us 100 percent and support it fully,
which Bill said he would do. P played it pretty coolly, and I think Bill got
the message.
P had me get Ziegler in to give a report on all the press we're having on
the communique, which Henry had briefed on this afternoon. All Ron had
were the early wire reports, which are treating it on a pretty straight basis, not
overly enthusiastic. Then the P had me get Henry in, he was obviously dead
on his feet, but the P was determined to talk, and we went on till after 2:00.
P sort of recapping problems and triumphs of the whole visit, the fact of the
great accomplishment, the real breakthrough, the lack of understanding of
what really has been done, but the fact will come out eventually. His admira-
tion for Henry's accomplishments and the whole thing, with Henry sitting on
the couch just itching to get out to go to bed, which I tried to bring about
several times, but the P made the point that Chou En-lai stays up all night, so
will he.
He ordered some Mao Tai and had several of those, which he had also
done at dinner,and had at least half a dozen before and during lunch today.
He did finally let us go out on his terrace and take a look at Shanghai at night,
and then excused us. Obviously, he was feeling the historic nature of the
occasion, and just couldn't bring himself to fold up, but we did finally manage
to do so.
*a£

On the plane the P had Henry and me in for quite a long time several times
during the flight, working out plans for the K background to the press. Then
he told me to make a note of the fact that K has worked hard and I'm to call
Rebozo and have him give Henry all of his phone numbers of girls that are not
over thirty.
When we got to Anchorage, P wasn't able to go to sleep, so had me over
at his house for a couple hours, and we went through all of the same things
again. He was obviously trying to unwind, and we just spent quite a long time
talking before he finally folded up.

—
(A second February 28 we crossed the dateline.) P had me over early this
morning before departure since he didn't sleep much during the night. He said
he had gotten up at 5:00 and gone down, sat in the living room for a couple
hours, then gone back to bed at 7:00, got up at 8:00, that's when he had me
over at about 8:30. He reviewed again the need for following up with the
conservatives. He's very concerned, because on the flight from Shanghai to
Anchorage, we got the newspaper report of the Post 's coverage, which was
pretty negative and made a big point of the sellout of Taiwan, which had him
concerned. As we got later reports and ones that came in this morning, it
became clear that the general press was not playing it that way, and that we
were really in very good shape, but it was hard to convince him of that at that
point, and he was afraid we were dealing with a bad story and we'll have to
move hard and fast on it to avoid getting really clobbered.
The arrival in Washington was extremely good, and the P did a great job
on his arrival remarks, even though there's quite a hassle getting them done on
the plane. We also discovered that Buchanan was very negative on the whole
thing. Henry spent some time trying to give him some background so he could
swing his position around, but it didn't apparently do any good, since Pat
stayed negative and Rose joined with him.
So that's the end of February 28, and the end of the China trip.

P started morning with the Leadership Meeting, and had me in a little time
this
just to talk on general approach to things. After the Leadership Meeting,
which ran about an hour overtime, he had a Cabinet meeting. Made the point
that the more deeply you believe in something, the more softly you can talk
about it. He was referring both to himself and Chou as following the same
tactic in meetings. He said the most important thing out of the China trip was
that there's a profound new relationship between the PRC and the United
424 H.R. HALDEMAN
States.They both agreed not to resort to the threat of force or the use of force
and in relations with each other, and they agreed that
in international relations
no nation should dominate Asia. This is the heart of the communique. There
is now a new relationship at this time. We support the proposition of peaceful
settlement of international disputes and disputes between ourselves. The ques-
tion is whether we can learn to live with our differences, or whether we'll die
for them. He said that in their evaluation of us, the thing that impresses them
isnot our wealth, but our power, and more importantly our purpose. They see
our material emphasis as a weakness. They look for strength of character,
fail, to believe. He emphasized the continuity of the
willingness to sacrifice, to
China trip as it evolves from the Nixon doctrine. After the Cabinet meeting,
he had Henry and me in to evaluate both meetings, and was absolutely horri-
fied by Rogers, handling of both the Cabinet meeting and even more so the
Leaders' Meeting.

More China follow-up this morning and also P had chat with Connally and
Shultz and so forth to get things cleaned up before he leaves for Key Biscayne.
He wants Nelson Rockefeller and the other key people who
to get notes off to
have supported the China trip, wanted Rose to call all of the families and tell
them gifts are coming to them. Wanted K to get hold of Buckley this afternoon
if he could. Wanted Butterfield to offer Camp David to Connally for the
weekend. On the plane to Key Biscayne, he wanted to be sure we sent a bottle

of Mao Tai to Abplanalp, saying, "Try this for starting your fire." Wants to
have the phone cable turned off, take things easy.

In Key Biscayne. P had me over first thing this morning for about four hours.
Henry came in for the second half of it. He feels Henry isn't getting across on
the PR standpoint on the P's handling of the situations in China. He says the
main thing for us in China is the P's position as a big-league operator. He's
done it for years. The unusual world statesman capability, the personal quali-
ties of the man. He wants to refer to this as a classic battle between a couple
of heavyweights, each with his own style.
Buchanan called me this afternoon to say that he had thought the whole
thing over and decided he had to resign and would like to come down Friday
evening and meet on the courier plane with the P to tell him he was leaving and
why. I jumped on him pretty hard on the basis that he had no right to interrupt
the P's brief time off with something like this, and also that he basically had
no right to resign at all. He feels he's got to be his own man, but he can't
support the communique, and that if he can't then he has no business staying
on the staff. He seems to overlook the fact that his leaving would create a
major stir and shatter a lot of the confidence that's now developing in the
China trip, but I don't know whether I'll be able to persuade him of that. I
discussed that whole thing with K and E at dinner tonight,

and we all agreed
that we've got to find some way to avoid Buchanan's leaving. That he just
doesn't have the right to do it, and he's got to swallow his pride and problems,
and find a way to live with it.

We got into Buchanan resignation problem. The P says that he won't talk
the
to Pat, that he thinks he should go to work for Mitchell. He's afraid he'll
poison the well at the White House if we keep him there. He could write
bombshells for attack purposes at the campaign organization. P's basic incli-
nation is to let him go rather than try to keep him around. He just doesn't
think it's a good idea to keep him on the staff and that we should at least get
him ofTthe news summary, because he doesn't want to have any excess negativ-
ism. He then, however, started talking about the arguments to use on Bu-
chanan, the fact that his successor hasn't yet been trained, that if he goes, he's
got to keep quiet. would be the height of disloyalty for him to attack the P
It
at this point. He has no right or business to talk about the communique, and
they should point out that the P never said Chinese Communism was good. He
should look at the subtlety of the comments.

Big item today, starting the staff meeting and going through the day, is the ITT
case and Kleindienst.
Editor's Note: Jack Anderson was claiming that a lobbyist named Dita
Beard had written a memo boasting that the ITT settlement had been
influenced by an ITT contribution to the Republican convention. The
—
charge was not true the contribution had nothing to do with the settle-
ment, and in fact had been made to the city of San Diego, so the city could
bid on the convention (ITT's Sheraton division was opening a new hotel
there, and it was thought to be a good promotion). Kleindienst, who was
up for Attorney General, had been in charge of the case, and called for new
—
Senate hearings to clear his name this gave the Democrats on the Com-
mittee a chance to make political hay. Beard would later testify that the
memo was a forgery, but the damage had been done. For the White House
it was a public relations disaster.
We all agreed we need someone to manage the whole project, that at this
point we don't have anybody really on top of it. P was concerned about what's
at the root of all this, where did this story start, who leaked the memo, who
426 H.R. HALDEMAN
was it written to, We don't seem to have the answers on any of

and so forth.
that. He wants Colson keeps a low profile on this, that there
to be sure that
are no statements from the White House, that we refer everything to the Justice
Department. He felt that we should try to get a good statement from Justice
by the Attorney General about the case, before the Thursday press conference,
so the P can stand on it and that it can be elevated to the Presidential level.
Wants to get it all set beforehand, in other words.
He had Rose in, and she reminded us that Dita Beard, the gal who wrote
the memo that started all this (and he talked to Jack Anderson), is the tough,
profane character who was Ted Rogers' secretary in the '60 campaign. (Rogers
was the P's press advisor then.) E talked to Mitchell, and he said that he would
not make a statement, didn't feel he should, before he testified. Suggested
instead that the P should simply respond,
saying that he was glad that Klein-
dienst wanted whole thing up, and had asked for the special
to clear this
hearing. As long as we've got the thing and are paying for it, we might as well
get some credit for it.
First thing this morning the P talked to me about Buchanan. Wanted me

to tell him that the P understands completely what his problem is and that we'll
work it out, but we'd like to make the date April 1, so that we have time to
get things in order. Then on my own, I should say that I feel he should work
in thecampaign, that there's a wide-open spot as director of the answer desk.
P a problem with the attitude in the entire staff, in putting their
feels there's
personal prejudices above the common good here. I then talked to Buchanan
and I opened with the P's view but then Buchanan said he had thought the
whole thing through, that he had now realized that he had expressed his view
to me, to K, Rogers, Haig, and through me, to the P, and that there was no
need for him to express it any more publicly than that and that he would do
the cause more good by being inside than being outside, and therefore he
decided he should stay on. When I reported this back to the P, it was clear that
he wasn't particularly pleased that Buchanan was staying. At that point, he
was pretty well ready for Pat to go on his way.
Later in the day, E asked him how he thought New Hampshire was going
to come and his prediction was that Muskie would get 54 percent, because
out,
he'd pick up some rank-and-file sympathy, and get a little more than the polls
say he will. McGovern will get 22 percent, and not do as well as the polls say.
On our side, he said he'll get 65 to 68 percent, McCloskey 20 to 22 percent,
Ashbrook about 10 percent.

We got into the Rogers problem, with the P trying to figure out how we ought
to approach that. He had me sit in the Rogers meeting this afternoon, and Bill
made a pitch for the need to solve the problem of his apparent downgrading
and the press coverage thereof. His solution was for the P to announce that
Rogers was in charge of the planning for the Russian trip. The P finessed that,
as he should have, and made it pretty clear to Rogers that he wasn't about to
be put in charge of the trip.

Last night the P called several times after I had gone to bed to check on New
Hampshire results, and some more discussion on it this morning. Generally he
was satisfied with both the results (as it turned out, Muskie beat McGovern by
only 46 to 37 percent) and the way they were played, but concerned about
making sure we followed up on it.
The ITT thing is still a building story, very discouraging because all of the
press goes the wrong way. We haven't been able to make the point that this
is not a contribution to the National Committee or to Nixon, that it's to San
Diego. P felt Dole should make a speech and hit a hard counterattack, disclos-
ing who contributed to the Republican host committee, and then calling on the
Democrats to do likewise. In other words, attack the attackers, saying they're
playing politics with us, trying to smear an innocent man, and that sort of
thing.
I got a recommendation from E and Colson P cancel his press
that the
conference idea for tomorrow, because there's no way he can adequately
handle the ITT question. So, I went over and told him this and he agreed to
drop it. Thinks that maybe we should give the money back to ITT or Sheraton,
with a real blast by the mayor of San Diego, saying this is a smear job, that
we've always refused the $400,000, and knock down that the P had any
knowledge of the money at all.
He was concerned that we don't seem to have any dirt to throw back at
the Democrats. We've got to find a way to turn around the PR on this, because
we're getting screwed unfairly.

At the staff meeting this morning, Shultz came up with an interesting point,
that he's been analyzing Connally, and feels that he has a totally different point
of view about his basic approach to politics. Whereas we feel that we should
meet each problem as it's shown in the polls, and worry about how the
statistics play and so forth, he thinks it's a mistake to worry about the bits and
pieces, that we overreact and worry too much. When things are going your
way, you should just let them go, not work on each little thing, that we're too
antsy. We should brush the other guys off and not worry about them. He's very
concerned about our overreaction, thinks we need more of a feeling of stability
and confidence. It's an interesting point. My answer to it being, that he's a
Democrat and always has been in Democratic politics where they can do that,
because the press is with them. We can't afford that luxury.
428 H.R. HALDEMAN
The big thing todaywas the ITT I had a staff session where
deal again.
we tried to work on how to turn the some positive PR. I called
thing into
Mitchell to check out the statement that was attributed to him in the testimony
today that the P had told him to get the case settled. He said that this statement
had previously been in the Anderson column and in the press. The facts are
that Mitchell has only seen Dita Beard once in his life. Mitchell never said
anything like this to her, and he'll categorically deny it. Mitchell also said
there's something fishy on the Dita Beard memo, that she's a drinking buddy
of Anderson's secretary, and it may be that there's something involved there,
also in the fact that Anderson won't show the memo to anybody.
Kleindienst called me at home tonight on the whole thing, said that the
press and TV are not accurately reporting the positive testimony, they're
only covering the sensational stuff today. Mitchell told Kleindienst to call
me, suggested using the White House resources, first, to set up a task force
over the weekend to review the testimony versus the newspaper accounts;
second, the VP take it on; third, a general attack by any friendly press,
Congress, government and community people we can get. He says tonight
(Senators John) Tunney, (Gary) Hart, and Kennedy asked (Senator James)
Eastland (the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee ) to get the SEC
ITT and let them romp through those, which
inside-trading charges against
we very definitely don't want them to do. He thinks it's clear now that the
Anderson charge has been repudiated, and they're now after bigger game,
and for this reason he sort of regrets his request for the hearing, especially
since it's gone this far, but no one had ever anticipated the press and TV
would come up with such unfair reporting. He thinks that the fact that (An-
derson colleague Brit) Hume injected the P into it on hearsay shows the
serious basis that they're working on.

Main thing today was ITT follow-up. First thing this morning, P was con-
cerned that we hit on the fact that we're taking indirect testimony, that it's not
admissible, especially when it's fourth-removed, as was the charge that the P
was involved in this. Colson day got all excited because Hume was
later in the
asked for the notes again morning, and he said he had already given them
this
to Kennedy, so now Cook's going to call for an end of the hearings, and go
to executive session, charging the committee's being used. The theory Colson
has now is that we can get Dita Beard to disavow the memorandum, which
would shoot down the whole case, but what she did today was just a statement
by her lawyer, where she did shoot down the point that there was any connec-
tion between any antitrust settlement and the convention contribution, but she
let the memorandum on the record without disavowing it. As of now, the thing
stands that way, and they're still trying to figure out how to turn it around to
our benefit somehow.

P's at Camp David all day. Phoned once this afternoon and said on ITT that
we've got to give a lot of credit to the Colson group, and
all of the people I
had working, that they have done a pretty good job of getting the story
really
going our way. Made the point that the ITT stock went down after the
settlement, so it couldn't have been too great a settlement.
Was concerned because Colson said he was doing his best to keep the staff
morale up, which was a stupid thing to dump on the P. Also wanted to raise
the question with Mitchell whether we could put out some lists of contributors
just for primaries, so we don't let a fire build up on this, but instead just get
it out of the way.
Then the P got into the design of the new Laurel cabin at Camp David,
which he had been over to look at. He thinks there should be an office there,
wants to take a small lounge and make it a Presidential office, with a desk, and
flags, and so on, so he can use it for meetings if he needs to, such as a meeting
of head of state or something of that sort.

P asked me to talk to Mitchell today about disclosure of campaign contribu-
tors, and I did raise it with John, he said we'd have a substantial problem if
we did that, because the money was we would not

raised on the basis that
report it. He thinks we should just say that we'll follow the statutes, and we
should just straight-arm it, saying we're complying with the law. Our answer
would be that the P's not involved, this is a private committee for his reelec-
tion. He thinks go away April 7 when we start reporting. We'll
it will all
include all and since we've had a mass mailing,
the dollars we've collected then,
we should have a large number of people, which we can also mention, although
we won't give them names. P felt that we should work up a statement for Stans
on the contributions, using the line that we will report everything according to
the law, that we have absolutely nothing to hide, that we are setting up the
machinery now for reporting, mention that the P's not doing any campaigning
now in the primary campaigns.

On ITT, we didn't get much progress today, the committee went into executive
session this morning, and then had Mitchell on this afternoon. I don't have
much of a reading as to how he did. The committee failed to come up with a
subgroup to go out and interview Dita Beard even. (Beard was in a Denver
hospital and consequently could not come to Washington. ) So we're pretty much
stalled on dead center even though they had a day of activity on it.
P had me raise the question with E of whether now is the time to surface
430 H.R. HALDEMAN
the Pentagon Papers on Kennedy and Vietnam in a more vicious way, and get
some of that going as we counterflre, so we're doing something on our own
initiative instead of just reacting to the Democrats.
Florida returns in the early run show the P doing much better than
expected, also Wallace doing better, and Muskie doing very badly, all of which
is excellent news for us. In addition to the fact that the anti-busing thing
carried 75 to 25.

The P called late this morning, said he could see why Colson and the rest get
so discouraged about ITT, the way had read the
the papers play it, that he
papers pretty carefully this morning, and saw what a problem we had. Even
then, though, he didn't notice the caption of the New York Times photo, where
they said Mitchell was talking with Marion of ITT, when actually he was
talking to Bob Mardian, the assistant Attorney General.
We had quite a little staff discussion on the whole ITT follow-up. The staff
reports there's very little Congressional mail on this, and no interest out in the
country, so we should be careful about overreacting.

Everybody now is convinced that the memo is a phony, the typing analyst
says that it was typed in January, not in June; they also had Dita Beard's
testimony in hand that it's not authentic, she didn't type it, it's not her
signature, she's never seen it, and she told Anderson that. All the ITT people
say they've never seen the memo, and the secretary who typed the original
memo can now come forward and say that this is not the one she typed. There
is a problem on getting the senators out there to talk to Beard on Monday
because their doctor's having second thoughts on it. P this afternoon said he
wasn't too worried about the ITT thing, didn't want to get too much overreac-
tion to it.
The other problem today was a memo from Bill Rogers to me, saying that
he was going to take charge of the Russian trip and start coordinating the
departments, which had Henry pretty disturbed. I raised it with the P when he
was just chatting with me, and he said I should just level with him on it, that
the P's taken many trips, he's always in charge of his own trips, and following
that practice, the P will be in personal charge and will not delegate that to
anyone. So I am writing Bill a memo in response to take care of that.

On the ITT question, Colson reports that we've gotten a bad break and the
senators aren't going to go to Denver because of the possibility of a vote in the
Senate, so I pushed hard for sworn statement from her and

his trying to get a
trying to get that out, which he said he would do. Later in the day it turned
out that the Dita Beard statement was taken and released, and that's thrown
some doubt into the whole thing.
OnITT, the P wanted Buchanan and Colson to get their people going on
some good solid editorial columns about the double standard about Congres-
sional hearings. Press saying that during the Nixon era and then the McCarthy
era, when they were investigating Communists, the committee was constantly
attacked for their failure to follow the rules of court and taking evidence, that
where are those attacks now, that when the P of the United States is slandered,
or the Attorney General, or a business leader, no one raises his fists, but when
a Communist spy does it, they all scream. Thinks we can really work some-
thing up on that. They had the Pat Nixon birthday party tonight. P apparently
stayed for an hour and then went over the EOB and hid until they went to the
movie and then came back and went to his room.

We some political follow-up. He's concerned that we've let China
got into
dissipate as an issue because we didn't exploit it, that we have to be blatant
about these and we need something to build them up, our strong suit is foreign
affairs, and we need to figure out how to play it.
Also, got to thinking that we should move all the political operations,
primarily Colson, out of the White House, and into Mitchell's operation. The
White House has the aspect of appearing to use the super power of govern-
ment, and that we've got to get Colson less visible because he offends people
and rides too hard.
On the plane going up to New York for the drug trip, he came up with
the idea of a club for the group that made the trip called the "New China
Hands," in contrasts to the "Old China Hands." The idea of the symbol being
the handshake, and the point being made that the old hands knew everything
about China, but yet knew nothing, whereas the new China hands know
nothing about China, yet know everything. With Nixon as president, Pat
Nixon as chairman.

The big item todaywas the AFL-CIO walkout on the Pay Board, which they
did at about noon. Shultz and his crew met all afternoon then they all went to
the P's at about 5:00 to report on it. This was a meeting with Connally, Shultz,
Rumsfeld, Stein, Colson, E, and me. Shultz reported that (Teamster head
Frank) Fitzsimmons was going to stay on, but (UAW head Leonard) Wood-
cock would probably go off, and that the public members had a press confer-
ence this afternoon, shooting down Meany's allegations about the failure of
432 H.R. HALDEMAN
the Pay Board. And on the consumer price index, even though food is up
badly, the areas that are under the control mechanism are okay, so we actually
come out pretty well.

Today started with a call from Connally saying Perot called him saying that
he had to see the P because he had a report from one of his agents in Hanoi,
saying that there might be a breakthrough on the sick and wounded and that
Perot would not go through normal channels to discuss it. He'd bring it up
only with the P. I knew the P wouldn't see him, I tried to figure a way out,
finally raised it with the P, he suggested that we have Dick Walters handle it
on the basis that he's handling all the top secret things in the bureaucracy and
that Perot should deal with him. So we're going to take a stab at that.
ITT is back up big today and mainly on the supposed question of the
White House call to ITT. It has obviously bothered the P and he had me call
Finch and Klein to see if they had made such a phone call, which both of them
said they had not. Anyway, we've got a problem. Also need to check into
where we can get Eastland to close down the hearing. The P wants to be sure
the committee report is a written report so we have something to use for the
campaign.
Re-raised the questions this morning, getting into the whole point of
Kleindienst's confirmation tactics (as Attorney General). Since the day went
on, it became more clear to the P especially that Kleindienst wasn't going to
be confirmed and that the thing has to do with a grandstand play to close it
off. If which would be the best thing, even

possible, force the thing to a vote,
if he was turned down, because then he'd be rejected and we could use that as
an issue. If we can't get a vote, then we pretty much concluded that we'd have
Kleindienst issue an effective ultimatum saying that he had asked for these
hearings, they had been turned into a farce and that the only way he could see
to bring some sanity back to the thing was to announce that he has not going
to continue past April 15th if they hadn't voted him up or down by then. He
would ask the P to withdraw his nomination.
He had a meeting with Morton about the Alaska pipeline and was con-
cerned that the idea of running it through Canada was not good because we're
losing jobs in Alaska, and even though Alaska's unimportant, it's going to sound
bad here. The thing of it being good internationally is useless to us and the
environmental pluses are questionable, at the least. Jobs are more important
than either one of those. So the question is whether it's worth breaking it off in
Alaska now or should we just screw around with it until after the election.

K returned last night. Was in this morning to discuss the Russian trip and
some plans for that.
ITT was a big item with the P this morning. He felt that he probably
should pull the plug on Kleindienst. The P is convinced that he can't be
confirmed now and that somehow we've got to cut our losses. We haven't been
handling the case well all along and there's no point in struggling along with
it any further. The best thing of course would be to confirm Kleindienst but
not at the price of 30 more days of hearings. The other thing is to sacrifice
Kleindienst in a blaze of glory.

Dick Walters met yesterday with Perot, at our request, to avoid Perot meeting
with the P. Apparently, he's got a deal where the North Vietnamese will release
30 sick and wounded prisoners in return for a million dollars from us. Henry's
concerned that we work out some way of handling the ransom so that we get
credit for it rather than Perot. Henry's apparently had feelers on the same
thing from other sources also.
K was in talking about the Russian trip and the problems of whether we
stay at the Kremlin or not, how many days we stay and all that sort of thing.
The P also raised the point of whether he ought to speak to the Russian people
on television as Eisenhower did.
The big thing today again is ITT. The P had me call Kleindienst over. We
met over at the library and lit a fire and brought some coffee down and
Kleindienst came, scared to death. Made the point that there will be an
executive session next Thursday, and they'll close the hearings. He's convinced
that Eastland is able to do that as there are only three votes against him on the
committee, whereas MacGregor and Colson seem to think he'll have a prob-
lem on a close vote in the committee to close the hearings. He said then it'll
go to a filibuster on the Senate floor after a delay for final minority reports,
etc. Thinks the filibuster will die after a while, that we have ample votes to
confirm Kleindienst. He went round and round on that.

P called me later before I got home, when I returned the call he asked me
to wait just a minute, that he had just gotten out of the shower and went out
to get a bathrobe. Said he thought the Kleindienst meeting had gone well and
been productive and he has changed his view that we should dump Klein-
dienst, thinks that we should ride him out as he recommends. Said we've got
to remember that we shouldn't get so close to these things that we panic, which
I must say, he was closer to doing than the rest of us. Kleindienst sees no
chance of losing the vote in the committee where our people thought it was
going to be a close vote. The P was impressed by Kleindienst feeling that we
should get the White House out of the San Diego convention planning. He told
me to get that done. He wants to look into the possibility of moving the
convention, maybe to Miami, but he thinks it's probably too far along to do
that.
434 H.R. HALDEMAN

During the morning while we were talking and K was in, he was handed a note
indicating that the North Vietnamese have attacked South Vietnam. The
attack that we've been concerned about and waiting for.
It was the beginning of a full-scale invasion of the South.


Got into several political discussions, the P's concerned that we've got to get
moving on the attack, that we should have someone attacking Muskie as a
defeatist, because he's saying that we shouldn't react to the Vietnam attack by
the enemy. We shouldn't let him build that line about just getting out of
Vietnam. That shows no concern for the POW's or protection for the 70,000
GI's that are there. He made the point that the P has the responsibility for
these people and that our continued withdrawal can only go on if South
Vietnam is able to hold.
The Vietnam action goes on today. P has moved in quite strongly accord-
ing to Henry and is taking control. He really banged Moorer around yesterday
on the Air Force's inability to get moving. Problem is they keep saying that the
weather is such that they can't bomb. The P's massing a huge attack force,
Naval ships for gunning from the sea, tremendous number of additional
bombers, and he's going to start using B-52's for the first time to bomb North
Vietnam as soon as the weather clears. He'll base the bombing on the violation
of the DMZ and move in hard. He feels that this will give us a fairly good
chance of negotiations, which he has never really felt we've had up to now, but
thinks they're doing this as a desperation move and then will go to negotiate.
Henry has the same view.

Everybody was highly pleased with the Wisconsin primary results, with
McGovern winning by such a wide margin, which thoroughly screws up the
Democrats one more time. The P wanted to be sure that we get people to
follow up on the line, that Kennedy is now the obvious Democrat candidate.
He liked my idea of waiting a few days and then having Connally give Teddy
435
436 H.R. HALDEMAN
Secret Service protection on the basis that there's general agreement that he's
going to be the candidate.
We got into more discussion on the convention plans, the P now wants a
daily report on the plan to move the convention. He's concerned that we
should make the point that a crisis is developing on the question of whether
the convention will be ready.
P called a meeting with Tricia, Julie, David, and Ed, together with Dave
Parker and me, to discuss their scheduling. It was a little awkward and didn't
really cover much, except their problems on getting the right kind of stuff from
our speechwriters in terms of anecdotes, stories, examples, etc. The P ex-
pounded some of his theories on what they ought to be covering, but really
didn't accomplish much of anything.
Rogers called me saying he wanted to see the P, that he had nothing
important, a few things he could cover, but he thinks he should see him for
appearance's sake, so that it looks like everybody's steadfast on the Vietnam
move and all. He then said he is troubled some, first with the South Vietnamese
still showing the world a fight, and that we'd better be sure there's no stories
on this. Secondly, that we not lose a lot of American pilots and thus get more
POW's. He said he had canceled his press conference for this week but if things
turn for the better over there he would reschedule it.

The P had me stay in when Henry brought General Vogt in to discuss his show.
The background of this is that in a briefing the other day, Vogt mentioned to
Henry that he was terribly distressed with the way the military and particularly
the Air Force were handling the Vietnam situation, particularly their failure to
carry out the Presidential orders and an even worse failure to come up with any
ideas of their own on how things ought to be handled. Vogt made the comment
toK that he would like to give up his 4th star that he was about to get for going
over to NATO and be assigned to Vietnam and get the thing straightened out.
As a result of this, K suggested exactly that to the P and he bought the idea.
Vogt is being transferred to Vietnam, although he's still getting his 4th star and
he's going to go out there this weekend.
The P was very upset with the military, he expected Vogt to step in and
take it over. He then made quite a dramatic point of the fact that this may very
well be the last battle that will be fought by the United States Air Force, since
this kind of war probablywill never happen again, and that it would be a tragic
thing if this would end its active battle participation in a disgrace-
great service
ful operation that this Vietnam offensive is turning out to be. Problem being,
of course, that the Air Force is relying on weather problems as an excuse for
not moving in on the attacks that the P has ordered. Vogt said he understood
what the P was saying loud and clear and that he'd move in and get it solved.
The P told him to bypass Abrams, that he did not have confidence in Abrams,
that he'd been a great commander in WW II but that Vogt was to get things
done. If he had any problems he was to let the P know, not just let the thing
simmer.
Vogt then raised the point that his hand would be greatly strengthened if
he were made Deputy Commander out there instead of just Air Commander
and the P said that is to be done and ordered Henry to get it done. It was quite
a dramatic meeting and I think undoubtedly had a dramatic effect on General
Vogt.
the other big items today. The problem there is the
The ITT hearings were
failure in thecommittee to work the thing out right. We were planning on
getting a compromise, but that failed and now it's put off until tomorrow.

The P had me over at the house for three hours today during a beautiful
sunshiny morning. On ITT, tried to determine strategy. The P thought that I
should call Mitchell and make the point that what's important here is not
confirming the Attorney General, that it's ending the hearings. I should level
with him and make the point that there's too much in the record to risk
having it come out. The P believes the Republicans should boycott the hear-
ings. He had some other ideas for sort of PR follow-up on ITT, such as
getting the story out of the number of people that we see at the White House
who have special interests and that there's nothing wrong with doing that,
it's a part of our job.
The other thing we got into in depth was the San Diego Convention
question.The P's feeling that the move just won't wash. People will say it's
because ITT didn't come through with the money. He suggested a compro-
mise, inviting all the campaign leaders to San Clemente for a meeting after
the convention. This is if we move the convention to Miami, make it a cam-
paign planning session with all the governors, candidates and so on, with big
TV coverage. He's concerned about Reagan's attitude ifwe were to move
out of San Diego and feels that we need a very real reason to move because
we can't fake a move like this. He thinks we ought to get some other PR
judgment on it.

P called me over at 11:00 and kept me there until 1:30 on another beautiful
sunny morning, so I never did get outside today because I had to leave at 2:30
for Washington.
The P had me call Bowie Kuhn, the Baseball Commissioner, to suggest
that the P and the VP step in to help on the owner /player negotiation. Kuhn
said that there's a lot under the surface and they're moving to a good zone,
there's some chance of a tentative agreement this weekend, and he ap-
438 H.R. HALDEMAN
predated the P's offer but he didn't think they should do anything about it
now.

This afternoon the P talked with me for quite a while about Vietnam, going
into the background and so on. He feels very strongly that we've got to make
an all-out effort now, and that it really is a do-or-die proposition. The North
Vietnamese have committed all of their resources to the current attack and the
South Vietnamese have pretty much committed all of theirs to the defense.
We're doing virtually everything we can do, short of putting American troops
in, which we won't do. The P has moved the bombing activity up to a very high
level and intends to maintain it there, and do everything else he can with naval
action and so forth to give the South Vietnamese a chance to win this one. It's
apparent that we have the potential at least to break the North Vietnamese
back, but the question is whether or not the South Vietnamese will be able to
hold. If they can, the P comes out in extremely good shape, because it would
be almost inevitable that we'd move immediately from this attack to the
conference table within the next few months, and that we might get something
settled by summer.

P had E and me in for a couple of hours this morning, rambling through a lot
of odds and ends. He got into sort of curious blast at the speechwriters. He had
written a long memo last night to K, E, and me about the problems of our
speechwriters, and he asked me for a copy of it and read most of it to E and
me and went into quite a blast on the whole speechwriting problem the fact —
that the P had to change the Canadian Parliament speech in the sixth draft,
that there weren't any examples, and so on. K came in to report on Vietnam
and said the Russians are really falling all over us and that they had a glowing
meeting with Butz.
Editor 's Note: Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was in Moscow to discuss
trade agreements. The White House was naturally apprehensive that the
increased activity in Vietnam would endanger the Soviet Summit, but this
now seemed less of a danger.
P told Mitchell we now have Teddy and Hubert out on a limb on it, that
Dole and all of those should attack them for undercutting the Commander in
Chief and risking our men. Should make sure that people know they're out on
that side. We should go all out to win in the North, that's the P's strategy,
while we have the public opinion at least somewhat toned down. He says the
Russians are now really shaking and we're making some real headway if we
can keep it up for a while.
P stayed up at Camp David

last night and didn't come down until a little
after noon today. I and got to the office late and when I arrived at
slept in
10:00, there were urgent messages from E and Shultz and I learned that there
had been a big Connally regarding the plan for a Troika plus a
flap with
Council of Economic Advisors meeting this afternoon. Turns out that our
PR planning group had decided it would be a good idea to bring Johnny
Walters in to get a little publicity on the IRS efforts on overwithholding, and
they'd gone ahead and contacted Walters, who had then gone and contacted
Connally before Parker got to Connally to clear it. As a result of this, Con-
nally blew his stack, called all of us in and raised all kinds of hell and said he
wanted to see the P. I called John as soon as I got the facts on the matter,
tried to explain it all to him, he was very upset, made the point strongly to
me that that was the last straw, he'd had it and he was through. I went
through the old rationale about how he couldn't do this and all that but he
at least says that he feels there's clearly a conspiracy or at least a series of
actions against him by the White House staff, and he named K with some
meeting he had on Chile; E, Shultz, Stein especially, Flanigan, and that
there's just too much participation by other people that everybody calls his
people and issues orders to Treasury and so on. He wants to run the Depart-
ment himself, he will not take orders from the White House staff, their judg-
ment's not as good as his, he's got a good track record in Treasury and
obviously some of our people don't think so and he's not going to stay
around and fight them, he's going to get out. He was firmer and madder
than he's been before. It obviously concerned P a great deal. I argued
strongly that we shouldn't do anything further but rather let Connally float
over the weekend and then see what we do on Monday, which the P agreed
to, but I think he felt it would have been better to take some action to try
and solve the thing.

P reviewed the Canadian Parliament speech with him. Henry asked that
he cut out the sentence about the fact that nations that supply arms to other
nations bear the responsibility for what those other nations do with the arms.
Henry reported that Rogers is talking to Laird about the B-52 strikes. We're
backing into a position so that they can bounce both ways. If the opinion goes
against us, they can say they were against it; if it works out satisfactorily, they
can say that they had been right with it all along. Sort of a typical maneuver.
The P ordered some additional strikes and pushed Henry hard for developing
some other even stronger action in the next few days in terms of bombing
440 H.R. HALDEMAN
action, blockading, etc. The P and Henry agreed that they should drop the
press conference for next week because as of now Henry is going to go to
Moscow secretly on Monday night to meet with them on Vietnam, at their
request prior to his meeting on the 24th in Paris, so that changes the picture
some.
After Henry left there was some discussion as to how Rogers should be
informed on this, and we agreed that K should do it, or K and I together give
him the whole story on the trip, telling him that Brezhnev sent a message to
the P asking K to come to Moscow before he went to Paris and explaining that
this is what Henry's doing, it has bearing on the trip, etc.
Henry's canceled his Japanese trip, said he will be around this weekend,
then he'llhead for Moscow midweek next week. We took off for Canada at
5:00, arrived for the standard arrival ceremony, and then into the guest house
and a white-tie dinner.

In Canada, the P was involved all morning in the general sessions. He had me
over in the late afternoon for a short time —follow-up on reactions to the visit
so far, a concerned about the demonstrators, and he wanted to check on

little
—
domestic stuff ITT, San Diego Convention moves, that sort of thing. The
evening event was a concert followed by supposedly a very brief handshaker,
then the P was to leave. But Trudeau sandbagged him into staying for a buffet
supper, seated at a table with a place card, and kept him there for an hour. P
handled it pretty well, and I blew up at the Canadians. We finally got him
moved out.
In Canada this morning for the signing of the Great Lakes Treaty, then
returned to Washington, getting in about noon, then came on home. I
Henry told me on the plane that there'd been a problem in that the North
Vietnamese now want to put off the April 24 talk and the question is whether
he can go to Moscow or not. His inclination is to go anyway, and then just
come back. He doesn't feel he can go to Moscow in May when the Paris talk
will be, because it's too close to the P's trip. He spent quite a little time on the
plane with the P on that subject.

P called me at 2:00 after I got home, said that they had worked out
Henry's problems and that he would probably still go ahead with the Moscow
trip.Also Henry had been very upset this morning because Abrams had sent
a cable warning of the grave dangers of the far North bombings that the P had
ordered, which almost precluded the possibility of doing them because if
anything went wrong, Abrams could say they were done against his profes-
sional advice and all. The P said on the phone they're going ahead with the
strike tonight and that he's seriously considering putting on a blockade later
this week. So he emphasized again the importance of a good solid PR run on

the reasons for this.

The P called at about 12:30 and I asked how church was. Said, "Well, it's
always good for the soul to take an hour off once in a while." He com-
mented that the B-52 strikes were exceptionally effective, the best ever in the
war. That the Pentagon was jumping up and down. We really left a good
calling card. Now he's knocking off the bombing while Henry takes his trip.
We'll see what they do from there. He says Rogers is prepared to take a hard
line in his testimony on Monday to attack the attackers. He commented that
Humphrey was really absurd in his idea of turning it to the UN Security
Council, overlooking the fact that Russia and China are both on the Council
and will veto it.

Staff meeting this morning. P is very disturbed about a New York Times quote
saying that, Hooray fellas, that's the end of Moscow. Says we should hit the
critics for hitting at the wrong target. They should direct their fire at the
Communist forces in North Vietnam invading, rather than against the P,
who's trying to stop this invasion. Regarding any limits on attack activity, the
P will do what is necessary. The bombing when they withdraw across
will stop
the demilitarized zone. Regarding negotiations, we should look them cold in
their eyes.

I had a long meeting with Connally this afternoon, over two hours, covering
the resignation question. He's obviously determined that he's got to go. He
admitted that a lot of the problem he has with the White House staff is his fault
and the way he works. He wants to control everything that affects him, he will
not allow others to make decisions for him and especially he will not allow staff
people whose judgment isn't as good as his to do so. He assured me that he
would leave on a very sound political basis, he has no intention of supporting

any of the Democrats, and in fact suggested that he could, after the convention
or the primaries, perhaps surface as the Chairman of the Democrats for Nixon
or something of that sort. I'm convinced after the discussion that it's better for
him to go. At some point he's going to blow up and walk out mad, which
would be highly undesirable. If he leaves and stays solid politically and is
willing to spend time counseling and speaking for the P, as he says he is, he
perhaps could do more than he can at Treasury, so we may be gaining rather
than losing on the whole thing. He completely agreed with my suggestion that
442 H.R. HALDEMAN
Shultz be his replacement. We're going to go ahead on that basis, as far as he's
concerned. We had a good talk. I think he is leaving for a combination of
reasons rather than any single thing. The staff problem is one factor, but it's
obvious he's concerned about his health, he thinks his blood pressure is up and
he's doing a lot of doctor checking. He really wants to get back to Texas he's —
concerned about his ranch and financial interests. I just don't think he likes
Washington very well. I reported all this to the P and he asked me to meet with
Connally again tomorrow to work out the details. Then the P will meet with
him on Thursday.
The P went out tonight on the Sequoia all alone. It's a beautiful spring
evening for the first time and I guess he couldn't resist the lure.

We got deeply into the K trip question, because I raised the point this morning
that I didn't think the Camp David cover was satisfactory and I urged some
other alternatives, such as our going to Florida and saying K is at Camp David
or something, but the P doesn't want to go to Florida and we ended up with
Camp David. The problem then was how to notify Rogers. We spent consider-
able time during the day on that. Ended up deciding that Haig and I should
tell him first tomorrow morning, but then I recommended that we do it
thing
tonight after having dinner with the P on the Sequoia.
The P agreed, so I went out to Rogers' house at 9:00 and gave him the
basic line that we had heard from Brezhnev in a secret message that he wanted
to meet with the P's representative for a secret talk on Vietnam in Moscow and
that Henry was on his way. He took it extremely well, we didn't have any
problem at all with him, which was kind of a surprise. So that worked out
probably better than we expected.
The Sequoia dinner with Haig was partly a report on Vietnam and partly
the P blasting the press and our enemies in Vietnam. Haig told us about how
reporters had been working on the young soldiers, saying they won't take you
in helicopters because they're going to land you in a mined area and they're
afraid they're going to blow up their helicopters. They don't care what hap-
pens to you, but they do worry about their helicopters. So they're sending you
up in buses. That's when the officers had to talk the guys into going because
they were starting to more or less mutiny and he referred to them as you "press
bastards," you're the ones that caused all this. The P wants Agnew to use that
in his speech on Friday.
Haig seems to feel things are going quite well in Vietnam. The P's air
attacks, particularly the bombing of Haiphong and Hanoi, were tremendous
morale boosters, both for the Vietnamese and for our troops that were in-
volved.
On the Kleindienst hearings, we stalled most of the day but they finally
put Gleason on. He was on the stand for three hours but didn't say anything
very harmful, so all of the worry was for naught. Tomorrow is Flanigan and
then they wrap it up theoretically at least.
The P had a long meeting with Connally this morning, and I didn't talk to him
after that because he went from there into another meeting and I left for Camp
David on the K cover-up mission.
The P had dictated a long memo to K, which was his main concern this
morning. He had Rose retype it and then we sent it as a cable to Henry in
Moscow, providing guidance to him on the negotiations. Henry apparently
plans to make a long philosophical opening statement and lead into a lot of
items of background, the P's philosophy and so on. The P, in his memo,
ordered him to move directly to Vietnam and insist that they get the Vietnam
discussion completed before they move to anything else, such as matters
relating to the Summit. He wrote quite a long memorandum, which he read
most of to me. Henry isn't going to like it, because it doesn't follow his style,
but he may still go ahead and do it the way the P told him to.

He called E and me over at noon for a three-hour meeting at Camp David.
Obviously he had nothing particular on his mind. He got into a general
political discussion following Colson's theory of McGovern's being a real
possibility for the nomination. Either he or Teddy Kennedy as the far-left
candidate. The P says this would not cause him to move to the center, as many
suggest, because we can't compromise principle. We would rather make it
possible for the people in the Senate to move to the P, since the alternative
would be the far left. He talked to John about working on the Democratic
platform when it's adopted, costing it out and hitting them on all the things
that would have to be done as a result of that.
Then we got into K's point on the liberal establishment, that we can end
the war and do everything else that they ask and they'll still be against us, not
because of the Hiss case and that kind of thing, but because Nixon's not one
of them and won't pay attention to them. He thinks we made the mistake in
the first two years of talking to all the liberals and so forth where there's no
hope of winning or changing them. We have to go to the new establishment
and work along that line. The only way we can fight the whole press problem,
he feels, is through the Colson operation, the nutcutters, forcing our news and
in a brutal vicious attack on the opposition. You have to figure that 90-10 are
against us, so we have to be 90-10 better in what we put out. It's harder to
shape up the TV, but we can have a big effect on local TV. We have to get the
station owners and managers aware, make them realize what their news people
are doing.
444 H.R. HALDEMAN
Still at Camp David. Cold, rainy, heavy cloud layer day. P called me over at
Aspen about 1 1:30 for about three hours. He had a fire going in his study and
got into the question on details of the Russian trip. He gave me a lot of
Chapin on taking some very firm positions on the things that
instructions for
we want to do, such as using our car, using our plane, going to Leningrad on
Saturday, not on Sunday. The P's convinced that the Soviets are pushing for
Sunday in order to avoid the P's getting a good crowd there. I covered that by
cable with Chapin.
The main area of concern was K's trip and the general Vietnam situation
and plans for the TV follow-up next week. He's concerned about the effect of
K's trip, whether the people in this country will think he's there because the
Russians are pressing us and that this is a sign of weakness or not. He feels that
we can't show any overt weakness and he called Haig several times during the
meeting. Each time he emphasized the importance of maintaining our bomb-
ing and other attack levels.
Part of our problem here is K's unbelievable ego, in that he's really
pushing to have the P announce his Moscow trip and make a big thing out of
it. Also apparently he hasn't followed instructions from the P as to what he's
to be negotiating. He's spending his time on the Soviet Summit agenda rather
than on getting Vietnam settled. The P was clearly disturbed by the informa-
tion he had received on Henry last night. He waited all day and into the
evening for a message today, and then at the last hour it still hadn't come. It
now appears that Henry won't come back until Monday, because he was
determined to have a three-day meeting and he's managed to do it.
I asked him at the meeting about the Connally situation, he said Connally
had agreed to do his withdrawal in sort of two steps: first, when he resigns, he
would say that he has no plans for any political activity, that the P has his
personal support and that of his wife. Second, he would wait till after the
Democratic Convention and then come out, blast the Democrats, and an-
nounce that he was heading up the Democrats for Nixon. The P said that he
thought he was the only man who could be P, and that led us back to a
discussion we had started with E yesterday on the restructuring of the two-
party system, the feeling being that the P and Connally, after the election,
could move to build a new party, the Independent Conservative Party, or
something of that sort, that would bring in a coalition of Southern Democrats
and other conservative Democrats, along with the middle-road to conservative
Republicans. Problem would be to work it out so that we included Rockefeller
and Reagan on the Republican spectrum, and picked up as many of the
Democrats as we could. By structuring it right, we could develop a new
majority party. Under a new name. Get control of the Congress without an
election, simply by the realignment, and make a truly historic change in the
entire American political structure. This intrigues the P, and Connally, and it's
obviously the only way Connally has any future, since he's never going to be
nominated by the Democratic Party, and by leaving now he loses much of the
chance of ever being nominated by the Republican Party. If we formed a
coalition, with the two of them being the strong men, he clearly would emerge
as the candidate for the new party, in 76, and the P would strongly back him
in that.

We're still at Camp David. At least it's a nice day today, so there's a chance
to play some P has now found that he can't go back down to Wash-
tennis.
ington until late tomorrow night because K will be coming back getting here
probably somewhere between 10:00 and midnight. P was concerned about
the news of the battle coverage today because the situation is more stable
rather than less, but you don't get that from the news, and he feels that we're
not getting our PR
and our story out. Henry is very effective on the pros-
pects for the Summit, and makes the point which, of course, drives the P up
the wall, that Brezhnev has spent more time with him than he has with any
other foreign visitor. P's problem is he just doesn't agree that just the trip
itself will have a big effect. K justifies it as cooling the domestic furor here,
and sending huge shock waves to Hanoi, but the point is we've sent the
shock waves to Hanoi for months, that's typical K gobbledygook, and we
don't have a domestic furor here, at least to the degree that we have to
worry about getting it back. P's worried about the effect, in this country,
especially amongst the hawks and our supporters, of his going back to talks
in Paris. Makes the point that I've got to watch the situation concerning the
day-to-day PR, that we've got to have something positive about South Viet-
nam. We should keep pushing the invasion line. I talked to Haig a little
later, and he was very concerned about the way we're bludgeoning K. He
says Henry's not getting snookered over there, and that we shouldn't imply
it to him. He thinks the P's putting too much heat on Henry and he thinks
Henry will overreact. The P's point is that our real problem is that the Sovi-
ets want the Summit, but they won't help us in Vietnam in order to get it.
Which leaves us on a bad wicket, in that we will be meeting with them
during a Soviet-supported invasion of South Vietnam.
The P in analyzing all this feels that we're trapped, and his concern is
obviously very deep. Then we got into his real major concern, that Henry must
be controlled about any briefing of press or senators or anyone else, on the
basis that there's nothing in it for us to do any briefings on the Summit, that
we've got to keep the whole focus on Vietnam, and the problem is, Henry
doesn't have anything on Vietnam. P then said he's not discouraged, we just
have to wait. We're on a sticky wicket at the moment about dealing with the
Russians while they're supplying North Vietnam. When Haig arrived, we went
back through it again. It was sort of an eerie session because we sat over at
Birch cabin, the P had a big fire going, it was cold and overcast outside and
while we were in there there was a tremendous amount of thunder and light-
446 H.R. HALDEMAN
ning, and a heavy The P had the lights on fairly dim and it was quite a
rain.
picturesque setting. P made the point of the need for positive news Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday. Haig said he had talked to Laird, but one of our
problems is that the ARVN don't allow the press in, so the press write bad
stories, but Defense and MACV is going to put out the positive. Haig's going
to follow up with this with Laird, Hank, and Omora.
P then made the point that we're going to have a very rough story on
Tuesday, and a very tough day to ride through on why we're going back to the
conference table at the time that the Russians are pushing this invasion. The
way can be answered and the only way it will be answered is by the P giving
this
a tough speech on Wednesday night, but we've still got to ride for 30 hours.
P again raised the point that K can't brief the press, that we have to play the
mystery line. P seemed to feel better as we ended the Haig meeting. He called
me about 9:45, said there are two things that we have to have in mind. We've
got to convince Henry to be absolutely mum, which will be awfully hard but
essential. The success or failure of Henry's trip is involved. The way to make
it pay off is to create a mystery now. The key here is K himself. We've got to
convince him that he is to not say a word about the Summit. No reflections
about Brezhnev's personality, etc.
The other subject he got into earlier today was the question of staffing the
new Administration. He tried a contingency plan regarding the Cabinet and
top agencies. He wants to be ready on November 7 to move rapidly. He'll call
in the whole Cabinet in some way and have them all submit their resignations.
We've got to be hard on our friends as well as the others, and only keep those
who really can cut it. Then on new staffing we've got to start on the basis of
total loyalty, secondly look for youth, people in their thirties and forties, and
third, selflessness. People that are willing to get in and work without having to
be babied like the ones we have now. We've got to concentrate on building the
new establishment, which is his whole mission at this point.

At Camp David. The big item of the day was K's return. P had me over at
10:30 this morning for a couple hours. Talked about the plan for notification
of people before the announcement of K's Moscow trip. He concluded that
Henry did mean to claim the SALT deal now, rather than waiting till the
Summit, although Haig had said earlier that that's not what Henry had in
mind, and the P feels we've got to drive K off at this point, that we shouldn't
claim anything until we get to the Summit, and the breakthrough should be
tied to the P's meeting, not K's.
Rogers concerned that we be very sensitive about his participation
called,
in the conversations, and to be sure to include him in the meetings. He'd be
glad to do anything we want him to do to help. He thinks that there are some
signs that the other side is hurting badly, and that we're in better shape than
the press makes it appear. He does feel, however, that the Russians are doing
to the P just what they did to LBJ, on the standstill cease-fire, that we shouldn't
fall for that.
Henry finally arrived about 8:30, and he and Haig and I met with the P
over at Birch. The P had us gather first, and had me call and have him come
over. He unfortunately had not zipped up his fly, so during the entire conversa-
tion was noticeably open. We discussed the scenario for tomorrow, the plan
it
for notification of the good guy congressmen at 5:30. P backed down on the
K briefing. He agreed that Henry could do one to steer the direction on how
the talks were arranged and how they went, but no substance or content is to
be disclosed. Also he backed down on the SALT thing and agreed that we
would make the announcement. The meeting went pretty well, although it was
pretty tense at the beginning, the P was all primed to really whack Henry, but
backed off when he actually got there. Henry obviously was very tense. Haig
had called me earlier to say that Henry had sent some extremely bad cables
because he felt we had not backed him, and he was very distressed that he had
been sabotaged and undercut. He greeted me very frostily, but the P broke that
pretty quickly as the meeting started. We all came out in good spirits. P and
Henry walked together over to the helipad and talked in loud voices all the way
down, while Ed Cox sat listening avidly.

Back Washington, the P spent the whole day at the EOB. Had me over
to
K and Haig discussing the approach to the
several times, starting at 9:00 with
speech Wednesday night. He had Johnny Andrews and Winston Lord come in,
told them that he was going tomake the speech tomorrow night at 10:00, on
TV, ten minutes about Vietnam. He wanted Andrews to follow the P's outline
carefully: don't deviate from the rhythm, the phrases, or the order. Said the P
will work in a couple of vignettes himself at the end, so you ignore the fact that
there's no conclusion.
Then he outlined how the speech should go: that I'm reporting on the
situation in Vietnam, the role the United States will play, the efforts for peace
by negotiation, review the situation when we took office, what we've done, the
troops, the casualties, etc. The most forthcoming peace offers, and describe
those generally. No Mickey Mouse stuff about being too accurate on that.
Their answer was a massive buildup, the P showed restraint, then the Easter
massive invasion. Then he wants him to get the actual number of men who
actually invaded South Vietnam. South Vietnam resisted, the United States
posture was, no ground forces but heavy air strikes, now report from General
Abrams the general air strikes have been essential. The ARVN are fighting. We
can expect another month of hard battles, with some losses. His estimate is
that the South Vietnamese will be able to contain the invasion. What am I
doing as P? First, I will continue the troop withdrawal with 20,000 to be
accomplished before the 1st of July. Second, I'm directing Porter to go back
to the negotiating table in Paris. Third, I'll continue the air and naval attack
448 H.R. HALDEMAN
on North Vietnam. Then review why we had to do the bombing, to protect

American forces, to prevent a Communist bloodbath. K recommended that he
add some threats there. The P said that he would put that in his conclusion,
not leave it up to these people (referring to the speechwriters). He said the
conclusion would be damn frightening. He said we must have the point that
this is an invasion, and that our bombing will continue in the North until the
North stops the invasion. There is no privileged sanctuary in North Vietnam
as long as Communists invade the South. He emphasized never to say "the
other side," always to use "the enemy," "Communist," "invaders." Lord and
Andrews left.
The P then got into a tremendous blast at the military strategy in the
central highlands, making the point that any simpleton knows that they should
not have allowed themselves to be driven back across that area, that when you
have minimum troops occupying unwanted territory, facing a superior force
attacking them, they shouldn't allow themselves to be driven back. They
should pull back to a grouping point, draw the enemy in, then encircle them
and cut them off. Haig said the problem is that Thieu can't write off people in
the territory, so he can't just give ground away that way. K said they will run
out of steam by the end of this week, P kept lashing and lashing on what did
they hit and so on. He has a Congressional dinner tonight, which is good
timing, and then he will be getting ready for the speech tomorrow and down
to Florida tomorrow night right after the speech.

Spent the day at the EOB getting ready for the TV speech tonight on Vietnam.
P had me over several times, going over just odds and ends on the speech. He
doesn't want to release an advance copy, because he wants the congressmen to
hear the speech rather than read it. He's obviously concerned about the
rhetoric he's using at the opening, and I guess more particularly at the closing.
He did read that to me later on during the day. He then agreed to release the
text because of the argument of the press guys that we needed it in order to get
adequate coverage in the morning papers.
Speech went very well, and our early reaction has been excellent. We left
right afterward for Key Biscayne. He wanted to be sure that Colson hit hard
the point that the attacks by the Democrats in the Senate and the House and
the Presidential candidates will jeopardize the negotiations and undercut the
P, and that they, therefore, must accept the responsibility if the peace efforts
fail.He wants to take them on for supporting the Communists, and really go
right up to the "aid and comfort to the enemy" line. He's ordered Henry to
hit Hanoi again this weekend. He asked him how many B-52's we had in the
Vietnam area. Henry said 130, so the P wrote down on a card that he was
ordering 130 B-52 raids. Henry afterward said, "What can I do? I can't
possibly send 130 up." When we arrived at Homestead, he found out that there
aretwo squadrons based there that were leaving the next day for Vietnam. He
thought he might go over and see them off tomorrow.
P went over to Walker's yesterday afternoon. He phoned this morning about

the briefing book and this afternoon called me over at 2:30 for a couple hours
and ruined the one short period of good sunshine, as he has every day since
we've been here. He made the point that the most effective way now for us to
build McGovern is to get out some fake polls showing him doing well in trial
heats.
This was a political maneuver to build up a weak opponent. The logic

behind it was that the best way we could win was to pick our
to assure that
opponent, to the extent possible. We were much happier with McGovern
than other possible foes.
Thinks we need to take Hubert on about all his switching of position. We

need to knock him down and build McGovern up.
He talked to Henry while I was over there, gave him some more instruc-
tions on his Paris negotiations and took a very firm line that Henry is to turn
down any attempt by them to delay. He's to get some positive and affirmative
action while he's there, or we cut loose. He also told him to announce a
thousand sorties a day and wants it for American public opinion, give it to
Ziegler and Scali and put it out in Saigon. On the SALT meeting on Monday,
he wants to have Rogers, Laird, and Moore all there, with Laird primed ahead
of time to agree, then that only the P will go out to the press to make the
announcement. There will be a photo opportunity of the group in the meeting.
He got into some discussion with Henry on some obvious negotiations Henry's
been having with Dobrynin about the airplane and Russia and that sort of
thing.

Start out in Key left at 1:30 for Texas. The Connally dinner tonight
Biscayne,
went pretty The P did an hour of Q & A and gave way too long answers,
well.
particularly the first question on Vietnam, where he went for 15 minutes and
then had a number of other questions on Vietnam where he again took quite
a little time. I think it probably impressed the guests, but it wasn't nearly as
strong a performance as he's able to do. Connally was effusive in his praise of
the P's courage and performance.
450 H.R. HALDEMAN
Monday, May 1, 1972

In Texas this morning, the P from Connally's house, wanted to review
called
last night a little bit. Felt that maybethe talk would have been better than the
Q& A, and wants to follow up on doing a big outdoor barbecue right after
the convention, which Connally suggested.
At 6:00 this evening, after a long session on SALT and some meetings with
Henry, the P had me in. Henry then came in, said that everything was settled on
the Russia trip logistically that we wanted, except they still insist that we use their
airplane which the P says to give in on. Henry then read the report from Abrams
which in effect says that Quangtri is lost, the battle for Hue begins, and K makes
the point that if we lose Hue it'll be a real setback, although Quangtri is not so
much so. Abrams' report goes on to say that it's quite possible that South
Vietnam has or to hang together and the whole thing may
lost the will to fight
well be lost. Henry hedged around before getting to that part of the Abrams
report, but the P kept telling him to get to the point of the summary. Henry finally
did. Then the P took the report, read it himself, and we spent quite a little time
just talking over the various questions of how the Vietnamese have fallen apart.
Henry making the point that the pattern seems to be that they can hold for about
a month, and then they fold up. We've now passed the month, and they're
following the pattern and folding.
P made the point very strongly to Henry that his instructions in Paris
remain the same, he's not to give anything, and that we're perfectly willing to
sacrifice the Summit if necessary, but under no circumstances will the P go to
the Summit while we're in trouble in Vietnam. He makes the strong point that
we will go ahead with the hard strikes the latter part of the week if Henry
doesn't get positive action in Paris tomorrow.
He then brooded a bit aboutit and said if the whole thing collapses,
then all we can do go to a blockade and demand our POW's back, and
is
Henry agreed with that. Then the P said, but then we're defeated, and Henry
said, "Yes, that's right, and then we'll have to tighten our belts." The P sort
of laughed. He's obviously facing the very real possibility now that we have
had it in Vietnam, and that he's going to have to deal with that situation
instead of one of acceleration. Both he and Henry agree that regardless of
what happens now, we'll be finished with the war by August. Either we will
have broken them or they will have broken us, and the fighting will be over.
There still seems to be some possibility of negotiation or a cease-fire because
it's quite possible, maybe even probable, that the North Vietnamese are
hurting even worse than the South Vietnamese, and that both sides may be
ready to fold.

Kleindienst called me at 9:15 this morning to say that J. Edgar Hoover had
died in his sleep during the night, raised the question of how we wanted to
announce and what our plans were on succession. I immediately went over
it,
to the EOB, where the P was, and told him. He said definitely he wanted to
announce it, talked about successors to a certain degree, but was more con-
cerned with trying to get some Vietnam things worked out with Henry, follow-
ing up on the Paris Summit report from last night. Since Henry had gotten no
results they're very concerned about how to handle the whole Vietnam situa-
tion.
Editor's Note: K had flown over again to meet with the North Vietnamese,
only to find the Communists to be unbelievably arrogant and insulting. K
was very discouraged.
In any event, I spent quite a little time during the morning on the FBI thing.
We bounced around with E and Dick Moore the whole question of how to
handle it. P kept calling over, felt that we ought to have (Clyde) Tolson function
as Acting Director because he can be trusted and the P knows him. Everybody
else turned that down because he's too old. Had some other suggestions.
Then Kleindienst called with the details. The maid had found Hoover lying
on the floor by his bed at 8:30 this morning. Problem was that she then called his
secretary, Miss Gandy, and she called Hoover's doctor. He went over immedi-
ately, said it was a natural death between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, probably a heart
attack, but he hasn't called the coroner because we don't want anybody to know
till we're ready to make the announcement. So we delayed the coroner till we got
the announcement plan worked out, and ended up having Kleindienst announce
it. Then the P went out to our pressroom and made a brief statement. P wanted
to have him buried in Arlington Cemetery with a big ceremony and all, but it
turns out that National Presbyterian is his church, Austin's his minister, and
that's where he wants to be, so the P said he'd do the eulogy. He finally came
down on, first of all, definitely not appointing a new Director but rather an
Acting Director through the election, and everybody agreed that it should be Pat
Gray. So that is the plan and it will be announced tomorrow.
We then got into the problem of the Summit, the P feeling that because of
the Paris problem Henry got into yesterday and Henry's recommendation now,
which is that we cancel the Summit, that we've got to at least consider doing so.
He asked me to run a poll to determine what the reaction will be if the P should
cancel the Summit on the basis of the continuing Communist invasion of South
Vietnam supported by massive Soviet aid and military equipment.

Principal discussion today was again on the Summit cancellation. The P was
tied up all morning with Leadership Meeting, the briefing by Moorer, some
452 H.R. HALDEMAN
other things of that sort. He had me over first thing in the morning to set those
up, to make the point that he wanted
postpone Annapolis for a week and
to
keep the weekend clear, because if he does cancel the Summit, he's going to do
it Monday night, on TV. Then he makes the point of whether there's a real
question of what we get out of canceling the Summit, and whether that's the
key to winning the war, and that's what he's got to weigh.
Later in the morning he was going over the thing again and made the
point that the loss of the Summit would result in a massive Soviet propaganda
war worldwide, and that the costs there are too high to pay for the short-term
gain that we get for taking the positive action.
Then later in the afternoon I talked to Henry. He made the point that
there's no choice on the Summit, that we have to drop it, or else the Russians
will, but we can't both bomb the North and have the Summit. That's Henry's
strong feeling, and he feels it's essential that we bomb the North, now that
we've told the Russians that we're going to take a hard line with them and with
the Vietnamese if we don't get any action in Paris, and we haven't gotten any
action.
The is how can we have a Summit meeting and be drinking
real question
toasts to Brezhnev while Soviet tanks are crumbling Hue. How can you have
the P signing agreements for trade, arms, toasting peace and friendship and all
that? It would be a very bad picture, and will display great weakness after the
warning. On the other side, canceling the Summit is going to shatter the Nixon
foreign policy; people don't like to see the government helpless. P came up with
the line that going to the Soviet Union in the cause of peace while they're
waging war would not serve the cause of peace. K makes the point that we
have too weak a hand to go to Russia now, but on the other side the people
want hope, not just blood, sweat, and tears all the time. So P told me to make
the strongest case for going ahead, and to talk to Henry about it. He'll make
no decision till Monday, and make the speech Monday night. My argument
was that we should go ahead and bomb and see what happens. That we don't
have to cancel the Summit, we can take the chance that they won't cancel it
even if we do bomb. Then we have the best of both worlds. Henry's argument
is, that creates a terrible problem for us because the worst possible thing would
be for the Russians to cancel the Summit, blaming it on the Nixon bombings,
which would make it look like we had really blown the chances for world
peace.
I had quite a long anguished talk with Henry, who is obviously deeply
disturbed by this. He makes the point that we have done a number of things
wrong and he feels that Moscow meeting and the Paris meeting
he handled the
wrong, in the sense that he didn't leave any flexibility. He put the issue to them
solidly as the P told him to, and they didn't back down, so now we're in a bad
spot. He feels that because of that, we can't back down now, but it will leave
the P in such a position of weakness that he wouldn't be able to govern even
if he survived it. P feels on the other hand, that he can very well lose the
election by what comes out of this and that it therefore becomes of vital
importance.
In any event, he decided not to make any decision today and continue to
ponder the thing. It turns out that Henry has sent a very strong letter from the
P to Brezhnev, and there should be a reply on that tomorrow or the next day,
and that will show the Russian attitude, which will be another factor in
deciding what we do. The other thing was our poll results last night showed
that 60 percent of the people feel that the P should go ahead with the Summit
in spite of the invasion of Vietnam. In other words, there's strong popular
demand here for the Summit, and that makes it even harder to figure out how
to cancel it.

Hoover funeral this morning. P did the eulogy and did an extremely good job.
Rest of the day was devoted to the debate over the point of the Summit
cancellation.
P called me in first thing this morning and said he had just gone over
things with Haig. He's concerned about the public information operation in
Vietnam, feels we have on watching the news reports, that
to ride Laird harder
they're letting incorrect things get out and not correcting them. Then he said
he wanted K and me to see Connally, give him a cold-turkey briefing on the
Summit situation, get his judgment, and says the other possibility for confer-
ring would be Mitchell. In any event I called Connally from his office and set
up an appointment for right after the funeral, and then the P said he had added
an extra ingredient in the whole thing that he had thought of last night, which
is that if we cancel the Summit, we go for all the marbles, including a blockade.
He deplored again the problem of the military being so completely unimagina-

tive. He said that I should try to get Connally to stay till June 1, that he can't
leave in the middle of the Soviet flap, and the war will also be in better shape
by then. He's concerned that if we cancel the Soviet thing we'll dash the hopes
that we've created in the minds of people by the Soviet trip, that we'll get a very
big bang against us with the Democrats on the warpath with Soviet support.
He wanted to meet with Henry and me at 3:00 and go over the thing, so we
went over to the EOB then and P made the point that he had made up his
mind, that he can't lose the war, that the only real mistakes he had made in
his Administration were the times when he had not followed his own instincts.
On the EC-121 situation with North Korea, he knew we should move in and
hit all their air bases but he let himself be talked out of it because Rogers and
Laird both threatened to quit if he went ahead with it.

Started on 3:00 meeting with Henry. The P reviewed the point that mis-
takes were made, that he didn't follow his instincts, namely on Cambodia. We
should have gone ahead and bombed the North at the time, although we
didn't. If we had moved on that kind of move then, we wouldn't have these
454 H.R. HALDEMAN
problems now. Same with Laos, that although Henry did basically follow his
instincts on this thing, it worked as well as it could have. He said that he had
been thinking it over, and that he'd decided that we can't lose the war. We're
going to hit hard and we're going to move in. The Summit is not important in
this context, and that going to the Summit and paying the price of losing in
Vietnam would not be satisfactory.
He put it very toughly to Henry. He said he'd made up his mind, didn't
want to get into a discussion about it, didn't want to be talked out of it.
Henry kept trying to interrupt, but the P went on very strongly in this vein.
He obviously sensed something of the drama of the moment and he was
pushing his position very hard. When Henry finally did get to talk, he said
that he too had been thinking about it, that the objectives that he came up
with were the same as the P's. He agreed that we couldn't lose the war and
that we had to do something. His difference, however, was that we should
not move ahead with the bombing, as the P thought we should, but rather
should first move to blockade Haiphong. The point being that bombing was
what they were expecting and it's better to do the unexpected, first of all.
Second, the blockade would in some ways be a less aggressive move than the
bombing, although it would be a stronger signal to them and would do us
more good. Henry's opposed to just a symbolic bombing, he feels that if we
bomb we should do it totally, and that it would be better to blockade first
and then on a continuing basis. Also by blockading it gives us a little more
time to keep the bombers in the South, where the military wants them during
the current tough action.
The more the P thought about it, the more he liked Henry's ideas as
long as it was followed up with continued bombing, so that became his
conclusion.
He then had Connally and Haig come over and join the meeting. After an
hour and a half with that group we added Moorer, and the P very strongly put
the thing to Moorer. This was his decision, that it was to be discussed with no
one, especially not the Secretaries or anybody at State, or anybody over in
Vietnam. Moorer was to put the blockade plan together, get everything ready
to pull it into motion so that it would take effect Tuesday morning. He hit
Moorer on this is a chance to save the military's honor and to save the country.
Moorer said he could do it; he also suggested that there ought to be some
offensive action on the part of the South Vietnamese and it was agreed they
would try to mobilize enough troops, 2,000 or 3,000 for an amphibious landing
north of the DMZ by South Vietnamese using all our support and troop
capability.
K had to leave for dinner. The P talked a few minutes more and then
Moorer and Haig left and we kind of wrapped it up with Connally. Then the
P talked with me a bit about the whole thing, feeling that he's done the right
thing, that we justify the blockade as a means of keeping lethal weapons from
the hands of murderers and international outlaws. I think he feels good that
he's made a decision and that he feels it's the right one. He also feels that it's
quite a dramatic step, because it is a basic decision to go all out to win the war
now, under, of course, totally different circumstances than Johnson was faced
with, because we've got our troops out. We've made the peace overtures
all
and we've made the China trip and laid a lot of other groundwork that should
make it possible for us to do this.
My feeling is that the public reaction is not going to be so great on the

blockade, even though it is a big move, because it's not aggressive, but the
bombing that goes with it will, over a period of time, scare some people up.
Some question as to what the quid pro quo will be on this, probably something
to the effect that the blockade will stay on until there's a cease-fire, all POWs
released. When that takes place, we'll lift the blockade and we'll remove all of
our troops from South Vietnam within some time period.
Connally was absolutely astounded at the P's description of the problems
he'd gone through and the other things, especially the lack of support and the
lack of loyalty on the part of Laird and Rogers. I think he can't even under-
stand why the P would even keep them around and thinks it's a sign of
weakness that he hadn't fired them long ago and them now.
that he doesn't fire
He also strongly feels that he should pull Abrams back. The P backed off on
that and I think rightly so.
Friday, May 5, 1972

In staff meeting this morning, we had a discussion of the Congressional situa-
tion regarding Vietnam. Apparently the doves now want to put their whole
effort to curtail the P's powers, put the whole bill back regarding Vietnam
funds. They don't want to be responsible for the defeats in the battlefields,
which it looks like may be happening, or a cancellation of the Summit, which
they are afraid might develop. The idea would be to recommit it to the
Committee and bring it out on June 1. Our hawks want to do that, too,
because they think we can probably play it as a victory.
We had a session with Henry and the P first thing this morning and Henry
was very concerned because Rather had reported last night that the White
House was speculating about a blockade. He's afraid that there's a leak here.
I don't think that's it at all, I think a blockade is just one of the obvious
escalation moves that the speculators are speculating on.

The P decided to leave at 4:00 this afternoon for Camp David. Told me
to talk to John Andrews and have him plan to come at noon tomorrow.
Explain to him that the P was going to give a speech regarding a decision
that he may not agree with, but he should understand he's solely there for
the purpose of implementing the P's ideas. He's not to raise questions re-
garding substance, because it's already decided. I told John this and he said
he had no problem with that at all. We had some discussion of Congressio-
nal briefings for the speech. He's decided to go Monday night. He wants me
456 H.R. HALDEMAN
to check the Monday TV schedule. He made the point that the Democrats
are running a mortal risk because the enemies' refusal to negotiate is due to
theHouse and Senate doves giving them encouragement, and encouraging

them even in North Vietnam to continue their offensive. These people, who
got us in, now are doing their utmost to see that we lose the war. Pretty
tough position. The P did leave this afternoon for Camp David, and will
stay there for the weekend working on the speech. I went on to Williamsburg
with the family as planned.
Sunday, May 7, 1972

I went on up to Camp David from Williamsburg by chopper this morning.
Henry was analyzing things, says he thinks the Soviets will definitely cancel the
Summit. There's no question but that they will launch a venomous attack on
Nixon on the basis that he sabotaged the last chance for peace in the world.
We had considerable discussion about follow-up and planning on the speech.
The P wanted me to spend a lot of time on the use of K and his time. He
thought that Henry should have a press conference on Tuesday and then Laird
should have one on Wednesday.
The P had me over again at 6:00 to Aspen. Said he thought we ought to
do a poll and have it ready to put out so that we could show support.
Discussed the NSC meeting, getting the POW wives organized, disciplining the
bureaucracy, and alerting the Cabinet that there's a major decision. In the
midst of all that discussion he told me that he wanted to have Walter Annen-
berg donate a swimming pool to Blair House so the P has a place there to go
swimming.
Monday, May 8, 1972

The P came down from Camp David last night after seeing a movie. He had
an NSC meeting that went virtually all morning, from 9:00 until 12:00 and
then went over to the EOB. Called Henry over. At 2:00 exactly the P said,
"Well, it's We go." Henry was a little dismayed at that
2:00, the time's up.
point and started arguing some more, but the P said, "Nope, the decision is
made, no further discussion," and from then on I think he felt very solid on
the thing and moved on that basis.
The speech went very well. I think we'll develop substantial support. At
the Cabinet meeting the P explained the background, said that as far as the
speculation on the Summit was concerned, we were aware of the worst there.
An American P couldn't be in Moscow while the Soviet guns and tanks were
in Hue and we should say we're prepared to go forward and negotiate or to
continue with the Summit. The responsibility now is with the Russians. This
decision wasn't easy, you can never be sure. The case for bombing, or doing
nothing at all. all had to be weighed, but this is the best course at this time. To
defend our interests, to get the POW's and to put an end to the war.
The VP said you can depend on all the Cabinet to support this, we're all
aware of your strength over the three years, you've given careful notice
ahead of all your actions, the Soviet part of your speech was extremely well
phrased. The P said he wrote every word of that himself. He said the ball's
now on their side of the net. Rogers said there's nothing really we can add to
what you said. In all the departments we've got to get the word to our
people that everybody should have a staff meeting in the morning. Tell them
the chips are down, that it's easy to support when things are going well but
we need to support now and there'll be all hell to pay if you don't. He said
he was going to do that with his department and to tell the other Cabinet
members that they should do likewise with theirs. Elliot Richardson said
we've seen you a number of times on TV talking to the nation. I've never
seen you more resolute or strong, or reflective, exceedingly thoughtful.
There's a real possibility that the people will respond with support because
of your leadership. The people want to respect and support. Rogers said
that's a good line for all of us to take to our people.
The P then said, this HAS to work. We've crossed the Rubicon. It started
with foolish gradual escalation by LBJ; this is cleaner and more defensible. We
deny the enemy the sources to wage war. We have a definite, precise goal, to
cut off the sources for making aggressive war. We should all reflect the same
confidence, calm. We've done the right thing. We'll stick to the course. No
weak men on the team.
Then after the Cabinet meeting he had me come over to the EOB, where
we had some dinner and had Henry in. We reviewed some of the comments
and Henry went out. Then he told me to talk to Connally on the basis that if
the Summit's canceled, he has to stay a couple of weeks. If the Summit's on,
he can go ahead and go.
We went through the switchboard being jammed, all the telegrams and
that sort of thing. At 10:45 the P called Meany and asked for his support. The
P closed by saying that there'll be a time when we'll all be together again. We
got some good, very positive reactions, and I think we're in good shape on the
response to the speech.

Main effort here was speech follow-up. I had all the troops in last night and
then again this morning. Told them that we were setting up a little internal
planning unit, that we're going to drive hard to maximize public response and
laid out assignments.
Henry had his press conference this morning and did, in my view, a
pretty bad job. He spent the first twenty minutes reviewing all the negotia-
tions and going on ad nauseam about the background and everything. Then
finally, did get into the questions and did a pretty good job there, getting
most of our line across. Still no reaction from the Soviets, we're kind of
sweating that one out.
458 H.R. HALDEMAN

He had Colson and K in today.
Raised some points on follow-up, told me to
get to General Walters and tell him to work independently on Vietnam propa-
ganda, get stories in the South regarding the problems in the North, and stories
in the North regarding the decimation of the regiments and lack of food and
everything in the South.
Colson and then Henry reported to us on his meeting with Dobrynin.
left
He had told me earlier that he had to

see him at 3:00. He was quite excited but
it turned out that all Dobrynin had was a protest on the ship we sunk (acciden-
tally in Haiphong Harbor) rather than any answer from the Russians on their
reaction, particularly regarding the Summit.

Still going on reaction, got some pretty good positive stuff. He was thinking
of having a press conference tomorrow on the response from the Soviets. We
did have a message back from them that was much milder than was expected.
They protested the blockade but didn't demand any action in any kind of way
that concerned our people.
The general feeling now, even on Henry's part, is that the Summit is going
to be on rather than off, and so optimism on that part. The
there's a level of
general attack is going well, the P's mood seems to be very good, although he's
tired. He left at about 4:30 after the Rogers meeting for Camp David with
Bebe.

The problem at the staff meeting this morning was raised on the news that
Defense put out last night that they're getting ready to go for supplemental
appropriations in '72 and '73 because of the increased cost of Vietnam. Strong
meeting was that we should not allow them to do this. Also
feeling in the staff
had a problem with Defense saying that the blockade wasn't going to work
and that we'd be faced with interdiction problems. This was on the news too.
So we have to tighten up on them and watch what they're doing.
Haig gave a briefing at the staff meeting. He did a superb job of explain-
ing the background, making the point that on Vietnamization we've always
cut corners out there to meet the political problems at home, and that the
current situation is not a failure of Vietnamization, it's a challenge of it. In
January the P made a basic decision against General Abrams' recommenda-
tion not to wipe out the North Vietnamese buildup above the DMZ. He did
this because of the public reaction at home and because there had been no
attack on their part to provide us with open provocation. Then he engaged
at that time in a monumental diplomacy effort, which of course didn't work.
Then came the North Vietnamese invasion across the DMZ. Haig points out
that there are two fundamental changes in the concept of Vietnamization.

First, the DMZ restriction was violated, as with the '68 understandings. Sec-
ondly there was a change from guerrilla warfare to traditional war, which
was not perceived by our planners. This has been marked by first, increased
antiaircraft; second, long-range artilleryon a massive basis; third, intensified
density of armored tanks primarily. This created problems since we had cut
everything to the bone anyway on the basis of our original concept. Also,
the density of our helicopters is severely cut, so they don't have the aerial-
supply or troop mobility that they had before. This was not a knee-jerk
action on the part of the P to save United States honor. It was the action of
a world leader who has developed a worldwide concept in a way that it's tied
to his ability to function.
The P called first thing in the morning. He's up at Camp David for the
weekend. He was saying that K was worried because his meeting with the
Senate doves had been called off, and that he had been depressed about the
news coverage, especially regarding the Summit. The P told him to relax, that
a cancellation of the Summit cuts both ways and that it won't hurt us. I talked
to Henry later and he said the P couldn't be more wrong —
he wasn't the least
depressed. The P also said Haig thinks that Monday was the turning point in
the war, that the use of air power has changed the whole situation.
There was a lot of concern during the day about speculation on the Soviet
Summit and the P and Henry both pushed very hard to have everybody kept
quiet on any kind of speculation. Henry met with Dobrynin in the afternoon,
and the discussion was so strongly substantive that both Henry and the P both
believe now that there's no chance of the Summit being canceled. They even
got to the question of the exchange of gifts. The Soviets want to give the P a
hydrofoil to play with in Key Biscayne and in return want a hot sports car
from us. The P called me a couple of times, emphasizing the need to get
everybody to keep quiet on speculations, since there had been some optimistic
stories in the press this afternoon.

The P had a pretty busy schedule today but had me in first thing in the
morning. He had written a lot of memos over the weekend, wanted to do
some powerful discussion on trip plans. He's concerned about operational
confusion around him, with too many aidesand Secret Service and so on.
Wants to cut way down on the people on the P's plane, etc. I warned him
about the probable small reception in Poland, and he wants Radio Free
Europe to build that up.
This afternoon we got the report that George Wallace was shot. I waited
a while to try and get some information, finally went in a little after 5:00 and
interrupted the P's meeting with Don Kendall and had him come into the Oval
Office. I informed the P that we had the report that he had been shot. The P
looked very annoyed at being told this and said, "Is he killed?" and I said,
460 H.R. HALDEMAN
"No." gave him a brief description of what, at that time, appeared to be the
I
injuriesand he said "OK" and went back into the meeting.

As the afternoon wore on, though, the thing built up steam. He asked
to have Connally over and we discussed what he ought to do. It was agreed
that he should put out a statement, which we did. That he should put Secret
Service protection on Teddy Kennedy and Shirley Chisholm (a black con-
gresswoman who was also running for the Democratic nomination), which he
told Connally to do, and that he should go ahead and appear at the Blue
Room dedication ceremonies, although he should not stay for the receiving
line.He did this and it worked out extremely well because it gave him a
chance to make a statement on television about Wallace, without having to
set up a special occasion to do it.
He then hauled me over to the EOB and called Colson in a little later. Had
us have dinner with him there and spent quite a little time going over it and
trying to get reports on what actually had happened. He was very distressed
with the FBI and the Secret Service for not being on top of things and knowing
what was going on. We moved E in and he told Gray, who was Acting Director
of the FBI, that he was holding the Bureau responsible for the safety of the
prisoner they'd captured. We pushed Kleindienst, Pat Gray, and all the rest of
them on a basis of trying to make sure that they understood that the question
here was not on the legalities or specifics, it was one of trying to get the right
posture set before the press immediately leaped on exactly the wrong thing and
started making a big point of how the guy was a right-wing radical.
We got pretty good control of it finally and left at 8:15 to go to a Motion
Picture Association movie. E and I came back to the White House at about
1 1:00, worked there until 12:00, getting updated and filling the P in on Wal-
lace's condition and the status of the FBI interrogatory. Then we gave him a
report about midnight and went on home. The battle between the FBI and
Secret Service got going right at the beginning with jurisdictional disputes and
then with each blaming the other for any of the mistakes that have been made.
So we're back to the same old thing in that area.

The P had me in at 8:00, first thing this morning. Said he wanted to see E,
Colson, and me right after the staff meeting. Wanted to be sure that his Secret
Service is not increased at all. Doesn't want to allow a climate of fear to be
created. He asked me to think of something he could do to go out today,
maybe just go for a walk, or something. I suggested he go over to the Treasury
after the Connally announcement. That would give him a chance to talk to the
people in line waiting to get into the White House, which he agreed to do. He
did, andworked out great.
it
He from a political standpoint this now assures Hubert's nomi-

feels that
nation, and he talked about that a little. At 8:45 we came in after the staff
meeting. The Wallace prognosis is pretty grim. He probably can't be back on
the campaign or anything in the way of normal work for at least three months
and there's a good chance that he'll be partially paralyzed, permanently. The
P feels this gives Hubert a tremendous boost with Wallace not nibbling him on
the right anymore. Now he can move all the way to the left. He told E to do
something fast today on the handgun thing, such as a te*h-year automatic jail
sentence for concealed weapons.
Cabinet meeting with the Connally announcement went pretty well. The
P opened by giving a report on Wallace, on the outlook, and then describing
the steps he had taken on Secret Service protection for Teddy and Chisholm.
On Connally, he said that he had come in on December 14 with the under-
standing that he'd be here a year, and then because we were in the middle of
the international monetary situation in December, he agreed to stay until the
present time. Now the economy is moving and since we have the success of our
inflation fight, we agreed that mid-May is the time to announce his departure.
He'll stay until his successor is confirmed. Kleindienst then broke the room up
by saying, "Good luck."

The P is still at Camp David. Called 10:15 this morning and then a couple of
times right when we were playing tennis this afternoon. He said he told K to
read the riot act to the writers on the Moscow speech; that he wants it cut to
1800 words. He wants to take Andrews. He's going to read all his
definitely
toasts or statements,and he wants them written for that purpose and not
longer than 250 words. He called later to say he wanted it cut to 200 words
maximum, 150 words preferable.

The P's still at Camp David preparing for the Russian trip.
Connally called me
this morning. I talked to him a
about Wallace, he doesn't think Wallace
little
can run as VP on the Democratic ticket. Hubert can't take him, because
Wallace is stronger than Hubert, and third party's out of the question because
he's come so far in the Democratic Party now that he'd have no reason to go
over and diminish his stature. Connally feels that if he's smart, and he thinks
he is, that he'll go through the Democratic Convention and then say that he
can't take the platform or McGovern or whoever the nominee is so the best
thing to do is elect Nixon. He would want to claim that he helped make a P,
and this puts him in a good position.
Saturday, May 20, 1972-Soviet trip
Departure from Washington and flight to Salzburg. He had me in a little after

midnight when we got to the castle at Salzburg, to report that he had talked
462 H.R. HALDEMAN
toRose and she was upset about her accommodations, and the general situa-
tion which is the usual thing on the first night on a trip.
Got into some discussion on how to handle Rogers, said I should handle
him tomorrow, that the P will see him on the plane on the way to Moscow, and
we should tell him about the announcements and how we're spacing them
through the week. We got into some discussion of the demonstrators, who
were here in Salzburg. He was a little disturbed by it, but the news play doesn't
seem to be too bad.

(This is recorded in the P's car, sitting in the yard of the Kremlin outside the
quarters where the P and our star! are staying. It's now Wednesday afternoon,
and I'll cover the period up to this time.)
Started the day in Salzburg. Nothing eventful except the big crowd on the
motorcade route out and at the airport in Salzburg when we left, and a good
flight into Moscow. The arrival was proper and correct, as the news reported.
It was as much as we expected, but certainly no more than we either expected
or hoped for. The first surprise was the same kind of one we had in China. As
soon as we got into the Kremlin and settled down, P was whisked off to meet
with Brezhnev in his office. Had about a two-hour meeting there, thus delaying
the start of dinner, which worked out very well, especially since it was only the
two of them. K did not sit in, so it didn't create the problems that the Mao
meeting did in China. Dinner went very well, toasts were mediocre. No
unusual problems.
At about 1 1 :30, the P called me in to his room
back from the
after he got
dinner, sort of reviewed the day, especially the meeting with Brezhnev, and the
way it was set up. We have already found horrendous problems on the motor-
cade's access to the Kremlin and all that sort of thing. Our press didn't get to
the Brezhnev thing to get a photo, for instance. We had a terrible time getting
them into the dinner, and the right place at the right time. The Soviets are not
cooperative in these areas, and apparently not at all understanding of the
problem we have in dealing with our press.

P was up morning, went for a walk in the Kremlin. Got back
at 4:30 this
around 5:30 and went back to bed and slept till about 9:00, I guess. He then
went to a first plenary session. (Rogers heard that Henry would be working on
the communique and) of course went up the wall. He had Henry and me in
when we got back to his quarters, and he and Henry had dinner. I'd already
eaten, but sat at the dining room table with them while we reviewed the whole
thing.
The dinner went on till about 12:30, after which we all went to bed. The
problems of logistics and operations seem to be working out a little better. We
got Ziegler into the plenary session, and we're getting our press a little better
posted. They seem to be in pretty good spirits. Problem now is our own staff,
who are being kept out of everything, but that's inevitable.

P had me morning before the first head-to-head meeting. He and Henry
in this
feel pretty good because they think they got SALT pretty well wrapped up last
night. It's now developed, as people think about it, that we're going to have
a hell of a problem with the conservatives at home, and P's pushing hard for
the Joint Chiefs, Defense people and other military to work on selling the
hawks.
It turned out that at the morning session, Brezhnev brought in
Gromyko and Kosygin and some others, so the P immediately added Ro-
gers, and in the process gave Rogers responsibility for handling European
Security Conference dealings, also the whole commercial thing. Henry's now
afraid that everything he's put together is going to fall apart, and that we
have a real problem on that. He told the P so, but not very clearly, not
nearly as strenuously as he had told me. Actually, I think it's a pretty good
solution, because it'll keep Rogers busy and satisfied, and it's the only way
that realistically they're going to keep him out of getting into the com-
munique-drafting business.
Henry's working hard, as he always does. He seems to be pretty uptight.
He's working well with me, but is very brusque with others. P is in good shape,
quite relaxed, taking things as they go. We did the Unknown Soldier this
morning, and hoped to get in to the people, but we couldn't because the
Soviets have it locked up so tight that there was no way for the P to get it loose.
So we just gave up on it. Mrs. Nixon's having somewhat the same problem on
her tours, but we've talked to the Soviet police and hope that some of this at
least will be remedied.
After that, P had me in at 5:30 before the signing ceremony to go over
some odds and ends on plans for the dinner. He wants Carver to be sure and
play the Soviet anthem first, and he was concerned about his pancake batter
for makeup and use on the TV Sunday night.
Then he went over to the signing ceremony and immediately afterward
Brezhnev and he started down the hall with our advance party meeting them,
and we thought they were going across to go into the Residence and down to
get in his car when all of a sudden the P and Brezhnev disappeared down a
corridor, zipped into an elevator, shot downstairs, came out into the driveway,
popped into Brezhnev's car, and roared off, with Duncan (Secret Service man)
just barely catching up. K had been waiting over at the Residence, planning
to ride with the P out to the dacha to get a chance to talk with him, and the
motorcade had left without him, K missed the whole thing and was, of course,
furious, but got in the P's car and shot on out. They didn't get back until well
after midnight.
464 H.R. HALDEMAN

P had me in at 10:30 this morning and was reviewing last night. He said that
he had been very tough on Vietnam and that this was the first time K
had seen
him operate like this. They had some problems on SALT as well, but most of
the discussion was on Vietnam. He said they had been whisked away, went out
on a boat ride as soon as they got to the dacha, and then went in and had talks.
We didn't have dinner until 11:00.
Henry came in and he told Henry to give me a report on the thing
Later,
last night. Henry said that the P had been very tough and did a magnificent
job, and that he was very, very cold after they blasted us on Vietnam, and he
just sat there and let them run out their strength, and had done it superbly.
We spent a lot of time sitting around at noon, because the meeting that
was supposed to be at 1 1:00 kept getting delayed. Henry then came in at 12:45,
after we'd been there for an hour and a half or so in the P's room, to say that
the schedule's now been set for 2:00 meeting on economics, and a 5:00 signing
without the P there, and then Henry has to meet at 5:15 on SALT again.
They're still fighting that one out.

Still struggling with SALT. At Henry came in and said that they're
11:00
developing their answer on SALT
now, and he's to go get it. The Politburo's
been meeting since 7:00 this morning on it, and there'd be no session this
morning, it would be this afternoon on the Middle East, and the first question
is whether Rogers should be there, because Gromyko will be, but they don't
want Rogers there if anything's to be decided. So there was some discussion

about that. Dobrynin then burst in and confirmed the schedule, and Henry
and Dobrynin left. So the P was then stuck with four hours to kill.
Then at 11:30 K burst in again, to say he had just come back from the
meeting Dobrynin had taken him oflto. (The Politburo had agreed on the final
terms) and they want to sign it today at 7:00 or 8:00. (The schedule was later
pushed back to 11:00.) Then Ziegler called with the disastrous problem that the
Soviets had released the commercial agreement which wasn't supposed to be
put out till tomorrow, so Ron had to scurry and hold a briefing on that, which
created something of a flap, but no real problem.
Shoved the dinner along as fast as possible, and ended up getting it over
by just a little after 10:30, so the P wasn't in too bad shape in getting back for
the signing ceremony, and it was held just a few minutes after 1 1 :00, with
everybody getting a great feeling of the historic nature of the occasion.
The problem, however, was Ziegler caught me on the way into the signing,
said we had real trouble because things had gone astray at the presigning
briefing, with K and Gerry Smith. Turns out that Smith came into the briefing,
sort of took over from K and blew the answers on several of the items, creating
totally the wrong impression, and had K right up the wall as a result. I got over
to K during the signing ceremony, and under great strain convinced him, sort
he ought to go back and do another briefing after the signing. Klein
of, that
would make sure that Gerry Smith was kept out of the way, and that Henry
had the podium to himself.
After the signing, whilewe were waiting for Henry to go over, I spent
about 45 minutes pacing up and down the halls of our quarters, trying to calm
Henry down, as he was cursing Rogers and Smith. He had learned that Rogers
had ordered Smith and (negotiator Paul) Nitze to stay on Henry's heels at all
times, and under no circumstances allow Henry to have a press conference of
any kind out of their presence. So that's why Smith had come into the thing.
The more Henry and I talked, the more it became apparent to me that the
problem was more psychological than real. In other words, Henry was upset
because it hadn't gone the way he wanted it to go, but it really hadn't gone as
badly as he was envisioning it in his own mind.
As we were waiting, the P called Henry and asked him to come in. This
is about midnight. Henry reviewed the thing in more livid detail for the P. The
P told me to call Bill Rogers and tell him that Ziegler was outraged by Smith's
conduct at the briefing, that he was an utter disaster, that you're to shut him
up; he's to do no more briefings without the express permission of the P or he's
fired. I said, "You know, what good will that accomplish." The P said, "I guess
you're right, it won't accomplish anything, so forget it." He brooded for a few
minutes, picked up the phone himself, asked for Rogers, said, "I'll call him,"
and hung it up. Then he said, when he calls back, you take it, and tell him what
I just said. So I did.
In any event I talked to Rogers, who was quite surprised by the whole
thing, but did make the point to him that only Henry was to do the briefing,
and that's the way it was to go.
So that night, as far as I was concerned, ended at about 1 :00 or a little
after. Iwent back to bed. P went to bed, but said Henry is to wake him up when
he got back, which was, apparently, at about 2:00, and fill him in on how the
briefing went. Apparently it went extremely well, so things got back on the
track later on.
Editor's Note: —
The SALT treaty itself was historic an ABM treaty on
defensiveweapons and an Interim Offensive Agreement establishing a tem-
porary freeze on the numbers of ICBM's and submarine-launched missiles
on each side.

This was our trip to Leningrad. The crowds in Leningrad were huge, but they
were totally restrained by the police, one or two blocks back from the motor-
cade. It was absolutely an eerie feeling to drive through the main part of the
466 H.R. HALDEMAN
city with absolutely no one on the street except police and soldiers. A guard
at the doorway to every apartment, the gate to every courtyard, with people
all kept inside, behind the gates. On the cross streets, they were kept at least
one, sometimes two blocks away, often with the streets blocked with a couple
of dump trucks or buses so that there was no chance of people getting across,
but always with huge numbers of troops. Still, great crowds of people at all
these places, and actually along the main boulevard, but kept way, way back
behind ropes and troops. They responded very warmly when we waved to
them, although they didn't seem to wave of their own accord. It was obvious
that they wanted to see us, and were not going to be given that opportunity
by the Russians.
At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we had a very impressive and
solemn ceremony. The P was quite impressed by the mass graves, 20,000
people in each of them, and the fact that there are half a million Leningraders
buried in that cemetery. He was very touched by the story of a twelve-year-old
girl, Tania, who kept a diary that's in the little pavilion there, and he told Ron
and me about it afterward at the guest house. Later used it in his toast at the
luncheon and later on in the day said that he wanted Ray to use it in the speech
tomorrow night on Soviet TV.
Editor's Note: The diary recounts how Tania slowly lost all of her family
in the war, and eventually she too was killed.
We got into some discussion of the return speech, went over E's idea of
going into sort of a campaign kickorT speech. The P thought that was ridicu-
lous,and of course he couldn't get into that kind of thing, and totally rejected
the idea.On the plane back to Moscow, he and I rode alone in the private
compartment on the Russian plane, and discussed some of these things some
more, and also the general political approach that it's not domestic issues that
we should spend our time on, that's their issue, not ours. We should concen-
trate on the international, which is where we make the gains.

We went went reasonably well, although
to church first thing this morning. It
the Russians, as usual, had all and nobody saw us
the crowds out of the way,
except the people in the church. They had replaced a lot of the normal old folks
who attend the church with Russian KGB types, but it was still a good event
and well worth doing. It'll get good coverage back home, I'm sure.
I got back and talked to Colson to get a reading on United States reac-
tion. He says that Friday night the SALT deal had enormous impact, that the
public before hadn't realized what it would be, and now there's a great new
realization that's especially effective with the swing category type people. He
said that's the main thing that's come through, first is the overwhelming
importance of the SALT agreement, second is the very businesslike approach
to the whole Summit, and the third is Pat Nixon and her performance. He feels
we won't get the full impact on this for a week or more.
P gave his speech this evening at 8:30 to the people of the Soviet Union,
and it went very well, although we had a flap at the last minute because the
Soviets wouldn't let our 16mm camera in, so we have no film coverage of it,
only the videotape. The was that everybody thought it was
reaction afterward
great, even E thought
was so good that we ought to try to get it replayed in
it
—
prime time thought the picture was great, great setting, another historic
event, big buildup, and so on. P especially was anxious to get the Tania
segment replayed because he thinks that's the most important part. He worked
on some follow-up plans along that line. I think we're in good shape.

P had me in at 8:45 this morning, discussing the return speech. K burst in to
say that the Brezhnev meeting was set for 10:00. K and Gromyko had met last
night up until 1:30, going over Vietnam, and Henry thinks they made some
progress. P had me in at 12:30, and I was astonished to find him smoking a
Russian cigarette. He was obviously very pleased.
An uneventful departure from Moscow, except that the Soviet plane had
one engine that wouldn't function, so after we were all aboard and settled
down, we had to get up and move to the backup plane, which was incredibly
embarrassing to the Soviets. Then Kosygin and Podgorny came aboard. They
had brought the Air Marshal in charge of all civil aviation in to see the P in
his cabin, and said we will do with him whatever you want. P said you should
promote him. Then they looked horrified. P said, oh, yes, because he was smart
enough to stop the plane before we got in the air and had a problem.
Editor's Note: This answer by the P was a masterful stroke. This situation
shows very graphically the difference in our cultures. The Soviets expected
the P to possibly suggest some form of punishment, but he very wisely
turned it around in such a way as to make the pilot feel good.
It was funny watch the Russian TV, because they were covering the
to
thing live but cut soon as the plane problem started.
it off as
In Kiev, we had great crowds on arrival but they were kept back several
blocks, and so it was hard for them to see the P, but they waved and hollered
anyway.
468 H.R. HALDEMAN

Nothing special in Kiev this morning. P went through a
lot of trivia on the
plane with me on the way was great to get back on Air Force
to Iran. It
One, where we could really settle down and talk. The arrival in Tehran was
great, with huge crowds and very friendly. Dinner was OK, I guess, but I
had a terrible seat, so I couldn't see any of it. The highlight was the fact that
there wasn't enough light for the P to see his text for the toast, because of
the TV lights, so he had to discard the text and wing it, which didn't make
him very happy. The palace where he's staying and the guest house where
we're staying are lovely, and a great contrast to the Russian facilities.

The big problem this morning was some bombings in Iran which resulted in
the P coming down to his car to go to the Shah's tomb. I got in with him and
we waited for a few minutes before taking off in the motorcade. Bob Taylor
calledme out of the car to say that a bomb had just gone off right at the tomb,
and they felt the P should not go. The P said to check with the Shah and see
what he thought, and that he would do whatever the Shah wanted. I had
Chapin check through the Shah's administrative guy and it was clear that he
wanted us to go, although he left it that the P should do what he wanted. We
talked that over, taking nearly 45 minutes, and decided to go, even though we
were by that time very late. Everything worked out fine, but we had the Secret
Service pretty scared during the process.
The Poland was uneventful. Arrival there was not as big as we
trip to
thought it be, but very big crowds on the streets, and they surprisingly
might
allowed them up pretty close. They didn't get quite as emotional as they
apparently had in '59, but they were friendly, wanted to wave, and we did an
extremely effective job of running the motorcade up to the tomb and then
having the P move to his own car, taking leave of the Prime Minister and
drawing the crowd to him as he stood up in the car.
He got out and was completely engulfed by Poles. They started shouting
"Neek-son, Neek-son, Neek-son," and then they sang their song about may
you live a hundred years. It all got quite emotional and was extremely impres-
sive. Problem here was the arrival statement at the airport. Our interpreter,
supplied by State, was apparently no good, as a number of the Poles told me,
so we made a change and used the Polish interpreter for the dinner, and we'll
use him for the rest of the activities here.
P got into some discussion about midnight, when he had me in after the
dinner, on the speech. Made the point that he wanted me to check out how we
happen to have a girl flute player in the Peace Corps playing in the orchestra
in Iran for the dinner music. He felt this was a ridiculous use of Peace Corps
funds. He made the point that in the car this morning, as we were driving to
the Shah's tomb, that we probably had too much staff on the trip, with which
I agreed, and he said the trouble is, when you have too many spear carriers
along, you find that every time you turn around, they're sticking you in the ass
with a spear.

On the plane to Washington, the P spent most of the time working on the
speech and trying to take a nap. He had Henry and me in a couple of times.
Sort of reviewing the whole what a great job the advance men had done,
trip,
what a great job K had done, the lot of hard work that was involved, how tired
he was and how tired he knew Henry was, that sort of thing.
We got back, with the helicopter, drove that to Congress, and he made his
speech in very good shape, although I was concerned because he was so tired
that he might have trouble. Didn't turn out that way at all. He called me at
home and said he didn't know whether it was worth it or not.
after the speech,
He's had the feeling all along that the speech was dangerously anticlimactic,
and that we probably should have just finished the trip and let it go at that,
but the first reaction would indicate that he's wrong, that the speech itself has
had a great effect, and was very well worth doing.
He has decided to go to Florida tomorrow, which is a good thing, he's
much better off down there than he would be at Camp David. He is extremely
tired. He feels that he can't do anything on the domestic side because his
judgment wouldn't be any good, and if there are any decisions to be made, E
should go ahead and make them.
End of the Soviet trip

Had the Leadership Meeting this morning. Then the P took off for Key
Biscayne. I didn't go. He it was bad weather
called this afternoon to say that
down there, but the base commander had several thousand people out with
flags, signs, and cheering. Much stronger reaction than after China, and he
feels that the Russian trip goes to the heart of what people are worried about
and therefore creates a greater reaction than China's more superficial effect.

At Camp David. The P called me over at 10:30 this morning. He wanted to talk
about the California primary results. (McGovern won by 5.4 percent over
Humphrey.) He wants Buchanan to write a McGovern speech making the
point that he's a sincere dedicated radical. He's concerned that we not let him
get back on track as a reasonable man. We've got to lock him into his far-left
470 H.R. HALDEMAN
positions. McGovern said he'd go to Hanoi and settle Vietnam in 90 days by

saying it doesn't take 90 days to surrender.

E was up today. He had the meeting with the P at 1 1 :00. It's a beautiful sunny
day.We went over to meet the P at Birch. He had a fire going in the fireplace,
which was sort of incredible. We need savage attack lines against the McGov-
ern positions. Get McGovern tied as an extremist. Don't give any ground
regarding the fact that he's changed his position.
The P then made the point that the difference between a conservative
radical and a liberal radical is that the conservative is consistent. That's why
he's conservative. Whereas the liberal will change in order to win. The conserv-
ative would rather lose and maintain his principles. The liberal would rather
win and then try to bring his principles into effect. People around McGovern
know what power is and they want it at any cost, so they'll change their
positions to get it. We have to emphasize looking at his record. That it speaks
louder than his words. His ADA voting record and so on. He's guilty by
association by bringing in (left-wing liberals) Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,
Angela Davis. We should get a maximum number of pictures of rowdy people
around McGovern, while we go for the all-out-square America.
We then got the report from Colson on the Muskie press conference
where he did not withdraw in favor of McGovern, which is good news for us.
Abruptly at about 7:15 this evening the P called me and said he was going
home. How fast could we get up his helicopter, and he whipped out at 8:00.
So I drove on home a little later.

The P had me in this morning. He wants Dent to go out and see Wallace, also
Strom Thurmond to be sure we have approval in maintaining contact with
him. Then call Lukash (the P's physician) to get a report on Wallace's current
condition, and there's the question of our needing to find out what Wallace
wants. See if we can make a deal with him.
Mitchell told me that he and the P discussed the Connally question.
Mitchell reported on his luncheon with Connally before Connally went on his
trip, at which time he asked him directly if he wanted to be VP. Connally said
no, that he is interested in being P, but it's clear that he didn't see the VP as
the route to that. Mitchell's view is that he wants to be Secretary of State and
move from there. He did changing parties and asked Mitchell when
commit to
he ought to do it. Mitchell said after the election, which Connally agreed to.
Mitchell feels we should go on our basis that we have to therefore assume that
Agnew is the candidate, but we should work on a deal with him and make sure
we've got things split up right without letting him develop a high price for
taking the job.

The P got into a discussion this morning of his concern about the management
of the campaign committee. He had been talking to Colson, who had pumped
him full of what a bad job we're doing. He also was concerned about the
contributors problem. The fact that they're hitting us on not releasing our list.
He wants us to have our major contributors make a minor contribution now
so that they get their names listed so people won't attack us for not having the
names on there.

At Key Biscayne. The P is still over at Walker's this morning. I talked to him
over the phone. I reported to him on Shultz's meeting with Meany yesterday,
which came out to be pretty interesting. Meany had called him, wanting to
meet with him, and so they had a game of golf during which Meany told him
under no circumstances could he possibly support McGovern. That he was
working to try and get Humphrey the nomination still, but if that failed he
could not support McGovern. The big flap over the weekend has been news
reported to me last night, then followed up with further information today,
that a group of five people had been caught breaking into the Democratic
headquarters (at the Watergate). Actually to plant bugs and photograph
material.
It turns out that there was a direct connection (with CRP), and Ehr-
lichman was very concerned about the whole thing. I Magruder
talked to
this morning, at Ehrlichman's suggestion, because he was afraid the state-
ment that Mitchell was about to release was not a good one from our view-
point. Magruder said that we plan to release the statement as soon as the
fact that the Committee is involved is uncovered, which it now has been. It
says that we've just learned that someone identified as an employee of the
Committee was one of those arrested (James McCord, Jr., CRP's security
coordinator ) He runs a private security agency and was employed to install
.
the system of security at the headquarters. He has a number of clients. He's

not operating on our behalf or with our consent. We have our own security
problems, not as dramatic as this but of a serious nature to us. We don't
know if they're related but there's no place for this in a campaign. We would
not permit or condone such a thing.
The real problem here is is traceable to Gordon Liddy
whether anything
(formerly with the White House plumbers and then with CRP). He (Liddy)
unit,
says no, but Magruder is not too confident of that. They were thinking of
getting Mardian back to Washington (Mitchell, Mardian, Magruder, and
LaRue are out in California) to keep an eye on Liddy. (Mardian was formerly
now one of Mitchell's
Assistant Attorney General in charge of internal security,
assistants at CRP. LaRue was CRP Deputy Director.)
They think that McCord, our security guy, will be okay, but he's con-
472 H.R. HALDEMAN
cerned about Liddy because of his lack of judgment and reliability. He's also
concerned that two or three others are implicated. Apparently there's some
cash and Magruder thought it was the DNC's, but it turns out it was ours.
I talked to Ehrlichman after that and he thinks the statement is and OK
we should get it out. I talked to Colson to tell him to keep quiet. It turned out
that one of the people (implicated) was on our payroll until April 1. A guy
named Howard Hunt, who was the guy Colson was using on some of his
Pentagon Papers and other research type stuff. Colson agreed to stay out of
it and I think maybe he really will. I don't think he is actually involved, so that
helps. So far the P is not aware of all this, unless he read something in the
paper, but he didn't mention it to me.
With this first reference to the break-in, it's important to make two points.
The first is, as the Watergate story unfolds, it has been left virtually uncut
in the book. The full text of my diaries has been edited down by approxi-
mately 60%, but because Watergate is of such historical interest, it has been
left to stand on its own. The important fact to note is that although uncut,
the material on Watergate is minimal, as it was not a major concern until

April 1973, the month of my resignation.
The second point is one of clarification. Much has been written about
the cover-up that brought down the Presidency. Because history is more art
than science, it is remembered now only as it was chronicled then; this
unfortunately is not always as it actually happened. We never set out to
construct a planned, conscious cover-up operation. We reacted to Water-
gate just as we had Pentagon Papers, ITT, and the Laos /Cambodia
to the
operations. We were highly sensitive to any negative PR, and our natural
reaction was to contain, or minimize, any potential political damage. Our
attempts at containment became linked to other acts within the Administra-
tion and were eventually labeled "the Watergate cover-up."

The P came back from Walker's yesterday afternoon and decided to stay over
last night. Then this morning at dawn it wasn't bright and clear so he decided
to stay in until 7:30 this evening. He reported that he had a long talk with Billy
Graham. Graham has a line to Wallace through Mrs. Wallace, who has
become a Christian. Billy will talk to Wallace whenever we want him to. The
P feels our strategy must be to keep Wallace in the Democratic Party and Billy
can help us on that. So immediately after the Democratic Convention, I'm
supposed to call Graham and Graham should put the pressure on Wallace to
decide whether he's going to be used as a spoiler, which would surely elect
McGovern. Main key for us is to keep this a two-way race. We talked to
Mitchell about who's going to talk to Wallace and how we're going to handle
what his price is.

We got back into the Democratic break-in again. I told the P about it on the
plane last night. He was somewhat interested. The more he thought about it,
it obviously bothered him more, because he raised it in considerable detail
today. had a long meeting with Ehrlichman and Mitchell. We added Klein-
I
dienst for a little while and John Dean for quite a while. The conclusion was
that we've got to hope the FBI doesn't go beyond what's necessary in develop-
ing evidence and that we can keep a lid on that, as well as keeping all the
characters involved from getting carried away with any unnecessary testi-
mony.
The P was concerned about what our counterattack is, our PR offensive
to top this. He felt we have to hit the opposition with their activities. Also put
out the point that the libertarians have created public callousness. Do they
justify this kind of thing less than stealing the Pentagon Papers, or the Ander-
son files, and so on. He feels we should be on the attack for diversion, and not
just take it lying down. He raised it again several times during the day, and it
obviously is bothering him. He had Colson over to talk about it, and then later
called me a couple of times on various specifics. He called at home tonight,
saying that he wanted to change the plan for his press conference and have it
on Thursday instead of tomorrow, so that it won't look like he's reacting to
the Democratic break-in thing.

Staff meeting this morning was mainly on economics and the Congressional
outlook. The Price Commission meets today, and there's some concern they
may take some action on food prices. Consumer price index out today. Some
concern about the Mansfield Amendment.
The bugging deal at the Democratic headquarters is still the main issue of
the day. The P is somewhat concerned about it. Had Colson in this morning,
presumably to cheer him up, but got into strategy on it, which was exactly
what I don't want to do with Colson.
Colson apparently told the P that Bebe has been involved (according to
a report) by Jack Anderson. He knows the Cubans or something like that (3
of the 5 arrested at the Watergate were Cuban). The P wanted me to check that
out. And his main concern, of course, is that we make sure we keep the White
House out of it.
He thinks Dole ought to attack (DNC Chairman Larry) O'Brien for his
malicious libeling and guilt by association of the White House and the P.
Mitchell and Ehrlichman and I talked about the whole thing again this
474 H.R. HALDEMAN
morning, and Ehrlichman comes up with the possible scenario of moving the
guilt level up to Liddy. Having him confess and going from there. The problem
is apparently we can't pull that off because Liddy doesn't have the authority
to come up with the amount of money that was involved and that's now
known under the campaign spending act requirements. So it would have to go
up toMagruder in order to reach a responsible point. And that they, I'm sure,
won't want to do.
The P got into concern about the campaign organizations citing an old
rule which the P believes in strongly, that a campaign team must be lean in
their conduct. They must think of themselves as the candidate. Avoid ostenta-
tious appearance in terms of hotel suites, booze, and fancy restaurants and all
because it just gives the opposition ammunition about us being the party of the
fat cats and it's also hard to justify to our contributors and volunteers. He
thinks this has to be handled very toughly with all the campaign staff. Mitchell
should tighten up the organization so it doesn't look fat. Then he felt we
needed a counterattack on McGovern's huge spending program. He also
thinks every time we have a leak in our organization we should charge that
we're being bugged. Even if you plant one and discover it.

The Democratic headquarters break-in case took some good bounces today.
The main one being that we got Judge Richey to handle the civil case. (The
DNC had filed a $1 million suit against the CRP.J He's an Eisenhower judge.
The Democrats made a mistake in their pleading because they made it im-
possible to have a Democratic judge, because they filed a suit on behalf of all
Democrats so any Democratic judge would be a party We've also
to the suit.
learned that they can't trace the currency (which the break-in people had been
carrying) and that they have no case on Hunt, and no warrant for him. So
we seem to be in pretty good shape. They're going to continue to crank up
the Cuban operation, leave Liddy out of the line of fire and get the FBI
situation straightened out. So at the moment, at least, that looks to be in
good shape.

Henry got back this afternoon (from China). Met with the P and Rogers for
a while and then went on up to Camp David with the P for dinner and
spending the night tonight, and then he comes back down tomorrow to do a
press briefing tomorrow morning.
The Democratic headquarters break-in has gone the other way now.
Apparently Dean feels the investigation is out of control. (FBI Acting Director
Pat) Gray doesn't know what to do in controlling the Bureau. They traced
some of the money to one of our contributors and also the thing that came out
of the Mexican bank. They'll know who the depositors are on that today.
(Campaign money from CRP had been channeled through Mexico to Bernard
Barker, one of the break-in crew.) Apparently, an informant also came in the
Miami office, saying that he had a photographer friend who was developing
films for Barker, including pictures of the Democratic National Committee
letterhead. They feel the whole thing is at the brink right now. And it'll either
open it all up or be closed. The FBI is convinced it's the CIA that's doing this,
and Gray's looking for a way out of the investigation. So we talked to Walters
and had that worked out.
Editor's Note: CIA Deputy Director Vernon Walters was to call Gray and
tell him to stay out of it because it involved the CIA. That would give Gray
the excuse to stop.

At Camp David. The P called me over at noon for about two hours. The P got
into some political stuff. He's analyzing the McGovern They now are
thing.
using three devices to change their image. First, the platform to get him off the
hook. Second, the acceptance speech, which he'll go very moderate on, and
third, the turn to the right by the VP candidate selection. That's going to be
a tough one to do, but it's possible that he'll succeed in it.
We
were talking about Wallace and maybe he ought to go out and see
Wallace this week. At least give him a phone call. He wants to be sure we
provide him with a plane to go to the convention without any fanfare, any
obligation on Wallace's part.
Got into the Martha Mitchell problem. Apparently she called Helen
Thomas (of UPI) the other night and said if John didn't get his ass out of
politics she was goinghim out of the house, but her phones were then
to kick
someone in her room. She's demanded that they be
pulled out either by her or
reinstated, and the phone company has delayed on it, and she's now threat-
ened to the phone man that if they don't get her phones in, she's going to blow
the whole Republican deal, whatever that means.

The P is all cranked up about his baseball all-time-great story (which the AP
had asked him to write). Wants Ziegler to figure out how to handle this Nixon
byline. He apparently dictated it yesterday at Camp David, and has figured out
a super all-time team. One prewar, one postwar, one for the National League,
one for the American League.
He got into a number of political things today. His principal concern
throughout the day was the Martha Mitchell question. John Mitchell called me
476 H.R. HALDEMAN
this morning and said he was going to go up to New York to get her and try
and work out the problem. The P feels that John's got to close her down
somehow or lock her up. But he can't just leave her speaking out like this. It's
going to create a major national problem. He seems more concerned about
that than about the Watergate caper. The problems on Watergate continue to
multiply as John Dean runs into more and more FBI leads that he has to figure
out ways to cope with.

P got back into the need up Democrats, thinks that we're not under
to line
tight enough control on That we should be lining up not only their
that.
Congressional and other VIP's, but all the education, labor, religious, and so
forth leaders that we can. That it has to be done now before the McGovern
cleanup operations start after the convention.
He made the point that the theory is that the American people are like
helpless children yearning for leadership, someone to tell them what to do, and
therefore you have to keep doing something in order to satisfy this yearning.
This is the current theory pretty much.
K came in and he acted all excited that Dobrynin had come in to tell him
that the Soviets are sending a man over to negotiate the grain deal. At quite
a substantial level and that we can move on whenever we want to. The P said
he wants to hold it Democratic convention, and we also
to settle right after the
said we can start the plenary session as he's worked it out, in Paris and
Vietnam on the 13th, the secret session the following week, and that he has no
concern about being able to keep the plenary thing going for several weeks,
although the P was afraid it would blow right then. The P got into quite a thing
about his baseball piece he's written for the AP, the all-time great teams. He
dictated it Sunday afternoon and he's spending an incredible amount of time
today on the whole thing. Working out all the little details of which relief
pitcher the American League prewar should be on, and all that sort of stuff.
Kind of fascinating and not just a little amusing.
He talked to Billy Graham, and Billy was calling to offer to help between
John and Martha Mitchell on their problem and he's concerned about the
publicity about Martha saying that John's in dirty politics. He thinks we need
to do something to cope with that.

The P holed up today to work on the press-conference preparation for tomor-
row night. He did have Colson and me in at noon for a general political
discussion. He got going on the analysis of the '60 campaign again, and
particularly hitting that Ted Kennedy quote today, that Nixon was way ahead
of Kennedy in '60 and then fell behind, which he thinks should be shot down
because it's not true. Wants to be sure we put a lid on stories of how well-
computerized we are, and we should stop anyone from speculating on the P
role in the campaign. Made the point that the Presidency has to come first. We
need to build up the volunteers, the youth and so forth. Tell the pros to work
and not be seen. Had some discussion on the Billy Graham thing. He's very
concerned about letting the view get across that McGovern is the religious
leader in the campaign because he is a former preacher and the son of a
preacher.
Talked some with the P about the Mitchell situation. He's come to the
conclusion, as have I, that Mitchell's got to pull out of the campaign and
that we'd better put someone else in. I talked about this with Ehrlichman
and Higby some today. And our general agreement is that (former GOP
Congressman Clark) MacGregor is the one to do it. Interestingly enough,
the P has come up with the same view. So he told me to pursue it with
Mitchell and see what I could work out. I couldn't get to John today, al-
though he has left with Martha and has come back to Washington. So I'll
get him tomorrow morning.

The P called me from Camp David after he went up there late this
afternoon to work on his press conference. Mrs. Nixon was all upset about
some newspaper story that we've hired a girl to handle the daughters and Pat
Nixon's scheduling. Some more of the same old stuff, where she resents any-
thing implied that she has to have any help.
The P stayed at Camp David until midafternoon, then came down. He had me
come over right after he got back to give him a report on the Mitchell situation.
I had a long talk with John just before that, and fortunately he's come up also
with the conclusion that he's got to leave, and he made the big pitch to me as
to why, giving me the whole background story on Martha. She felt Pat Nixon
had snubbed her at the Duke alumni reception, and then very definitely she
had snubbed her at the celebrities reception in California last weekend or the
weekend before last. After that, John left without telling her about the Water-
gate caper. She discovered that in the papers or on TV, blew her stack, got
drunk, told her FBI agent and John's secretary, who were staying at the
Newporter with her, that her husband had every Democrat in Washington
bugged, and then decided she'd call a reporter and tell him. The FBI agent got
concerned at that and called John in Washington and got Fred LaRue, who
said if she starts to do that, pull her phone out. So the FBI guy took his key,
went up to her room, unlocked the door, went in and pulled her phone out.
She then had a monumental tantrum. Started throwing things at him, demol-
ishing the room. They locked her in. She busted the window with her hand, cut
herself badly. They had to get a doctor, who had to throw her on the bed and
give her a shot in order to subdue her.
Mitchell then sent some friends of theirs out from New York to get her
478 H.R. HALDEMAN
back. They took her to the WestchesterCountry Club. The press got in to her
there. She gave her story out. Her whole pitch is that she's absolutely serious
about leaving John if he won't leave the campaign. He feels she's suicidal as
well as a little cracked, plus drinking very heavily, and that there's nothing he
can do to cure it. He's afraid she'll jump off the balcony at the Watergate. So
he's got to quit. He'll stay on as a consultant and help us with the campaign,
but will move to New York and pull out. That solved my having to raise the
thing, I let it go in this instance and it worked out very well.
McGovern had a bad day today. He lost most of the California delega-
tion on a credentials committee ruling and blew his stack, which looked
pretty bad on TV. Then he's been widely picked up with his quote, that
begging is better than bombing, that he'd be happy to go beg Hanoi to
release the prisoners.
The P had on TV. Went very well. He let it run
a press conference tonight
45 minutes. Got a lot Some pretty bad ones. He was in
of good questions.
better form in a sense because he wasn't so completely programmed. More
relaxed, some good quips, no nervousness.

The P had a pretty full morning, although he had me in for quite a while before
his first appointment. I missed the staff meeting as a result. He just wanted to
chat about the action of the press conference and his general approach to the
Mitchell meeting later today.
At noon he had Colson and me in. Said he had given the Cost of Living
Council a lecture on press relations, which grew out of my discussion with him
on Scali's memo we should move away from White House and
feeling that
Presidential attack on the He made the point
press, except for factual accuracy.
that they are ideologically against us, but we make a mistake when we react
personally rather than on the issues, which is the mistake Agnew and Reagan
made. He wants us to change our strategy on that, which we'll do. He then told
the Lincoln story about the problem Lincoln had with his Cabinet. He fired
one of the Cabinet members, then a friend said they're all so bad, why didn't
you fire them all? Lincoln said that reminded him of the story of the farmer
who caught nine skunks, put them in a pen, killed one of them and the stench
was so bad he let the others go.
We got into the Mitchell thing at lunch today. The P had John and me
over at the EOB. Lunch was served on the table in his conference room and
while John and I had crab souffle, the P ate his pineapple and cottage cheese
salad. We agreed that it should be worked out. Covered some of the details of
announcement procedure and then adjourned to try to work out a statement.
The P met at 5:00 with MacGregor and told him he wanted him to take on the
campaign manager job. We went into some of the details with him and think
we have the whole thing set.
There's some new problems on the Watergate caper. Leading us to a

probable decision that the way to deal with this now is to put all of them
together, tie it all into Liddy's lap and let him take the heat for it, which is
actually where it belongs anyway.
From this point in time until the election on November 8, my days were
spent increasingly on the reelection campaign. The diaries certainly reflect
this. There continued to be many other duties to perform, most of which
were delegated to others. It is both a blessing and a curse to campaign as

the incumbent. You will certainly see in this section the importance we put
on staying in office, and though it may look as if we played rough in this
pursuit, we were no rougher than many other candidates, Republican or
Democrat.

(San Clemente) The P called just to check in, go over the Sunday news.
Thought things had played very well, and seemed to be very relaxed.

We had our MacGregor meetings today starting at about 10:40 with MacGre-
gor, Malek, Timmons, and E. The P questioned Magruder as Chief of Staff
(ofCRP) and MacGregor assured him that's not his role. That will be Malek's
role. Tell MacGregor to get the Colson operation under control but let people
think they're running it. We should maintain a low visibility at the Democratic
convention. No truth squad or anything of that sort. MacGregor should
concentrate on the big plays, and he said that very few make the move onto
the national scene effectively because they think parochially. We should give
word to all speakers that they should not hit McGovern this week during the
480
Democratic Convention. That pretty well wrapped up the MacGregor meet-

ing.
The P and I then met for a couple of hours with E afterward. Got into the
Watergate caper problem. Walters apparently has finked out and spilled the
beans to Pat Gray, which complicates the issue substantially.
Editor's Note: Walters had met with Gray, but told him theCIA had no
interest in Watergate. Also, that he thought people in the White House or
CRP were covering something up, with which Gray agreed. The President
had told him to go ahead with his investigation.
Saturday-Sunday, July 8 and 9, 1972

Had no contact with the P. He took the weekend off and so did I.

He called in the morning on some odds and ends, and then again late this
evening at the end of the Democratic convention on TV. Making the point that
itwas just hard for him to believe that the Democratic Party was actually
nominating McGovern, but obviously they are.

Billy Graham called to give me the names of all his Christian youth types. He's
very enthusiastic and thinks we have a very work with us. He
good group to
also feels we have a good chance on the blacks by splitting them and getting
the religious blacks who are scared of the criminal elements and so on to come
over to our side. He thinks we're in good shape with the Jews.
Later this evening the P called asking about some details on the conven-
tion. How we are handling ours, and so on. He says that we have the candidate
we want now as our opponent, but if they take Teddy as the VP then we'll have
to change our tactics a little. Quite a little laboring and thought about Teddy.
He asked me to do some checking to see whether anybody agreed with the
possibility that Teddy was going to take the VP, but all our people, all our
analysis, says that he will not. The P felt we should still put out a prediction
that he was going to, so that we could shoot it down as a cynical move if he
does do it. We decided not to do this, because there doesn't seem to be any
possibility really of his taking it.
482 H.R. HALDEMAN
I started with the P at 9:00 this morning on our general political discussion. He
wants to review the plans for our convention. Feels that immediately after the
convention he should not appear to coast and therefore should not come to
California, but rather go back to Washington and get right into going on
things. The P is concerned with Rose. She feels that the P should shake hands
with all the delegates at the convention. Which he's not about to do. She's
making the point that we don't have the enthusiastic intelligent young people
that McGovern
has and so on. He's concerned about campaign material.
Wants on what we're doing on the bumper strips and buttons and all
a report
of that. K came in and we had some discussion of the briefing of McGovern
and finally agreed that K should do the first briefing. Henry feels strongly that
he should do it so that he can cover the kinds of things that we want to be sure
McGovern gets and doesn't get. Then after that we would like Haig and Dick
Helms to handle the follow-up briefings.
Connally arrived this afternoon. We had our Connally dinner tonight.
Just the three of us at the Residence. We were planning to watch the accept-
ance speech, but the convention got screwed up. It was delayed so late that we
went home and then watched it after we got home (it was nearly 3:00 EST AM
before McGovern gave his acceptance speech). Connally is obviously very tired.
Obviously interested in and willing to take on hitting up the Democrats, but

concerned about getting that involved and is very much worried how he can
get the time to do it in the next few weeks, especially in getting all the details
set up.
It looked as if we were going to lose the sale. So I suggested that we put

Colson full time on this for the time being. Let him work under Connally. Get
it set him and then let Connally replace him with
up for his man when he's
ready Connally bought that, and on that basis I think
to. we'll put the thing
together at our meeting tomorrow.
After we got home P called after each of the major
late tonight, the
speeches, the Eagleton speech, Kennedy speech and McGovern speech at the
convention. He felt that Eagleton was not good. Didn't come over well on TV,
although he basically looks pretty good. (Senator Thomas Eagleton of Mis-
souri had been picked as the VP nominee.) He felt McGovern did exactly what
he thought he would do in trying to pacify his party but not terribly effectively,
and agreed with me and I think everyone agreed that Teddy Kennedy com-
pletely upstaged both of them and the contrast was quite remarkable.

Connally, K, and the P met for a couple of hours this morning and then
Connally, the P, and I got together again over at the P's Residence in the study,
and it worked out pretty well. Connally thinks McGovern's going to scare the
country on the whole leadership question and that we should set up the
contrast just by being a leader. He discussed Wallace, and it was agreed that
we've got to make move, and that Connally should go see him, but
the Wallace
Connally needs to know where the ball is now and wants to talk with Mitchell
about it first. Colson should go to Texas and meet with Connally to get the
basic plans worked out and then we'd go ahead from there. Then we talked
about the Wallace question. Mitchell reported that Wallace backers had been
having fistfights in Miami. That we got the story that they wanted to go with
the third party, on TV, and that this is what we wanted. Mitchell thinks this
is a phony story, but feels that we need to move on the basis of it being possibly
true. We've got to get Billy Graham to explore it, and I talked with Graham,
who agreed that he would help turn Wallace off and he thinks that it would
be a disaster for Wallace to go on a third-party ticket.

The P had Colson up for part of the flight and got into the Wallace question
with him. Colson's got a lot of input which indicates that some of Wallace's
key people want $750,000 to keep their staff on through the election. That if
we'll do that, they'll come out for Nixon. Wallace won't, but some of his
people and the whole organization will work for us. So now we've got to
will,
figure out whose deal is for real and how to handle it.
John Dean called while we were en route home and said he had to meet
with Ehrlichman and me immediately, so we waited on the plane and met with
him for about an hour at the airport. He had been keeping us posted on his
very real problems in the Watergate caper business. Flew out to California one
day and met with the two of us. The problem now is that there is no way we
can turn off the investigation and it's leading into the channels that we don't
want it in. There's no way to avoid that. As of now, Dean feels that they are
going to move on Magruder and that the only thing we can do is to have him
take the rap that they'll hit him with. And he feels that I've got to talk to him
and convince him that this is what he should do. I'm not at all sure that's the
way to handle it, that I can do it. But Ehrlichman called me at home later and
confirmed that he thought we should do that, although he'd adjourned the
Dean meeting after it became clear that he couldn't read exactly what my
reaction was on it. This is a real powder keg, I guess, and John's sitting on top
of it. John Dean is trying to keep the lid on, but is not at all sanguine as to his
ability to continue to do so.

The P got an analysis of McGovern. Says that there's a conclusion
into
we've all McGovern's shift to his moderate position will be
missed. That
allowed by the press and by his people, because the radicals on the left want
484 H.R. HALDEMAN
power, while the radicals on the right want consciousness. The liberals are
destructive of the establishment. The right wants to conserve the good
things. The left will never let McGovern compromise on power, that is con-
trol of the party, but they will let him compromise to get power. The goal is
power by any means. The press, or antiestablishment, don't believe in the P,

so they will do all they can to get one of theirs in. So our whole goal must be
to keep McGovern hard on the left.
Connally called to say the most important man to all of us in this Dem-
ocratic thing is Marvin Watson, who's entirely with us all the way. Has all
the files and so forth but as the Executive Vice President of Occidental (Pe-
troleum) now, we don't want to hurt him professionally. Armand Hammer
(head of Occidental) wants to see the P regarding his Russian deal, so Con-
nally talked to him. Told him we have to have Watson. Hammer said if the
P asks and really wants him, he'll work it out, and the P will see Hammer
tomorrow.
Watergate thing flared up again today with a problem on (CRP schedul-
ing director) Bart Porter's testimony (before the grand jury) which will start
the implicating of Magruder (i.e., that he authorized money for Liddy). He
decided to go ahead with that. Mitchell and John Dean have spent a lot of time
working out the details and apparently think they have something developed
that will work out all right (to keep any implication off Mitchell).
The P and I met with Armand Hammer today. Ostensibly for him to report
to the P on his trip to Russia and his big oil deal with the Soviets but actually
for us to ask Hammer to let us have Marvin Watson to run the Democrats for
Nixon for Connally. Hammer is hysterical, came in with an envelope full of art
books and his own story of Russia. Told us all about his background in
Russia, and everything, which was really quite fascinating, but he's obviously
completely entranced with himself, and not much of anything else. When we
asked him about Watson, he did agree to let him come.
Billy Graham called to say he had talked to the Governor yesterday
after the operation and that he would say that there's almost no chance of
Wallace's running. Wallace asked whether he would take more votes from
the P, and Graham said he would take at least 75 percent. Wallace said he
would never turn one hand to help McGovern and that he doesn't have the
physical strength to run and that he's 99 percent sure he won't do it, but he
won't close the door completely. He did say Eagleton's coming to see him on
Monday, and he asked Graham to come and see him and asked him in the
meantime to pray for him and indicated that he's concerned because his
abscess won't heal.
Watergate situation came up today. The P feels that we shouldn't wait for
the ax to fall on Magruder; if he's going to get it, he should get out first. He
also liked the idea of exploring the possibility of immunity for Magruder.
He got into some general political strategy. He thinks that we should use
some nonpolitical committees that are already meeting to takeon McGovern.
E's got to stay on top of all the domestic issues and be sure to cover them on
a political basis. We should use Laird and Rogers heavily in foreign policy,
political matters. Someone should keep saying that the Democrats have writ-
ten off the South. We should use Father MacLaughlin with Catholic groups
in the campaign. We should be doing a better job of organizing Wall Street.
He wants to fight the Nixon smear program. To hit them before they hit us.
Agreed to have breakfast with Meany Monday or Tuesday or whatever
worked out for the meeting.
The P and I went for dinner on the Sequoia. The P had me up to the
Lincoln Sitting Room with him afterward and chatted generally a bit. The
main point was that he wants MacGregor and Dole to get out some good
stories about the strength of our organization and big things we're doing.

The P got into a lot of little political odds and ends today. He wants to get
going on a campaign song. Wants to know who the orchestra is for the
convention. At an early time he thinks we have to knock down the idea of
coasting. So we've got to say he's working hard.
He wants to be sure all Wallace contacts are now handled through Con-
nally, and he called LBJ at Connally's request today. There's a memo in the
file on that. Apparently went very well and Johnson will encourage his
it
people to support us behind the scenes. Although he will not come out himself,
of course.
He's still concerned about the Watergate thing but not pushing
a little
hard on that. We
ought to set up a political-advisory board. He's concerned
that we double-check Colson on all names used for endorsements to be sure
that they have really backed us.

Mainly a political day. The P had a couple of public events scheduled which
he got some good mileage out of, but spent all the intervening time in political
discussion. He got into a discussion on how to handle Agnew. He feels we must
not build him up in terms of where he goes and so forth. That we should put
him in the South, the small states. No important duties. He feels he shouldn't
have played tennis Saturday morning. He should have prepared for his press
conference instead.
K came in and we were discussing the need to answer Eagleton on his
attack that we're keeping the troops in Vietnam until the last minute and then
pulling them out just before the election. K makes the point that this assumes
we can program Moscow, Peking, and Hanoi, and thus shows a total lack of
understanding of foreign policy, shocking inexperience, and ignorance. Plus
486 H.R. HALDEMAN
the moral issue. The suggestion that any P will delay the war's end is vilifica-
tion of the worst sort and destroys national unity. We should get someone to
try and take Eagleton on with this.
The Eagleton item today was announcement that he had been in the
his
and we were all flabber-
hospital three times for mental illness (depression)
gasted about that. The P, Buchanan, K, Ziegler, and I all agreed it would
mean that Eagleton will have to be dropped from the ticket, and the concern
is that he might be replaced by Kennedy, which would be bad for us. We're
actually better off with Eagleton than anyone else, so are not anxious to
have him dropped off. In any event, it creates a monumental problem for
them. The P obviously is fascinated by the development as he can't help but
be.
Connally called afternoon to report on his meeting with Wallace.
this
He would not make any categorical statement about not
said that Wallace
running but he did say he would not do anything to help McGovern and
he's almost certain he will not go with the third party and he will not go with
the American Party. Connally told him he knew that he didn't want any-
thing, but Connally wanted the decision on what Wallace is going to do
because a number of the Wallace people Connally wants to hire and he
didn't want to do it without Wallace's concurrence. Wallace told him to wait
until after the American Party convention on August 3 before he moved on
that. Wallace said, I'm sure I won't run but there are one or two chances in
a million that lightning might strike. Wallace said he doesn't want anything,
although some of his people may want money. Connally said he would talk
only on the basis of his personal friendship and former Governorship not on
money, but he does know that all campaigns have a deficit and he's always
available to talk about that area. Connally says he's obviously a sick man,
and that Cornelia said he'd be two or three weeks in the hospital on therapy,
and then they're taking a therapist home with them for a year. John was
convinced that this is the most significant day in the campaign because Wal-
lace is not going to run.

The Eagleton story was the big deal today. The P had me follow up with Dole
and MacGregor to order them not to discuss this at all, even with their
intimates or staffs, and we had quite a bit of discussion as the day went on
about the significance and what was going to happen. There's still total dis-
agreement as to what the effect's going to be and nobody really can measure
it. Eagleton and McGovern seem to be playing it about as totally wrong as
they possibly could.

We got word that Wallace is going to announce at noon today, that
he would not attend the American Independent Party convention, and that
on Saturday, he will announce that he won't be a candidate, and will not run,
etc.

Eagleton was the big item again today, as the debate rages on with whether he
can stay on the ticket or will have to get off. Lots of rumors about other
offenses, and all that sort of thing. All the strategy meetings bogged down into
long speculation about what they're going to do.
We had a political dinner on the Sequoia with Mitchell, Harlow, MacGre-
gor, and me, with the P, which turned into basically a bull session on some of
the strategy things and a chance to let MacGregor cover in general what he's
doing. Those sessions aren't really very productive because the P just kind of
likes to BS and we never seem to get much done.

Senator Ellender died last night, which we learned upon arriving back at
the White House from the Sequoia. The P discussed this morning the fu-
neral plans. He apparently talked with Mansfield last night and as a result
of this, Mansfield recommended that it would be very good for the P politi-
cally to go to the funeral, and the P decided to do so. Wants to take the
key Senate people and the House guys from Louisiana, since it gives him a
chance to talk.
The Eagleton problem is still no new
the big story of the day, with
developments today. Eagleton is more sure than ever that he'll
saying that he is
stay on the ticket, and there are rumors back and forth as to what really is
happening in the McGovern camp. I don't think anybody really knows. The
P played golf this afternoon with George Meany and then went off to Camp
David for the evening.
The P's at Camp David. I stayed home. He called a couple of times in the
morning to report on his golf game with Meany. Said there's a real hatred
there toward McGovern, and absolutely no chance of his endorsing. Nobody
could help, if they take Eagleton off the ticket, except Teddy Kennedy, and
even there, it wouldn't make any real difference. The P feels that the other side
has now a serious problem that we hadn't anticipated, because dropping
Eagleton in light of the poll makes the move both unpopular and weak because
he's not standing by his man. This is a mixed bag for us, because McGovern
could be hurt by dropping him, so keeping him on is not necessarily to our
advantage. Eagleton's strong public support could give him more leverage in
trying to stay on. The P, if he were in this position, would keep him on, unless
he could get Kennedy, to avoid getting the campaign bogged down for two or
three weeks, not because of the merits. The natural desire of the press to help
McGovern would swing behind him.
488 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P's still at Camp David. He had
called Wallace on the phone, had a long
talk with him, and with Mrs. Wallace made a big point about how she
his wife.
often says how much she admires Mrs. Nixon and the girls. He talked to
Wallace about his travel plans and said he wouldn't come to Alabama unless
Wallace felt it was a good idea. Wallace said he would love to have him, that
he's got lots of friends down here. Wants me to get the film Sunrise at Cam-
pobello and have our man take it down and show it to Wallace as a way of
giving him a big lift.
We got into the Eagleton thing again. Connally feels that they're setting
the stage to drop Eagleton. The P said survival is the first law of politics and
of life, and that they have to move on the basis of that. In light of this, he's
concerned about the line we should take, which is that we're sorry for Eagle-
ton, but that McGovern has handled this cynically and destroyed a human
being.

We left first thing this morning for Louisiana for Ellender's funeral. The trip
went very well. The P got a great reception. Lots of crowds on the streets.
Governor met him and said he was for him. Senator Eastland told him that
he'd carry every county in Miss. The Sheriff said he'd clean up in Louisiana,
as did the police chief, etc. He had plenty of time on the plane to chat with the
Louisiana Congressional delegation and pick up some political points there.
Had quite a discussion with me on general political and convention plans. He's
concerned about California, where he thinks we have our major problems.
First, the economy; second, Reagan; third, the fact that it's youth-oriented.
Got into some problems of who goes to the convention, especially regarding
the Pat Nixon staff. Also, the family's obviously pressuring him to get out and
shake hands with the delegates and all.
(He) is anxious to get MacGregor's staff meetings and so on started
and get people fired up. Also that we ought to hit the auto manufacturers, to
get them to hire people now. They're making enormous profits out of enor-
mous sales, but instead of hiring new people they're running a lot of over-
time, which doesn't help on unemployment. When we got back, we had an
economic political meeting with Shultz, Stein, Weinberger, E, and Colson to
discuss the basis economic issues on the basis that the experts know we're in
great shape but the people don't. The problems are on inflation, particularly
food prices, tax reform, unemployment, and the general area of expansion of
the economy.
This evening McGovern and Eagleton had their meeting. Came out of it,
and at about 9:45 had a press conference that was carried on CBS radio.
McGovern announced that while he was satisfied that Eagleton's health was
great and he consistently supported Eagleton, they had made a joint decision.
Health was not a factor, but the public debate of it was diverting attention
again from the national issues and that the paramount need for the Democrats
was unity and a full discussion of the issues. McGovern said that he will
mind at this
consider the Vice Presidential choice very carefully, has no one in
point. He won't tomorrow night. He's requested
discuss the Vice Presidency
free time on all three networks at 9:00 tomorrow night. He says he'll discuss
the campaign to date at that time. Which should be an impossibility. At that
point I called the P to report to him and missed a good chunk of the press
conference.

The big question today was whether McGovern was going to get free time on
TV tonight. went back and forth on it and the net result was that he didn't
It
get the time. He made his Eagleton announcement last night, and then was
going to try to get the time tonight anyway. The networks wised up to it and
canceled the time. Most of them furious because he's trying to con them. Also,
apparently, his staff was very rough, at least on NBC, and he hasn't helped his
network relations a bit by this maneuver.
Connally called to say that Marvin Watson had told him that Ed McCor-
mick in Boston had told him that (Boston Mayor) Kevin White had called to
say that McGovern had called him last night and said that it would be Larry
O'Brien for VP. That this was something that Kennedy was pushing for, and
that's why they're putting it together that way.
Also, I spent most of the afternoon reviewing the Wolper documentary
filmsand was not very impressed with what I saw, considering the amount of
money, time, and effort that's been invested in them. I may review the whole
thing again tomorrow, because I'm afraid we sort of missed the boat there,
although we'll see what develops. The P is going to be furious when he sees
them, because he's given so much time and he knows how much film they've
been shooting, and what comes out looks like a rather inadequate newsreel
hodgepodge.

The P had no schedule today. Spent time on odds and ends. He talked to me
first thing this morning about the Pat Nixon film. Wanted to set up a plan for
her to review it, which we did. The P warned Rose and Tricia to sit in with her
and rave about it, so that we'd get approval. They ran it at 5:00 today, and it
came off extremely well, so we're in good shape on that.

The P had E in this morning to discuss the basic problem of domestic intelli-
gence, the need for our moving on IRS and Justice to get some action on tax
490 H.R. HALDEMAN
and other matters involving people supporting the opposition. Also, he has
some concerns about some appointments in the education area, and made the
comment to E that he's 1000 percent against the educational establishment,
then said, "If I may
quote someone else," referring to McGovern, who said he
was 1000 percent behind Eagleton just before he fired him.
On political strategy, he makes the point that the martyrdom theory is
now reversed. That is, we were concerned originally that we not hit McGovern
too hard, so as not to martyr him.Now, he thinks that theory is reversed, that
McGovern under attack, he's shown he's mortal, that he has feet of clay,
is
that he's a non-sympathetic character at the moment, and when a man has
fallen in battle, the thing to do is hit him again while he's down to keep him
down.

The Democratic VP question keeps coming up. The P got into quite a discus-
sion with Ziegler on the whole Kennedy story about his involvement with
Amanda Burden up in New York.
Another tie-up was the Andreas statement. Dwayne Andreas has agreed
to come up with a public statement saying that he was the one who gave the
$25,000 that they're trying to track down in connection with the Watergate
caper. So we're trying to work something out on that. The P left this afternoon
for Assateague with Mitchell, Bebe, and Abplanalp to spend the weekend. Just
as he left, I conceived the idea of going to California, hopped on a plane, and
we roared out.
Editor's Note: Over the weekend, after turndowns from several prominent
Democrats, McGovern announced his new VP choice Sargent Shriver, —
former head of the Peace Corps and brother-in-law of Teddy Kennedy.

The P was in Assateague most of the day, then came into Washington. I'm still
in California. He called this afternoon from Washington, said that he thought
the beach weekend was good for John M; it was a good relief for him as well
as for the P. A problem because Martha wants to go to the convention and
they've got to figure out how to deal with that. The P feels that we've got to
be sure that all our speakers' talks have a proper balance of anti-McGovern
material plus pro-Nixon. On the next two weeks, he says that we should do
anything we can that's really newsworthy and positive. We should really crank
up the revenue sharing ceremony and get the maximum mileage out of that.
We're scheduling a Cabinet meeting at Camp David Tuesday night and he
wants to give them plenty of time for their briefing and to ask questions. That
was about it.

Still at Camp David. The P and I stayed over, as did E and K, but they left
first thing this morning. The P had me over by the Aspen pool this morning
for a general political discussion.
We got the report on Connally's announcement of the Democrats for
Nixon, which was done via press conference because he refused to take advan-
tage of the equal time opportunity we had, so didn't get on TV, which is a real
tragedy, but that's the way he wanted it, so that's the way it was done.
Unfortunately, we have to handle him that way to survive.
The VP about a problem with Sinatra and the Demo-
called concerned
crats. Sinatra was mifTed that the VP didn't call him, instead of Connally, but
he's aboard now. Rogers called to say he had talked to Meany about the
platform, is hopeful to get some labor concerns mentioned in our platform.
The P called me over at 5:30 and he was swimming in the pool, but kind of
floated around for a half an hour and covered some odds and ends, and he
wants to be sure we have a Jew in the convention program, wants Chapin to
talk to Colson about Italians, Catholics, Poles, Labor, our big breakthrough
areas of the ethnics. He wants that bowling alley built into the Residence, he
wants to buy a house in Georgetown with a pool so he can get some exercise.
Wants K to be sure we have a good Israeli plank in the platform and that he
reviews all foreign policy planks. Wants Colson to get a mailer out fast to
100,000 Democrats with the Connally announcement.

Got into a flap today on the question of the detente with the press, because
Bob Semple wrote a story in The New York Times that makes the whole point
that we made a calculated decision and issued orders to stop jumping on the
press, etc., which is obviously counterproductive. So the P got concerned
about handling this subtly and making sure that we still continue our attack
on the press and particularly eroding their credibility.
The other big thing today was Romney. The P met with him this morning
and George submitted his resignation, complained about Ken Cole and E and
the advance notice to the press, all of which came out in the paper later. He
agreed that he'd work in the campaign, but he wanted to get out. After the
convention he can come out to California and announce that he's leaving. He
apparently complained about the Domestic Council, that his views are never
listened to, that no one important ever goes to the meetings, and all that. The
usual Cabinet vs. staff complaints. P's view is to let Romney go, he's too
negative now. E's view is to let it simmer till after the convention and see what
492 H.R. HALDEMAN
happens. He privately thinks that Romney won't actually go when the time
comes for a showdown.

Still at Camp David. Lot of Romney flap in the papers this morning, P feels
there's no need to react to it. Talked to me on the phone, wanted to see if I had
heard anything from John Mitchell, and wants me to be sure to make the point
to him that we're relying on him for New York, New Jersey, and Reagan, and
we have to know if he's not going to be able to do it. Wanted to be sure that
Agnew stays on an attack on McGovern, not on Shriver, that he should ignore
Shriver totally. McGovern and Shriver were both on TV talk shows today, and
Shriver did rather badly and McGovern did pretty well overall. P called me at
home tonight to discuss the plan for this week. He's obviously cranking into
gear to get started on writing his speech, and was trying to clear up all the loose
ends before he does so. We
have a heavy schedule of nuts and bolts for
tomorrow morning. He wants to get away by 1 :00, and get up to Camp David
to go to work on the speech. Wanted me to make the point with the staff now
that the P will have to button down and not get involved in anything, says he
doesn't need any secretary until Wednesday, but to tell Rose to plan to come
up to be available Thursday morning through the weekend. Says he probably
won't want Ray, he'll work by himself or maybe with someone else other than
Ray because he's too slow. Says he wants me to review the news summary, he
doesn't want to read it, and about 5:00 give him a call with a rundown. He
wants a report on what's going on with the campaign generally, and then
anything that might relate to the speech, and eliminate trivia. He does need to
know what the folks are thinking and hearing about, though. He thinks it's
better not to break or be distracted during the day, but at 5:00 to take a break
and get the rundown then.
Raised the point that Ehrlichman's got to understand that the O'Brien
follow-up and the attack on high-level Democrats is much more important
than the platform, they come first. Wants the Watergate thing discussed,
thinks Ehrlichman's plan which we Camp David is
talked about yesterday at
probably the best. was that we would have MacGregor
The thought there
come out and give the full background story right at the time of the P's
meeting with (Japanese Prime Minister) Tanaka, so as to be overridden, and
then hope that settles our side of it prior to the issuing of indictments in
mid-September.
Then he got back to the question of whether we have an adequate opera-
tion getting a list of McGovern supporters and contributors and running
checks on them and see if there are any vulnerable connections: left-wing or
mob connections, and that sort of thing. He thinks we should be doing this
with all of McGovern's top contributors.

Back in Washington for a heavy schedule today before returning to Camp
David for more work on the speech. P met first with Connally at 9:00 this
morning, got into a number of things on ideas for the campaign. Need to spend
the night at Connally's when he does the Democrats for Nixon at his ranch.
Agrees that we should get Billy Graham to talk to Lyndon Johnson and urge
him to be cool to MacGregor when he comes to see him next week, thinking
that Johnson's friends won't understand if he puts his arm around him. About
the strategy on debate: first make the point that the P doesn't intend to debate,
especially because of the way McGovern is distorting things. Second, hang the
whole thing on the national interest, just as LBJ decided to do.
Into the question of Watergate. P made we should wait
the point that
until the indictment. The question was we should wait until the
raised whether
indictment or whether we should prepare in advance. We must make a case for
the Reelection Committee on how it conducted its own investigation, so when
the grand jury indicts, it will cover the noninvolvement of others. First, we
should leak out now about our investigation. Second, while the P's in Hawaii,
MacGregor should put out a statement describing the results of the investiga-
tion. Forget the legal question, deal with the political PR, get our line out in
our way. If we can absolve all the top officials, then we should put it at the
lowest common denominator. The funds were misused, the culprits have left,
no one else was involved. But we must be sure of our facts from the grand jury
and we must know what Justice's going to seek out of the grand jury. Be sure
of those facts.
P then met with Moynihan, who's writing an article for The New York
Times Magazine, and wanted to get a view of the P's look at his second four
years. P expanded quite completely for Pat on this, made the point of the
coherent philosophy, tying in foreign policy, economic policy, and domestic
policy. He is a new philosophy and a new way. Make the
should say that there
point that the FDR was made up because they wanted to win, but
coalition
they didn't belong together, they were drawn together by their fears. First the
economy and then the war. Our new coalition will be held together, not by
fears but by common hopes and a shared philosophy. Not total agreement, but
a recognition for the need for civility, different ways to approach government
goals. In other words, we will form a national coalition that shares common
views regarding what the country ought to be, at home and abroad. We have
to find coherent policies, not to suit the new left or the new liberals, but closer
to the 19th century liberals. Internationalism without imperialism. Change
that works. Constructive. We'll build, not destroy, based on the old values. We
have to find a way to get the pragmatists and the idealists together. Moynihan
was ecstatic with all this material, and got quite responsive and excited with
the P's views, and should come up with a pretty good article.
On the POW offer from Ramsey Clark (Clark had returned from Hanoi
494 H.R. HALDEMAN
supposedly with a POW release offer), we should refer to the fact that McGov-
ern came back with the same deal from Paris. It turned out to be phony, now
Ramsey's is also a phony. We got into quite a thing with Colson and Haig on
this, and the point that Haig doesn't want to push too hard, because at the
proper time, K will pull the rug out from the whole thing. We must stay away
from it until we know what he has. The problem is that Clark may have a
legitimate POW offer. So everyone backed off today and laid low, which was
probably just as well.

At Camp David. P's concerned about the convention reapportionment prob-
lems but thinks we're wise in following the E plan of staying out of the battle
ourselves, and he's going to do so, too. Had a report from John Dean on the
Watergate business, says that things went okay with Magruder, at an informal
thing last night and then with the grand jury today. He was about two and a
half hours, came off okay with no surprise questions or any new evidence.
They focused on me, apparently, in trying to get Jeb to tie me into the case
somehow today, although last night they focused on Colson. John thinks that
things are under reasonably good control there.
Got into big flap with the P on Pat Nixon's being set up for a TV interview
with Maraya MacLaughlin at CBS, and apparently really got a bad deal out
of it, in that she was getting a lot of rough, loaded questions. As a result of this,
the P wants Ziegler to put someone on Mrs. Nixon to cover her at the
convention. Get Barbara Walters and Virginia Shroeder of ABC and NBC out
to her and be sure that CBS is cut out. Then he also said that he was going to
have to stay at the hotel in Miami, that he couldn't stay over at Key Biscayne,
because MacLaughlin in the interview made a big thing of Mrs. Nixon's being
separated from the P all the time. So he told me to work something out on that.
I knew the big pitch was talking him out of it, and then talked to Julie, and
she agreed to try and straighten it out, and called later to say that she probably
had.
Had a long talk with Billy Graham and a report on his weekend with Lyndon
Johnson. Billy says he helped Johnson modify his endorsement to make it as
cool as possible, says that he's selling his TV station, Johnson is, to the LA
Times later this home and all to the park
week. Secondly, he's giving his
system. Third, he advises the P to ignore McGovern. He says he should go out
and identify with people, to ball games, factories, and so on. He thinks the
McGovern people will defeat themselves. He feels very strongly anti-McGov-
ern. Says the P should not do too much campaigning, stay above it, as Johnson
did with Goldwater. He's very grateful regarding the treatment by Nixon for
him, especially of his two daughters.
Billy Graham's a little concerned about Vietnam, and about the bugging
thing. He doesn't think bugging is going to hurt us. Lyndon Johnson laughed
about it, said it won't hurt a bit.
Regarding the acceptance speech, Billy feels that it should not be like four
years ago, because he's now P. He doesn't need the flamboyance of the chal-
lenger. What will appeal is a high road, illuminate the accomplishments, look
to the future, what can be done. Have a foundation to build a new world, and
a new America, and we're just now able to do it. He
P must talk to
says that
the workers of the campaign. Get mention McGovern
into the issue that never
by name. Hit the socialistic welfare state versus America where you can start
at the bottom and work to the top. The only way the McGovern plan would
work is under a dictatorship. Said the speech should not be long, and it should
always be as P of the United States. He feels McGovern's getting more desper-
ate and contradictory every day, that we should let him stew in his own
problems. The P liked the negative view of comparing Nixon's position versus
McGovern's. He thinks that makes the new coalition for the purpose of
defeating McGovern, instead of accomplishing what our goals are. There
should be uplift, not attack, and then talk about how to do it. We should start
on strongly affirmative basis, with the goals we seek. Also, he thinks that
McGovern's tactics are an attack on the institutions of this country, not on the
Administration. The issue is not the incumbent versus the challenger, but the
view of the nation and its institutions. One is an uncharted sea with an
unknown navigator, so the conflict is between McGovern and all we hold dear,
not between two men contending for the Presidency.
Had a scare today on the Jewry situation, because the Russians are going
to charge duty to Jews leaving Russia, and that's created a big flap in this
country. Rogers is all stirred up about it. I'm supposed to keep Rogers from
seeing Dobrynin on it tomorrow, which I think I've successfully done.

We had a 90 minute flap with the VP regarding his seconding speeches, because
he finally decided yesterday to have Dr. Joyce Brothers, the psychologist, be
one of the seconders, and they went ahead and asked her. This obviously
would be a disaster, in that it would look like he got his own psychiatrist to
prove he isn't nuts like Eagleton is. After going around on it, I called him back,
told him he couldn't do it, he said he wanted to check it with P, I did, the P
agreed, called him back again, said that is the decision, he agreed to go along
with it, although it would be very difficult for him, since he has to now turn
her off.
Mitchell called, very concerned because MacGregor was putting out some
stuff on the Watergate thing in self-defense. John's very concerned because
what he's putting out is and it undercuts our legal posture, and
not the line,
so on. He wanted me to call MacGregor, tell him he's got to use the line of "no
comment" because individual rights are involved. We'll have a statement at the
496 H.R. HALDEMAN
appropriate time and then scare him into the fact that he may blow the lawsuit
and some of the individuals concerned if he doesn't stay with the line. He's
anticipating before we know the facts. Mitchell's concerned because at the
convention Clark will be all over the television, and it's imperative to keep this
down until after the convention.

Camp David. P had me over to Aspen at 9:30 this morning. He was sur-
prised by our big lead in the West. Feels we should watch for distortion of
poll data, such as the Gallup story in the Post. Mentioned that he nearly
broke his ankle last night when he took a walk with Henry and stepped into
a manhole or something here at Camp David and twisted his ankle. He was
limping this morning. K came in, we had a discussion about his activities at
the convention. Agreed that he should do as much social stuff as he wants,
that he should take interviews in the box only on an informal basis, should
not schedule any formal interviews. He should do the youth caucuses, but
not for television.
P asked me have Rogers and Price take a stab at the conclusions to the
to
speech, he wanted the Bible thing from Andrews, particularly regarding chil-
dren and peace, wanted Price to work on a short conclusion with uplift and
emotional impact, very personal, with dedication to peace and a better life for
the people. They turned it in, but they didn't know what the President wanted,
and they didn't really accomplish much. He had me over twice and went
through reviews of segments of the speech, still trying to work on the conclu-
sion. He had Ziegler, K, and me for dinner at Aspen. Then at 9:15 he had me
back over at Aspen, read through some of what he was working on. I made
some suggestions. Still on the conclusion, primarily. At 10:30 he called me
again, and he thinks it'll work now, and he wants to review it with me. I met
him in the office at Laurel, and he skimmed through the whole speech. It is a
tough and political speech. I think it's right but it's hard to tell.

Camp David. Connallywoke me up this morning to report on Lyndon John-
He had talked to Johnson, he's mad as hell, furious about the
son's feelings.
whole McGovern approach to things. He told McGovern that he'll meet with
him for one hour, that there's to be no press and no pictures. Then McGovern
will have a press conference afterward.
The P wanted me up to the Aspen pool at noon, said he wanted me to
check with Mrs. Eisenhower and see if she's at the farm, if he could drop in
to see her after the tribute to Eisenhower at the Convention today. She was
delighted to do it, so we set it up on that basis. Had a very good visit with her,
had sit around and wait for quite a while because Ron didn't have the press
to
there.Would have made a good story. She did a superb job in the film at the
convention. P got into some further questions he needs on speech statistics. He
wants to use a figure of what their platform will cost, say it will increase taxes
over 50 percent and add over $80 million to the welfare rolls. P reviewed his
speech with me, he keeps going over it, trying to assure himself that he's on the
right track. He's still not really convinced that he is, but he's pretty well past
the point of no return now.

Started in Washington and then in Florida this afternoon. P went into a
discussion of his reaction to the documentary that was on TV last night (the
Pat Nixon film at the convention), which he watched. He felt that the problem
was that it lacked an architect and thus lacked a theme, covered too many
subjects. We needed an editor of ours who was not just technically good, but
personally committed to get heart into it.
Billy Graham called to report a 45-minute conversation he had with
Lyndon Johnson reporting on his meeting with McGovern today. Johnson
said the press are mad, but they weren't allowed in. Johnson told McGovern
how he felt, and that McGovern could share these thoughts with anyone he
wanted to. He said he would not campaign for him, and that it was McGov-
ern's sole reason for coming to see him, was to get him to campaign. He cited
all the good done for him, says that McGovern is associating
things the P's
with amateurs, that he ought to shake up his staff, and he ought to stand up
and say what a wonderful place America is. He told Shriver that he didn't
know what he was talking about on Vietnam (Shriver had claimed that both
Nixon and Johnson had "blown" peace opportunities in Paris), he had the
documents to prove it, and he handed them to Shriver and told him to read
them. He also told McGovern that he has letters in the library, and that he
should go read them, regarding Vietnam. Straighten him out on his misconcep-
tions. He said Connally's the most important man in Texas, and you should
hope and pray that he won't make a speech against you, because that'll be the
end of it. He told him to get with the old pros, and get themselves away from
the amateurs they were working with, that it's probably too late, that they
should do this in any event. He made it clear to Graham that he would be
happy to see Nixon if he wants to come and visit him. On the plane to Key
Biscayne, the P got into his planning on the other speeches, the balance of this
week, the weekend speech, the school speech, San Diego and San Clemente
arrivals, and so on.
We did the youth rally at the Marine Stadium tonight, and it was a
sensationally good idea, and worked out extremely well. P handled it perfectly.
Came in through the back of the crowd, got a tremendous reception and great
enthusiasm, gave a good talk, and everybody who saw it on television was just
498 M.R. HALDEMAN
we scored maybe the major coup of the week or maybe even

ecstatic, so I think
thecampaign with that appearance. P was very pleased with it afterward, and
we had a chat at the house after we got back. He sees the value of picking up
some of these things, and I think we can get him to do more.

At Key Biscayne. P spent the day working on the speech. Got into the details
of arrangements, he wants to do his makeup in the trailer, be sure there's no
commotion. He wants to be at the hall before the VP is introduced, he went
through the details on how he wants the onstage procedure, that is, the VP to
come up and then Mrs. Nixon up and then the family up. He doesn't want
anything with the two families together, and he wants to be sure the VP
understands no hands-over-head type shots.
Went into the details of getting the family over to Key Biscayne, how we'll
work all that out, making sure that the crowd on the floor of the convention
gets up to the podium. Lot of minor details on general arrangements of that
sort, and the plan for the handshaker after the speech, after convention hall.
That all worked out fine, the speech went over reasonably well, it wasn't one
of his great speeches by any means, but it accomplished what he was after, I
think in laying out the issues. Had me over to the house afterward to sort of
talk about the whole thing. Seemed to be in good spirits and went to bed
reasonably early.
Big flap on speech problems, particularly on the Michigan school speech.

The P decided to give the speech extemporaneously. As it turned out, that
was a real coup because it turned out to be sensational. He gave a marvelous
speech on calling some of his schoolteachers (and telling them) what they
had meant to him, taking the line that kids should never give up, always try
again, and so on. We put out a busing statement that worked well on the
news, so we got the busing point across even though we weren't allowed to
use it in the speech. Came out fine, but it was only by luck rather than the
version that came out. The P did a good job; the rest of us pretty much blew
the thing. He wants more tight material, and we've got to keep pushing on
that. On the plane, he talked to me about the speechwriting problem. He
feels that the mood of the country is upbeat, good news, not ugly, a good
feel, not contentious, and that our speeches have to fit the mood of the
audience and the country. Got into some schedule ideas for the future, after
San Clemente arrival this evening, which incidentally was sensational, with a
huge crowd. He thinks now that he should go out and touch up the country
once a week. Wants to go over the whole schedule thing with me tomorrow,
as well as speechwriting problems.

San Clemente. He got into quite a little on scheduling. The point on the
Eisenhower theory that once you start, you should go all out, the momentum
theory, and he wonders if we should be doing that now or if we should hold
off and still do that in the last few weeks. He feels there is some dramatics
involved in getting out later, in that it would take some of the foam out of that
by going out earlier. We should think in terms of winning states, not national
results. We should get a lot of events stockpiled for the P to look at, that are
not too way-out or patently oddball. We should avoid the dog-and-pony
shows of E's. We should figure what we want to do, what states to hit, where
we have pluses. He'd like to take a look at these things, to plan in advance, but
keep it and keep the opposition off balance. On McGovern
closely held,
attacks, he wanted to be sure that Kleindienst puts out the violations of the
spending act on their side, that we have to get some stuff out on the McGovern
fund-raising. E's got to follow up on O'Brien, where that money went, so forth.
We need someone at Treasury who will talk politically and take the attack on
all this.
Editor's Note: Howard Hughes was paying O'Brien's lobbying firm a large
yearly retainer, and the President had ordered an IRS audit to see if O'Brien
had slipped up with taxes.
Connally was on one of the TV shows today and did a darn good job.
There were some good cracks at McGovern. VP also was on, and did a very
calm, reasoned thing, especially good on the media, and both of those came
out very well.
This evening was the celebrity reception at the Residence, which went very
well. We had an extremely good turnout of the top stars, and a fascinating
combination of Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, John Wayne,
etc., plus a lot of the young ones. He was very pleased with it, and I think it
was worthwhile.

P had his press conference today. Went very well. He had 15 questions, 8 of
them political, 4 on Vietnam, 2 a sort of a combination Vietnam/political. One
on foreign policy and none on domestic policy.
E and I met with him to take care of the overriding problem of E's attempt
to move into campaign management, which they're resisting, and succeeded in
doing so in the meeting. They've now got E back out of it. We also settled on
a basic strategy for the time being on the release of the investigation internally
500 H.R. HALDEMAN
of the Watergate caper. The Gallup poll is out today, with Nixon up 64/30,
the highest we've ever been. Then the P raised the point of the need to have
our people have confidence our campaign. The P shouldn't have people on
in
our staff who think they're the candidate, and keep telling the P what he ought
to do. He can't get out of character, and only the candidate can feel the
campaign. People should not assume that the P is unaware of the problems.
So he wants them to unload on me by memo so that I can then funnel it to the
P in an orderly way.

P had me in this morning for a series of miscellaneous follow-up items. He was
concerned about the schedule for Hawaii. He didn't think we'd allowed
enough time wants to be sure that we sent
for the receiving line at Clare Luce's,
certificates to medal
all thewinners at the Olympics. Wanted to be sure that
the convention people were told what a great job they did; the Gallup poll
shows the credit they deserve. Wants to be sure Haig doesn't let Henry's desire
for a settlement prevail; that's the one way we can lose the election. We have
to stand firm on Vietnam and not get soft. Hawaiian arrival was OK, not too
big a crowd, but a great introduction by Governor Burns, who has indicated
to E that he will have to stay a Democrat publicly but that he's voting for the
P. Then good reception at Clare Luce's, and we got the receiving line done in
exactly the time he had scheduled, so that problem was overcome. He says he
talked to Stans and Colson on the phone to cheer them up after their deposi-
tion with the grand jury, and so on.
On the way to Hawaii (to meet with the Japanese), he made the point that
we should use the line "The tactics of the desperate man" to hit McGovern.

In Hawaii. P had me in this morning before he started his second run of
meetings with the Japanese to discuss some general strategy things. The only
significant thingswere to be sure that we totally ignore Mrs. McGovern, and
that Mrs. Nixon never comment on anything that Mrs. McGovern has said.
She should always handle it as a "No comment." Got our poll today, and it
confirms Gallup and Harris as far as the 35-point spread is concerned. It also
gives us some good information on solid intention to vote for Nixon, etc.,
which is very encouraging, since we have a solid base at 47 against McGovern's
16, and it seems hard by any way of analyzing the polls to find a way that we
can lose.
P had me up on the plane to go over the Vietnam part of the poll with
Henry, and we had the meeting with Admiral McCain, Bill Rogers, and Henry.
P had me up for most of that. McCain was most strongly outspoken in his
commendation of the P's handling of Vietnam, and especially the mining of

Haiphong and the interdiction bombing. He is obviously a great Nixon fan. He
did a great job at the return ceremonies this afternoon before we left Hawaii
in praising the P's Vietnam actions.

In the office at San Clemente this morning, big problem was the Olympic
disaster where the Arab guerrillas captured a group of Jewish hostages. We
had a lot of checking back and forth as to strategy. P moved with a statement
of horror and joined with Israel in urging the games be suspended. The story
went on as the day developed with a lot of conflicting reports. Remarkable
coverage by ABC live on television by satellite. The day ended up with the
discovery that they had all been killed. The P talked to Rabin and called me
at 1 1:30 tonight at home, said that he wanted to have a meeting with Haig and
Rogers in the morning and K at 8:30. P said that we should see how it develops
tomorrow, that there may be a great sense of outrage and sympathy, and he
may have to take some action, such as going to the memorial service. He made
the point that any international event that overrides McGovern's whining and
carping helps us in the long haul.

P met with Rogers and K first thing this morning on the Israeli hostage
question. Wants Rogers to take the matter to the UN. P's fortunately off the
idea of going to the services, but is talking about going to church at the time
of the funeral without any prior announcement. Connally makes a good pitch
on tax reform, that when McGovern talks about it, we shouldn't talk about
a new program, we should hit the specifics of what we've done. We've taken
9.5 million people off the tax rolls at the low-income level, we've reduced
personal income taxes $19.5 billion, we've reduced the excise tax which is paid
by individuals by $3.5. We've raised corporation taxes $4.5. We will reduce the
property tax. There were two reform bills in '69-'71 that were the most
sweeping tax reform in this century, since the income tax started. We should
hit McGovern's tax proposals as old proposals that were submitted to Lyndon
Johnson, and he thought they were so bad that he wouldn't even send them
to Congress. Connally then had his Democratic crew in. P met all of them.
They were quite an impressive group.

P had me in first thing in the morning just to review some odds and ends on
the schedule. E should move on the O'Brien-Hughes money now, force him to
502 H.P. HALDEMAN
divulge his other clients, that kind of thing. Connally had raised the other day
we could probably get Gene McCarthy to endorse the P publicly
the point that
if we could him a seat on the PBL board, or the FCC. I discussed that we
get
have the Johnson seat coming up on the FCC in June of next year and we can
commit that to him, and then try to accelerate it. P wants to be sure that
Edward Bennett Williams and all the other lawyers of that sort in Washington,
Democrats who haven't joined us, that we should make a list of all these
people, lobbyists and lawyers, and after the election cut them out forever. Cut
Williams completely, and the Redskins, and then build up our own lawyers. I
suggested that this is the ideal job for Colson after the election. P basically
agreed. Also wants to get individual reporters and publishers, and establish a
black list there, and move on it. He wants a study made by Buchanan and
Allen on the 20 most vicious, influential DC reporters and television people,
and make a list for each of them of the things they would like to forget they
said. He met with Stans this afternoon to try and cheer him up, since there was
concern that he was depressed, also agreed that he'd see Hugh Sloan (the CRP
treasurer).

P had me in first thing this morning for a full morning schedule. Mainly
concerned about the Watergate, wanting to know what the grand jury's sched-
ule was, what our thorough game plan our PR plan on how to handle the
is,
whole thing, the need to take the offensive, develop a line, and so forth.
He also wanted to get E off his tail on the O'Brien matter, he feels John's
too busy to look into it, and is having one of his minions handle it. Therefore
it's not getting done, and he thinks it's extremely important.
we got into the Watergate thing in considerable
In the political meeting,
detail and had John Dean in. It appears that the leak the Democrats are
building their case on now is Baldwin, the former FBI agent hired by McCord
to handle Martha Mitchell, and was the guy monitoring the bugs at Howard
Johnson's (across the street from the Watergate). Feeling is that he's been
immunized by the prosecutors, and that because he has the Democratic lawyer
and leans that way anyway, that he's spilled the beans to them. They expect
to get indictments on Friday, the government case will go to court, be assigned
in a week or two, and if it's expedited, it will still take long enough to file
motions and so forth, that it's very unlikely that it will be tried before the
elections.
P has and was doing a lot of coughing and
a virus, apparently, today,
eating a lot of Coricidin and somewhat sorry for himself. This after-
feeling
noon, he had me in to run through a lot of odds and ends for a couple hours
on scheduling White House functions, says Mrs. Nixon has now agreed on
Filipinos versus blacks, and we can probably move to have Ron Jackson take
over management of the Residence after the election, and shift away from all
black waiters. Then he called me at home tonight to say he was looking over
the girls' schedules and feels we're not handling it right; they're wasting their
time doing service clubs and universities, and wanted me to look into changing
that. He made a call today to Chris Schenkel of ABC at the Olympics, told him
what a great job they were doing covering the games, especially emphasizing
the patriotism and playing up the positive points in that area. Worried Ziegler
some because he did criticize the refereeing and hit the United States Olympic
Committee for trying to defend the guys that didn't stand at attention during
the "Star-Spangled Banner" and then were kicked out by the International
Olympic Committee.

Started the day with the joint breakfast meeting with the Cabinet and GOP
leadership. Kleindienst spoke on the Watergate, said the indictments would be
coming down Friday, that the data on the investigation would be put out to
obviate the whitewash, and only the people who were indicted were involved,
no one in the White House or CRP.
He had Colson and me in for a long session later this morning. On general
politics, following up the breakfast meeting. He says he's changed his view on
Shriver, that instead of ignoring him, we should be making him a liability and
start cracking him by lower-level people. (In a meeting with Colson) P wonders
about getting F. Lee Bailey in as associate counsel in the Watergate lawsuits
to try and stir up some publicity. Wants to get American flags on all of our
people and on the bumper strips, get the flags out to wear on the lapel. We got
into a discussion of the idea of a Kleindienst special review board; wants me
to talk to him about that. That is, to overcome the whitewash charges on the
Watergate investigation. Had some ideas on redoing the White House after the
election, the family dining room, redoing his bedroom, so forth. On the heli-
copter to Camp David, got into a schedule discussion. Toying with follow-up
things from the RNC reception, maybe do the new airport in Kansas City.
Wants to do a couple of small towns, wants a study listing all the cities that
he's never visited of over 100,000. Wants to use visuals for the VP's foreign
policy speech. Likes the idea of trying anew approach to motorcades, putting
the VIP cars in front of the P, and had a lot of general talk about that sort of
thing. After we got to Camp David he had Pat McKee (a White House
secretary) and me come over for dinner, and we continued the schedule
discussion primarily. Left early.

Tonight he had Mitchell, MacGregor, and Connally up for dinner and a
general political planning session. Spent quite a little time on the Watergate.
He agreed that the commission idea was no good, we'll go just with the press
conference by Peterson of Justice with a follow-up by MacGregor.
504 H.R. HALDEMAN
On advertising, he okayed the present plan to start the anti-McGovern

commercials next week.
Back into schedule plans again today, and odds and ends that he thinks
needs to be done. Likes the idea of Camp David on Tuesday night, and the
staff planning meeting on Wednesday night for dinner. Got some input from
Rizzo and Rockefeller, both of whom he met with today. Had some ideas on
Rizzo, wants to motorcade the heart of Philadelphia, not the suburbs. Rock-
efeller, in the other direction, wants to do Westchester, Nassau, instead of
the city. Agreed that he'd do a TV documentary as a wrap-up with about 8

minutes at the end for the P. Wants the Astrodome to be a one-hour televi-
sion variety show with the P doing 15 minutes at the end. Wants to try a
motorcade across Illinois and Ohio for the small-town thing. Do a Polish
group in Buffalo.

We reviewed some minor schedule things. He ended up in the afternoon with
not much around and talked about the campaign in general. Then
to do, sat
called John Dean in for a report on the Watergate indictments, which came out
today (the five men arrested, plus Hunt and Liddy). Wondered if we should put
out the fact that Johnson bugged us in '68, told me to ask Connally about that,
then withdrew the idea. Wants to be sure we put the screws on Congress to
turn off the (Wright) Patman hearings (on CRP finances), where they're
trying to get Stans up to testify, and then got into quite a long talk with Dean
about the need to get control of such things as the IRS and to be sure that we
force all resignations right after the election.
P was very concerned morning about a Rather story on CBS that was
this
based on two leaked CIA documents, and wanted me
to check that out. I had
Dave Young run a complete check. P is going to hang on to the list, so that
we can move on those people at the appropriate time. He doesn't want any FBI
check made on it, just a list of those who had access to the CIA documents,
so we have a basis on which to move.
Henry was in to report further, he had covered his whole trip results with
the P last night, but went into some details today. Henry feels that he's got
things well in hand with the Soviets, he also thinks there may be a possibility
on Vietnam. Apparently Le Due Tho was pretty outgoing in their Paris meet-
ing, and said, "Do you really want to bring this to an end now?" Henry said,
"Yes," and he said,"Okay, should we do it by October 15?" and Henry said,

"That'd be fine." Le Due Tho came across the table, shook hands with him,
and said, "We have finally agreed on one thing, we will end the war on October
15."
Had a long talk yesterday with Billy Graham, he feels things are very
good, that he felt a couple weeks ago that we were behind in California, but
he now feels we're pulling ahead there. Thinks we're going to have to give up
almost totally on the black vote. We only have a few friends in that area.
Kennedy coming campaign and Shriver on the ticket make the differ-
into the
ence. He also is concerned that the radical youth are really working for
McGovern, for example they were doing a very heavy registration effort in San
Francisco. He doesn't think we'll win as big as it looks now, but thinks we're
in good shape. Says the bugging isn't hurting us at all, it's too clouded, people
think the Democrats placed it themselves, and that they've overplayed it. He
thinks that the P is finally succeeding in creating an Eisenhower father image
for himself, there's no one else, and he should stay above partisanship. Thinks
we're still all on the positive side on the Jewish question. No problems regard-
ing the Soviet Jews, expects to win Florida 70 percent, and told me about
Johnny Carson, trying to figure out how he can help the P, and Graham telling
him the way to do it is be a little biased in his favor from now on, like he has
been biased against him.
P got into a talk about Disraeli and the analysis that Gladstone ended up
as an exhausted volcano enormous reform programs, and the British
after his
people come to times when they don't want to be improved, and that we in this
country may be at this stage. He's doing a lot of talking about the approach
to policy for the second term, in that context. That not only do we clear out
our enemies and build our own establishment, that we clear out the bad
programs and so on, too.
He reviewed our latest poll results in the key states, and they're over-
whelmingly favorable, and it makes the point that we probably should make
a quiet decision now to move money out of some of the key states and into
West Virginia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, which are the
only doubtful ones, and see if we can't pick up all 50. So we are going to work
on that. P left midafternoon for Camp David.
P at Camp David, then came down for the Italian festival in Maryland. I
went over to watch that; went very well. He came in by chopper, went
through the crowd, gave a good little pro-Italian talk and left. Very good
way to use an hour on a Sunday afternoon. I had no other contact.
506 H.R. HALDEMAN

Staff meeting this morning covered a number of current details. The Soviet
grain deal continues to be a problem as Agriculture screws up the line that
they're putting out each day a little bit worse. K came in for the first time in
a long time, and that stirred up a lot of questions to him on Vietnam and other
items; a long discussion of the Soviet Jew problem. Some concern about the
long-range problem of the appearance of the Soviet advantage in the trade
deal. Some discussion of veto strategy. There are three bills up that are candi-
dates for vetoes.
P got into considerable detail on family scheduling. He thinks the girls
and Mrs. Nixon should not do any more press conferences or talk shows
because the questioners are becoming too strident and rough, and the press is
much rougher this year than they were in '68 because they realize the family
is so effective. So he thinks and I agree that they should just go into nice areas
and be nice, and not do any more Q & A's. Even though they handle it well,
it doesn't develop a story that we want.

There is the question of Burundi, where he has just learned that 200,000
people have been killed by the government in order to maintain control,
they're killing off all the intellectuals, apparently, or intelligent people. He
makes the point that we ought
have a contingency plan to deal with this
to
kind of thing, if they should capture a UN guy or something of this sort. He
wants to be sure we make a big thing out of the fact there were no casualties
in Vietnam last week.
Later today he had E and Weinberger up to Camp David for a general
meeting. First, extensive discussion of veto strategy and the plans for the
balance of this Congressional session. Then, a discussion of policy postelec-
tion. Feels that we've got to recognize what our mandate is. It's not toward a
more liberal domestic policy. That we've had enough social programs: forced
integration, education, housing, and so on. This is contrary to what the estab-
lishment thinks. They and the Congress think that the country want this stuff.
He referred then to the Disraeli point of Gladstone being an exhausted vol-

cano, with all his reforms, and the point that the people do not want to be
improved. The huge social programs have been tried. They don't work. People
don't want more on welfare. They don't want to help the working poor, and
our mood has to be harder on this, not softer. People will say that the mandate
means to go forward with all our revolutionary programs, but the P feels,
totally different from Reagan, that the huge colossus of government is a mess.
The people running it are incompetent and won't change, and the American
people don't want to support it. We can't just allow the country to grow like
Topsy. We have to do something, but we have to move toward slimming down
rather than fattening up the Federal Government. He wants a review of the list
of things to drop, but he wants to add to it. In the White House, he wants to
drop the Science Advisor, Committee for International Economic Policy, the
Advisory Boards, whatever can be done within the law to cut our own shop
down. Most of the programs he wants to drop are in HEW, the higher-
education subsidy, and that kind of thing. Make it clear to the NEA that they
supported McGovern and they're not welcome anymore at the White House.
In the health field, we should do much less. We should hit some of the sacred
cows, like the Cotton program at Agriculture. On welfare, we have to support
HR 1 Afterward, we should not send it back to Congress.
until the election.
He points we shouldn't assume that a great Administration is one that
out that
does new things. Maybe it's one that gets rid of old things. We should not
make it Reagan-like. Not obtuse and antipeople. We should make it for
people. Get government off their backs. Say as little as possible during the
campaign so we have the fewest promises to have to keep, and so that we have
an ability to interpret our mandate our way.
If we win, we don't intend to coast in the second term. In the first year,
we've got to really do something about the government. Something that the P
really believes in. Tear the State Department to pieces, and Defense. Don't just
preside over the huge morass. Also, the Treasury bureaucracy is bad and so is
Justice. We need a study on the VP's office in a ruthless way. Eliminate all the
surplus staff and committees. Then he raised the question of who's doing the
CIA study. Feels Helms has got to go. Some discussion on the problem of
intelligence, reorganization, and the real is Defense and
problem, of course,
Congress. Wants to hands that everybody should resign November 8,
tell all
but no one should plan on a vacation. That the period of November 7 to

December 7 should be the most intensive month ever. We should have a total
cutoff of the press during that period and have some intensive Camp David
sessions and really get the thing hammered together. Also, K should know
there are to be no foreign leaders after the election until after the Inaugural.
We should tell them that now.
The P had day of appointments and odds and ends. Got into some
a fairly full
discussion on postelection ideas. On Supreme Court appointments, they're to

be all conservative. The next one is to be a Catholic, the best ethnic we can get,
or the Fordham Dean. Then we need a woman. He's not concerned about Jews
on either the Cabinet or the Court, any of the courts, but will keep Stein and
K. As a guideline, we should work for Catholics, Labor, Ethnic, Democrats.
Not blacks, not Jews. No Democrat is to be appointed to anything unless he
supported the P. In other words, it's only our Democrats that are to be
considered at all.
Rogers called to report that he had talked to Teddy Kennedy. There was
508 H.R. HALDEMAN
concern before his call that Kennedy was calling to say he was going to go to
Stockholm or Paris to pick up the POW
families and to avoid their doing a
military debriefing, and so on, but Rogers called after his meeting with Teddy,
and Teddy had come to him as head of the refugee committee and said that
he wanted to send a group to North Vietnam of doctors, nutrition experts, and
so on, to see what's needed to rehabilitate North Vietnam after the war. He
says he won't do it until after the election because it would be considered
political otherwise. He'll make no statement on it before the election, but he
has talked to some individual people. That he was telling Bill this just for his
information, not asking for his support on it Bill men-

or anything like that.
tioned tohim that he guessed he'd be hitting the stump pretty soon, and Teddy
laughed and said I'm awfully busy. I have a lot of work that we ought to do
here and I'd sure like to avoid it if I can.

Brief meeting in the office this morning with Colson on schedule and quick
planning items before we departed for Texas.
The Texas events were great. Laredo, we had a spectacular crowd in the
motorcade, almost no anti-people, and almost all Mexican-
streets for the
Americans, very enthusiastic, a lot of "four-more-years" shouting, and good
pro-Nixon signs and pro-Nixon reaction. Rio Grande High School worked
out fine. It was small and run-down, but a good color-type thing, especially
with the P pulling the impromptu idea of playing "Happy Birthday" on the
piano for Congressman de la Garza, who had flown in with us. We had a little
flap on the question of the Selection Committee paying for the plane fare with
a Democratic congressman and senator aboard, but we'll work that out. The
Connally dinner went very well. Good crowd. I don't think as many as he'd
expected, because there were a lot of empty seats around the tables, but still
a big crowd. Connally did a superb introduction to the P with all kinds of super
praise,and that should be very effective. We got a lot of polls today. Colson
reported the new Harris poll, which will show 59/31, a drop from the 63/29
that we were last time, or a 28-point spread instead of 34. He says the drop is
mostly blacks and the under-30 voters.

Billy Graham reported today that he thinks thus far we're doing everything
campaign, although he's nervous about the P being exposed
just right in the
as he was Laredo motorcade.
in the
We got through New York and went to the Statue of Liberty exercise OK,
except there were six demonstrators right down in front who shouted into the
microphone and were carried over the same PA system as the P, which caused
him to react, I thought adversely at the time. Although it came off pretty well
on TV as he asked the cameras to note the other thousands who were listening
as well as the six who were heckling.
Dinner went well. The P gave a good speech and we got good reaction to
it. Bringing the kids in really helped and added a good level of enthusiasm. The
P had me in for a while after the dinner to talk things over, unwind. He had
a tough schedule here with the Democrats, Nixon leaders, and Jewish leaders,
but all came off pretty well. He is concerned about how we develop a sense of
mission in the campaign so that we don't just back into the victory and thus
look as if we didn't win the election but merely took it by default. He thinks
that's why we need radio speeches and maybe he should also do a press
conference at some point.
He did call Tricia, or she called him, late in the evening, after the din-
ner, to say how was at the Washington
well she thought they'd gone. She
dinner. Then campaigning
they got into plans, and she's going to be in the
South. He told her to endorse McClellan in Arkansas, and Eastland in Mis-
sissippi, and say that she supported their reelection because they were such
strong supporters of her father. That will create quite a stir if she actually
does it, I think.

We flew from New York this morning, out to San Francisco for the luncheon
there and then on to Los Angeles. The trip went OK. The demonstration threat
in San Francisco didn't materialize in any great sense, mainly because the
police held them all off, although there was some trashing and stirring up. We
arrived at the Palace Hotel, though, under huge heavy guard with men with
guns stationed all over aimed at the windows, looking down and all that. It was
really like the good old days of demonstrations.
The Los Angeles demonstration was considerably larger, out in front of
the Century Plaza, but much less violent. They did shout all through the
evening. Once again our kids came through extremely well. We had a lot of
enthusiasm at the Bay Area Rapid Transit in Oakland, in the Hall at the Palace
in San Francisco, and in the Century Plaza when we arrived in Los Angeles.
The highlight of the day was Rabbi Magnan's benediction at the dinner, when
he prayed for four more years for the P in an all-out political endorsement. It
got the audience to applaud. The P again had me in after the dinner, this time
for a couple of hours, just general talk on campaign strategy.
The P did the cancer meeting this morning and then we returned to Washing-
ton. A lot of time to talk on the plane. He reacted rather adversely to the New
York Times endorsement, not surprisingly, that is, their endorsement of
McGovern. He wants the Times now totally cut off as an enemy, which we all
510 H R. HALDEMAN
agree we ought to do. Talked a little about the grain deal and how to handle
that.
K
got back from Paris last evening and I talked to him on the phone,
told him the P would call him if he wanted him to. Henry said no need to,
that he couldn't talk on the phone, but he did have to meet with him when
he got back to Washington, so we set up dinner on the Sequoia tonight. K,
Haig, and I with the P. Henry went through his whole status as of now, and
he is convinced that the North Vietnamese do want to settle and Henry has
a proposal that he wants to go back with next week, when he's committed to
go back for a three-day meeting. He thinks we can move to an announce-
ment of the settlement sometime between the 20th and 30th of October,
which would take effect with the cease-fire in place and a start of the release
of prisoners in November.
(There was) considerable discussion, as the P had gone into the meeting
prepared to tell Henry that he couldn't make a deal. He feels strongly that, as
far as the election's concerned, we're much better off to maintain the present
position. The argument that carries some weight, though, is
part of Henry's
how to deal with Vietnam after the election, and the clear point that we can't
just sustain our present course forever, that we've got to go for a break and
that the break preelection may be more likely than a break afterward, and that
thisis the honorable settlement that we sought, does not involve selling out
South Vietnam to the Communists, and therefore is satisfactory to us and we

should follow it. It was left that that's what we'd do, after the P did considera-
ble questioning of K and Haig as tohow they would go about dealing with
Thieu. Nobody feels that there's much more than about an even chance of
Thieu going along with it.
We're in the ironic position of wanting to continue the talks as long as
possible if we're not going to settle, but wanting to complete them as soon as
possible if we do, because the closer the settlement comes to the election, now,
the more it'll look like a political ploy,which it is in no way, but it will be hard
to sell that if we have to announce the settlement just before the election. Even
so, it'sworth doing as long as it doesn't involve the fact or appearance of a
sellout, and they feel that can be avoided.
It was interesting to see Henry turn the P around on this, on the grounds
of the problem of how to deal with this after the election. Since the P's
approach to it was based on his thought that Henry was trying to get a
settlement before the election for the value to us politically, which the P feels
is negative rather than positive.
The P was in early this morning. Spent some time before the SALT signing and
then again afterward going over a lot of miscellaneous political things. K was
in for a while Gromyko meeting and the planning for how to get the
about the
P together with Gromyko alone. We worked out an elaborate plan involving
returning from Camp David Monday night after the dinner and then a sepa-
rate meeting on Tuesday morning with just the P and Gromyko. Then after we
got it all worked out, Henry called this evening to say that Gromyko would
be crushed if he didn't spend the night overnight at Camp David, so we have
to shift back to that, which the P agreed to. The P will meet with him
it
privately before the dinner on Monday.

FOURTH QUARTER: OCTOBER-DECEMBER

The P came down from Camp David this morning with Gromyko for the
SALT signing ceremony. Went very well, was very impressive to everybody
there. Ziegler said that Sidey came in and talked to him after the SALT
ceremony. He won't vote for McGovern. He feels he's flipped his cork on the
basis of his UPI editors thing yesterday, where he hit the P as the most corrupt
Administration in history. Phil Potter also came in, said that McGovern is
incredible, that he disagrees violently with his remarks. Did comment that the
press rumbling about not having any access to the P and gave Ziegler a tip
is
that McGovern and his Food for Peace thing had heavy shipments of grain
abroad in '60 and '62, and that we ought to look into this. He'd like to write
it up if we can dig up anything.

We were at Camp David all day. The P holed up working on the press
conference preparations. He did have me over at noon for a while, reported
that he'd returned Walter Cronkite's call. Cronkite had called yesterday, say-
ing that he wanted to P. Turned out that
have a personal conversation with the
what he's after is to get the P
do an hour interview on CBS.
to
We had a big flap with Henry last night and carrying on today. He's in
a complete tantrum that the P should not have a press conference because he's
sure to give the wrong answers on Vietnam and blow the whole negotiation
right as Henry is about to go into the crucial final stage. Henry actually
believes still, even though Thieu has completely refused to go along with
anything Haig has proposed, that we still have a 50-50 chance of pulling
something off with the North Vietnamese this weekend and he's scared to
51 2
death that the P will louse I think he'll use anything that comes
it up. Actually,
up as an excuse if works out pretty well for him. The P
the thing blows, so it
doesn't feel that there's any chance of settling, and that probably it's not
desirable anyway because any possible interpretation of a sellout would hurt
us more than it helps us.
One interesting thing: I decided to drive down, as I always do. The P wasn't
going to leave Camp David until 9:30. He called at 7:25, five minutes before I was
to leave, to say that if I needed to get home early, he'd be glad to reschedule his
departure so I could ride down on the helicopter. I said that I'd intended to drive
anyway, but it was very thoughtful of him to show that concern.

Press conference this morning went extremely well. One of the best he's done
in the office. After the press conference he had a whole bunch in, Colson,
MacGregor, Scali, E, and Ziegler, for sort of a general analysis and discussion.
In the middle of this, E comes up with a problem on synthetic natural gas. The
P gave him an instant answer, said go ahead and do what you want to do, but
call Connally first on the decision. We had some discussion on the merits of
a TV press conference vs. in-office, and the question of one in DC vs. going out
into the country somewhere. Nothing really came out of that. He had Colson
and me over to the EOB a little later. Got into the general political thing, says
there's only really 4 issues, then proceeded to enumerate 6 or 7. Those being
amnesty, marijuana, welfare, tax increase, Communist government imposed
on South Vietnam, and reduction of defenses.

A big question thismorning arising from a Top Secret cable from Henry
saying that there was some progress at the session in Paris, but it was impera-
tive to have Rogers avoid any reference to Vietnam in his press conference. I
talked that over with the P, who's agreed that I should tell Rogers there is some
movement, so we have to play things the other way now and he should say he
will not comment on anything at all. Rogers then came back with the point
that he would only repeat what the P said about the negotiations being in a
sensitive stage and might add the point that he is certain that this is no time
for talk about throwing in the towel. He said he could do nothing, refer only
to the P or bring in the latter point. I raised that with the P and he felt that
on balance, Rogers should cancel the press conference. That there's too much
at stake at the moment.

Had the Cabinet Leadership breakfast meeting this morning. E did a pitch on
issues state by state, with MacGregor giving an overview of the political
—
514 H.R. HALDEMAN
situation. It was deadly dull, as any such thing would be. The P interjected
from time to time as they were going through their poll results and so on. First
he emphasized the turnaround of the blue-collar suburbs, that's there's confi-
dence in the country, morality, economy's up, and especially of the great cities
of the North. About a tax and escalated rhetoric, we should stay right where
we are, more in sorrow than in anger. Hit hard on the issues, stay on the
facts —
defense, cut welfare and so on. It will get rougher toward the last. Don't
react in kind. Don't have both sides getting personal. About the most-corrupt-
—
Administration charge Watergate, grain deals, etc. (he said) not one in-
stance in four years has there been any personal corruption of the Cabinet
appointees or the White House. We have the strictest rules we've ever had. We
should have confidence. This is an honest Administration. We will not go
down on the charge of corruption.
K had me called out of the meeting on a phone call from Paris. Said that
he just discovered there was a communication breakdown yesterday and that
we hadn't gotten a cable from him reporting on the status of negotiations. He
said there is a cable coming now, that I must understand that the situation is
very complex, but they know what they're doing. We should get everybody to
keep quiet and keep everybody steady. He said they were going into a meeting
in about a half an hour, that if the appropriate point is reached they will leave
tonight, late, getting in about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Otherwise they'll
stay over. He couldn't tell me a lot more than that right now.
After the Cabinet breakfast the P told Ziegler to quit trying to pander to
those who are philosophically against us. Any generous move toward them
only shows weakness from their viewpoint. He says the press liberals hate our
guts. Not personally, but because they hate our beliefs, so we should not make
any an ideological enemy, because they misinterpret
nice, personal gesture to
it. On the Posfs Watergate story today, Ziegler should just stonewall it. That
the P is concerned about whether there is a leak in Colson's office somewhere

that's causing this, and he came back to that several times during the day,
wanting it checked out. He poured it out directly to Colson, who said abso-
lutely not, but naturally that's what he would say.
The Post had reported that Donald Segretti had been hired by the CRP to
conduct "a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage," including
forging letters, leaking false items, and dumping schedules.

At Camp David. The P called me over at 11:30. Went through a whole
bunch of miscellaneous things. He wants E to try and get the Congress out
Saturday at any cost. Also, we should go ahead on the IBM antitrust action
but try to it so we can get credit for attacking busi-

make something out of
endorsement to congressmen and covered
ness. He's rewritten the letters of
those. Likes the idea of Clawson hitting the double standard of the press as
far as the sabotage /espionage charges are concerned. They're attacking us
for all the things that happened, that we apparently did, but they don't take
the other side on for the far worse things that they've been doing. Decided to
go Sunday on radio from Camp David because he wants to stay Saturday in
Washington until Congress goes out. Without telling anybody, he plans to
go up to the Hill for the adjournment celebration. Then wants to keep Mon-
day free and stay up at Camp David. He's intrigued with setting up a poste-
lection study on the Olympic Games. Is concerned about how we're going to
cut Agnew's staff after the election. He's concerned about the quality of
liquor at the White House. Wants to get started on his phone calls to Sena-
torial and House candidates.
Called in the afternoon to suggest that Colson try to get Wallace to hit
McGovern on his Vietnam sellout. Then got into some discussion on the need
for a really superb one-hour documentary on Nixon's travels and so forth, to
be done after the election.

Decided he'd like to do an hour TV in Chicago after the motorcade, but would
be with 4 or 5 press people from the Chicago press, so this would take the place
of a press conference. I suggested we stay overnight in Chicago, do this the
next day, then go to Denver late in the afternoon, which would really work out
better. Atlanta worked out very well. We had a huge crowd, great confetti and
color and so forth, but it just somehow didn't have the spark of super enthusi-
asm that you sometimes get.
Henry and Haig got back from Paris and had dinner with the P at 7:00.
I went home from the airport, got a call at home saying the P wanted me at
the dinner, so I drove back into the White House. We met at 6:45 at the EOB
office. Colson was there at the time, and the P went over some odds and ends
with Chuck, then K and Haig arrived and Colson left. We sat in the inner
office, and as soon as Colson went out the door, K opened by saying, Well,
you've got three for three, Mr. P (meaning China, the Soviet Union, and now
a Vietnam settlement). The P was sitting over in his easy chair. K, Henry, and
I were sitting at the table. The P was a little incredulous at first, and sort of
queried Henry a bit. Henry started to outline the agreement from his secret red
folder. Made the point overall that we got a much better deal by far than we
had expected. The net effect is that it leaves Thieu in office. We get a stand-in-
place cease-fire on October 30 or 3 1 They have to agree to work together to
.
set up a Council of National Concord and reconciliation, but any action by
this council has to be by unanimous vote, so it can't effectively hurt Thieu any.
The cease-fire would be followed by a complete withdrawal of troops within
51 6 H.R. HALDEMAN
60 days and a return of the POW's in 60 days. We'd have everything done by
the end of the year.
He then said that one of the agreements is that we provide an economic
aidprogram to North Vietnam. The P interjected at that point, said this is the
most significant thing of all because it's a collapse of Communist principle.
They've always refused to accept that kind of aid because it admits the failure
of their system. This gives us the leverage on them. China refused any discus-
sion of it, and so on.
The P kept interrupting Henry all through the discussion. He obviously

was all cranked up and wasn't listening to the details. He commented on the
problems leading up to this agreement, the significance of China, the bomb-
ing and mining and his usual litany, kidding Henry some, referring to Haig a
great deal and asking if he really was satisfied with the deal, because he had
been basically opposed to it last week, because he thought we were screwing
Thieu. Now he thinks it's OK, but he is concerned about whether we can sell
Thieu on it. I asked him after the meeting, though, whether he honestly felt
it was a good deal, and he says he does think it is. Henry kept trying to plow
through his folder and all the details and the P kept interrupting. The plan
will be for Henry to go to Paris next Tuesday, then to Saigon, then see
Thieu. He'll spend three days there, then up to Hanoi, then back to Saigon
to report to Thieu and then back to here and we make the deal. The P
interjected that Haig must go with you. Henry said no, that we need him
here to deal with the bureaucracy and so on. The P said well, someone's got
to go. He suggested me. I felt I should not. K said no, it would raise too
much anticipation. If it were known that I was going, and also I'm needed
here to hold things down.
We then went into dinner in the outer office. The P told Manolo to
bring the good wine, his '57 Lafite-Rothschild, or whatever it is, to be served
to everyone. Usually it's just served to the P and the rest of us have some
California Beaulieu Vineyard stuff. The discussion continued along the same
line. Then the P toasted us all. The decision was to handle Rogers at break-
fast tomorrow, and that I'm to be there. Tell him that we had a significant
breakthrough on the military side, but that K has to go back to Paris next
week to try to finish up the political part of it. If he gets it worked out, he'll
then go to Saigon to go over it with Thieu. We won't tell him about Hanoi
or the fact that the whole schedule is set now, with the P making the an-
nouncement on October 26 for the October 30 cease-fire. K wants to be sure
there's no responsibilities assigned to Rogers because he'll try to parlay them
at the State Department. Instead, let Henry line up Bill Sullivan, he's
Henry's man and he'll take Sullivan with him. Also, he wants to handle Alex
Johnson. Playing to the idea that the future of the Foreign Service depends
on Johnson's cooperation on this with the P. The ultimate payoff for Rogers
is that he gets to go to Paris to sign the cease-fire with the Vietnamese For-
eign Minister on October 30 and that takes effect when they sign it. We went
around the details some more. The real basic problem boils down to the
question of whether Thieu can be sold on it. The P is obviously really
cranked up with the whole thing. K reported on the very high emotional
level of the talks and the fact that at the end of the 14 hours of talks yester-
day that Le Due Tho remarked that the two of them had been negotiating
on this for four years now. They had some very tough times, but now we
both accept the same thing, which was to make peace and today we have
made peace. Haig feels that the reason they're doing this is that they've
basically given up, they have no more hope and they're now going to try and
establish friendship with us, which is what they say they want just like our
China relationship. Overall, it boils down to a super-historic night if it all
holds together, and Henry is now convinced it will. He thinks that he's really
got the deal. So we'll see.

Started the day with the Rogers-K breakfast. Haig and I sat in. The P and
Henry gave Rogers the general plan we agreed on last night, which covered the
fact that Henry had the details of the military settlement worked out but is still
hung up on the political settlement and wouldn't have that till after he goes
back to Paris on Tuesday. If it is worked out, he would then go to Saigon and
work it out with Thieu.
Rogers walked into the trap by saying that he didn't think we should
accept any settlement that overthrew Thieu. He indicated that we should of
course leap at any settlement that didn't overthrow Thieu, no matter how it
was worked out, so he's now positioned to have to back the actual settlement
enthusiastically, since it's better than anything he thinks possible at the mo-
ment.
The P had Henry up to the Lincoln Room after breakfast, called me in
mainly for a discussion of schedule plans, but both he and Henry felt that they
had the ground pretty well laid out with Rogers. Henry then went on during
the day to meet with Alex Johnson as Rogers agreed he could, and with Bill
Sullivan. Sullivan's nitpicking some of the details, but Henry thinks that can
be worked out, and things are pretty well on track. Both the P and Henry are
realizing in the cold gray light of dawn today that they still have a plan that
can fall apart, mainly the problem of getting Thieu on board, but also the
problem that the North Vietnamese might not buy what Le Due Tho comes
back to them with. So it's still problematical, although Henry's convinced that
he's got settled, that it will work out and that we can talk Thieu into it. I
it
would think he could, because the settlement he's got is the best Thieu is ever
going to get and, unlike '68, when Thieu screwed Johnson, he had Nixon as
an alternative. Now he has McGovern as an alternative, which would be a
disaster for him, even worse than the worst possible thing that Nixon could do
to him.
518 H.R. HALDEMAN
On the schedule, the P's obsessed today with going to Pennsylvania.

Wants to go to Pittsburgh at noon for a motorcade, plus we can good
get a
crowd in the late afternoon. Make it a mid-Atlantic meeting with West Vir-
ginia, MD, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Then do the boiler-
makers' ball early in the evening and leave. We got into the point that we
have to do Philadelphia because Rizzo's expecting it. Also that we can't do
Pittsburgh because McGovern's there the day of the boilermakers' ball, so
he told me to call Rizzo and talk him out of a visit there. I did that and
Rizzo isn't about to be talked out of it. He's determined that the P should be
there. He gave me a big pitchon how great everything was, that he had all
the ward leaders in today. They're almost all on his payroll. He told them
that the P either wins in their areas or they're to look for another job. Came
up with a lot of ideas for things that the P might do in Philadelphia but
insisted he's got to come. So we're probably trapped on that. We'll work
something out as time goes on with Rizzo. The P also got into some poste-
lection plans. He's now decided he ought to spend a week in Key Biscayne
before settling down at Camp David to put the new Administration to-
gether. I good idea.
think that's probably a
We got into a long discussion on the espionage charge, because it now
turns out the Post has Chapin involved in it as a way to bring in the White
House, so we spent a lot of time late this afternoon and evening trying to work
out a way of answering that, which is a little hard to do because we don't even
have the Post's story, but I think we'll develop something that'll work for the
time being at least.
Editor's Note: The Washington Post repored that Segretti had been hired
—
by Dwight Chapin thereby tying Watergate into the White House.
The P had Ray Price and John E in at noon to review the whole radio speech.
He made the point to Ray that these speeches need 3 or 4 quotable lines, but
they are to philosophize a bit. and
They should be nonpartisan, nonpolitical,
non-negative as possible. Uplifting, like the Atlanta where we direct line,
attention to the hopes and dreams that unite us rather than the hates and fears
that divide us.
The P shifted into his regular spielon the thing that people don't love each
other and we're not all the same and we can't approach things on that basis.
The whole secret and the philosophy that we have is based on the fact that we
live inan explosive world. There are differences between people.
Then he went into his anti-college-education spiel and back to the point
that people are different. So are nations. The secret of the American experi-
ment is that they learned that the things that unite us are more important
than the things that divide us. He then got into his feeling for the South, that
because of going to school there he had a close feeling and they resent al-
ways being put down by the Northerners. Makes the point that union lead-
ers are like the South. They want to abide by the law and they respect the
Presidency. He then said the theme to development is in regard to the heart-
land. Our New American Majority appeals across the board for the same
reasons to people. The basic American values. A strong United States patri-
otism, strong moral and spiritual values. Anti-permissiveness. They are
turned off on welfare because it's wrong and because they are anti-elitist,
plus they have selfish motives. They are Americans to the core. The South-
erners are more so than the rest of the United States, because they are not
poisoned by the and the media, but we're also high in Pol-
elite universities
ish, Italian, mountain farm states. Weak in the suburbia /big cities
areas,
because here the people are soft. The analysts miss the point that the "move-
ment" has had it. The people that are for permissiveness, anti-United States,
and so forth. That square America is coming back and that we didn't just
gather a bunch of haters. The real issue is patriotism, morality, religion. Not
the material issues of taxes and prices. If those were the issue, the people
would be for McGovern rather than for us.
Henry called about the Vietnam negotiations. He's concerned about
whether he's handling the settlement right and then he raised an alternate
scenario in which he would get the process dragged on a little with new
demands. He'd still go through the whole schedule, but not sign the final
agreement till November 15. The problem is, we'd have to stop bombing from
the time of his trip until the election. I told him my concern there was trying
to carry the period between the trip and the election, with all the speculation
and so forth. He says if we get Thieu enthusiastic with this, then it's OK and
we can go ahead. If Thieu turns it down, he feels we would have been better
to have been hung up on a North Vietnamese negotiating point than on letting
them know that we're hung up on trying to keep Thieu in. I said I didn't think
any of this delay was possible if he went on to Hanoi, but he basically refuses
to consider canceling it. Feels he's got to go through the whole route, in any
event. On that basis I felt it was impossible to make any change in the scenario
as it's now laid out.

K's concerns continued as he called this morning. He says he's now persuaded
that we shouldn't stall, as he proposed last night, but that maybe he should go
to Saigon and come back to Washington if there's a problem with Thieu, and
then the following week go through the whole run again, which would save
Thieu's face and would provide an intermediate step of a one-week delay
before we drop the thing. Also would have some political advantages, he feels.
We've used these time schedules to get the changes fast and he's concerned
about anything that gets in the way of them.
)
520 H.R. HALDEMAN
P called me over first thing this morning. He had read The Washington
Post, which has the major front page story on Dwight Chapin being the
director of the Segretti espionage activity. When I came in, he was talking to
Ehrlichman (on the phone) regarding the Chapin story and made the point of
the shocking double standard of the Post and the Times. Never say a word
against the dirtiest campaign ever waged against a P, name-calling, bombing
headquarters, etc. The P made the point to me when he hung up that the
difference between him and Johnson sure showed up and that's that he's
always backed up his staff. He thinks we ought to raise hell with the L.A. Times
if they pick up the story. He thinks I should call Otis (Chandler, the publisher
and point out to him that when he was under attack in his oil deal, the P told
all of us "hands off." He's especially concerned about (P's lawyer) Kalmbach
and how he handles this and how he explains what funds he was using. He feels
it needs to be tied to the Committee and Liddy rather than the other thing.
There's a problem with the story regarding the lawyer for the P putting up the
money. We need to be sure to tie the money to the Committee. He feels
strongly, too, that we can't surface Segretti, although that was one of the
things we were considering Friday.
Henry called again later this evening after I got home and said he's
worried now that if he goes to Hanoi it'll look like we've given in to Jane
Fonda and Ramsey Clark. We could avoid this by using option B. Going to
Paris and then announcing after that on the second round. He's worried
about the question of whether this appears to be the P crawling. I assured
him I didn't think it was, but he phoned again, this time to ask me to help
out, to sit on Rogers during this week. Apparently Rogers had Haig and
Sutherland out to his house tonight, made the point that he has to take
charge now and get all these things worked out. Henry's concerned that if
Rogers thinks it's succeeding, he'll rush to get in on it. He's not really too
concerned about it though. Henry feels now the more he thinks about it that
the more it seems that we're pulling off a miracle and that we should go
ahead with it if we possibly can.

The main morning was on the Washington Post attack, both
discussion this
yesterday and today on the Chapin story. The P makes the point that the
main thing they're trying to do is tie in the P and say he didn't tell the truth,
that no one in the White House was involved in Watergate. He feels there's
no problem regarding the little games and stuff. The real question that con-
cerns him is how Ziegler deals with the Kalmbach involvement. Thinks he
ought to hit it with some sarcasm, saying he's surprised you haven't brought
Pat Nixon in, too. She's also a graduate of Southern Cal, and so is OJ
Simpson.
Thinks Ron should hit that the issues being evaded because the opposi-
tion press obviously feels that it doesn't have a good case on the issues. On
the P view, he's spoken out against violence, he's given orders that are to be
carried out, that there is to be no violence or disruption of rallies. If you've
noticed, there has been none. Our opponent has not said anything about the
hecklers and violence, and so on, on us. First, we cannot condone what was
done. Second, we must separate it from Watergate. The whole purpose of
this from their viewpoint, he thinks, is that it's the last burp of the Eastern
establishment. The only thing he's basically concerned about is to be sure we
don't lie and be sure we don't condone any bad activity. Make the point that
we're running a high-road campaign, no name calling, we're hitting hard on
the issues. The President is the victim of the dirtiest campaign ever con-
ducted against a President of the United States. They should start using the
line of the Eastern establishment press, make the point that they're strangely
silent on all this stufl against us. Also the point that the Post and the Times
praise spies when Anderson papers, the Pentagon Pa-
they're related to the
Because of their double standard, they don't
pers, the India-Pakistan matter.
seem to be concerned with spying when it doesn't involve the security of the
country.
He had Ehrlichman in later today, suggested that Segretti sue the Post for
libeland give the Star a statement on it. Made the interesting point that after
the election we will have awesome power with no discipline, that is, there won't
be another election coming up to discipline us, and we've got to do our
planning on that basis.
He did the POW wives at the last minute this morning. We ran it in
because we had no story to counter the espionage /sabotage story, so I went
in and talked him into going over at the last minute to do the POW wives. He
had a great reception, gave one of the best talks he's given.

Haig was morning with a report from Henry who says the
in first thing this
talks are going well and he feels that he should go on to Saigon, so he will
tonight. We got into some discussions about Henry's attitude, along the same
lines that Haig had expressed to me yesterday. He shares the P's view that
Henry is strongly motivated in all this by a desire for personally being the one
to finally bring about the final peace settlement. Al feels this poses a major
problem in that it's causing him to push harder for a settlement and to accept
a less favorable thing than he might if he didn't have this push. He thinks that
my talk with him about a successor for Haig in the second term is very helpful,
in that it gave him some reassurance that he would be around in the second
term, and that therefore the pressure for him to get this settled before the
election was lightened and his willingness to talk it over with Haig was greatly
increased. Haig urges that while Henry is gone we give every possible evidence
to him that we can of total support so that he won't feel that he has to prove
522 . H.R. HALDEMAN
anything. He agrees that under no circumstances can he go to the third stop

unless the whole thing is fully settled, but he's not at all convinced that Henry
fully shares this view.
The P spoke this morning to a group of foreign labor leaders. Felt after-
ward that he'd given a very thoughtful analysis of the relationship between
labor and government and the history of free labor in the United States and
that no one would notice it, that he wouldn't get any mileage out of it.

P had a few odds and ends to cover on the plane going up to New York today.
They were on the details for handling the trips, and some more of the same on
the plane on the way back. The New York motorcade went very well. The P
did feel that we needed more signs along the route to cover up the anti-signs,
although there weren't very many of them. He feels that we should make an
asset of the demonstrators. The Rockefeller stop worked out pretty well, the
Governor had E and me join Mrs. Nixon, the David Rockefellers, and Bob
Douglas for dinner, which was very nice. Nelson was obviously quite over-
whelmed by the fact that the P was stopping at his house. The P didn't join us
for dinner, but did come in at the end for coffee, and this Nelson obviously
greatly appreciated; he made quite a point of having champagne brought in,
and having a toast to the P, as the first President of the United States to stay
at the house.

The more I get to thinking about it, the more the P is concerned about
motorcade security. I told him about the report of someone's being picked
up with a shotgun, and he made the point that we should be concerned
somewhat with the danger. McGovern haters are dangerous-type people, es-
pecially as they get backed into a corner in desperation, and this raises a
question of whether or not it's wise to do any more motorcading. In Chi-
cago, he wants to make a very short run, and then we got into quite a
discussion of the cancellation of Ohio. He was making it for reasons of the
war, security, health, and so on. This is the first time that I've seen the P
concerned about security, but I think that he's now feeling that since we've
got the win pretty well locked up anyway, there's no point in running an
unnecessary and undue risk.
He raised the question again why we don't have somebody file a lawsuit
to knock down the Watergate story, without getting into specific denials, but
just a general suit by one of the injured parties.
We had our regular local strategy meeting this afternoon for a couple of
hours, with Connally, E, MacGregor, Colson, and Mitchell. Connally opened
making the point about the peace negotiations, hoping that there wouldn't be
anything before the election. It would hurt us because it would look expedient.
The P explained that negotiations are in the benefit stage, and we have to deal
with them as they come. Connally then said that it's important that it appears
that the P is in charge, that it's not K who is running this.

The Post story on me broke this morning and was the major story for today.
Editor's Note: The Washington Post claimed that CRP treasurer Hugh
Sloan had given testimony to the grand jury that Haldeman had approved
a large sum of money for campaign sabotage. However, Sloan had never
given such testimony.
We had gotten into it yesterday evening, since they had inquired about it,
and we knew that the story would probably break, and it did. Today's the day
McGovern does his big speech on corruption, so they obviously will use that
as the buildup. There was a lot of discussion during the day about the effect
and what should be done.
Ziegler did a strong counterattack on the Post at his briefing this morn-
ing, and that will ride as the main answer with a good strong denial, also
Hugh Sloan and others have handled denials. The P didn't seem overly wor-
ried about it, although he did raise it some. Let's see what develops from
there.
The P got into some questions on speech schedules. He wants to get going
on the foreign policy one, using the material from his San Francisco speech,
but building up the point of massive retaliation being outdated in discussing
the fate of small nations. We
went over the timing of the various radio
speeches. He also wants a radio spoton Amnesty; he feels we're not getting
enough on that. Feels that Ziegler or someone should hit the Post on yellow
journalism, that we should keep a hard attack going on McGovern, on Viet-
nam, and then in the middle of all that he raised the point that he wants a little
press facility built up at Camp David for use as a briefing room, and a small
press lounge set up.
K called me at the 3:00 this morning to say that the North Vietnamese had
gone public on the peace proposal and he was in a state of very great concern
at that time. He called again at 7:00 and had simmered down considerably as
524 H.R. HALDEMAN
I thought he would, as he found their thing didn't really look as bad as he was
afraid that it was going to.
Editor's Note: K had been having considerable difficulty getting Thieu to

accept the agreement, and the North Vietnamese had broadcast the plan to
put pressure on Thieu and the U.S. K responded with a press briefing.
The peace move was featured in the papers, and on TV tonight after K's
briefing today. The P wanted a quick poll made to see what the public reaction
was to the peace plan as it stands, mainly the question of whether he should
order a bombing halt, while we're negotiating, or if he should continue the
bombing. He made the point that we've got to attack McGovern on his
peace-by-surrender forum, and all the Vietnam-related issues, abandoning the
POW's and so forth. He makes the point that only great events can change
things in the campaign now, and Vietnam is the only great event happening.
We've got to be sure that if it changes anything, it changes it our way. He
emphasized the need in the last two weeks to keep down the jitters with the
star! and said he ought to get all the surrogates in on Saturday and have Henry
brief them. He told me to work with Haig on the PR on this. All that matters
now is what the press says, that it's a political battle of the first magnitude. K
plays an enormous and important part now and we've got to watch every
development and make the most of each of them. The question that concerns
him is whether it appears we're playing politics with Vietnam. He emphasized
the need for Henry to see the good press people and then came up with the idea
that he ought to have a press conference before the election, maybe do it on
the plane, with an expanded pool on the way out.
Ziegler felt that he was very disturbed when Ron reported to him on K's
briefing. Ron wrote up that the P felt that we were getting the wrong twist on
this, and that K was getting the play. The announcement had been blown,
where the P had hoped that he could go before the nation and make the
announcement. Now it had been made by the North Vietnamese and briefed
by Henry, which kind of pulled the P out of it. He was uptight when he talked
with me about the K thing, but on the basis that Henry hadn't gotten our
points over, the anti-McGovern points. So the P wants that followed up,
making the point primarily, our peace with honor versus his peace by surren-
der. I said that I thought this break by the North Vietnamese would turn out
to be the best lucky break of the campaign for us because it takes the corrup-
tion stuff off the front pages, totally wipes out any other news.

Had a long talk with Billy Graham. He thinks Watergate is penetrating a little
bit, but the peace initiative throws it into the back pages, that McGovern
himself is the major factor, that we're not in danger anywhere. Said that
anytime he wanted, he would be most happy to make a statement on my
behalf, or Dwight's, on our character and so forth. That we shouldn't let them
get away with the whole thing. He too is worried about the security factor of
the P getting too much exposure. Feels that if North Vietnam blows the peace
deal it will be a real problem, and then summed up again that we need to see
more of the P in the last 10 days. More publicly, that is.
The P had on the Watergate last

a strong reaction to CBS's special report
"That finishes them." He means he's ready to write CBS off.
night. Says,
K was concerned about his briefing the surrogates and thought that
Rogers should do it instead. Thinks that we need to make the point that the
P has achieved his goals in the settlement: the return of POW's, the cease-fire,
and no Communist government, versus McGovern who would leave the
POW's there, pull a unilateral withdrawal and disarm the South Vietnamese,
and provide a Communist takeover. We should make the point that we've been
working on this all down the line, and that there's no concern with the election,
our concern is to get it nailed down.
P told Henry to use The New York Times as his outlet, and to totally cut
out The Washington Post. He feels that the opposition strategy is to try to mar
our victory, they know that they can't defeat us, so they're trying to make the
victory as unimportant as possible by hanging the Vietnam thing in on a
negative basis, by trying to hammer us down on the Watergate stuff. He feels
that we have to be cold-blooded regarding those who have tried to crucify us
on the politics, playing politics with peace. Henry says the problem now is with
Thieu, his going public. The P thought that maybe he ought to have a meeting
with Thieu. Henry says no, but to send a Presidential work on
letter so they'll
The big problem now is for the next ten days to keep the thing from
that basis.
blowing up either on the North or the South. So that we don't have an adverse
reaction set in prior to the election.
We did the Ohio,
Michigan trip today. The motorcade went very well. We
didn't get verygood press on it on the TV tonight, but we had great crowds,
great enthusiasm, and it should have been extremely effective in Ohio. The
Michigan stop also was a huge crowd at the airport, even on 24 hours' notice.
So it was a good campaigning day.

We had to go into the surrogates' briefing. The P was going to open for five
minutes, but talked for half an hour. Made the point that in the final week,
with all rumors that will be coming, we must be confident, positive, not
the
defensive. We're building a foundation for a lasting peace. He referred to the
trips to Peking and Moscow, that was getting to the heart of the problem with
526 H.R. HALDEMAN
peace, that we refused to let Vietnam obscure the big picture, especially in a
historic year of 1972, where we've really developed a chance for peace for a
generation. He got to the point that they may wonder whether the campaign
was worth it. Then he talked about the beautiful people who sit on the beach
here, and play on the tennis courts in Newport, and Palm Beach, and said that
you're the lucky people. They aren't. He said that he feels that it's true of a
person, that he's never his true self, his complete self, unless he's engaged in
a great enterprise, and that we all played a part in such an enterprise. Then he
said, I'm a tough anti-Communist, but I'm not anti-Chinese, anti-Russian, or
anti-Polish.
E hit two issues, corruption and vetoes. On corruption, he said he should
use every question as an opportunity to talk about our issues, the problem with
the number of charges with no evidence, and it's hard to prove a negative. If
we on the same plane as they've been made, you'll lose.
deal with the charges
We must move the answer to what you want to say. He used Chapin as an
example. The fact is that his duties at the time he was supposed to be running
the sabotage thing were to put together the Chinese and Russian trips. He
made three trips to China, spent hours in that situation room, etc. He referred
to the Godfrey Sperling (Christian Science Monitor) article, saying that the
issue is is unwilling to impute liability to the
not significant, because the public
P on the basis of the charges offered.So you should move from the Chapin
question, and his great responsibility for these trips, and then move to a
discussion of the trips and foreign policy.
He referred to the Post article on me, and to take that as a case study; the
sources were based on two reports and both of them have been denied. Also,
he hit the point that the P is obliged by the Congress now to analyze 132 bills,
which is 20 percent of their two years' work, while in this period he also has
to run a political campaign and work out the war's ending. Which is all a good
answer to the hiding in the White House.
Al Haig hit the Vietnam agreement, the specific points. Bill Rogers then
emphasized the P's overall accomplishments, that peace is the overriding issue,
but it's like good health, you don't talk about it unless you don't have it.
Overall, the world is more peaceful, we came into office with two and a half
wars going, Vietnam, Nigeria, and the Middle East. Now there's a cease-fire
in the Middle East, we've ended the war in Africa, there are no casualties in
Vietnam, and withdrawing from there and from other areas. Also, conditions
are much more peaceful in the United States. The campuses, streets, and so
forth. We should emphasize that Nixon is the world leader in the positive
peace, and recognized as such throughout the world.

One major item today is the continuing debate on how to counterattack on
the whole espionage business. The P still thinks we should consider a libel
suit, using the Colson route of saying the Post and Edward Bennett Williams
told malicious lies involving the White House tied to the Watergate. Also,
Ehrlichman feels we should exploit the Post's submission of guilt, but is
concerned about the Colson libel suit because it will inevitably lead to his
having to leave the White House after the election. He feels that the P will be
forced to clean up.
The P thinks that we should go ahead on the white paper to the editors,
give them the specific answers on all of the Watergate items, and that maybe
E should use US News in next week's issue to get the whole story on record,
get it established somewhere. He's afraid that it will leave a blotch on us,
after the election, if we don't get the word out and all the questions answered
now.
Later today, E called and said that he, Stans, Dean, and Moore had
worked out a possible settlement of the Common Cause case, which is to go
to trial tomorrow. So that we would disclose 5 million of our pre-April 7 gifts
under court order, and this would avoid their going to trial until after the first
of the year, and would keep Sloan off the stand. They feel it's a good way to
cut our losses, so they're going ahead to try to work that out.
The other big item today was the whole Vietnam question, and how we
deal with the attack on McGovern, and the threat of the North Vietnamese
blowup. The original plan was for Rogers to hit McGovern today at a press
conference about his point that he would reserve the right to renegotiate any
deal that we make.
E feels that the key to Rogers' doing this is that the P be precisely
positioned tomorrow in Chicago, because he would have to say some things
at the regional meeting, and that K doing a talking paper that he will discuss
is
with the P on this. E feels that K talks as if a virtual certainty that this will
it's
blow up tomorrow. The P got back to considerable discussion of what he

thinks a blowup would do. Makes the point that Rogers should go ahead
today, but the problem is that we had no choice, once North Vietnam was on
track, we couldn't turn it off, or slow it down. He called me a little later on the
phone, said he had talked to K and that they expect a message at 2:00 or 3:00,
that E was overreacting, that K says that first they may agree to talk, second,
they may just postpone the talks, third, they may possibly blow up, but K
thinks that the third is not likely, but if it does happen that we should just take
the offensive. He now feels that Rogers should not go out today until we get
the message from North Vietnam. It's okay for Agnew to take on McGovern
now, as hard as hell, but we have to wait until we get the message before
Rogers can go out. He then cautions that we must not get jittery and hysterical.
We've got to handle this with poise, that we're going through the birth pains
of an agreement.
I talked to K, and he says that North Vietnam is preparing a blow for
us this week. First, that they might not show up on Thursday because the
negotiations are completed. Second, they might agree to meet. Third, they'd
528 H.R. HALDEMAN
say we cheated them, so they're breaking the whole thing off. If the latter
happens, he thinkswe should just brazen it through. He later told the P he
was concerned that we would take a murderous beating because he did get
the message from North Vietnam and they simply said that they were taking
the whole thing under serious consideration and would get back to us later.
Henry feels that we must go on the offensive if they do blow. Publish all that
we've offered. Make the point that we didn't meet with them to sign, because
first, Saigon reports they're seizing territory and the threat of a bloodbath.
Second, Pham Van Dong claimed this was a coalition government, which we
agreed it was not. Third, we never agreed to leave all their troops in the
South, and we've been watching for a unilateral withdrawal, which they were
supposed to do as evidence of good faith. Then we should make the point
that if in good faith we can settle, we will, but that we will not let ourselves
be stampeded into doing this just for the election. He also says that the
liberal press is very vulnerable in any effort to attack us, because now they've
moved to the right of us, and they're complaining that we're letting good old
Thieu down.
Henry feels that he should step out again, and brief the press, that it
should not be elevated to the Presidential level. We should just say that the first
item was to end the war. We've made major progress. If the P goes on TV
Thursday night he should open by saying the first thing in looking at the future
is to end the war. That we've made major progress, and then describe the
situation as it stands on Thursday night. Say we're committed to a generation

of peace, and we pledge that we will get peace with honor in Vietnam. He feels
that the first five minutes on the talk should be on Vietnam in any event, in a
strong manly way, and the P later agreed, and said that we should go to the
full half hour, if we need extra time.
We then went over the poll that we had done over the weekend, which
shows a drop in the trial heat, and evidence that it's not because of Vietnam,
but because the corruption thing is starting to get through some.

The P spent Ray
Price, working over the various
a lot of time today with
speeches. They've developed a good one on health that he's going to do on
Friday and then foreign policy on Saturday, and he's polished up the TV
speech. He's decided not to use the easy chair, but rather will sit behind a desk
setting, but in the library with the books back of him so that it looks like a
library. He also wants to get the maximum TV coverage that we can out of it,
and he agreed right this afternoon to tape it rather than doing it live, and we
would do it as a "sudden-death" tape, just leaving the flubs in and so on. We
reviewed the general situation in our polls standing etc., and he seems to feel
now that we're in good shape.


The P spent the whole day over the EOB, getting ready for his TV speech
tonight and getting other speeches worked out. He had me over after the
taping this afternoon; he was disturbed because there were too many people
in the room, they had to do three starts before they got a good tape, one of
the cameras conked out, there were sound problems, etc. So he's not too happy
about that. He also got into the general schedule for the balance of the
campaign, questioning again whether he ought to hit another stop or two, and
deciding on the speeches. He was concerned about the health speech, as he
started reviewing it, because it appeared to be saying he was for compulsory
health insurance, which he is not. So he called E and me and read the speech
and did some further checking on it.

We had the three airport rallies today. Chicago didn't go very well, there
were a lot of hecklers and the P got into the thing on the plane afterward.
It's the organized harassment and vulgarity that's deliberate, it's a conspir-
acy to deny free speech even to the P of the United States. He thinks Ziegler
ought to get this out as obviously a planned campaign of disruption and
obscenity.
Tulsa went better, but there was some of it there, too. The problem
there is the Assistant Attorney General, who insisted that they not throw the
bad people out, so the P wants him tracked down and some action taken on
him.
The Rhode Island run had a lot of hecklers, and we had PA problems
during the day also, so the P got into the need for getting all the PA's checked
out for tomorrow. He
raised the point also on the plane, the need for Water-
gate follow-up to be worked out, so that we have a complete plan right after
the election and can move on that. Wants to know who's in charge, and how
that's being handled. I talked to Ehrlichman about it. He and John Dean are
supposedly on top of it.

McGovern hit us hard last night on Vietnam and accused the P of lying, deceit,
and so and insists that he (the P) debate him if he disagrees. Quite a lot
forth,
of discussion on how to handle this attack, including the possibility of K's
briefing the pool on background on the plane, or the P's saying something in
his remarks today.
The rallies went well today. North Carolina was a real happening, with a
huge crowd breaking across the ramp. New Mexico went normally well, and
530 H.R. HALDEMAN
Southern California was spectacular, a stadium-type bleacher setup at the end

of the runway.

He did his TV taping today, and it was pretty funny. They had trouble getting
started, and got pretty well into the first take and they had to cut because of
a fly's moving around. The P made some pretty funny cracks. As they tried to
get rid of the fly, he said they'll never get it with a swatter. Then he said, "If
you've got a fly, go ahead." They finally got two pretty
you've got a fly, let's
good takes, and we'll go ahead with them on that basis.

I talked to Connally, he thinks that we're in great shape. That they've
gotten meaner on all of us, and that he has no problem readings at all. There
is very little apathy and there will be a very heavy vote all over the United
States. The only thing is, that minds are made up, and that's why they don't
show interest now. The only problem is the majority has never been done
before, and it's hard to believe that we can approach it. He figured that it
will come out about 58^2. It's hard to believe that it can be bigger than
that.
It's ironic, in terms of the whole North Vietnam situation at this point,
that McGovern has cut loose on these last couple nights with his complete
all-out blast of theP on Vietnam, making the point primarily that we have no
deal and that there isn't going to be any peace. Then, Saturday, we got the
word from North Vietnam that we had a date set, the 13th, or whatever other
date that K wanted to confirm, for next meeting, so we knew that we had the
thing ready to go, but couldn't say anything about it, so we had to let McGov-
ern kick us around.

On the plane going back to Washington, we got into a review of personnel and
Cabinet staff. I raised the point with him, in this conversation, because it
seemed to be the right time, that I thought he ought to seriously consider

letting E and me resign, and get a complete new posture as far as the close-in
White House staff is concerned. He obviously has to keep Henry for a while
because of the ongoing foreign policy activities, but I made the case that he
would be better off changing John and me. He didn't buy it, and I rather
suspected that he wouldn't. But it was a good idea to have raised it. I made
the point that both of us are tarnished, not just with the campaign scandal
question, but more importantly, the problems of isolation of the P, riding
roughshod on Congress, and on the press, and so on, and that he could clean
a lot of that up by changing us. He made the point that, from his side some
of us were essential to stay on, and that John and I would be in that category.
He wouldn't be able to function with new people in those jobs, where he can
in some others, and therefore it's worth paying the price of the negatives,
which he said he had thought about, and recognized the validity of the points
that was making.
I
Wegot back to the White House, and all the staff were out to greet the
P on the steps, it was quite a cheery thing after a long flight across the
country. The P went right to the Residence to have dinner with the family,
and we got set for the election-night processing. Unfortunately we totally
overorganized on data-processing and totally underorganized for just getting
the simple returns in a form that we can get to the P quickly and under-
standably.
One of the first losers of the evening was Louie Nunn of Kentucky and
theP couldn't believe it. The P then said, this was early in the evening, that we
would have to postpone the departure tomorrow for Key Biscayne because he
had a funny thing happen at dinner tonight. An old bridge that he had, had
fallen out, and he had lost a tooth. He was going to have to go to the dentist
at 9:00 tomorrow morning and then again at 1:00 to get the bridge replaced.
As he called me from the Residence, I worked in my office, I could hear his
"Victory at Sea" record playing loudly in the background. He was amazed at
the losses in Maine, and some of those, and delighted with Bartlett picking up
Oklahoma.
Was mainly interested in how the Presidential thing was going, which
was sensational. He had Colson and me come over to the EOB about 1:30,
where he had gone about midnight, and, at that time, he called Hubert,
returning Hubert's call, and they had a long chat regarding Hubert's attitude
toward the P and national security, etc., versus McGovern's. It appeared to
be quite a friendly conversation. He was concerned about how we answer the
question of losing the House and Senate, was particularly interested in an
analysis of California, and the background there, but we couldn't find any-
body. They were all out celebrating, so we had a terrible time trying to get
through.
Along about 2:00 in the morning, maybe it was 2:30, he suggested that he
ought to have some bacon and eggs, so he ordered them up from the White
House Mess, and the three of us ate bacon and eggs, and they finally brought
us some toast and some milk. After that, we chatted a little bit about the
general reaction of the returns and then went on to bed. I didn't get home and
in bed until 4:00 this morning.

The P was in early this morning, I didn't get in till later, he was poring over
the vote analysis.
532 H.R. HALDEMAN
Editor's Note: The President ended up with 60.7 percent versus McGov-
ern's 37.5 percent. It was the second-largest-percentage of the popular vote
in two-party history, next to Johnson /Goldwater in 1964.
The P and I went into the staff meeting. He opened by saying, last night
he had gotten a lot more sleep than he was accustomed to getting in his
elections. That there were to be no vacations, we need to get the organization
set in place for the next term, concentrate on the budget, reorganizing the staff,
and departments. We intend to very significantly reorganize the White House

staff, and he will discuss that later with the people concerned. At the moment
he wants them to know that he's very proud of his staff. They're accused of a
lot of things. Maybe a frequent accusation is that they are efficient, and to that
we should plead guilty. They are also loyal, and they've gotten a lot done and
we will continue to have problems with the Congress, but we have more
influence now because of the majority. Everyone will have suggestions on how
to improve his own office, there are no sacred cows, we should tear up the pea
patch in the organization of the Cabinet and the agencies and so on. As far as
your plans are concerned, we'll meet you individually, we'll come out after
thorough discussion and try to develop the best place for everybody. After the
Eisenhower midterm victory we didn't change things enough. Maybe a P
shouldn't serve more than four years, but I'm not ready to raise that question
yet. Then he went into his Disraeli story about the exhausted volcano. He said
that didn't apply to individuals, but it does apply to the entity, and it's the
responsibility of the leader to be sure we don't fall into that situation. We can't
climb to the top and look down still shoot some
into the embers, we've got to
sparks, vitality, and strength, and that we from new people,
get some of that
both in the Cabinet and here in the staff. This is not a case where we say
goodbye and start all over. We do say thank you, we want your views, want
to know what you like to do. Whatever you decide, these are the members of
the first team. Needless to say, the staff was ecstatic.
I stayed on after the P left and covered the details of how we're han-
dling the transition period, while he went and opened the Cabinet meeting.
He spoke to the Cabinet for about an hour, and again I went in after he had
left, and followed up on the details of getting them all to submit their resig-
nations, and ordering departmental meetings, etc., to work out the follow-up
on that.
On the plane to Florida this afternoon, the P got into the whole media
reaction. He wants Ziegler to put a total embargo on Times and Newsweek,
there's to be no background to Sidey regarding election night or anything else
at any time. He wants total discipline on the press, they're to be used as
enemies, not played for help. Wants the story out that a private poll in the
White House press showed that 80 out of 89 supported McGovern. Told me
to tell Henry that it's OK to talk to Evans and Novak, but not to the other
people. He made the point that most second terms have been disastrous and
that someone should write this, because he's determined that his won't be. He
wants to get a leak out, that we'll have a major shakeup at State and Defense.
The TV had a big crowd at Homestead, and another one at Key Biscayne when
the chopper landed, and that ended the "Day After."

The P had me over at 1 1:30 again for a couple of hours for another general
discussion. He talked with MacGregor and asked him to send in recommen-
dations on the people for the National Committee and other jobs. He wants
a manifesto on the campaign in history against a P; they shout him
dirtiest
down, violent disruption, and so on. Wants to be sure Rogers puts a freeze
on the Post and Times and CBS. No conversation at all until the Vietnam
negotiations are over. It's unconscionable that they would leak the letter to
Thieu.
On the Secret Service, he says the family doesn't want them; since the law
doesn't require it, they will only have full coverage on public events, but to not
follow them in and out on personal errands or with friends. They are to work
this individually as to what Julie and Tricia and the P want for everything,
except in public places. He says that we need to find a Pole or an Italian
Catholic for the Court, preferably a Democrat, also for other courts. We then
got into the whole personnel thing again, and he seemed quite pleased with the
approach that we're taking on the Cabinet.
He called later this evening, furious by a Navy episode where Zumwalt
had heralded on the blacks that refused to sail on the Constellation. He's told
Henry to have all the men court-martialed and give them dishonorable dis-
charges. Zumwalt, instead, gave them active shore stations with Coca-Colas
and ice cream. You can't have a service without discipline, and he wanted E
to tell Zumwalt that the P was terribly displeased; he said you know he's a
McNamara man.

The P had me over again for the usual midday two hours. Again pretty
much general discussion. Got into political strategy and expounded on his
views on Teddy Kennedy. He thinks that Teddy and his people will have to
do some figuring and decide that they don't want to take us on. They will
want to handle their fight within the Democratic Party and win that, but not
get in a fight with us. He thinks that might lead to their not doing the
Congressional investigation, etc. This was based on the basic Machiavellian
theory that if you strike a king, you must kill him, and that he can't kill us,
therefore he won't strike. He also got into the election follow-up. He wants
to be sure the IRS covers all major Democratic contributors and all backers
of the new senators.
534 H.R. HALDEMAN
Ehrlichman and had a long session with Dean on the Segretti thing,
I
going over the details of everything he did, what he said, and so on. It turns
out that we don't have any real problem, I don't think, on it. Some of the
actions were questionable, but none of them was serious. And, it's clear that
he was operating without direction, although he did maintain some contact
with Chapin as he went along. But he did not have a direct reporting responsi-
bility or relationship there.

On the chopper up to Camp David, the P feels that we need an analysis of the
Republican vote, and the Republican Party turnout. Because we had a net loss
of one governor and a net loss of four state legislators, which is the Republican
Party at the lower levels, and is a hell of a drag. He wants to check to see if
we really made the effort to get all the Republicans out, or did we rely too
much on Dole and the National Committee. With only a 55 percent turnout,
we should have won a big Republican vote, there must have been a weak
Republican effort. We should examine this ruthlessly, no excuses.

Camp David. The P had E and me over at 10:00 this morning for a long session
at Aspen, we went over the whole basic plan of how we're going to set things
up, and the P bought the concept. We discussed

VP, and he wanted me to
the
talk to him and explain that we have a tough thing to do here, that he must
cut, that we cut all the way across including his staff. He feels that we need to
keep our leverage over him, so we shouldn't break him now, but we
it off with
do not further his interests politically for '76. We don't want him to have the
appearance of being the heir apparent, we also don't want to appear to push
him down. We should pitch the Bicentennial for him as a great opportunity.
The summary then is that Agnew is not the ideal choice, but he may be the best
of a bad lot.
Wants me to talk to Rogers, make the point that the P is closest to him,
but feels that anyone who's been in for 4 years should go like Romney, Volpe,
and Laird. It would be bad if you stayed and they didn't. It's best for you to
finish in a blaze of glory with the Vietnam peace signing, and then you take the
lead and move out.

Camp David. the VP this morning. We started out by reviewing
Met with
the campaign, and then got into the Vietnam situation summary, and he
explained to the VP what our status was there and negotiations that he
thinks Henry is going to be able to wrap up on this last trip. He went into
some discussion of and the position he's taking

the letter he wrote to Thieu,
on a very hard-line Thieu has got to go along with us now, that if
basis, that
he doesn't, we won't have Congressional support to back him up later. The
VP started talking about the problems that he has in his role, particularly in
intergovernmental relations. The P interrupted and said, well, under our re-
organization plans, this whole intergovernmental relations thing should be in
OMB or HUD, and our reorganization gets into this, which I'm going to
have E and Haldeman go over it with you after our meeting. He said the VP
should be dealing with important things instead, that he and the P shouldn't
have to take the heat on these intergovernmental matters. They should stay
out of solving their troubles, that he should stay on the highest level. The
best big new thing would be the Bicentennial, a major public event of the
Administration, involving all 50 states and all foreign countries. Jimmy
Roosevelt is going to be our Ambassador abroad on this, and the VP could
pick that up. This he should take on as a major responsibility, get it on the
tracks, it's an opportunity to get high-powered people, rather than just a
mediocre staff, and he talked about enlisting our New American Majority as
the focal point for the Bicentennial. The VP raised the question of Indian
Affairs, said he's very interested in that, the P said that he thinks it's a loser
and the VP should not be tied to a loser. The VP then had
said that he
reservations about the Bicentennial, and that he wants a chance to do se-
lected tasks in the foreign field, K-type missions in the foreign area. The P
agreed that he should not just do goodwill trips and funerals, but that he
shouldn't worry about this. We'll handle it, setting him up for some single-
shot negotiations, and foreign economic things. The P makes the point that
what makes the VP important is what he does on the big play, not the
number of jobs he has. John and I then met with him over at Laurel, and
went through the reorganization thing, which he was in basic agreement
with. He got again into the staff and made the point that he was scared of
the Bicentennial, because he thinks that it could be disastrous, you can't
satisfy people, and it would lead only to trouble.
Later in the day the P got into the Colson problem. He said that he really
should leave now for our interests, and he doesn't really fit now, under the
reorganization, in the White House, and therefore we should go another round
with him. We really need him out now and not later. The question was whether
to have him as our RNC counsel or instead have a member of his firm and not
him. He said that I should talk to Colson and say that I'm talking without the
P's knowledge regarding Dean, E, and so forth, the inevitable problems with
the Hunt trial, the P can't let you go into fire, we can't be sure what will come
out. On the positive side, you're needed outside now, Finch, Klein, etc. are
leaving and pulling out completely, you're going for a specific purpose, and
you will have a continual relation. The Clark Clifford role. The problem is that
your position inside will erode, you will have no great goal to pursue, like the
election. The P needs you on the outside where you are free to set up a
536 H.R. HALDEMAN
campaign firm, as well as a law firm. Now is the time to pick up the clients,
law, and PR, and we just don't have the job inside. The P is determined to get
politics out of the White House, so you become the man. You've got to go into
the P and say that you thought it through, this is what he should do, you
reached the conclusion. Be a big man.
I had a talk with K this evening. He's concerned about some of the
appointments and all, wanted to be sure that we wouldn't put Connally into
Defense or State without letting him know ahead of time. He said he has
some concerns about who Richardson might bring with him to State, and
says the bureaucracy is really churning about what's happening. It's good
for now, but the problem is that if it goes too long, that is, beyond Thanks-
giving, it will turn on us. He also says Connally has put out the story that
he's been offered State, and Henry is concerned about how to handle that if
it's done.
Camp David. The P met with Connally this morning. I up with John (E)
flew
on the helicopter, and did not sit in the meeting, which last about two hours.
The P had me in afterward and gave me quite a detailed report. He says that
Connally has concluded that there's no hope for him in the Democratic Party.
He feels that if he could get the Democratic nomination he could run and beat
Agnew, as a Democrat, but that he could also run as a Republican and beat
Kennedy, and he thinks that it's inevitable that Kennedy would get the nomi-
nation. He also therefore decided to change parties and become a Republican.
The question is a matter of timing, and what he does beyond that. The P
discussed the possibility of an Administration role with him, and the two
apparently agreed that it would not be wise for Connally to come in. He
doesn't want Secretary of Defense in any event, feels he couldn't take State as
long as K is there. He doesn't want to do that anyway because he has a lot of
opportunity to make money this year, and wants to spend his time doing that.
The P encouraged him to change parties quickly, which would send up a lot
of signals and establish him clearly as a candidate for '76 and get some of the
people rolling that might be able to be helpful to him. Apparently a satisfac-
tory meeting for both people, at least the P thought so.
Had and got into the separation. It

a meeting with Rogers this afternoon
didn't work out very well, in that Rogers obviously was shocked to be told that
he was to leave. He didn't say much more than that to me, except that he
thought it was a bad way to handle it. When he got to the P, he made a brief
pitch about his concern on the appearance of his being fired, that it creates bad
and unnecessary public opinion. He made the point that loyalty goes both
ways, and people expect the P to be loyal with the people who work so hard
for him. He referred to the press reports about needing some reorganization
of foreign policy without him there and so on. Said that the P should have
consulted him first, and then decided. We then discussed the organization of
State Rogers were to stay, and he basically made a pitch to stay on to June
if
1, so that he can clean up things that he was doing and not look like K had
forced him out. He made the point that there's a lot of Vietnam work to be
done, and follow-up after the agreement. The P was quite impressed by that
point, because he agreed that it was a problem. He pitched strongly that it's
bad to look as if we've hatched a plot and here it is.
P told me I've got to tell K, this is after the meeting, that we're not going
to face the Rogers thing yet. Also, wanted to talk to Connally and told him
there's the problem with Vietnam, so Rogers is going to stay on a while. So
we'll start making the changes underneath, but for Connally's own informa-
tion we have a clear understanding with Bill, as to a departure.

Camp David. Dole had called yesterday. He assumes that he is going to stay
on as (Republican National Committee) Chairman. I told him I'd meet with
him next week, I'm going to have to work out a shift on the chairmanship. Will
talk to John Mitchell about trying to get him to do it.
P keeps coming up with the point that we should think in terms of K's
leaving. He gets caught up in the principle of it and he doesn't think that we
should keep him on for very long after we get Vietnam settled. I talked to K
after he met the P today. Regarding our conversation this morning with
Rogers, I told him that he was going to stay on for a short time. He thinks
this is unworkable for the Administration and our foreign policy. Our prob-
lem is not the Foreign Service, it's the Secretary, and he operates indepen-
dently of the White House. The Department is torn between their loyalty to
the Secretary versus the White House. Henry thought it's a disaster for the
second term and he's affronted that it was done without discussion from
him. He wants me to have no doubt regarding his feeling. He's certainly
discussed it with Al, and he says it won't work either. As a long-term propo-
sition —we'll have to think it over very carefully. In other words, he's threat-
ening. Obviously, keeping him may drive K out. He dropped a number of
veiled threats to that effect. He (Rogers) says if one has to carry a burden,
one shouldn't have it dumped on one's shoulders. I should have no illusions
—
regarding his feelings he's very serious about it. He says he has to know
exactly what the P expects him to do. He's not just somebody you can move
around. This is a courtesy that has not been extended to him. He has hesita-
tions regarding staying. I tried to calm him down, make all the obvious
points about what we're doing, it'll all work out, etc., but I don't think I
satisfiedhim very much.

The P kept calling me in the afternoon and through meetings later in
the day and into the evening on the line I should use in talking with Rogers.
He says I should have a clear understanding that he's to leave on June 1.
538 H.R. HALDEMAN

I drove down from Camp David first thing this morning and went right to
Rogers' house for my meeting with him. We spent a lot of time in sort of
general chitchat review of election results and basic transition approach. Ro-
gers is concerned because he feels the P's harsh way of going at the transition
is hurting the opportunity for him to create a more friendly image generally in
the country and thinks that we should have, for instance, waited a week before
the Cabinet meeting to ask for resignations, rather than moving so hard so
fast, etc. I then got into my pitch on how we structure the State Department.
I made the points the P told me to, that it was unfortunate he had the
impression of being fired and that the P thought he was leaving. We had no
real problems with the rest of the Cabinet, they're all figured out, so you're the
only problem. The P doesn't want to hurt you, but he's been through four
rough years, between you and K, so from now on, things have to be through
the system. The problems have been partly K's fault, but we must have a clear
understanding of the June 1 date with no further discussion, and, of course, no
one else should know. He totally agreed to all of these. He said there is a
problem with his working with the staffing system because K lies to him and
there's no way to deal with him, and he's particularly concerned with how to
deal with Haig's replacement because Haig has been the key to getting along.
He does trust Haig. He feels that his successor needs to be set up so that he
does have someone to deal with other than Henry, which is impossible. He also
made the point in that connection he must be sure that Haig goes with Henry
to Saigon if he goes, because Thieu doesn't trust or like Henry. He does trust
Haig.
P mentioned at noon that K was having problems with Thieu. He's gotten
a new cable and apparently Thieu is causing trouble again. The P told him to
just go ahead and get the best deal we can and then let Thieu paddle his own
canoe. Then when the P called in the evening, he said K has now read the
message and it wasn't nearly as bad as he thought, so it was another crisis that
Henry was stirring up.

K called me this evening, before his departure for Paris tomorrow, to
report that Peter Lisagor has an article regarding an interview Henry did with
an Italian journalist woman, some of it very bad, such as the reason he's so
popular is because Americans like cowboys and things like that. It'll appear in
the Star tomorrow, and Henry was very much concerned about it. He said he
thought he was just joking when he talked with her, and also that she was
supposed to submit the interview for proof before she submitted it, but she
didn't do it. So he's been shafted, which is not unusual.

P kept calling today while I was supposed to be home and not involved. He
said he was going to give me the day with the family but I ended up with seven
pages of notes. Henry's saying that regarding China he did it alone. P had
some very strong reaction. He obviously is extremely displeased by it, in
particular allthe stuff Henry kept coming up with. He day told me
later in the
I should let Henry know that obviously the EOB and and the
the Oval Office
Lincoln Room have all been recorded for protection, so the P has a complete
record of all of your conversations, which, of course, you can carry when you
write your book. (A reference to the taping system installed in the White House
in early 1971) It's not the witticisms and all that he's concerned about in the
story, it's the substance. It's detrimental in the highest degree. He made the
point to Henry that he doesn't make the decisions, and when they are made,
that he wavers the most. The P, I should tell him, has written the total China
story for his own file.
P got into the Dole/RNC question, because of Dole saying he was going
to stay and so on. He wants me to move on this to get some others to put the
heat on Dole, someone from the RNC and Congress. Mitchell should build the
fire on this so that we don't take the heat, stir up some people in the key states,
get some young congressmen and senators to speak out, saying we need a
change, etc.
Last thing he called about today was the Life cover picture, which he
finallycaught up with. Figures it's obviously a deliberate attempt to gibe us,
which I think is probably right. Asked if it had occurred to me to have letter
and calls made to Life regarding the lousy cover, and I said no. He said it has
occurred now.

P had me over first thing this morning. He's decided to go up to New York
with the family after Thanksgiving here at Camp David, to do Christmas
shopping, go to the theater, visit Tricia's new home in Brooklyn, etc. I think
he's just getting a little stir crazy and wants to get out, which
probably a is
good idea, from a general appearance anyway. They've also decided to go to

California for Christmas and have Bebe come up the day after, and he came
up with the idea of trying to have Pat Nixon named as the Grand Marshal for
the Rose Parade this year. He's very depressed with the K interview, which
gave away the moral ground in Vietnam, plus praising Le Due Tho and
knocking Thieu, which was bad. He wants to set up a situation for social
engagement with General and Mrs. Haig as a cover and then he wants to talk
to Haig candidly. He wants me to knock off K's going to China before the
Inaugural, which Henry wants to do. He wants to be sure that I get from K's
office all the memoranda from and to the P and get them into the P's files,
especially all of his handwritten stuff, the originals, physically move it into the
now.
P's files
He had quite a series of meetings today. I sat in on several of them.
Richardson was no problem. He was ecstatic at being offered the Defense
Department post, which I discussed with him before he went to see the P. He
540 H.R. HALDEMAN
was genuinely surprised, but clearly pleased to be selected. The P made quite
a point of Elliot's ability to deal with Henry, and his understanding of him, as
being one of the major pluses. He met with Helms with no preliminary meet-
ing. P him he was going to make a change (at CIA), gave him a good
told
buildup first. Offered him an ambassadorship. They talked about specific
ambassadorships. Helms lobbied for Iran, P responded very favorably and
agreed to hold Iran open until Helms decides whether he wants it or not. He
urged him to take it. Helms pushed Colby and Messinas for the CIA head. P
said there's a question of whether to promote from within or whether to go
outside for the new Director. It was basically a friendly meeting although
Helms was a little surprised and obviously disappointed to be moving out after
25 years, but there didn't seem to be any problem.
Henry called from Paris to say that the press found out about their
meeting place, so there'll be a lot of pictures and stories because they followed
the Vietnamese there and were there when Henry arrived. He's prepared to
move the meetings to the city, but the Vietnamese haven't agreed as yet, so he's
sending a report that things are going about as expected, no worse, maybe a
little better. They're tough but not unmanageable. They're going to meet again
tomorrow afternoon. They're studying the proposals and we should say noth-
ing. He would call again tomorrow, and that was about it.
E got a call from Bush, who met with the P earlier, and the P pitched him
on the RNC. Bush said that he would do it, if that's what the P wants.
It was a long, full day, covered some pretty good ground, got a few things
established, and no major problems except apparently Rumsfeld, who had his
meeting with the P after a pre-meeting with E, where he agreed that he should
go on out to Illinois and run for the Senate, but then when he got in the
meeting with the P, he said no, that just wouldn't do, that he had to have an
Administration job for a year, which was a complete shock to the P and E, and
typical Rumsfeld, rather slimy maneuver.

P had me over first thing this morning. He got on to the Dole problem first
thing, wants Ford and Scott to go to work on trying to get Dole to step down.
The item came up a couple of times again as the day went on, especially since
it appeared as the day went on that Bush was more likely to take the National
Chairmanship. He ended up at the end of the day agreeing that he would take
it. So we now have our replacement set. As a result, the P thought that Mitchell
should call Dole, tell him that we've got to have a full-time chairman. The P
does want him to step down, and when he comes to see the P, he should ask
to be released. Should recommend to the P that he get a full-time man, and for
Dole's to say that he ought to step out while he's on top.
K problems came up a number of times in conversations during the day.
P thought Henry ought to forget about the fetish of secret meetings. He's
worried about Henry observing the freeze on Time and Life, and said that if
Time has a Man of the Year this year and doesn't give it to Nixon, it'll
probably go to K, which would really create a problem. I'm going to have to
handle it. P really feels he should leave by midyear.
Next meeting I had was with Schlesinger. P made him the pitch on
wanting him to consider CIA, asked him how he would go about it. Schles-
inger had some ideas, agreed with the P's view that it needed to be changed.
That Helms is a captive of the Georgetown set, at least to a degree, and that
it is time for a change. He obviously wants the CIA job and is perfectly willing
to leave the AEC. Next one was Bill Casey, the P made him the pitch for,
ultimately, Deputy Secretary of State, but first Undersecretary. P said for
Administration, but Casey got him shifted over to Economic Affairs, which is
really better because it gives him more stroke. Casey is obviously delighted,
totally agrees with the P's assessment of the State Department bureaucracy.
Asked some of the right questions, but understands the problem and is willing
to work with that for the interim period, and is delighted at the opportunity
to get in and clean out the deadwood. I think that one's going to work out
extremely well.
Henry from Paris to report on the talks. The main thing he had to
called
tell me was had another five-hour session and that they had built TV
that they
towers outside their meeting place so the cameras could see into the courtyard
and they're getting pictures of him. He says they're getting pretty tough on
substance. There's a cable coming later.
We had a long session tonight after dinner on personnel for remaining
Cabinet posts and a complete rundown on undersecretaries and agency heads.
Things are starting to fall together reasonably.

P had E and me over at 8:30 this morning for a two-hour meeting before he
Went through a huge load of miscellaneous per-
started his regular schedule.
sonnel things. K question came up in several contexts. Wanted me to call
Haig in Paris and get Henry to quit posing for pictures, smiling with Le Due
Tho, and dictated a wire to K, a cable he wanted me to send, saying the P is
very disappointed in the lack of progress in the negotiations to date, under
the circumstances, unless the other side shows the same willingness to be
reasonable that we are showing, I am you to discontinue the talks
directing
and we shall then have to resume military activities until the other side is
ready to negotiate. They must be disabused of the idea they seem to have
that we have no other choice but to settle on their terms. You should inform
them directly, without equivocation, that we do have another choice, and if
they were surprised that I would take the strong action I did prior to Mos-
cow Summit, and prior to the election they will find that now with the elec-
tion behind us, I will take whatever action I consider necessary to protect
542 H.R. HALDEMAN
United States interests. Henry called me on the phone from Paris to report
they had another four-hour session, still in a very tough phase, may break
through tomorrow.
After all the meetings, P had a chat with E and me. Got into some detail
on the whole Watergate thing. Had John spell out the situation for him, and
it's obvious that he's still concerned about that, and is pushing John to get a
plan wrapped up as quickly as possible, and to him.
P called late this evening, following wanted to know who he

up Henry's cable,
could talk with to send a cable back to Henry. him Colonel Kennedy,
I told
and Kennedy called me a few minutes later, a little concerned about the cable
because it in effect tells Henry to make a settlement regardless of what the
South Vietnamese think, and that had Kennedy somewhat worried, but he's
going ahead with it.

K woke me up at 7:00 this morning, on the day I had hoped to be able to sleep
a and go into the office late, to say that they had a meeting in Paris
little late,
this morning. Very private, just the four of them: K, Haig, Le Due Tho, and
Xuan Thuy, Henry laid out our position in a private way and that we can't
make the decision until the meeting tomorrow as to follow the P's instructions
to break things off. The P should go ahead and go to New York. There's
nothing for him to do at this point. Henry's sending a message regarding
today's meeting. Essentially we'll know tomorrow what the situation is.
P then got into the whole Watergate Segretti question, making the point
that while all of our discussions relate to the legalities, the main thing involved
here is to protect the Presidency. We need a clear, simple statement, early, in
the form of a Dean report to the P, saying that I have checked and found that
there is no present member of the White House staff involved. I have also
found that neither Stans nor Mitchell is involved, if that's possible. He thinks
we ought to try to clear Stans and Mitchell, at least Stans, as far as the
Campaign Committee goes.
Regarding Segretti, he says there has to be a flat categorical statement that
I've investigated pursuant to your instructions, and then name names and
—
answer the implications regarding Haldeman, he didn't do anything; regard-
ing Colson, he didn't do anything; Chapin did receive information but didn't
direct the activities and so on. He makes the point that we should not harm
any of the other individuals if we can possibly help it. Then Ziegler should say,
there's the statement and we stand on it.
He feels we can't just let it "hang out," as Ehrlichman puts it, and hope
it's clear to people. Dean has to draw the conclusion specifically that the White
House was not involved. Have to say that Mr. Chapin recruited Segretti for
the job to conduct campaign activities, but there's no evidence that he directed
is done, Chapin and Strachan should both be out of
his activities. Before this
the White House. That gets to the problem of what we do with Chapin and
Strachan, which concerns the P greatly. He's very determined that we not do
anything that's harmful in any way to Dwight especially, but feels that we can't
keep him in the White House. Says Ehrlichman shouldn't think in legal terms.
What we need is a clear-cut categorical statement from Dean, saying this man
was not involved, that one was, and so on.
P left for New York at midday, and E and I had a long meeting with Dean
on the whole Watergate thing. Decided we'd have to follow the full-disclosure
route on Segretti, and that we can't do anything much on Watergate because
of the court case.

The day started with another wakeup call from Henry at 7:00 this morning
from Paris, saying that they had another private meeting. No full-scale ses-
sion, that he's going to come home, but they will announce resumption for
December 4. He says the other alternative was impossible, that we'd have a
total public blowup with Saigon, that would be following the P's instructions
to settle and ram it down Saigon's throat. He said we couldn't do that at this
point. He said Thieu's emissary is still coming to see the P, and Henry will
go on to New York, arriving about 9:00 or 9:30 tonight, stay at the Waldorf,
and meet with the P when he gets in. He is very disturbed, because the other
side leaked a story that was very unhelpful and he thinks we must not get
into that.

Henry mercifully delayed his wakeup
call today until about 10:30, but that's
because he's back in New York now. He called in, said that things in Paris
are in pretty good shape. The problem with North Vietnam is that all the
journalists in Paris have convinced them that the P has to settle now, so the
North Vietnamese gave K an ultimatum on Wednesday. K hit them back on
Friday, then broke off talks after their leak to the Post. They were terrified
regarding the breakoff. Henry says the main thing now is to keep the P
pumped up to sound tough with the South Vietnamese until we get over that
hurdle. He thinks this could be worked out and that we brutalize them now
rather than while he was there. Then we've made the record as trying to
work with him and force them to take the settlement. Says we have two
problems: first, an ultimatum to South Vietnam so that they're aboard the —
P must be brutal to Due, the emissary, he can't talk gently to him. Secondly,
an ultimatum to the North Vietnamese that this is it, period. He thinks we
544 H.R. HALDEMAN
can put it in motion, get it all set for a Presidential speech to the nation by
the 20th of December.

Back at Camp David. Talked with Mitchell first thing this morning about
Dole. He said he is bitter because he got no credit at the election night

celebration, and that he resents Mitchell because of the campaign structure
he has set up. He's sure though that he will do what the P wants, but what
he wants to do is stay on a year as chairman. All our RNC people want a
full-time professional chairman. There's very little support for Dole staying
on.
I took a from John Dean, who wanted to report on his meeting with
call
Chapin. He went fairly well and that he'd deflected it basically from me.
said it
He knew he was a lightning rod and that it would be rougher for Chapin and
for the P if he's onboard when it all hits. He should leave in order to defuse
the issue. Go out now with his head up, and untarnished. This apparently came
as a shock to Dwight. Dick Moore then talked to him and said to get out now
for his own career sake. He's having lunch with Moore to discuss that. Dwight
said he was interested in the media business, the networks. He was not inter-
ested in the Universal opportunity. Dean thinks that Dwight has the hope that
I'll say no, he should stay, but Dean told him his recommendation was to go.
John also said regarding Strachan, he gave him a list of the open posts, and
the one he wants is General Counsel to USIA, which we are going to go ahead
and offer him. He said on the cash, the only way to handle that is to turn it
back to the Committee, which is where it belongs anyway.
Had a meeting with K, explained the whole reorganization setup, and
tried to reassure him on the State Department and related problems. He's
convinced that Rogers staying on is a ploy of some kind by the P, either to hold
the post for Connally until he's ready to take it, or to force Henry out, or to
just leave Rogers in and go ahead coasting the way we are. I don't believe I was
very successful in changing his view on this, but I tried. K and I then met with
the P. They reviewed the Vietnam negotiating situation and made the point
that there must be a total freeze on all comment on Vietnam from any source.
P made it very clear that the thing has to be settled one way or the other this
time, that we have to handle South Vietnam on an all-out basis this week,
either they go along or else we go ahead without them. This of course is hard
for Henry to swallow because he wants to work out the negotiation, but the
P was very firm on it and didn't let him up.
Then P called me a little later to be sure I'd leaned hard on K on the press
contact thing. The P had just called him and he thought someone was in the
room with Henry at the time. He could tell from the way Henry was talking
that he was doing it for the record. I did hit Henry hard on the Italian lady
interview. He really cried on it, on the basis that he was totally mortified and
had done a terrible thing, knew it, and couldn't have bothered him more than
anybody. He went on and on about this. It obviously does bother him, but he'll
obviously go right ahead and have the interviews anyway. I don't think there's
any way to stop that.

Camp David. P called me morning, wanted to go through
earlier at 7:30 this
a lot of miscellaneous things, particularly on White House staff. Had a meet-
ing with Dole today, which was absolutely incredible. P made his whole
pitch on all the reasons why Dole should leave now, why it would be better
for him and everything, and Dole said well, if I came up here for the hang-
ing, I at least want to say a word in my own defense. Then he went into a
long harangue about his own position, that he said he was staying and he
therefore has to stay, that he feels it will ruin him in Kansas if it looks like
he's kicked out, is totally oblivious to any suggestion that by handling it
right, he can avoid it looking like he's kicked out. Said he would have a
problem raising money for his campaign if he were kicked out, and the P
committed $300,000 in a special fund-raising effort for him. Committed a
three-week trip to Europe or Asia for him in the late summer. Then at the
end the P did mention George Bush as a possibility for the job, and Dole
agreed that he would be great.
John Dean called, said Chapin appears to accept his fate. He thinks that
I concur and that he's rethought his general stance and has asked Miller for
Miller's advice. Miller's still rocky on it, went over the potential list of things
last night. Dean is cool on his recommendations, and there are no new prob-
lems when they testify to Justice. I had my meeting with Chapin this afternoon,
which was a pretty horrible experience. I had to go through the whole thing
with him. He basically does understand, I think, although it's very, very tough
on him, and said that he couldn't face leaving, but would probably be able to
do it. He's got a lot of ideas on job opportunities and so forth, and I think once
he gets moving on it, he'll find that actually it's a good move for him. He
wouldn't have been as well off to stay in as he will be to get out.

P told me to tell Dole that we got Bush, and that Dole should come up to
Camp David next Wednesday to finalize it with the P. He should take the
initiative, that he should go ahead and talk to Bush, but the P has told Bush
that he's his choice, and that's set. The sooner we can get the word out and
name the thing publicly, the better.
Got into the K problem a little. I met with Al Haig at the P's request
and told him that we had to get things under control. Al said he understood
perfectly, he was very concerned. Henry, in his view, is on an up-and-down
546 H.R. HALDEMAN
cycle all the time, and he has bottomed out on his down cycle now and is
coming back up, but was in absolutely terrible shape in Paris last week.
Al feels that Henry needs a very good, long vacation and that we should
be sure he gets it. He thinks the trip this week will go all right and that the deal
is locked now, so there's no problem with Henry's going. Said he understood
completely the problem of the Italian woman's article, and that Henry under-
stands it too.
Apparently the meeting with the South Vietnamese envoy didn't go very
well. The P spent a long time with him, about two and a half hours. The net
result was the P softened a little bit, which was bad. They're going to have to
meet tomorrow to try to clean that up, but the South Vietnamese, after the
meeting, came back and told Henry to tell the P they would probably have to
go it alone and that we should just go in, make a settlement to get our prisoners
back, and stop fighting as far as we're concerned, and let the Vietnamese go
on fighting it out. They don't seem to understand that our Congress won't
continue to supply them if they take that route, and that they have to go along
with us on a settlement, a point which Henry would like to get across to them,
and the P in the meeting tomorrow.

Colson, E, and I on the organization of the Colson office and
started a meeting
The P called and said he had just gotten
relations with his outside law firm, etc.
a study from Buchanan about ambassadors abroad, that 55 percent are from
Ivy League schools of those we had appointed. Then said to have E and
Colson come over and he wanted to have a meeting with us. So we went over
at 10:30 and were there for several hours. He got into the Ivy League thing and
saying that our problem is we're just appointing people we know and all the
people we know are Ivy League, so therefore from now on we appoint no more
Ivy League people.
We then got into a general discussion of the "Connally for President"
idea, and the point that he is the only one that any of us would want to see
succeed the P. He's got to run as a Republican and he's got to make the move
now.
The "Connally for President" discussion led to a general discussion of
forming a new party. E raising the idea that this is our only chance, in the next
60 days or so, and that we should give some thought to it on the basis that you
use the Republican Party as a base, but add to it the New Majority. Use
Connally as the focal point candidate, but that the P has to take the lead. The
P was intrigued with this as a possibility, recognizing that you can never really
go with the P's party into a majority and that the only hope probably is to do
a new party. The question is whether it can be done and whether we really want
to make the effort. I suspect nothing will come of it, but it was an interesting
discussion, and as E said when we left, it's a good way to get the meeting to
break up, which it finally did.

The P had me over at midday. He started with quite a long report and
discussion on K and Vietnam. He talked to Henry a little earlier to give him
his final instructions before he left, and was still thinking about all that. He
came up with the idea that Henry can't be the one to go to Saigon and work
out the deal, and so he'd lobbed out to Henry, first the suggestion that
Connally do it, which absolutely horrified Henry. Then he moved from there
to the suggestion of the VP, which Henry thought was a great stroke, as he
naturally would, because he feels it keeps Connally out of it. The P's point,
though, is that because Thieu doesn't trust Henry, we've got to send some-
one else to sell the deal to him. Apparently the VP is sold enough on him,
and the fact that Congress won't back any continuation of the war, or any
continuation of support of Thieu, so he's the great one to go do that. The P
also made the point that Henry can't go to Hanoi if Saigon doesn't go along
with the deal. If we end up cutting a deal just with North Vietnamese, that
wipes out Henry's Hanoi trip, which he told Henry, much to Henry's great
concern.
Then he got PR
thing and the need to get across the "Nixon the
into the
Man" story, that he needssomeone with him at all times that feels the color,
someone who's very sensitive on that sort of thing, that we need to get the extra
dimension beyond the professional president concept. He got back into the
new-party idea and thought we ought to pursue it. He suggested that Connally
come over tomorrow, if he could, to discuss this. I checked with Connally, and
he can't, but he'll come up on Tuesday and meet with the P in Washington.
He got into his need for improvements at the White House. He wants to have
a whirlpool and sauna and a one-lane bowling alley put in with a shower and
so on, in the basement, so he can use it without having to go over to the EOB.
Later he called to say he'd been discussing it with Bebe and Bob Abplanalp
and they'd like to pay for it.

Started at Key Biscayne. K called with his report from Paris. Said he was
sending a message, but they had held a two-and-a-half-hour private session.
He just presented his on it. They
position and will get an answer this afternoon
agreed to meet tomorrow at a place we furnish. He on track
says it's exactly
the way he and the P discussed. Then, after we got back to Washington, and
home tonight, the P called me to say he had just talked to Colonel Kennedy,
who had received a report from Henry that things had been very tough in the
afternoon session and that they're going to have to break off the talks. (Tho
was being very intransigent, and even backing off on items already agreed upon. J
The P will have to go on TV and rally the American people. The P told
Kennedy to tell K to stay on the hard line, that this was not a viable option
and that the P has a very uneasy feeling about going on TV at this point. He
548 H.R. HALDEMAN
doesn't think K is in touch with reality; says it's better to state it in a practical
manner and just do it without going on TV to rally the people. We don't have
to decide untiltomorrow, so we can wait and see what happens, but we should
saywe haven't completed negotiations and go ahead with more bombing.
Going on TV unnecessarily escalates the public reaction. It's too bad we don't
have a direct line to Haig to get a feeling from him, but Henry's got to realize
that we can't repeat history; we can't go on and do it again. They're going to
meet tomorrow at 3:00 and we'll get a report then.

In Washington. The P had me over first thing this morning. In fact, he called
me home. I wasn't planning to go in until late, but I hurried up to go in. We
at
had a problem because some of the Cabinet announcements leaked, and he
wanted them canceled, although he simmered down on that. The problem was
the Post got the story, which was especially galling.
Then got into the Vietnam problem and wanted to discuss it in some
detail. The question of whether he should go on TV or not. He had K's cable,
which pushed hard on his going on again. Also he got word that today's
meeting had been canceled. They were going to meet tomorrow.
This led to a discussion later in the day with Colson on the same subject.
He had Colson read the cable and discussed it. Chuck felt as I do and as the
P does, that he should not go on. You can't rally the people again, and so on.
TV's not the answer. If there's any alternative, we should low-key it as much
as possible as being an interruption, not a breakdown or a breakofT. K has to
take the heat, not the P, but he should not do it in despair or frustration. He
should make the point that they have backed off. So then the P told me to send
a message to K to tell North Vietnam tomorrow, first, that it's his belief now,
that in view of the fact that North Vietnam reneging on the October 26
agreement, and their intransigence, that the P will be able to get funds from
Congress to continue military action and military and economic support for
South Vietnam. Also, we should avoid a dramatic breakoff by us, and should
treat it as a case where we reached an impasse at this time, and each side has
gone back for consultation. We'll resume when it appears productive to re-
sume. I should cover all these points in the message. We must not assume that
the gun is there to be fired. Henry's got to be turned off on dealing with this,
so that he won't take the position when he gets in the meeting with North
Vietnamese and lock the P into it. The P called me later and said that I should
add to the cable a thing that says, "Incidentally, the P and all of us here feel
that any discussion of your resignation is totally out of order." K is over-
dramatizing that whole thing.
Had a long session with Connally and the whole question of the new party
and Connally's going for the Presidency, and it's clear that Connally is ready
to run, but not totally convinced that we can do it by building a new party. The
third-party route just isn't workable, and there's no point in trying it. He does
feel that we could do something in the way of reestablishing the Republican

Party in a different way, with a new name, such as the Republican Independent
Party. It would clearly put a new cast on it, but not lose the base that we have
now, which Connally feels is indispensable. He debated whether he would
change parties, and came to no conclusion on that. Connally's feeling, how-
ever, is that he shouldn't change things when they are going well, and that
we're in a pretty good position now, we ought to leave it that way.

At Camp David. The whole day today was virtually taken up with the K- Viet-
nam negotiation problems. The P called me over first thing this morning when
I arrived to get into the question. He thinks I should get a cable to K, making
the point that at the present time we don't need public support. We just need
to act and let the actions speak louder than words. Our main goal must be to
play this as low-key as possible and to ignore Hanoi's intransigence.
Later in the afternoon we got the cable from K giving the reporton the
meetings, basically that they are almost totally sure of failure. The P went
through a long discussion, really agony, on the decision that K poses for him,
which is whether to make one last offer in the hope that they'll take it, or to
go the other way and pull out. K lays out the options on it. The P said I should
get E's view on whether we should wait six months for the POW's, which is
what would happen if we pull out and start bombing. Henry thinks that within
six months we'd be able to make a deal with them to get our POW's. Or to take
the other option, which is to put one more peace proposal in and to try to keep
it going, and not put it on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The P said that (this was
about 6:00) to meet again about 8:30 with E. I went over the whole thing with
John. He made the point first that any agreement's better than no agreement,
and we're in a stronger position to try to deal with the North than to try to
deal with the South. Also he feels that if there's no agreement, it would be a
monumental blow to America's Vietnam policy, but the P should not go on
TV; he should not personify that failure. He should jettison K instead, and let
K do the briefing.
The P had E and me over at 8:15 and we met in the Aspen living room,
by the fire with the lights low on a cold night, and the P was slumped down
in his chair and sort of went through the whole thing with John. John feels we
have to try the finesse before going with our big gun, the P, the finesse being
to try to maintain the appearance, at least, that the negotiations are contin-
uing. He's concerned regarding the height of expectations in the country. The
P said his view is that we have to get K out of the meetings for a while, to take
a look at himself, and that's the key need at this point. Both of K's options
really lead to the same conclusion, which is thatwe start bombing now. One
way, we get the POW's now, and the other way we get them in July, but
Congress might pull the string on us. The main thing is to get K back here and
decide here, not through the channels across the Atlantic. He feels K's ap-
550 H.R. HALDEMAN
proach now is not very rational. At that point he had Colonel Kennedy come
in. The P read Kennedy's draft of instructions to K and then read aloud his
own draft, which is much longer and more on the basis of continuing the talks.
He said we have to recognize that the North Vietnamese are evaluating K
personally, too. They think he has more authority than he does, and they think
he has no choice but to make a deal because of what he said. The P told
Kennedy to send both messages, Kennedy's as the official instructions, the P's
to give the flavor and background. Kennedy expressed his concern regarding
the total break with Thieu and thus his collapse, which would mean a waste
of ten years, and he is worried about the effect that would have on the
American psyche. The P answered that you come to a point where you have
to weigh the cost. If we've made the total effort, we can do no more. Kennedy's
concerned about how we may be perceived over the long haul over time. What
will the effect be regarding our relations in the world?
There was a long period then in the meeting, with a more or less silent
review of the messages, with slight changes in phrases and that sort of thing.
Then the P said that K is in his India /Pakistan mood, with the feeling that all
is lost, but nothing is ever totally lost. We need to get Henry here and talk to
him, have him talk to the P at length, to review the options carefully. The P
just feels the bombing-to-submission idea won't work. The goal of just saving
the POW's is not enough and we can't guarantee Congressional support for
eight months. Kennedy then left to send the messages to Henry, going by
chopper back down to the office.
The other things that arose during the session were Harry Truman's
imminent death and the P's ideas on a message regarding that. The moon
shot's been delayed due to a mechanical problem, and Dole should go out and
talk to the press tomorrow.

At Camp David. We started off the day with the Dole problem. I called him
this morning to confirm his appointment with the P today, make sure he was
ready to make his announcement. Then he indicated to me that there had been
a lot of press stuff out indicating he was being forced out, and that he didn't
think that was right. He wasn't going to go along with it, and didn't know
whether he was ready to move ahead on his resignation or not. Then tonight,
Colson called to report that Dole had called him saying he had decided he was
the only friend he had at the White House, and then launched into a ten-
minute tirade against me, followed by a statement that he was being forced out
and screwed in the press. He wasn't going to stand for it.
I was over at 5:00 and he had E join us. Discussing some personnel items,
and then Manolo brought in K's cable, which the P read and then reviewed the
highlights with us. He apparently had made a little progress, but not very
much, although he now realizes we should move for agreement. He still put the
two choices to the P, though, after laying out all the pitfalls involved in each,
especially the negotiating route. The P feels K's choice is the bombing option,
but won't work unless the P goes on TV, and, as he sees it, that's not in the
it
cards. K always prefers the big-action play against all odds and winning it. The
P said I do, too, if you win it. K wants to push the P into taking a course of
action that K warned against. The P went into quite a lot of psychological
reaction to K, and E did, likewise. down K would like to get
E felt that deep
out of it now and on the P. That K wants subconsciously to flee rather
lay it
than fight, but he'd deny that and say he's recommending fight, but actually
he's fleeing from the complex and that he doesn't know the right way. The P
is convinced that if K came back without an agreement, he would resign. When
he returns, I've got to get him firmly on board, to see it through all the way,
no hangdog position, we can't let him drop the word that he wanted to hang
tough and the P forced him to make the best deal that he could. He said to give
Henry a terse reply. There has been movement in today's meeting, and should
go on. Then Henry should plan to return to Camp David so he can have a full
day with the P and with Haig.
These were his instructions when the phone call came in from Henry and
I took it while the P went out for a swim. Henry was calling from Paris, said
he hadn't heard from me for a few days and so he was just calling to check in
with me. Then immediately he said, basically, I wanted you to know that I'm
in favor of going ahead, but I did want to warn you about the implications
involved. Then I said, well, you're clearly making some progress in the negotia-
tions and it looks better, doesn't it? And he said, yes, we're slowly getting there,
and if we all know what we're getting into, it's the right thing to do, but it's
not the millennium. It will be a better agreement than October would have
been. We still have the option, though, of going the other way, and he wants
us to know that then we can do it by putting the heat and the blame on the
others, as he spelled out in his message. At the latter part of the conversation,
the P came bouncing in from the pool, waving, and said, do you need me? And
I said no as I continued the conversation, so he went on into his room to get
dressed.
(After considerable further discussions) the P dictated a cable which I
wrote in longhand, then rewrote in longhand and sent over for typing. I
brought it back, read it to the P and he approved it, and I had it sent down
as the cable to K telling him to take the second option (for negotiation), but
to view it no further debate. The P felt very relieved
as a fixed decision with
and figured made the decision now and can live with it and he then
he's
obviously felt relaxed. He had John and me stay for dinner, and after we left
we had the four Secretaries come over and watch a movie with us.

Got into the Dole thing and I explained to him what the problem was with
Dole's blast at me in his conversation with Colson and we moved to get
Harlow and Mitchell to work it out, which they succeeded in doing by midday,
552 H.R. HALDEMAN
but by then a sleet storm up at Camp David, and there was no point
we had
in trying to getDole up. So we didn't.
Got back into the Watergate /Segretti thing, wanted to be sure that he gets
his Dean report. He thinks Dean ought to talk to the press rather than Ziegler,
to give the summary on it. Wants to have a meeting on that subject the first
of the week.
The K thing turned out to be a four-and-a-half-hour meeting today and
a plan for another meeting tomorrow. With the possibility of sending Haig
back tomorrow night after the meeting's over.
The P got into his White House Health Unit thing again. He wants the
thing set up for the family. The bowling alley, sauna, tub and dressing room.
Then he had Julie come in and we talked about her plans, first with the family's
Christmas plans and then the idea of her taking an East Wing staff job, which
would be superb. The key to that is getting David (Eisenhower) out of the
Navy now, and setting it up so that he can run for the Goodling seat in
Pennsylvania. So I'm going to try to work that out, so we can get Julie in.

The P came down from Camp David first thing this morning. He went into the
EOB office and had me come in at 10:00. He got into the need for Harry Dent
to take on three projects. One, to get Eddie Nixon to run for Congress in
Washington State. Two, to pick a district for Ed Cox (Tricia 's husband) to run
in from New York, and third, to check immediately on the Goodling seat for
David. Then also we need to work out a job for David, tied into the Bicenten-
nial or something of that sort. He definitely wants Julie and David to live in
Washington. He wants to be sure they put through no special deal for David.
It's got to be tied in to a normal group somehow. Then he got into where they
should live. He'd like to get them into the White House on the third floor,
which they're going to fix up, but they'd prefer to get a house, so he said they
could get one with a swimming pool so Mrs. Nixon and he could get out of
the White House from time to time and get over there for a swim. I'm sure that
would be better for Julie and David than the problem of living in the White
House.
On Safire's book, he wanted to be sure Bill understood that he can't come
in and psychoanalyze the P as to what he really thinks and that sort of stuff.
He'd rather him just write about him, not as if he were him. The publisher also
can't be Doubleday. It has to be someone who supported us.
He had Haig in about noon, and Al reports that everything's set on the
negotiations except one problem, which is the DMZ. Yesterday it bogged
down on that after getting everything else cleared up, and so we closed with
a compromise offer, which Al says Thieu won't be able to accept. The P made
the point strongly to Al that the problem is that we pushed so hard on the
settlement before the election that that put us in a bad spot. We're still trying
to dig out from Haig agreed. Haig is very much concerned about main-
that.
taining the cease-fire. He feels we want to be prepared to react hard if they
violate it, and he's sure they will. That means bombing the North. The P then
took a very strong position on violations. It should be clear that it will not be
on a tit-for-tat basis. It'll be all-out, regardless of potential civilian casualties,
if we have a provocation. He told Al to tell Henry that, to use in his negotiat-
ing, and also have the VP be prepared to make that point. The P raised the
question of the VP doing the Thieu deal, or whether the P should do it. Haig
said the P should not do it, should not meet with him until the whole thing is
absolutely locked. The P made the point that the VP must know this is not a
negotiating mission. He is to convince Thieu as the leader of the hawks that
there will be no support for him unless he goes along.

The P had Dole in first thing this morning. I had talked to Bush ahead of time
and worked out the arrangement with him as to how we'd handle the an-
nouncement. He agreed that Dole should go out after the meeting and cover
the whole thing, but say that Bush still has important work at the UN and that
we'd have to do the shift after the General Assembly. The meeting went
reasonably well. Bob came in and sort of wandered through a lot of chitchat
for a while and then the P finally eased into the deal. They agreed that Bush
would stay on through the session and Dole would stay at the RNC for the
January meeting and Ziegler should shoot down the nonsense that Dole was
pushed out. That basically covered the Dole meeting.
Got into the Watergate thing. Feels he doesn't want to leave an aura
around the White House that there are a lot of bad guys there and the P
doesn't care. Says the theory of "Just be quiet and it'll all go away" won't
work. We need something to be said. Otherwise how can the P handle it at
his first press conference? We should try just a very brief statement, but we
must get something to get it out of the way. At least something that Segretti
had nothing to do with Watergate. And he feels a good offense is the best
defense in this kind of thing. He went through it all with E and said that the
view now is that the P is trying to hide something or protect someone, and
that we've got to go for the smallest statement we can make but we do have
to make some statement.
I called Connally to get his reaction. He said he was mad as hell at (new
DNC Chairman Robert) Strauss about his TV thing yesterday. He had called
him and told him his remarks were ill-advised. He had gone out of his way to
take a cut at Connally and said he had read him out of the party and made the
point apparently that it was a sin to have voted against McGovern, and that
if that's so, they ought to select new moral standards. He said he was pretty
rough and that Strauss was quite disturbed. He says Strauss' election won't
change a thing. He doesn't know what his deals are that he made to get the
554 H.R. HALDEMAN
post, but in any event, the liberals will try to crucify him, that he brings no
strength to the party, he's just a manager. He can't bring the South in. Wallace
is the leader of the Democratic South. For that reason, we should move in
somewhat them have a place to go, but they'll need a compelling
to let
motivation. They can't go to avoid a nebulous third party. Theoretically,
they'd do it in a minute, but they don't know how to do it practically. It'll take
—
a move either a positive move by the Republicans or a negative move by the
Democrats. We'll have to wait and see.

The P had me over to talk about the Julie job. Apparently Julie had talked with
him last night and she can't now take that job, so he wanted me to consider
what she could do over here. She's good for the P, well organized, thinks up
things, and handles a lot of little things. It's good to have her around, so he
wants to see what she can do at the White House. She could schedule events,
getting people to cooperate and all that. She should do something where she
handles people. I talked to Julie later, and she agreed that the real place for her
is in the East talked to Ron and he agreed, too, so we're going
Wing job. She
to try to get that back on the track.
I had a call from Billy Graham today, to say he's back from his trip and
wanted to report that everyone in all the countries he visited were elated at the
P's election. The Shah of Iran said that we've saved civilization for at least four
more years.

Ziegler moved in on the Julie deal today. The P told him to call Pat Nixon and
meet with her and Julie this afternoon and try to get it settled, which Ron did
and it worked out very well. Agreed that we'll be doing it on the basis of Julie
being an assistant to the First Lady and putting a press assistant in also, Ron,
in an hour and a half session, sold it completely to them, so we've now got that
on track.
The P was very disturbed by the Scotty Reston story today on Vietnam,
which he feels had to come from K. The P said it was totally baffling to Haig
as to why Henry would have done it. Haig called while I was in the office this
morning and said Henry would be home late tonight, that he was very touchy
in his phone conversation that they've obviously had a rough time on the
settlement.

Henry was back. Spent most of the morning with the P and apparently the
have broken off for now, so there won't be anything developing on that
talks
in the immediate future. The P's going to have to move to step up the bombing
and hope that we can get a political settlement.
K came in to talk with me this morning about his personal problems.
Wants to have a long meeting later, which we never got around to today. Got
into the press thing, and it was really kind of hysterical, because he flatly told
me that he had not talked with John Osborne and did not understand why the
P and others were disturbed about the Osborne story, and didn't understand
why we didn't trust him when he says he doesn't talk to these people. Then I
read him the direct quotes in the story, and after hemming and hawing a bit,
he said, well, I talked with him on the phone but I didn't meet with him.

The P's foot is still bothering him. He said this morning he had taken his
bandage off and he felt that he probably had a broken bone. It
splinter or
doesn't hurt when he stands on it or when he's sitting, but does hurt when he
walks. He's limping very badly, and is concerned about any events that require
him to do any major walking. He refuses to see a doctor or do anything about
it.He says wearing a shoe is just as good as having a splint and he doesn't want
to make a big fuss about it.
Then we got into the whole question of K's briefing. He had Ziegler in first
thing this morning, said that they should go ahead on the K briefing at 1 1:30,
but that there should be no extravaganza over in the White House. It should
just be in the pressroom.
Editor's Note: Negotiations were going nowhere, and the President had
decided it was time for strong action. He authorized B-52 raids up North
and the reseeding of Haiphong Harbor.
Then Ziegler should plan to do the bombing and mining briefing on

Saturday, and making the point that these are just precautionary measures in
the face of a North Vietnamese buildup. The P has stated that bombing and
mining would continue until we get our minimum conditions of POW's and
cease-fire, and he says that the point is that bombing for a couple of weeks
would put us in a good position.
Ron raised the point of the Time magazine Man of the Year. The P said
K is not to see them under any circumstances, that I'm to order him to do no
interviews, social, return calls, or anything to Time,and he told me to call the
White House operators Henry, which, of course, I
to turn those calls off to
can't do. He's written a long memo to K, which he was having typed up while
Ron and I were meeting with him about guidance on the thing. He had Ron
and Henry and me in a little later in the morning and Henry had convinced him
556 H.R. HALDEMAN
he should not have his press conference today because of some statements by
the North Vietnamese and other general developments. The original plan was
to have a press conference today, then start the military actions tomorrow, and
the massivebombing on Sunday, but then Le Due Tho said this morning that
comment on the talks and that he remains optimistic, so
they'd agreed not to
Henry thinks we have an alternate course of letting it ride today and then K
going on tomorrow. Start the minor action on Sunday and the massive action
on Monday. One problem with following the original scenario would be that
we would be bombing while Le Due Tho was in Peking, which would cause a
heavier reaction.
The P then read his entire memo, which must have been four or five pages.
Then he told K he wants to make the P appear to be the tough guy all the way
through. That we should set it up today for K to go tomorrow. The P said I
would rather bomb on Monday, unless you think we really need to do it on
Sunday. He didn't like the idea of having a Sunday church service while he was
bombing. K said he feels better than he has in weeks, because now we're in
control of things again instead of being in the position of the rabbit with two
snakes, having one on each side. The P got back to discussing what Henry
ought to do. He said to be nonspecific on the details and he did a lot on
building up of his spirit and all. The P was obviously trying to maneuver Henry
into the right frame of mind on how to approach the whole thing.
After they left, the P made the point that he was very concerned about
Henry's mood, and said, well, he's happy now, because we're going back to the
bombing, but that's the wrong approach. He wanted to be sure that Henry had
a very hard briefing before he goes out to the press tomorrow because his press
things have been disasters. He must try to be effective rather than being
brilliant. He then got into the point he's been making quite frequently the last
few days, that we've got to get hold of the government. He keeps saying he has
the feeling that the government is out of control, that the people we have don't
know what to say and don't know how to say it, so we aren't getting our points
across.
Had a long meeting with Stans on his whole campaign thing. He reports
that on the financing deal, we spent $47.5 million, but we had budgeted $43
million. He thinks there's another million, maybe at the most, in backup bills.
He says he collected $51 million, so he's got something like $2.5 or $3 million
in coverage, and he's concerned about what to do with
Thinks he should it.
transfer it to a cleanup fund before December needed to pay for

31, use what's
litigation, contingent liabilities on taxes if we have to pay them, and some
refunds to some noisy contributors who were upset about appointments.
I spent morning in a personnel meeting, keeping the P stalled. Didn't get

all
in to see him till later in the afternoon. I raised the point of Anne Armstrong
as counselor and the P bought it. Worked up a way to go at it, and I tried to
reach Anne to tell by phone. We decided we wanted

her, she wasn't available
to leak itto the press for the Sunday papers, to the Star, and called Ziegler to
tell him to do that. I still couldn't get Anne. The time got to 4:30, which is the
latest one could leak it, so we went ahead and leaked it without telling Anne.
Then I did get her on the phone, told her. She was a little flabbergasted. I didn't
get her till 5:30, and by that time, I told her she'd have to be at the Cabinet
dinner tonight, and that really threw her, too, because she only had two hours
to notify her family, get organized, and get to the dinner, then I alerted the P.
He decided he wanted her on his right and wanted her to give a toast at the
dinner, which she did do. The Cabinet dinner went off very well. A little bit
rambling, as the P got up and gave a little talk about the importance of Cabinet
people. Then had me give a toast to the VP and considered him as symbolic
of the entire Cabinet. Then had Bill Rogers toast Mamie Eisenhower and Pat
Nixon, the First Ladies. Bill very graciously also toasted Julie as the symbol
of the coming together of those two families. Then he announced Anne Arm-
strong's appointment, told them it was a big secret until Monday, and had
Anne respond with a toast to the P. She did a very good job, working in the
idea that this is the period when we salute the Prince of Peace and stating that
those of us who are closest to, and work most directly with the P, have a chance
to gather with him at this time and to drink a toast to the man who has done
the most for peace in our history. A potential awkwardness didn't seem to
develop, at least there were no real problems at the dinner, although it wasn't
any great smashing success, I don't think.

The P was up at Camp David all morning. He came down at noon and then
he came over. He is concerned about K and his reaction to the bombing thing
and all that, because Henry feels we're at another crisis point now and is going
through his usual reactions on that. Later in the afternoon, he had Henry and
me come over, and he went through a long discussion of the whole rationale,
how we got where we are and what the current situation is, how we should be
dealing with it. Mostly an exercise on the P's part to try to buck Henry up,
because he feels he is overreacting to the press and so forth as a result of his
concern on the whole bombing deal. The P made the point that we've been
around this track before. We have a lot of friends in the country and we
shouldn't be too worried. The key is that we all must show confidence. He also
thinks we're in a good position because we're starting the bombing just a week
before Christmas. He's very concerned about any second-guessing. K's cov-
ered everyone and they all were for it, so he doesn't think we'll have any real
problem there. He wants two or three B-52's today and the P asked Henry
whether the Air Force wants to pull back now. Henry says no, that we're doing
the right thing, and the P says it's funny how these things work out. That we
could have stalled this a few weeks but it's much better to be going at it now.
Henry makes the point that the P's best course is brutal unpredictability.
558 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P had his physical this morning, apparently everything went well, except
that they did confirm that he had splintered a bone in his foot, so he was
right on that problem. Later he said with some glee that Haig has now
joined the club, that he got kicked in the teeth by Thieu, was kept waiting
five hours, and that Thieu demands total withdrawal of all North Viet-
namese troops, so that we have to go out on January 3 for a separate deal if
we can get it. We lost three more B-52's today. The P is obviously very
concerned about the reaction on the B-52's. The military apparently antici-
pated three losses for every 100 planes in raids, but we're running somewhat
higher than that. He says, however, that we must not knock it off, and K
agrees.
The P kept coming back to the B-52 loss problem, saying we can't back
off, but will we get three losses every time? If so, it's going to be very tough to
take. Thieu has ended up ignoring the P's letters and stating his own demands,
such as getting the troops out. The P says that, in effect, he wants us to go out
alone. So we have to figure how we can without sinking South Vietnam. The
real question is whether Hanoi will settle bilaterally without forcing us to cut
aid to South Vietnam. They can gamble that Congress will throw out the aid
anyway. If we go bilaterally there will be no cease-fire, but we would argue that
South Vietnam is now in a position where they can stand on their own feet. K,
over and over in the meeting, really blasted Thieu as a complete SOB. Says that
he still may be just doing this to make a record, and then planning to cave at
the end, but the main thing is to finish the thing as best we can. The P says it's
better not to get a negative agreement, that we should go for a separate deal,
which I argued against. The question still is whether to go bilateral or to
negotiate it. If Hanoi accepts the January 3 meeting, we should meet, settle,
and put it to Thieu. In other words, the P is now shifting to my view. We
should now treat Thieu with total silence, not give him another chance. The
P then sort of summed it up, that as gloomy as it looks at this point, something
still may happen. Truman's death is still imminent, and may affect the P's
travel plans, although nothing specific was said on that.

The P left for Key Biscay ne for Christmas.

I had no contact with the P today. He's still in Key Biscayne. Ziegler did call
in the evening to say that he had a long session with the P and he's very upset
because he's sort of feeling that he was left out alone, nobody worrying about
things. He was disturbed by a wire story covering the number of people who
were having to give up Christmas with their families in order to service the P
while he's in Florida. As a result of this, the P saying that he'll probably return
to Washington on Christmas evening, which would be bad news.
Saturday, December 23, through Tuesday, December 26, 1972
The P was in Key Biscayne. I was in Washington and had no contact. Made
a major point out of not calling me or interrupting me in any way during my
so-called vacation period.
1973
Wednesday, December 27, 1972, through

Tuesday, January2, 1973
Again no contact. The P was in Washington, having come back up on the

evening of the 26th from Key Biscayne, and spending some time in DC and
Camp David. I left for Palm Springs on the 26th and was there through this
entire period. Had no contact with the P during that entire time. Other than
that the period was relatively uneventful.

Back at work. The P had me about three hours on just a
in at 11:00 for
general recap on where things were. The P wants Conger
to check on other
possible Presidential desks for the Oval Office and says he's gotten some
expert to agree to do some redecorating at the Oval Office, apparently some-
body that Mrs. Nixon has been using at the Residence, that may work out.
He's at least getting rid of the Boehm Birds (decorative birds that always
bothered the President) on the shelves. He's concerned about David's Con-
gressional seat, and wants to be sure that we're getting that set up, had a lot
of ideas on the news summary, to leave out the magazines and local Wash-
ington papers, emphasize the positive rather than drawing so much on nega-
tive things. He said he'd have a reception for the National Committee after
the Inaugural, wants to hold up on the diplomatic reception until Vietnam is
settled. Was pleased with the Senate resolution today on Vietnam, wants the
House to go for the same resolution. Met with Henry last night, and again
today, and will meet with him on Saturday extensively on Vietnam before he
leaves Sunday for the new talks.
As a general comment, it's clear to me that he still hasn't clearly focused
on getting down to work on the second term, he's using the Inaugural as an
561
562 H.R. HALDEMAN
excuse for not scheduling things, but he's not working on the Inaugural. I
think until he gets Vietnam settled, everything else is going to pretty much stay
in the background, and there won't be much concentration on anything.

The P had Ziegler and me in first thing this morning, reviewing plans for
Ziegler's briefing. Told Ron, on Vietnam no further comment
to say there's
from the White House because there are sensitive negotiations under way.
Some analysis of Vietnam and of Congress. He can't figure why they all keep
the pressure on for an explanation of why he's doing the bombing. I must say
I agree, the reason seems to be obvious and I can't conceive of any intelligent
person who doesn't clearly understand why he's bombing. Therefore, the
question and arguments are obviously political or academic.
I had a long talk with Henry late in the afternoon, he seemed to be in good
shape, feels he's got a good chance of bringing up negotiations, and overall
seems to be at least reasonably optimistic.
The P still is concerned about dealing with the reaction, and the press and
the Congress. That they're obsessed with negative stuff with Vietnam and are
going to play it no matter what we do, and all he can do is ride it out. If we
get the settlement, to comment now won't matter; if we don't get it we'll have
far greater problems to deal with than what we now have.

I got to Camp David and met with the P for four hours at Birch and
at 10:00
it broke up at 2:00 went on back home while he stayed up till later in the
and I
afternoon. His primary concern was the whole attack and PR operation, which
he feels is now dismantled and that we have nothing to work with. He now feels
that we face a partisan situation right from the beginning of Congress, as
evidenced by their approach on Vietnam, whereas we thought we would have
a better relationship, at least at the start, because of the landslide election
The problem, he feels, is that we breathed a sigh of relief after the
victory.
campaign and then sat down at Camp David to start reorganizing the govern-
ment. Now we're paying the price. Therefore we have to have a new attack
organization directed at the top.
The P also got into some discussion of his K concerns again. Made the
point that Haig has got to fill his scorecard in completely and totally level with
him on the K problem, so he knows how to go out on this. Then he raised his
concern about the K papers, and all the P's papers on national security that
K is holding, including Henry's phone calls, and conversation memos and
cables and so on, which he wants to be sure we get ahold of and stay on top
of as much as possible. He thinks that I need to get a deputy for myself, with
maturity and presence, who can act in my place. That I have to clear time on
the new establishment, with the Republicans, the financial people, and so
forth.Which ones are the real leaders, and how do we build them up? He keeps
talking about when I get more free (time), these are the things I ought to be
doing. He wants me to develop a plan for this, and also to get the candidate
search going quickly.
We had some discussion about Watergate, and I filled him in on all the
coverage in the paper today, and the fact that it's building up. He feels that our
people should take the Fifth Amendment rather than getting trapped into
testifying.

In the staff meeting this morning we discussed the wage-price announcement
plans. Ihad a phone conversation with Connally, mainly to just check in
with him. He says that he was very concerned about the newspaper cam-
paign regarding the brawl about Congress, not just Vietnam but on the over-
all thing. For example on the "Today" show this morning, Bob Byrd
(Senator) said he hadn't seen the P since last year, and he thinks that the
whole attack, overall, is the most vicious thing he's ever seen and it will
foreclose a lot of our options in a lot of areas, and the P should therefore
call for Congress to reorganize themselves, put them on the defensive instead
of the P. We should not be mean, but we should toss it back at them. He

says he'll probably be up this week, and then he went through some specific
people and appointment items.
John Dean called to report on the Watergate trials, says that if we can
prove in any way by hard evidence that our plane was bugged in '68, he thinks
that we could use that as a basis to say we're going to force Congress to go
back and investigate '68 as well as '72, and thus turn them off.
He says Hunt's going to take a guilty plea on three counts after (Assist-
ant U.S. Attorney for District of Columbia Earl) Silbert's opening statement.
He'll say that no higher-ups were involved, the rest of them will go to trial.
That Rothblatt, the attorney for the Cubans, is a wild man, and he wants to
go to trial. Liddy wants to go trial, because he's hoping for an error in
catching things up on a lot of procedures and all, and John thinks that this
is better because Liddy won't take the stand, and it will be good to have him
do it. McCord will testify, but he has no firsthand knowledge. All the Cu-
bans will sit mute, and even if they're immunized afterward they'll take a
contempt charge rather than talk. There's great concern on their part that
the commitments to them won't be honored, and there's a problem with
funds that LaRue is supposed to be working on. John is going to assemble a
Congressional strategy group of himself, Johnson, Moore, and Colson be-
cause he thinks that we may have some of our own cards to play. That we
should start looking at the Hill guys' vulnerabilities and see if we can't turn
off the Hill effort before it gets started, which he thinks is important to do.
564 H.R. HALDEMAN

K called on the phone, reporting, that we would be receiving a message in an
hour or so. The main reason for his call was to wish the P a happy birthday,
and that some of what he had been hoping for may be coming to pass. There
will be a proposed schedule coming to us tomorrow and that we must keep the
lid on. The cable should be confined to the P only. Tell no one else now. Then
he said he mainly wanted to wish the P a happy birthday and express my

gratitude to him for letting me serve. A little later, his report came, was very
good news, he says they got the breakthrough, and unless the Vietnamese back
down, we're in very good shape. The P had Colonel Kennedy in, said regarding
K's message, it's to go to no one else except Haig. Then he decided it shouldn't
go to Haig either, so he wouldn't have to tell Abrams or anyone. To Rogers
he should just say that it's still tough going, it's too early to tell what's
happening. The same with Laird.
The P said they should keep talking tomorrow, that there's nothing
conclusive. Ziegler is to play very cool, no indication of optimism. The P said
that he's not overly optimistic, that Henry is probably overevaluating it again.
Kennedy, on the other hand, thinks this is it. The P's concern is that the North
Vietnamese will back down the hill tomorrow. The P says the only thing that
he disagrees with K on is the massive problem in Saigon. He says he doesn't
think it's like it was there now. Kennedy also says he's much more hopeful that
we can pull it off with Saigon. Talked about the fact that Haig should plan to
go on Sunday, or as soon as possible, but we should not tell him the news
today, so that he won't have to lie over there. Overall, it's super good news,
and the P told Kennedy to send Henry a cable saying this was the best birthday
present he's had in sixty years.
The P had a series of meetings at his initiative today. First Malek, told
Fred to feel free to say the P wants this or that when you're working. He made
the point that you're a good manager and judge of managers but more impor-
tant than ability is loyalty. The government must act when we speak, therefore
it is better to have a dumb loyalist than a bright neuter. For IRS, a loyal Jew
would be good. It must be a loyalist.

Dean reported that everybody except Liddy either has, or will, be nego-
tiating pleas of guilty, this is including McCord. Hunt has already settled on
a negotiation for a guilty plea on three counts, the others have vague assurance
regarding equal treatment and so on. Silbert has a problem with the judge
accepting the pleas, but after the opening statement the jury and panel will take
the plea and the judge will ask if there are any higher-ups and Hunt will say
no. Liddy still has a desire to go to trial because it puts him in better shape,
and he wants to go for a pardon. Colson made the deal with (Hunt's lawyer)
Bittman regarding Hunt, this led to the deals with the other parties, so there
is no involvement from the White House, it's all indirect.
He thinks that we can probably also work Liddy, but maybe we shouldn't.
They'll take contempt if they're granted immunity, and that may bump the
Congress too. He wants Mitchell to talk to (former Assistant Director of the

FBI Cartha) De Loach to see what he can get out of him on the LBJ thing,
because if he can get that cranked up, LBJ could turn off the whole Congres-
sional investigation.
The P left early to go for a drive with Bebe out to see Julie's new house,
and then for his surprise birthday party tonight.

We got Henry's cable regarding scheduling, and the P said that I should send
Henry a cable saying to leave open the possibility of Haig's trip to the friendly
Asian capitals, as well as to Saigon rather than Henry's going to Hanoi. Then
the P realized that I was right in saying that we'd have a real problem in getting
Henry stirred up on something like that, and shouldn't get into it. A little later
I had a phone call from Henry and he said that he was sending a new
scheduling approach that he thought the P would like because it solves some
of the problems. When his cable came in, it turned out it does, because he's
worked out a deal now where he would return to Paris to sign the agreement,
rather than going to Hanoi. Then would go to Hanoi in early February to
work out peace settlement arrangements rather than to sign the agreement,
which would solve the problem of Saigon's objection to signing the agreement
in Hanoi, and also the P's objection, plus closing down the time frame and all
that.
The P had Haig come over go over the cable and the situation, and then
to
he had quite a discussion on real point is that the P feels that he has
it. The
to announce the settlement to the Americans before K initials it, otherwise
there is no point in his announcing, because it's just covering something that
is already done. He told Haig to get a message back to Henry saying that the
new scenario was infinitely preferable to the old routine of his going to Hanoi
and that we should go ahead trying to work it out with the North Vietnamese.
We would like the cease-fire as soon as possible, not to drag it on.

On the Watergate question, hewanted me to talk to Mitchell and have him
find outfrom De Loach if the guy who did the bugging on us in '68 is still at
the FBI, and then Gray should nail him with a lie detector and get it settled,
which would give us the evidence we need. He also thinks I ought to move with
George Christian ( LBJ 's former Press Secretary, now working with Democrats
for Nixon), get LBJ to use his influence to turn off the Hill investigation with
Califano, Hubert, and so on. Later in the day, he decided that wasn't such a
good idea, and told me not to do it, which I fortunately hadn't done.
Henry phoned this morning from Paris and said that there would be a
cable coming in a couple of hours. He got 80 percent of what the P asked for
in his cable, or at least it would be doable, and it would be consistent with what
566 H.R. HALDEMAN
Henry had said, along the lines of what we want, and that we had gotten 100
percent on substance. He seemed pretty pleased. The cable came in later, it
turned out he basically had gotten everything we want, and he'll do the signing
in Paris rather than Hanoi, which is the key thing. Set the date for the 23rd
with the announcement, after Haig gets back from South Vietnam, if we get
Thieu to go along.
The VP requested a meeting with the P today, came in with an incredible
proposal. He thought done to divert public atten-
that something ought to be
tion from Vietnam and the attacks we're getting into on it. He suggested that
he take a trip to Egypt to visit Sadat, and see if he could try and untangle
something on the Middle East. The P was obviously so astonished he didn't
know quite how to answer the thing at first, but then made the point that the
likelihood of anything good coming out of such a trip was almost zero, and
that it would be very unwise for the VP to take the risk of being rebuffed at
that high level. Then admitted, really, what the VP was after was a way to
rebuild his own image, and that he's being attacked because the one substan-
tive thing that he had was the intergovernmental relations and that had been
taken away from him, so he had nothing really of importance to do.

Henry called me from Paris about noon, said they had another six-hour
meeting today and that it continues the trend that he will definitely be back
here tomorrow. He'll have two options regarding the announcement and that
we can decide that next week. He says that we've got a PR problem, which he'll
put in a cable, that will be tough to handle and that he needs an answer
tonight. We got that a and it turned out that he agreed to let the
little later,
North Vietnamese have photographer take a picture of the group for

their
"historic purposes." Now it develops that they want to release the picture, and
Henry's asking how to handle it, suggesting that maybe he should get a
Western journalist and let them take a picture too, and release the whole thing.
We went back to him on the basis that he should get only the USIA in, and
that they should take a picture only for the historical record, with the under-
standing that none of the pictures can be released by either side until after the
agreement has been signed and announced. Doubt if he'll stick with that, but
at least we'll try.
On the plane to Key Biscayne, the P made the point that if we get a
settlement, we should get every commentator, columnist, and so on that has
hit us and badger them on an all-out basis. He feels also that we have
really
got to send a pressman with Henry on the final trips to avoid things like the
picture problem arriving, thinks we can move the 18th announcement to the
19th as long as he isn't doing anything, and that we should split the Cabinet
and Leaders Meetings to Wednesday and Thursday instead of Monday and
Tuesday of the following week, so that he'll keep time clear for preparation for
his Tuesday-night television. He'll probably have the Cabinet and Leaders in
on Tuesday for the announcement. Ziegler came in during the flight to report
thatABC had a report that we had an agreement and that K would be coming
home tomorrow. It was agreed that we would say no comment on spec stories
and when K returns that he'll be meeting with the P. We got into the problem
with the line for the congressmen, because Kennedy has to brief Scott and
Ford tomorrow for the "Meet the Press" thing on Sunday, posing an addi-
tional problem.
The P also got back on the Watergate thing today, making the point that
I should talk to Connally about the Johnson bugging process to get his
judgment as to how to handle it. He wonders if we shouldn't just have Andreas
go in and scare Hubert. The problem in going at LBJ is how he'd react, and
we need to find out from De Loach who did it, and then run a lie detector on
him. I talked to Mitchell on the phone on this subject and he said De Loach
had told him that he was up to date on the thing because he had a call from
Texas. A Star reporter was making an inquiry in the last week or so, and LBJ
got very hot and called Deke, and said to him that if the Nixon people are
going to play with this, that he would release (deleted material national —
security), saying that our side was asking that certain things be done. By our
side, I assume he means the Nixon campaign organization. De Loach took this
as a direct threat from Johnson. He says he'll bring his file in Monday for
Mitchell to review. As he recalls it, bugging was requested on the planes, but
was turned down, and all they did was check the phone calls, and put a tap on
the Dragon Lady (Mrs. Anna Chennault). Mitchell also said he was meeting
with O'Brien today, and will make reference to this whole thing in that meeting
and see what he can smoke out.
The P had me over this morning for three or four hours going through a lot
of miscellaneous things. Got into the media relation question, said that I
should talk to Price about his view as to what we did wrong three years ago
regarding the media. He went through a whole bunch of miscellaneous per-
sonal items. Wantsto be sure on Sinatra and Sammy Davis that the P wants
an evening White House for each of them. Wants to be sure Rose is
at the
making notes on all the personal things and also that Bebe is dictating tapes
on the personal vignettes on the P, what happens at Walker's Cay, and all that
for the P's tape record. Wants to be sure we have a superb executive director
for the Bicentennial that has lots of imagination. Wants to get in the 75
Democratic congressmen and 1 1 senators who stood with us on Vietnam for
a cocktail to express his appreciation for standing with us during this difficult
period. Wanted to read a copy of Farley's book on Kennedy and the Rossiter
book on the Presidency, which I sent over to him later. Wanted to check out
burial opportunities at Yorba Linda, as well as Rose Hills. I don't know how
that came in from left field.
I had a report this afternoon from Dean on the Watergate. Apparently
568 H.R. HALDEMAN
there is going to be a (Seymour) Hersh story in The New York Times saying
that the Cubans them that they're all on salary, that there's a $900,000
told
fund at the Reelection Committee for them, and that they dropped bugs all
over town. The chain of command went from Barker to Hunt to Liddy to
Colson to Mitchell. (Director of Public Affairs, CRP, DeVan) Shumway and
Colson and Mitchell have all given flat denials on this. The Cubans have sent
a letter to dismiss Rothblatt, and he was dismissed because they want to plead
guilty. McCord is off the reservation now, he had a meeting last night, he
thinks he can get him back on, but he has a plan regarding calls he made in
September and October. He thinks he can get a tainted evidence thing on it,
because the calls were bugged by the government. He's playing a blackmail
game where if I (McCord) fall, all fall, but he has no hard evidence. That won't
be settled for a while, but Dean thinks he can settle it. Apparently McCord was
distressed at the judge's severity. The Cubans plead on Monday.
Editor's Note: Judge John Sirica was noted for his severe sentences, and
McCord was threatening to talk rather than go to jail for a long time.
The main The P said he wanted to

thing today was, of course, Vietnam.
see K alone first when he
back tonight, and that his chopper should be
gets
brought directly to the P's pad, and the P will see him, if he's awake, and will
pound into him that he must not talk to the press and that we're going to do
all possible to be sure that people think that nothing happened in Paris. In
other words we need to mislead them.

He talked to Ziegler about how to deal with the press, and that the
speculation has led to universal optimism and pessimism both. The P's concern
with K tomorrow, and with Ziegler, is that we have to have a plan on the PR
side that we can ride with through the week, so we can control K.

The P called me at 9:00, said to come over as soon as I could. I got over at the
house about 9:40. The P was sitting in the living room with a fire going in the
fireplace, said that he had read the Farley book or a good part of it, and he
thinks that all of our key assistants should read it because it makes a good
point on the need for dissenting views, and he's concerned that we don't handle
that adequately. Farley makes the point that we do a good job in our Adminis-
tration through the NSC, which Kennedy did not do, but he also thinks that
someone ought to talk to Farley and make the point to him the differences
between our bureaucracy and the British, that he'd be good to write the story
on the reorganization. He then got into some discussion of schedule for han-
dling the Vietnam thing. K and Haig arrived. There was some discussion on
the wording on the bombing-stop announcement, and then on the Thieu letter
wording. The P strengthened the wording that K

had drafted. Apparently he
reviewed it last night, by saying in effect that I have approved every section and
so forth. He wants to take out the offer to meet with Thieu, let Haig use that
as a bargaining point in discussion, but not put it in the letter. His strategy
there is whole approach with Thieu on our terms, and we don't
to keep the
want to appear to be begging, especially on the record. The P made the point
that Haig must take a very hard line on Thieu, that he's here only as a
messenger, not to negotiate, that the P has been totally in charge of all of this,
and he will go ahead regardless of what Thieu does. The only diplomacy that
Haig should exercise is to trick Thieu, if it looks like he's not going with us in
regard to shooting his mouth off before the Inaugural. He's got to work out
some way to stop him from doing that. If he takes on K or the agreement, he
takes on the P personally and he's got to understand that.
K should tell Rogers that there is to be no testimony to anyone, that K
will do nothing regarding press, Congress, and so forth. The P warned that the
silence is going to be very difficult because everybody —
press, Congress, and
—
so on will be screaming, but it's good because it builds the deal. Henry then
said absolutely no purpose is served by saying one word. The P then made a
long comparison of this whole thing to a poker game and told us of the time
he once had a royal flush in a five-card-stud game, with the ace in the hole, and
then on the next four cards up he drew the king and the queen, then the jack,
then ten of diamonds. Another guy had a full house, the P played his hand as
if he had nothing, in order to keep the other people in the game, and thus built
up the stake. He said we're sitting on a royal flush now, but we won't get a big
pot unless we're mum. The time to bluff is when you have nothing, the time
to keep quiet is when you have the cards.
Henry then reviewed the whole schedule. On Monday we suspend the
bombing. On Tuesday they meet at 9:30, initial at 12:30, leave at 2:15. K is on
the plane by 3:00 and airborne, and then we request TV time and announce
the meeting with the leaders and Cabinet. TV announcement is at 10:00 our
time that night. The P told K to write two versions of the television speech of
700 maximum word length, one with Thieu going along, the other without
Thieu. Then Wednesday we publish the text, there is a K briefing with the press
on TV, the diplomatic activities, setting up the signing and so on. Thursday we
cancel the peace talks, Friday Rogers goes to Paris, Saturday is the signing
ceremony in Paris, two one in morning and one in
different ceremonies,
afternoon, and at midnight Saturday night, Greenwich Mean Time, which is
6:00 our time, the cease-fire goes into effect. Sunday the control commission
arrives in South Vietnam and meets. The P said the line the opposition will put
out is that Congress forced the "mad bomber" to stop the mining and bomb-
ing, and as a result of his stopping, we were able to get the settlement. The
objective here is the honor of this country, and a country without honor has
no authority. We then walked out and had some general conversation, and
that ended the meeting four hours after it started.
After I dictated the report for Sunday, I had dinner with K, which I
570 H.R. HALDEMAN
scheduled in order to keep him from going out to dinner and getting caught
in the publicdown here. So we ate in his villa, had a three-hour chat alone,
which was quite productive, went through the whole history story and status
on Vietnam, which he likes to reiterate. Henry really wanted, however, to get
into a long discussion regarding the question of the P's confidence in him. He's
concerned that the stories that he keeps reading may be partly or totally true,
that is P has lost confidence in him. I told him that there wasn't any
that the
problem with the P having confidence with him substantively, but the P does
get concerned about the whole business of Henry's talking to the left-wing set,
and the campuses and the media, etc. It's not because he's influenced by, or
influences, the left wing, but rather it gives them status to have that contact
with K, and that's to our disadvantage, and that's what bothers the P on that
subject. He basically understands, and is compulsively unable to do anything
about it.

The P had me over at noon for a brief meeting, he mainly wanted to get into
some attack follow-ups on some things on Vietnam. In the midst of this he was
interrupted with a phone call to Don Shula, the Miami Dolphins coach, to
congratulate him on winning the Super Bowl yesterday.

The P had me over at noon today, later than usual because he's apparently
getting to work on the Inaugural address now. I have the responsibility, he
feels, to get Haig communications staff, to get a lot of people
to brief all the
out selling our and that we should do this Tuesday afternoon while K is
line,
flying back from Paris. Then he called on the phone this afternoon and made
the point that he had read the Rossiter book, which he thought had a fascinat-
ing point regarding Eisenhower, which is that in terms of great leadership it is
better perhaps to have half the people like what we do and the other half hate
him than it is to have the great center who likes him and only a small fringe
on either side who worship him and hate him.

For the first time since we've been here I didn't have to go over at all today.
The P called at noon to check on how things were going, mainly to be sure
the staff mood is up and that we're doing everything we can to keep every-
body cranked up and upbeat, especially as people are starting to come into
town for the Inaugural. We must put on a good morale-builder approach for
them.
The P got me on the way back from Key Biscayne on some general schedule
discussion on the plane. He's trying to get his time cleared now that he's
getting back to handle the Vietnam stuff after the long Inaugural and wants
to keep everything as clear as he can. He then got into some discussion on
Vietnam and the settlement, and more importantly, the Thieu problem,
which he's still sweating out, because he hasn't heard from Haig yet. The
question now is whether Thieu will go along. He's refused to give Haig an
answer, at least at this point, so we have to wait for Haig to go back there
on Saturday. The P feels that's a pretty cheap shot on Thieu's part, and that
he should give us an answer before the Inaugural, so that the P will know,
and that's the least we could reasonably expect from him. But apparently
we're not going to get it.
I had no contact with the P today. This was the Inaugural and the Parade and
the Balls. He did superbly well at all of them, and I'm sure considers the whole
thing a success. It ran flawlessly except for the inevitable overcrowding at the
Balls, but the P did a good job in his presentation at each of them, and did
dance as he had planned to do, so that all worked out well.

Big question today was planning the Vietnam settlement. Henry had left this
morning for Paris, and the P told Ziegler to get a leak out to the Post and to
Dan Rather that the initialing will be on Friday, so that we can throw them
off-balance. Then he got into a lot of miscellaneous Inaugural follow-up. He
had a problem with his Inaugural address, because when he got what was
supposed to be the final draft Friday evening, he discovered a sentence was
missing. He Rose and she said she had told the girls to proof it, but she
called
couldn't do anything about it now, that she was late for a party. Then he tried
to reach Ray and he was already at the Kennedy Center, so he had Manolo
go down and get the press copy, and the sentence was missing from that, too.
The P couldn't find Ziegler to check with him, so he dropped the sentence, but
it must have been rather a discouraging sequence for him, not to be able to find
anybody to take care of the problem. A little later, while we were meeting with
Ray Price on the Vietnam speech, we got word that President Lyndon Johnson
had probably died. I had a note from Larry saying that he'd been taken to the
hospital seriouslyill, then a follow-up note saying that the Secret Service
thought he was dead, when they found him. Tkach couldn't get any confirma-
tion, until finally Lady Bird called an hour and 1 5 or 20 minutes after our first
notice and officially informed the P. We had been informed just a few minutes
572 H.R. HALDEMAN
before that byTkach finally, that he was dead, but that they had tried to revive
him on the plane and that they couldn't get Mrs. Johnson to notify her and
they didn't want to put any word out until she had been told. I then talked to
Tom Johnson, at the P's request, to set up all the arrangements for any help
we could provide to them.

Got word from Henry first thing this morning that he had initialed the Viet-
nam agreement and that was set (Thieu had finally capitulated a few days
before), so we had on planning of the speech for tonight. There's still

sessions
the question of Haig's briefing our PR staff, which he feels he shouldn't do
because it'll drive Henry up the wall. We shifted the briefings all around
because of the Johnson funeral plans, so that Henry is going to do everything
on Wednesday morning.
We had the Cabinet meeting at 8:45. The P opened by saying that this was
basically a pro forma meeting. We're doing it for the purpose of the eyes of the
world and the nation so that they will think that we have consulted with the
Cabinet, but we can't really get into anything now because we can't release the
agreement tomorrow. Then he read the official statement that he will read
until
on TV tonight, said all our conditions have been completely met. The P said
the GVN and Thieu are totally onboard and will issue statements to that effect.
There will be heavy fighting between now and the cease-fire (on the 27th), and
after the cease-fire there will be inevitable violations, which is why the supervi-
sory body is so important. He said we have a cease-fire for Vietnam, possibly
in Laos and Cambodia. We have peace with honor, the POW's are back, the
supervised cease-fire, and the right of South Vietnam to determine their own
future. It's been long, painful, and difficult for all of us. This is not Johnson's
war, or Kennedy's war. They did start it and they did handle it badly, but the
United States was involved. We have now achieved our goals peace for —
Vietnam, the right of the South Vietnamese to determine their future without
an imposed Communist government. The fact that we have stood firm as a
country was responsible and has had a decisive effect on the world. If the
United States did not prove to be responsible in Vietnam, if this had ended in
defeat and surrender, the Chinese and the Russians would have no interest in
talking to us. Europe wouldn't consider us as a reliable ally, in spite of their
bitching about the war. We must understand, for the United States to keep the
peace and save freedom, we have to be responsible, and that's what this peace
is about. It was not a Republican achievement. He has as much contempt for
the Republicans who would cut and run as he does for the Democrats. Thank
God for those who stood with us, like the hard hats. He got fairly emotional
at the end, but did a darn good job at the Cabinet meeting, although he
worried Henry a little about some of the areas he went into.
The speech itself was also very good, and reaction afterward indicated
that it will take a few days before we see how the tone really sets in. In any
event it's been a rather historic day.

Got into the LBJ when Tom Johnson called me several
plans again today,
times from Air Force One. They were en route to Washington from Texas,
wanting to get the schedule worked out. Plans for Mrs. Johnson to stay in the
Rotunda after the service to greet people and the plans for meeting the diplo-
mats at Blair House and having a buffet supper, and so on. The services all
went very well and according to schedule although a little late. Then Tom
called me at home tonight, wanting to change from using the DC-9 hospital
plane to go direct to the ranch when they go back tomorrow. He wants to use
Air Force One and go to the Air Force base because the weather's bad in
Austin.
At the Cabinet meeting, which was 45 minutes late starting because of
the delay in the LBJ funeral operation, the P opened by explaining the calen-
dar date we were giving all of them and talked about when you reach the age
of 60 your days are numbered, and he started citing the ages of all the vari-
ous P's when they died, many of them under 60, and that we need to make
every day count. Then he said on the budget that he sat through so many of
these budget meetings, that they're the most boring, depressing exercises in
the world, and so on, but that you have to do it. He made the point that
government spending is a lousy issue. People are for spending. However,
raising taxes is a good issue. That is, being against it. Being for a balanced
budget is an impossible issue.
At Key Biscayne. The P reviewed some of the editorials that we sent him. He
feels that they still miss the point. K, at Congress, didn't make the point
regarding the character of the man, how he toughed it through. We should
quit worrying about defending the agreement; it either works or it doesn't,
and it doesn't matter, but K just can't go through the details. Why not say
that without the P's courage we couldn't have had this? The basic line here is
the character, the lonely man

White House, with little support from
in the
government, active opposition from the Senate and some House members,
overwhelming opposition from media and opinion leaders, including reli-
gious, education, and business, but strong support from labor. The P alone
held on and pulled it out. K is very popular, got good applause, including
from our opponents, and a standing and prolonged ovation at the House,
but he didn't make our points. So the P makes the point, the missing link
now is the "Profile in Courage." We've analyzed the editorials and it's not
coming through. The briefing failed on this point. He only had the P in the
574 H.R. HALDEMAN
last briefing three times,where when things were bad, he had him in 14
times. Henry kept saying we'dkill the critics, and we haven't done this at all.
He's feeding the separation idea by his failure to build the P. Can you imag-
ine Sorensen, Schlesinger,McNamara, or Rusk handling things this way
with Kennedy? The between Henry and the P is not created by leaks. It's
rift
fed by Henry's own nuances, because the press want to think there's a rift.
We have to have Henry build the P. He comments in the Farley book that
what the Kennedy people did with the failures for Kennedy, we've got to do
at least as well with the successes.
The P attended the peace service at 7:00 at the Key Biscayne church
tonight, which went very well.

Got into a PR follow-up and so on this afternoon when he came back from
Walker's, where he'd been last night. He wants Henry and me to see Teddy
White before he book, wants to follow up with the wife of Lt.
finishes his
Colonel Nolde, the last man to be killed in Vietnam. He has to be sure that
no one talks to Sidey. He's very distressed with Time, especially since they
did the Marlon Brando cover on Inauguration Week instead of covering the
Inaugural as the cover story. He says he wants no more State visits this year.
He's concerned about getting a master schedule for State visits, visits in the
United States, evenings at the White House, all the general activities. He
wants to develop a policy toward press and media, not just going on the P's
hunches.

The P had agood meeting with (Director of White House Office of Telecommu-
nications) Tom Whitehead and Colson on the whole TV thing. He urged
Whitehead to be controversial and to be heard. They told him they're moving
all public affairs out of public TV to keep the government out of propaganda.
Whitehead feels that the best course is to kill the Corporation of Public
Broadcasting by defending it. The first step is to get rid of public affairs
programming, feed their own internal quarrels. The P said he'd get the staff
this week, told Whitehead not to do anything without staffing. That there are
a lot of yellow-livered people around here. That when we get in this fight,
everyone should shut up, no sniping or bitching afterward.

We got into quite a long question and discussion of Henry's whole situation,
making the point that he's made all the big plays now and he's trying to look
for ways to maintain the momentum, which is essentially impossible. There is
no way to duplicate the year that has just been completed. That's what Henry
is in effect trying to do, although he may not realize it. He feels he's running
down and getting bored, and for that matter, so is the P. There's a real letdown
and psychological depression after the type of accomplishments that they've
had. Henry's obviously not interested in taking the time to work out the details
of the agreement, which must be done, but doesn't really interest him at
etc.,
this point. So we've got to watch this as he completes his trip and comes back.
Especially he is reluctant to move into the Middle East, which the P feels has
got to be settled now.

Ziegler came in while E was some guidance on the briefing, on the
there to get
and how to approach that, saying
principal question of the Ervin investigation
that we welcome a nonpartisan investigation. The P had some broader ideas
on that, but cut back on them fortunately. On the Watergate question overall,
Ron is still trying to make the point that we have nothing to add to what's
already been said. On the question of executive privilege, he will stand by the
detailed statement on the subject the P will be putting out a little later, as he
had promised.
Editor's Note: By now, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina had been
chosen to lead a Senate probe into 1972 campaign practices. There were
those in the Administration who believed that the separation of power
between the President and Congress prevented Congress from having the
authority to call upon the President's personal aides to testify involuntarily.
The issues of the President's rights vis-a-vis Congress and the Judiciary were
referred to as "executive privilege."

The day started with the Cabinet breakfast. (After several remarks on the
budget, economy, politics and foreign affairs), the P referred to the barrage that
they've been under with the Hill hearings and said that the P and Rogers
all
had some rough moments, and went back to the November '69 demonstrators
and all that made things look bad until the hard hats marched in our favor.
We've had moments of discouragement in the foreign field, as we're working
on the China thing, Soviet, Middle East, Jordan, Vietnam the Senate pulled —
the rug out from under us on Vietnam time after time. Those most for peace
are the ones who prolonged the war, but look at Mrs. Nolde, the wife of the
Colonel who was the last man to die in Vietnam. She came to Washington for
the funeral with her five children, some brothers and sisters, the whole family,
and after the funeral service the P had them come in, and Mrs. Nolde told him
that in Nolde's last letter to the family before he was killed, he said that he'd
576 H.R. HALDEMAN
like to take the family to Washington and take them on a tour of the Congress
and the White House, so they have set that up. He said they were a typical
American family, and that she had conducted herself and walked in with the
First Lady. Then the kids, the 17-year-old boy, who had a ragged beard and
—
mustache, and long hair, the type that CBS would pick out and they did, in
the hopes that he'd make a negative statement —
prepared a statement on why
his father died, which was superb, and he had a big American flag in his lapel.
He said he was proud of his dad. He fought for peace. Then the 16-year-old
daughter, blonde, blue-eyed, looked up at the P and said just, "Could I kiss
you?" At this point, there was a long silence, and I had been making notes,
looked up and the P was just standing there. He started to say something and
couldn't say it, paused for quite a bit longer, more silence, and then sort of said
under his voice, "I guess that's what it's all about." Then he paused a minute,
turned around and walked out of the State dining room, while everybody sat
in silence for a moment, then rose and applauded for quite a long time. It was
a highly emotional and highly dramatic moment. One of the more unforgetta-
ble ones of the time we've been here, and everybody was very much over-
whelmed emotionally by it.
I had no further contact with the P until we got on the plane to California.
Then he got into the Nobel Prize. He said, "Don't discuss this with anyone
else, but we've got to cover the question of how to handle the Nobel Peace
Prize. It's a bad situation to be nominated and not get it. Maybe there should
be a letter to Miller, who is nominating him, saying the P feels he should not
be honored for doing his duty, and that we can separate from Teddy Roosevelt
because he was involved in two other countries. It was something outside his
normal duty as P. He wants a report on the Nobel Prize who's on the —
committee, what's the process, can the P withdraw his name, and so on. He
also wanted a review of the Gallup figures. Wants Kendall to call De Loach
in on the FBI '68 bugging thing and tell him that if the FBI finds anything that
you didn't tell us about, you're going to be fired. Wants Buchanan to prepare
for the P the sharpest, briefest thing he can regarding the most vicious thing
said by the media in the last month. He'd like a copy of that out tomorrow.
He explored some questions on Watergate and the Ervin hearing, and we
arrived in San Clemente to stay here for about 10 days.

The P was in fairly early, spent quite a little time by himself in the office, then
had me in at 9:30 for about three hours. We reviewed the news summary with
him and he was very pleased with Rogers' blast at the antiwar people, etc.,
when he appeared before the House Committee yesterday, so he had me call
Rogers. The book of (the P's) Presidential papers from 1970 was left on his
desk. He apparently spent quite a little time looking through it this morning
and was intrigued with a lot of the things he found. He wants to be sure that
E reads the Farley book because he feels the Kennedy approach was right
regarding strategy and that you've got to talk about an issue that people are
interested in, or create one. He feels that Price's introduction to the book is
excellent, that it should be edited and revised so that wherever the P spoke
extemporaneously, it He wants to
says so, that he spoke without text or notes.
get this to Safire for his book, and wants Safire to also review some of the really
good pieces, such as theWyeth toast, the 1970 prayer breakfast remarks, and
the remarks on the occasion of McCormick's ceremony in the Caucus Room.
He wants him to do a section in his book on extemporaneous speeches,
especially the point that the P never read any of the toasts at the White House
and none outside except when he had to by agreement in other countries. Also,
he's never read an arrival statement.
He got into Watergate strategy. He wants to get our people to put out that
foreign orCommunist money came in in support of the demonstrations in the
campaign, tie all the '72 demonstrations to McGovern and thus the Democrats
as part of the peace movement. Broaden the investigation to include the peace
movement and its McGovern and Teddy Kennedy. To what extent
leaders,
they were responsible for the demonstrations that led to the violence and
disruption. We ran a clean campaign compared to their campaign of libel and
slander, such as against Rebozo, etc. Maybe let Evans and Novak put it out
and then we'll be asked about it. Can say that we knew that the P ordered that
it not be used under any circumstances. He thinks we should play a hard game
on this whole thing regarding the Ervin investigation. Get our investigators
going and so on. Also he wants to be sure we order Gray to move on the FBI
investigation, investigating those in the Bureau who tapped Nixon. We should
itemize all the disruptions such as the Century Plaza in San Francisco, the
burnings, the Statue of Liberty, etc.
He wants me to get King Timahoe out to his original breeder and have
him bred after we get back.
San Clemente. We had Dean and Moore out for an extended session on the
Watergate strategy question and made a little progress in laying out an operat-
ing plan there. The main concern was the need to draw Kleindienst into the
case and to keep him in the post through the duration of the hearings and to
be a buffer and to take heat where necessary in the Department for things the
P needs done. We're regrouping again tomorrow on the same subject.

San Clemente. I had no contact with the P. Didn't go into the office today. He
spent a good part of the day in a follow-up on our Watergate meeting from
yesterday, with Dean, E, and Moore. Basically covered the same ground as
578 H.R. HALDEMAN
was covered in my notes. Decided to go ahead on several tacks, to move

Maury Stans out front by submitting him for a confirmation post, if the P will
agree to it, and put Buchanan in as the observer /commentator on the Hear-
ings. Several other items of that kind. General agreement on the strategy that
we should keep outward appearance of total cooperation but our objective
the
internally should be maximum obstruction and containment, so as not to let
the thing run away with us.

The P had a call this morning while he was in his morning series of meetings
from one of the POW officers who arrived in the Philippines last night, express-
ing his support of the P and his desire on the part of him and all the other men
to meet the P and thank him personally. The P is very much moved by the
whole POW situation. They did a superb job last night getting off the plane,
as it was covered on TV, and then this call this morning was further evidence.
As a follow-up to that, he said he wants to send orchids to all the wives as the
men arrive back, and wants to have a thing at the White House as soon as
they're all back here so that he can meet all of them, and then have a dinner
for them and their wives in the evening.
The P, on the plane coming back to Washington, made the point that he
was concerned about the appointments in the Labor Department, and asked
for a general rundown on the Watergate thing, and seemed to be in agreement
with our overall approach as covered on the weekend. Although he feels
Clawson should be the reporter type instead of Buchanan, because Buchanan's
too close to the P, so he would tilt strongly the other way.
The return today was hastily called last night about dinnertime, and we
have yet to determine what the cause was, since the plan was to stay in
California all week.

The P had a very involved schedule today, with some farewell calls and so on,
and so he didn't have me over until 4:15. At that time he got into a number
of personnel items. He says now he's inclining to go along with Gray at the FBI
and to get Sullivan in under him. He thinks he'd like to bring Colonel Reisner
in as the military assistant to the P. He's got the POW that called the P
yesterday. In the midst of the discussion he called John Ford, the movie
director, to him he wants to give him a Medal of Freedom, to set up
tell
something on that. He was very disturbed by the comment Senator Curtis

made about the admen in the White House being the reason that the Republi-
cans lost the election, because they didn't understand the Middle America
situation. He talked about the Bicentennial; he's concerned on that. He needs
a status report; wants to be sure we've got a good person in charge. He raises
the question of Frank Borman again. We talked about amnesty some, he still
feels strongly on that but thinks we should get some readings before we get way
out on it. Asked for some brief items on Watergate.

The P got into a POW follow-up first thing this morning, making the point that
some of our idea staff should have thought of the two key things that he came
up with that have been most effective: the idea of the corsage to each of the
POW wives, which has worked extremely well with pictures in the paper, on
TV, etc., and the idea of raising the flag to full staff when they return, which
also has had a very positive effect. He wanted to be sure that we were in touch
with Ross Perot; have him involved in some way since he's been so interested
in the whole POW project. Then he got into a long critique on speechwriting
in connection with his speech today on the State of the Union message on the
environment. He made the point that he'd done some editing and wanted the
writers to review it for consideration for the future. They should look at the
clarification that he's made, and the style changes. For example, you don't
—
need transitions in speeches you have to put it the way people talk, so we
need an editor that goes through and does this. You should never say, "I want
to conclude by saying," you just spell out the points. You never start a good
sentence with "but" because that rules it out as a quote. The quotes they select
still don't make it; they're not quotable lines, they're colorful language. For
example, his line that you need a "fair shake for American products in the
world" is the kind of thing he's looking for.

The P got me first thing this morning on the plans for K's return. Ziegler had
apparently announced that Henry was giving press conference, because Henry
and his people told him to. So the P was disturbed because he feels that he has
to make the first statement on the aid to North Vietnam question. He was also
concerned about the fact that Henry didn't submit the communique to him
before he put it out, the joint communique to the North Vietnamese, and he
was wondering about that. I hadn't seen it either, which I had also found
surprising. He feels there's a real problem with the K news conference on
return, he got Scowcroft in to talk about it, making the point that we have the
toughest sale we ever had on the aid to North Vietnam and that the P has to
do it.
Later in the day he told me to send a wire to Henry saying that the P
would have a press conference on Thursday morning to do an overview on the
situation; that K should plan on a briefing on Friday.
He got into the POW question again. He wants to be sure we have some
recognition of them, such as a Presidential Citation, a ribbon with a star for
580 H.R. HALDEMAN
each year, or something He wanted to discuss this at noon today

like that.
when he went over to the Pentagon for lunch, and raised it with Scowcroft to
cover. He also raised the question of the Presidential letter to the families of
MIA's expressing concern with their problem. He's worried about the POW's
coming back and telling of the torture that they had, and all that sort of thing,
which will make the aid to North Vietnam especially difficult.
He went through some concern about the reaction he had to George
Bush's report yesterday. He senses that he's discouraged regarding all the
horrors that he keeps running into in the State Committees and National
Committee, and then in sitting down with the congressmen in the cloakroom.
He feels that I should tell him he shouldn't submit himself to too much
grousing and bitching of that kind; he should stay above the congressmen,
don't get down to their level. It's not fair or productive to him to submit to all
the negatives. Instead he should invite them to his ground and meet with them
in his place for lunch and that kind of thing.
Also wanted me to talk to Moore and Bill Rogers, and a few others,
about what they think on the Nobel Prize matter. He needs an answer to the
question in time for his press conference, in case anything comes up. His
inclination is still not to accept it, but thinks we ought to check their views
on it.

The P had a Cabinet meeting today. The VP gave the report on his trip. He
did a pretty good job, taking about a half-hour to paint the overall picture.
Regarding Thieu, he said he's in good shape, positive, would win with an 85
percent vote on an election held today, a much better position than his image
in the United States shows, and the VP urged him to try and improve his image
in the United States. we have to recognize that political leaders
The P then said
have strong isolationist feelings to deal with. That we must not pander to that.
Nothing would be more harmful than to allow an economic confrontation to
become so and military situation. The P
violent as to deteriorate the political
directed all this whole question of how United States companies can be
to the
encouraged to develop foreign trade. We're the only nation in the free world
now that looks outward, while two major nations in the Communist world do
this. The P made the point that our desire is not to build a productionist wall,
it's a free flow of trade of investment, but we must not jeopardize American
jobs and business. So we need the right of the P to go in and bargain so that
we get a fair shake abroad for American products and American labor. An
assistance program for Vietnam will be to serve United States interests, to
create a peace that can last a while. It's not a question of reparations or
humanitarian interests; the motivation is the same as after World War II: help
our enemies because it's better to do that than to leave them as Communist
targets.

The P's still in Key Biscayne. Again, no contact. He went to the AFL-CIO
executive council this morning, and then to the Jackie Gleason golf tourna-
ment afterward, all apparently in the driving rain.

The P came up to South Carolina at noon today, where K met him, and then
back to DC. The South Carolina visit went very well. Good crowds at the
airport and along the streets, very enthusiastic, and it was a good move as far
as getting some public acclaim for the peace move. John and I had a long
meeting this evening with John Dean, on the whole Watergate question. Dean
is very concerned, especially about the financial-support aspects. But doesn't
know how to handle his concern, and feels that we've got to get Mitchell into
it and some help from him.
get
K said that it was absolutely amazing in Hanoi how remarkably precise
the American bombing had been. There's virtually no destruction in the city
of Hanoi of anything but military targets, the railroad yard is completely
wiped out, the airports are completely wiped out, but all the other buildings
and facilities still stand. Large storage areas have been demolished, but virtu-
ally nothing adjacent to them. Henry feels that it is a really remarkable tribute
to the bombing operation, and a total repudiation of the attacks on the P for
his so-called carpet bombing etc.

The P was pretty well occupied all morning with his own efforts at schedule
planning with Ziegler, K, etc. He had me in at 1:00, covered an amazing array
and range of subjects. His first concern was the meeting he had with Rex Scott
about the colors in the bowling alley, and he's concerned about the costs there,
and says any excess cost must be by contribution. Only that which is actually
a part of House operations can be charged that way. Wants Bebe and Annen-
berg to raise the money and I'm to handle it myself, working with Bebe.
Another problem was the storage space for tables and chairs at the White
House, and all sorts of odds and ends.
The P wasn't free much today, had me in only once at 2:30, and that for just
some miscellaneous odds and ends. Wants to work out plans on the "Evenings
at the White House," was concerned about Watergate in general, and that was
about it. There was a Leadership Meeting this morning, bipartisan for break-
fast, and the VP called me afterward, asking why he was excluded. He was very
582 H.R. HALDEMAN
distressed and more or less hung up on me. The reason being of course that
itwas a breakfast meeting, which the P has had frequently, and has never
included the VP, so there was nothing unusual about it at all. Continuing his
plan of public exposure and goodwill, the P went to the theater tonight to see
Irene.

The P met with the Energy group this morning,
and then left right afterward
with E for Camp Took John (E) with him because he wanted to
David.
discuss the Watergate in some detail. He's concerned about what's coming up
and feels that since John is not involved he can consult with him on it. I think
he's particularly concerned about the possibility of my getting hauled in. Dean
is also concerned, so we've got everybody worrying at this point.

The P came down for White House Church this me about 2:30
morning, called
just to chat in general. Said he talked to E about
Time magazine thing on
the
FBI leaks, taps on Brandon and Satire, and said that he had talked to E and
agreed that everything should be handled by Dean and Kleindienst on the
Watergate, that E and I should stay out of it, not let it divert us.

The P had me in today, and is obviously giving a lot of thought to schedule,
says that the problem now we don't have a plan. The best thing is to
is that
have meetings that are regular, otherwise the people that he has to see take
more of his time. That will apply to Cabinet, White House staff and Congres-
sional types. So he diddled around on which days to do what. He got into the
subject of the book Kennedy 's 13 Mistakes, which he's read and found fasci-
nating, made the point that Kennedy blew practically everything and still got
credit for it. Late this afternoon he had the weekly meeting with Shultz, Ash,
E, and me, the first half hour of which was consumed with the discussion of
the governors' meeting today, and our guy reporting on the discussion on the
governors' attitudes, and the P's comments on how to deal with them. Consid-
erable discussion in that context of the budget, revenue sharing, the need to
keep selling that, the problems and so forth. He then got into his general
philosophical discussion, said that the problem good managers
is that we're
and we do things because they're right, so we appear to be cold and efficient.
People measure compassion by passion for spending, and we don't have it. So
we have to do like Bobby Kennedy, say you care about the poor folk, say we
want to do things. As a subtheme for making our substantive case, we have to
make the case for the passionate approach, the question is not cutting, it's a
question of how much we increase. Symbolism is the area where we're weak.
We can't get it across because we're not as comfortable as Democrats. Then

he got into the subject of the poison in the upper classes, the loss of faith in
the country —
they hate the country, the country is corrupt and prejudiced, the
whole McGovern argument thing. He then started questioning, particularly
Shultz and Ash, debating whether the whole battle with the Congress and all
is worth it. We're getting into a bloody battle, and if you do that you must have
the assurance that first, you're right, and second, that if you weren't fighting
the battle on this ground, it would be on something else, which was Ash's
answer to it. He was trying to get them to waver, and I think both of them held
their ground pretty well. I think he felt better as a result of the meeting, he did
—
drag it on for quite a while this whole area of discussion and his soliloquies
are his favorite subjects —
before he took off for the barbershop and the gover-
nors' dinner tonight.

I did my Newsweek interview and it went reasonably well. They asked nothing
about the Watergate or any of that sort of thing. They claim they're doing a
straight cover story on me, so maybe it won't be as bad as we were afraid it
would. Mitchell called and said that Hal Bruno at Newsweek talked to him,
and he thinks it's going to be a favorable piece too, but they do keep coming
back to the Barbara Walters interview and keep trying to make me out as a
superconservative type.
The POW
problem was solved today, as the Communists folded and
agreed to release themen within the next 48 hours, so the P's hanging tight on
that paid off. Now we'll go back to the Paris conferences.
The Golda Meir visit is going without any major incident apparently. The
P had a long session with her this morning and then dinner with her tonight.
The big problem with that is the Indian uprising. They have laid siege to some
area, and are holding hostages. The P was only mildly interested in it.

The P had his press conference today, did a good job, took twenty questions
in a little over half an hour, less than half of them on Vietnam. Quite a few on
Watergate, and Pat Gray.
Editor 's Note: The Senate had begun confirmation hearings on Pat Gray as
Director of the FBI. Dean's refusal to testify at them brought the hearings
to a halt.
He talked some about the probable Connally switch. The P feels that we
should be getting our ducks in a row to take advantage of that and that we're
not doing that. Which is right.
584 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P had his "Evening at the White House" with Sammy Davis last night,
which went okay. He had breakfast with Davis this morning, at least that was
the plan, and then left right at 12:00 for Camp David, where he's planning to
stay tonight and tomorrow.

The P came down from Camp David early today for no announced reason.
Called me in at noon and was concerned about the reaction to the "Evening
at the White House." He felt that we should have invited the music critics
because of the lousy social reporting, and got into his whole thing of how we
don't get any credit for what we're doing.
Then and said he was concerned about the reporters cover-
called Ziegler
ing the "Evening" and entertainment, that he must never invite Sally Quinn {of
the Post). She violated the rules and attacked the guests at the church service.
He wants Julie to use Ziegler to control the press over on the East Wing. He
knows who to let in and that sort of thing.
Got into Colson, wants to be sure that he understands as soon as he gets
back, that Dean is handling Watergate.

The P had a very heavy day, scheduled from 8:30 to 6:00 and then first of the
two "fat cat" dinners tonight. He did have me in at 6:00 for a short time, and
we reacted to today, making the point that it was useless because all of the
events were spinning wheels. He went over the schedule and made the point
that none of the things really needed to be done, nor did any of them really
advance the ball for us in any way.
E reported earlier on the P's Leadership Meeting this morning. This was
just with (Senator Hugh) Scott and (Gerald) Ford, and we knew that Scott
intended to come in and complain about things on the Hill and suggest that the
P have a series of meetings up there with the Republican senators. Scott started
off doing exactly that, and said the mood was very bad, and whined on and on,
for two or three minutes. The P just let him go, then he stepped in and used a lot
of apparently pretty strong profanity, and said that the senators are nothing but
a bunch of assess. We never get anything from them, there's nothing that does
any good, no matter what we do for them. We bring them down and give them
cookies, and treat them nice socially in order to cover the things that we need to
do, but we can't count on them for any vote, and never have been able to.

The P had me in earlier this morning for quite a long while. He reviewed the
stag dinner last night, was confirmed about some way of identifying people
when they're introduced. Stans apparently did a good job. He pointed out the
need to do this at other parties, which we don't get done. I suggested the idea
of giving people identification cards to hand out to the introducing aides,
which he thinks is a good idea, so we're going to try that. He was disturbed
that we have the Navy singers for tonight, had the Army last night, and he
thinks that they are much better. He went into schedule review this afternoon,
on plans for going out to the countryand meeting with the Congress and so
on. He wants E on developing a good agenda for the
to put special attention
Leaders Meeting. He wanted me to call Reisner and Denton, the two POW
leaders, and get a reading from them on when the P should have a POW event,
and also tell him that the P would like to chat with them off the record
sometime when they can be in Washington. He commented that the VFW
award kids who came in just looked terrible. He felt that they were probably
barefooted, were wearing jeans and awful-looking clothes, and he doesn't
think we should allow that.
On the stag dinners, he thinks they're "pro" groups and that we
good for
should do more of them because they're much him than a mixed
easier for
dinner. Getting into the schedule, he wants to have a formal arrival ceremony
for Thieu at El Toro and then have him stay at San Clemente, no ceremonies
at the compound. He said to schedule this Friday until 4:30, then he'll go to
Camp David, and he can see someone up there on Saturday morning. He has
to come back down Sunday morning for the church service. He talked some
about the Kennedy 13 Great Mistakes book, wants me to find Malcolm Smith,
find out what he really did and what happened on the book.
We covered a number of the other schedule items and philosophy, then
he had to leave to get ready for the dinner. The dinner tonight, which I
attended, went very well. The P gave a good wrap-up talk on the overall world
situation and ended by reading the Denton letter, which of course over-
whelmed everybody. He had done the same thing last night. The evening was
extremely effective and very impressive to those who were there.

The P had a superloaded schedule today, starting with breakfast with Senators
McClellan and Young.
At the P's request I called two POW leaders, Captain Denton and Colo-
on when to have the
nel Reisner, to get their reading POW
event, and also to
check out whether they would be able come in and see the President. Denton
said he would be ecstatic to see the P. He's obviously completely over-
whelmed by the thought. Colonel Reisner was less overcome by the whole
thing, but had somewhat the same view, although he thought maybe the
show ought to be sooner then the June 14 we're figuring on, because Ross
Perot and others are suggesting reunions of various kinds and this should be
done first. He too was obviously most anxious to come and talk to the P.
Also talked to Malcolm Smith, the author of the Kennedy 13 Mistakes
586 H.R. HALDEMAN
book, tracked him down at his home in Long Island. He said that he
couldn't get the book published, so he did it himself, ran some ads, and got
a pretty big response, then did get a publisher to agree to handle bookstore
distribution, but about that point Robert Kennedy was assassinated, so he
pulled the thing off the market. He says he has 2500 copies and is going to
send me a dozen of them.
I told him that I talked to Connally at the dinner Wednesday night and
that he is going to switch, and the P wanted to be sure he did his press
conference in Washington rather than in Texas. Connally said he plans to do
it just as a straight press conference rather than trying to work any other kind
of gimmick into it.

Started out today with a long Cabinet meeting. The point of the meeting was
to make spokesman program, of their getting
the pitch to start the Presidential
out and selling the budget-battle program. The P opened and turned it over to
E. who dropped his papers as he stepped to the podium and after getting all
that together gave his pitch. The P interrupted frequently, made the point that
we need a massive effort over a long period, and that Congress will change
their minds because of public pressure if we keep it up. The P said always
express great respect for Congress. Kleindienst interrupted and said, is that an
order, sir. and laughed. The P said that he should say that the members of
Congress want to do what is right, and that we've got to convince them to
support this budget. This is not an austerity budget, it doubles the domestic
spending versus four years ago. For instance, the higher-education lobby,
they're not fighting about the money they get. They're fighting because we're
going to change the plan and give the money to the students rather than the
institutions, and the institutions don't want the students to have the freedom
of choice. In all this though we must show compassion, but don't debate who's
more compassionate. The greater compassion we can show is by not raising
taxes and prices. The person inflation kills is the poor, not the rich, everybody
is affected by prices. We're doing the greatest divestiture of power any govern-
ment in Washington has ever asked Congress for. the problem is that they
don't want the power in the local areas. The whole philosophy is to get rid of
the middleman, get rid of committee action and model cities, even though
there are some good facets to them, because overall they haven't panned out,
cut them out so that we'll have dollars to help the poor directly, and cut out
those that are in the business of helping the poor.
Made the point that we're doing well in the world peace, United States
leadership and so on. now is a critical time not to blow it with bad budget that
destroys economic power. The P said to add an item in all your speeches, the
point of law enforcement. Take a very hard line. We have to move in this area.
Step up penalties on drugs and so on. We can't cure crime, because there are
always bad people, but we can take strong steps to fight it.
K burst in to announce that Chou En-lai just cabled in a telegram to

release a CIA prisoner they've been holding for years. We made an appeal
Wednesday on the basis of the man's mother being critically ill, and we got a
response today that he's being released on Monday. They're also releasing the
other two prisoners on Thursday.

The P had Henry and me in this morning to talk about ambassadors. He wants
to plan a Latin American trip to three countries this fall. He also wants a
10-day trip to Africa, three countries, Nigeria, Congo, and Ethiopia. He wants
to do Europe in the fall.
He got into the news analysis sheet, that Buchanan and Allen had worked
up, and was concerned because it's practically all bad news except for the
POW's, which we had no control over. That was the one good thing. He thinks
they should point out the positives, too, that this is dwelling too much on
problems instead of opportunities, and this ruins the team spirit setup. He
questions whether E's value isn't greater at thinking and creating rather than
doing, and whether we don't need him working in this area. He raised the point
that he wanted me to have Dent get a candidate fielded and going against Sam
Ervin, to give him some trouble in his district, to slow him down a little on his
Watergate activities.

The P went into the Watergate question this morning, wanted to know if we
had any polls on apparent reaction as to whom it affects, analyzed by voter
breakdowns and all, which we don't have. He thought it'd be a good idea to
get that. Also he had a meeting with John Dean for a long time at midday on
the Watergate thing, primarily at my instigation. I wanted Dean to raise with
him the plan he discussed with me about having Bill Sullivan (Hoover's former
aide) go ahead with the testimony he'd like to give to the Senate committee on
what the FBI did under past Administrations, which would pop the bubble of
our supposed political corruption of the pristine Bureau.
Later in the day he had Ehrlichman and Ziegler in and gave Ziegler some
guidance on Watergate. The P said that he should say, in answer to any
questions, that there's been complete White House cooperation in all the
investigations up to now, and there will be with the Senate committee, but
there will not be appearances by White House staff people. Sworn statements
answering any questions they may have will be provided. But Ziegler should
start with the point of complete cooperation and furnishing information. He
should refer to this as different from the usual way of doing this. For example,
Truman, in the Hiss case, issued an executive order ordering no cooperation
at all from any executive branch agency with the Senate committee. We will
provide sworn statements, which is a major step forward.
588 H.R. HALDEMAN

Discussion at the staff meeting this morning was about the Hill's counter-
strategyon our budget plan. They now plan to agree to a budget ceiling. They
want and then take the money that's left and spend it on social
to cut defense
programs, which we've got to figure out a counterstrategy for.
The P had his press conference this morning, and over half of it was
devoted to Watergate questions. He got into quite a discussion with me this
afternoon about that, and his concern, which he's expressed continually, al-
though tries to stay away from it with me, that we're in a bad position on
Watergate. He keeps working with Dean every day on trying to develop ways
of finding some statement that we can put out that shows that we're not just
covering it up.

The P got into the POW question this morning. He wants to meet with Flynn,
the Senior Officer of the POW's, who's now back. He wants him as soon
to see
as possible and right after that announce the May 24 dinner. Got into some
discussion of POW gifts, decided he wants to give each of them cufflinks, each
of the wives pins, each of the kids a bow pin for the girls and tie clips for the
boys, plus an ashtray or something like that for their homes, plus a unit
citation type of thing and a framed copy for each POW. He wants a full plan
worked out on Bob Hope and the date's OK with him, he's
that. I talked to
supposed to call me back on whether Les Brown will be available and then
we'llgo ahead.
He got into quite a thing on Watergate again, and the strategies. Con-
cerned about the appearance of the P covering up and feels that we've got to
try to work out of that position by releasing the Segretti data, or something.
He also got into staff assignments. Feels that Shultz is spread way too thin,
he's the senior man on labor, Russian trade, economic policy, Treasury
items, monetary policy, energy, and so forth. He thinks we've got to get Ash
more on the management side, that E's role has got to be more as an
active
advocate.
Got into some schedule discussion this morning, a normal Saturday of time-
killing. He's now decided he wants to meet with the Congressional leaders, the
full GOP Leadership group every two weeks. Same program with the Cabinet,
meet with the Cabinet regularly every two weeks, basically as a domestic-
full
council meeting, then, in between, do Cost of Living Council, CEA, NSC, and
so on.
He had a long talk with Haig, and said that he had confirmed that K
had accused Haig of being disloyal to him in December and had really
blown at him, which disturbed Al considerably, and the P sort of reviewed
the K problems. Reraised the point that he had even hit me on parking his
airplane in the wrong place, which he did the day he came back from one of
the peace talks, or his Hanoi trip, or something. He arrived just after the P
and was furious because he didn't get any press coverage on his return ar-
rival, blaming me for parking his plane in such a way that the press couldn't
cover him.
Tonight was the Merle Haggard "Evening at the White House." The P
came out looking a trifle ridiculous, wearing a huge green bow tie, which he
had borrowed from Freddy the elevator operator, and was obviously in
good spirits. The "Evening" was pretty much a flop because the audience
obviously had no appreciation for country /western music and there wasn't
much rapport, except when Haggard did his "Okie from Muskogee" and
"Fighting Side of Me" numbers which everybody responded to very favor-
ably, of course.

Got into the Ervin questions with Ziegler because Ervin was on TV yesterday
saying he would have White House staff people who refused to testify arrested.
And try to force the issue that way. The P told Ron he thought it was too early
to draw the sword on Ervin's political circus. Instead he should reiterate the
P's position regarding a separation of powers. But emphasize that this is not
a case of refusal to cooperate or to furnish information, as Presidents in the
past have done. Ours is a policy of complete cooperation. Ron should go on
the attack regarding our total cooperation. Hit the (point that) sensational
House aides have obscured the central fact
statements regarding forcing White
thatwe have cooperated and will continue to. On ITT, told Ron to say "no
comment." He feels we need someone like Ron on top of the PR to really keep
working full time in getting our digs in.
He feels from his talk with Haig last problem now is that
week that the
K's trying to cover his and is a little confused on all these things.
left flank
Wants me to talk to Safire and get our story out on Vietnam. Point out the
truth regarding K panicking on Cambodia, Laos, and Pakistan while the P
always had to buck him up. Show him K's frenetic messages from Paris and
tell him that side of the story. Also build Haig as the unsung hero, like a rock
in all of this. He obviously doesn't have any particular purpose driving him at
the moment and he's sort of bouncing around covering all these loose areas.
Partly trying to decide whether to do his State of the Union as an address to
Congress, an address to the nation, on nighttime TV, or just to go for the
evening press conference. No decision made on that. He was going to work on
it this afternoon, but called Rose and me over on the schedule stuff instead.
Hopefully he will get to that decision in the next couple of days.

590 H.R. HALDEMAN

The P had the Republican Leadership Meeting this morning and had me in
right afterward. He when he was talking with Teddy White
raised a point that
the question of withholding came up, and the P made the point to Teddy that
LBJ withheld twice as much as we have and that he was astonished. So maybe
we have to attack the press regarding the fact that they never say anything
about LBJ impounding two times as much as we do. Maybe Agnew should
take up the cudgel on this.
He then got into quite a discussion of K, which rose out of the decision
that he's trying to make right now regarding the question of bombing the Laos
panhandle (in retaliation for the violation of the cease-fire accords by North
Vietnam). He feels that it's rather odd that K
isn't here at a time we have to
make this decision, and says that Haig intimated the same thing. The question
is how much of a risk there is with the POW's if we go ahead with it, and he
has to make the decision in the next couple of days. He wanted me to call K
tomorrow and raise the questions with him. If there is any risk to the POW's,
then we shouldn't take it. Why can't we wait and do it after they're out? He
told me to stay positive on it. Then the P mentioned the possibility of the
bombing, and I raised the point that if there's any risk that we should delay.
The P makes the point that this is the only possible retaliation move we've got.
We can't go back to bombing the North as Henry has suggested. So we've
really got to give this careful consideration. In this discussion, it developed that
the P didn't know Henry was taking off to Mexico for a week's vacation,
that
and he was obviously very miffed that Henry pulled this. I thought, of course,
that it had been worked out between the two of them, but the P claims he knew
nothing about it and thought Henry was taking his vacation at the end of our
California trip by staying out there.
He then got into a long thing with me on Watergate, raising the various
possibilities. He feels strongly that we've got to say something to get ourselves
away from looking like we're completely on the defensive and on a cover-up
basis. If we, who are protected by executive privilege, are going to volunteer
to send written statements —
which in effect we have, or the P has for us we —
might as well do the statements now and get them publicized and get our
answers out. The problem is that Dean feels this runs too many leads out, but
the answer to that is it's going to happen anyway. Also the leads that run out
don't really come from the testimony of those of us who have immunity, so we
ought to take the initiative and get our stories out ahead of time. At least I
think so, and that was the P's feeling. He wanted me to explore that some with
Dean and Moore. He's spent hours with them and is obviously very concerned
about the impact of the Watergate thing now, and this is really the first time
he has been. I think maybe Dean's gotten through to him that there could be
some White House staff involvement and therefore problems in this whole
thing.
Editor's Note: Among other things, Dean had reported to the P that Halde-
man's former aide, Gordon Strachan, may have known about the bugging,
at least after the fact.That he himself had sat in Mitchell's office listening
to Liddy's intelligence-gathering schemes (which he thought had all been
rejected). That Magruder might have pressured Liddy on the break-in. That
—
both Hunt and Liddy had done work for Ehrlichman such as breaking
into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist during the Pentagon Papers
incident.

The P had his usual Wednesday clear except for a few ceremonial items at
midday. And spent most of the day on Watergate, which he's becoming more
and more involved in, and I guess concerned about, as time goes on. He had
a long session with Ehrlichman first thing this morning, then had John Dean
at 10:00 for a couple of hours. Had Dean give him a complete rundown on all
the facts, which he had told him last night he wanted him to be prepared to
do. I had told John to do exactly that, cover all the facts in considerable detail,
so the P would actually know precisely what the situation was.
Then he called me in at the end of the Dean meeting. We had some general
discussion about options and alternatives. Ehrlichman's intrigued with the
possibility, which he raised yesterday, of convening a grand jury and having
all of us go up there and file our statements under oath and getting that done.
The P also became somewhat interested in that, especially after talking with
Dean. But has some concerns about it.
The P felt that the time had come that Dean and Ehrlichman and I should
all sit down with Mitchell, and that Dean should give us the same total fill-in on
the facts as he had given the P today, and we should then try to come to some
conclusions. He called me back in at 3:00 and went over some of his thoughts
again before Dean, Ehrlichman and I met at 3:30. At that point the P felt that we
needed basically to determine, first of all, what to do right now about the Hunt
threat. He's asking for money, and says he'll blow the E story and Bud Krogh
thing if we don't pay him offnow, or they don't. And the question is to evaluate
the whole thing and determine a course of action. We now have a different
situation than we did during the election. We've got to figure all the problems
and possibilities. For example, the Krogh problem on where he is. Maybe it can
be solved by national security considerations or we can get him immunity, and
there's a question of Sullivan's memo and whether to use it.
Editor's Note: On March 21 Dean reported to P that Magruder actually

knew a lot about the bugging, and that Colson might also have been
592 H.R. HALDEMAN
involved. That Herb Kalmbach had provided funds for the defendants'
attorneys' fees.And, most disturbing, that Hunt had just demanded
$122,000 more or he would talk about the things he had done for Ehrlich-
man and Krogh, including the Ellsberg break-in.
He thinks, on thinking
it over, that the grand jury is appealing at least at
first blush because an opportunity for all the White House to be questioned
it's
on a sworn basis with no cover-up. We'd precede it by a general statement that

would be based on, or take off from, the statement by the judge at the
sentencing on Friday. Then we're following up now the court has proceeded
and then have Dean put out a general disclaimer. He feels we need something,
and unless it's necessary to tough it through we shouldn't. However, if it
involves criminal prosecution of the top people then that would be worse than
having to tough it out. But if we do tough it out it means living with it which
is going to be very tough, very difficult.
He regarding Ehrlichman and Krogh vs. Hunt.

feels the critical thing is
The question is, can we let Hunt go? Also he thinks I ought to talk to Colson
and see what would happen as far as he's concerned if Hunt blows. He
suggested also if we do the grand jury, we should invite the press to testify, not
subpoena them but they should be invited. Not on their sources or their files
but on any facts that they have. The advantages of this, of course, the grand
jury approach, is that it covers all the ground under oath, provides the answer
about going to the Senate. How else can we show that the P is trying to get the
facts and avoid anything falling on us? That becomes the basic problem, and
the question is whether to go one way or the other, or just ride it through on
the containment theory that Dean's been pursuing up to now. Generally, you
come out that the latter is really the only, actual possible, course, but it's not
a very good one.
The P then had Ehrlichman, Dean, and me in at 5: 1 5 for another hour or so
and reviewed our afternoon discussion, which comes down that Ehrlichman
doesn't think the Dean approach to the grand jury is satisfactory because Dean
bases it on going for immunity before the people which E doesn't think
testify,
is a salable approach. So we talked for quite a while

and came out about the same
as we went in. We'll meet with Mitchell tomorrow morning and see if we can
advance it there. Dean, after the meeting, made one point that maybe we should
just draw the wagons up around the White House and let things fall where they
may outside; which, of course, is the tempting choice, since there is no complicity
within the White House, and we'd come out in good shape on that. But the
problem is what happens to Mitchell, Magruder, etc., on the outside.

The P had several schedule items today, but in between spent the whole time
on Watergate again. Had me in at 9:00 this morning before the 10:00 meeting
I scheduled with Mitchell which was postponed to 1 1 :00. So I spent two hours
with the P. He was concerned about Gray testimony, which keeps getting
the
out of hand, and asked who's programming Gray, since the White House isn't.
I pointed out that he told us not to, that he had talked to Gray himself and
then had said Kleindienst was to be programming him, which is what we were
relying on. So beyond that I didn't know. He didn't regard that as a very
satisfactory answer, but that's where the situation is at the moment.
He also said that Colson talked to him on the phone last night and
reported that (Senator Howard) Baker's administrative assistant had come to
Colson, and said that Baker said that he was feeling hurt because he wants to
help but doesn't feel that he has anyone to talk to, and Colson suggested he
should be the one. Baker said, for example, that he didn't know about the
executive privilege statement before came out and had caught him unawares
it
and so on. Baker, of course, in talking to the P, had said he didn't want to talk
to anyone else at the White House. That he wanted to have Kleindienst be his
contact, which the P set up. Apparently, that's not working. So the P raised
the question what's Kleindienst doing with Baker and all? What's Kleindienst
doing in guidance to Gray? And he feels somebody's got to get to Kleindienst
and tell him he's got to pick it up because the White House has to stay out of
it. He then said to go ahead with the Mitchell meeting and he'd meet with us
all at 1:30.
The whole group thought I ought to talk to Colson, find out what he
promised Hunt and he wondered about (Attorney Lawrence) Walsh as spe-
cial prosecutor if we decide to go that route. We had our long session, went
through the whole facts and options. The question series again and didn't
really come up with anything new except that Mitchell made the point
strongly that the only real problem the P has is invoking executive privilege,
which does put him in the position of appearing to cover up. John's argu-
ment therefore that the solution to the problem at the moment at least lies in
getting out of the executive privilege wicket somehow, and we spent some
time discussing that coming down on the side of at least considering going to
the committee with the proposal that the White House people will waive
executive privilege and come up, if we can testify in executive session without
TV and so on, and if it's limited to relevant questions. Then we went back to
meet with the P. We got into this and he believed that it was probably a
pretty good approach and that's where we left it. We also felt that there
should be a Dean report to the P, which Dean has pretty much completed on
Segretti and can do over the weekend on Watergate, and that it should be
given by the P to the committee and probably publicly released. So we're
working on that possibility now.
In the midst of all that, we come up with a new problem with Gray, who
was in questioning today. Got trapped into admitting or saying to Senator
Byrd that he was probably right in his assumption that Dean had lied when
he said he didn't tell the FBI he didn't know whether Hunt had an office in the
White House. Of course the fact was they didn't ask him that, they asked him
594 H.R. HALDEMAN
if they could see Hunt's office, and he said he didn't know that and would have
to check. So Gray has sort of screwed us again.

I came down to Key Biscayne this morning and the P called me over to the
house at 1 1 5. Had me there until 6:30 going over primarily Watergate. He said
:
that he wanted me to check Colson on the point that Dean raised about
clemency and how that was handled with Hunt. What specifically did Colson
say to Hunt on this subject. He feels that we need to make our move now
rather than just wait, but Kleindienst should do something this afternoon
because of what's been said. Perhaps the grand jury is directed to call all
concerned. He wanted me to talk to Dean and find out if Strachan testified at
the trial, with the idea of being concerned about his possible perjury. Also
whether Kleindienst has contacted Baker and Ervin, as the P told him to in the
office the other day, in the phone call. The P feels he doesn't like just sitting
here. The P is expected to do something and he thinks he should. We should
get Kleindienst going, finding out what's up as far as Sirica is concerned. Also
get Moore's judgment, Mitchell's. Have Dean ask Kleindienst.
He then had me go in the other room and call Colson on the phone and
find out what his deal was with Hunt. I talked to Chuck, and he said that
through Hunt's attorney he had indicated that he felt that Hunt had already
been adequately punished, and that he, Chuck, would go to bat for him.
Hunt's attorney said to Chuck that Hunt doesn't want to go to jail. He hopes
he'll be out before the end of the year. Colson said I can't answer that and I
won't try. He says he phrased it very carefully. First, that I know what Hunt's
concerns are. Secondly, I'm Hunt's friend and I will do all I can. Specifically,
he limited it to his desire to help Hunt. What was said and the impression on
what he actually said vs. what the impression gained on the other side might
differ, though, Chuck admits. He said that they may have reason to believe
that he told them he has reason to believe that his opinion would be respected
by others. But he made no mention of having discussed this with the P or
anybody else. He says he's had no dealing with McCord, doesn't know him,
had no dealing with Liddy.
Then I hit him at the P's request on the telephone call. Specifically,
whether he had, in the phone call he made to Magruder from his office while
Hunt and Liddy were with him, did he mention the P or anybody else pushing
him on getting anything done? He says that the story on that was actually, —
Chuck was a little surprised that I knew about the phone call at first and said —
that he didn't think Magruder remembered the call and that he was not doing
anything to recall it. But he said Hunt and Liddy dropped by his office late one
afternoon or early evening and said that Liddy was setting up an intelligence
operation, and Hunt would work with him. But that they can't talk to anyone
to present their ideas and that's why they've come to see Chuck. Chuck said
they shouldn't talk to him, they should be talking to somebody over at CRP.
They had tried, but nobody would listen to them, and so Chuck
said they
calledMagruder. Told him that these guys had this plan and that he didn't
know whether they want to do anything about it, but they should at least listen
to it. And that's his story of the phone call.
He says he wrote a memo after the Watergate, putting down everything
he could remember, and he said in it that Hunt and Liddy had come by late
in the day regarding intelligence and counterintelligence. He had said to them,

don't me. Liddy had said no one would talk to them and Colson called Jeb.
tell
Told him to listen to them. He gave this memo to Dean and Dean gave it back
to him. Said not to show it to anyone, because Jeb doesn't remember the call
and would be damaging.
it
He
said he has made no representation regarding any clemency to Hunt,
but Bittman might extend what he did say. Although Bittman would not
disagree with Colson's report as to what he'd actually said, but might say that
he was logically interpreting more to it than what was actually said. He has a
tape of Hunt's call to him later, where Hunt said that he was very sorry that
Chuck had become involved in all this, because he, Hunt, knew that Chuck
had no knowledge of it and he was sorry his name had been brought up.
Regarding the grand jury, he thinks that's OK as far as he's concerned,
but we should hold our executive privilege. The problem with the grand jury
is no safeguards and they can go on a wild fishing expedition.
that there are
He says he doesn't know enough facts to make a judgment. That we should
get someone else in to represent the P and his interest. Like Walsh or J. Lee
Rankin or Tom Clark as outside special counsel regarding executive privilege,
etc.
The P also then had me call John Mitchell and get a reading from him on
what McCord was likely to say. This was, of course, all stirred up because this
morning McCord's letter to Sirica came out, in which he said he had a lot more
information that he could provide and so on.
Editor's Note: Before the sentencing, McCord had given Sirica a letter
which said he had been offered clemency in return for silence, and that
perjury had been committed at the trial.
McCord was likely to say,

Mitchell said he hadn't the foggiest idea what
and that in would be hearsay, since he didn't have any
any event most of it
direct involvement in anything. Says McCord was head of security and was a
private investigator for CRP right from the beginning. He's certain that Jeb
and so on had no dealings with him. That Liddy probably got him into the
Watergate thing, but none of our people knew he was in it. He knows noth-
ing except what people would have told him. Sloan and Liddy were buddies,
so Sloan could have talked to him about it. I discussed with Mitchell what
his views are on what the P ought to do in context of all this. He said we
596 H.R. HALDEMAN
already have a grand jury. The question

what are the options. Anything
is
theP does gives the McCord development

credence. So he should hunker
down. The judicial process is still running its course. The rights of defend-
ants are involved and so on. The ball is in the judge's court and that's where
we should leave it.
We should probably hold up on releasing Dean's report to the P, al-

though Dean should go ahead and write it so we have it put together. We
should do nothing until there's more information available. That's nothing
overt at least.
He then had me call Dick Moore to get his view, and he said, first of all
we can't react to a prisoner's statement, so we should do nothing in response

to the McCord
thing. The question is what Justice should do. Right now
they're saying no comment. But shouldn't they have some kind of reaction? Or
should they say they'll await information from Sirica? He feels that the sur-
rounding climate is such that we can't step up and talk big on this now. We've
got to be careful. But on the question of cover-up, there's a danger of using
government power, including executive privilege, because of the appearance of
cover-up. We should appear to come forward, ideally, we should not wait to
be dragged out. The P should say I'm going to get to the bottom of this and
he should get an outside lawyer to advise him. The P can't just sit for very long.
But he should not just react to the McCord letter. He should consider going
for a new and a new grand jury. This one apparently didn't
special prosecutor
we should recognize that going to the grand jury is
cover the entire case. But
a monumental step, because we don't know where it leads such as the area —
of how these people got their money and so forth.
He on our day-to-day strategy. We
says we've been successful so far
probably can't play the McCord now on a new level of
thing this way. We're
concern. That is, with the first charge of perjury and so on. And even if he's
lying, there's the question of what others might now do as things start unravel-
ing.
I then talked to Dean. He said that Kleindienst doesn't have a position on
this as of now as to what Justice ought to do. The problem is that McCord will
be dealing with hearsay and innuendo. That in analyzing it, one possibility is
that what he has to say may be very limited just to a few specifics with little
firsthand knowledge. Probably a lot of hearsay, such as from the Cubans,

Liddy, and Hunt. On the other hand, he may be able to do a lot of damage
with information that's more than hearsay. For example, his apparent defense
of Sloan in his letter bothers Dean, and he thinks the perjury thing is probably
Jeb or Porter or (White House aide Robert) Odle. He feels we should not
overreact, we should watch and
wait. McCord's greatest danger is post-June
17. He's on Dean's greatest concern, which is obstruction. The problem is
hit
that we're one step behind now, and from a strategic viewpoint we should
question whether we should try to jump ahead.
I reported on these various conversations to the P. At that point, Ziegler
came in to the meeting, and the P called Kleindienst, told him that he felt
Justice should put out a statement saying that they will welcome any evidence
that McCord turns up and will of course follow through on it in the appropri-
ate way. He told me to call Bill Rogers and get his advice on the whole thing
and fill him in on some of these background things. See what he thinks about
the idea of going to the grand jury.
On a different subject, he injected the question of whether to do the
appearance before Congress or a speech on TV next week. He feels that
Watergate is subject A now and there's no use hitting on something else. So
we don't gain anything by making a big thing out of the other subject. On
Kleindienst, he made the point that on Gray we should stick by him and see
what happens. That actually we will withdraw and send up ( Chief of Police
Metro Department, Washington) Jerry Wilson. Wanted me to tell Dean to be
sure that he and Kleindienst don't offer anything to Ervin if they meet with
him. The plan now is to hard-line the Senate regarding executive privilege and
go for sending all of the White House people to the grand jury instead. There
was a lot of other sort of general discussion of options and so on. And the
meeting ended at that point at about 6:30.
I made phone call to Rogers at the P's request, to raise the question with
the
him, first, of where he feels we now stand in the public eye, and, second, what
his advice is on our general Watergate approach. I covered the background
with him and so on. He said he felt that until recently we looked all right, that
this whole thing hadn't had much impact, but in the last couple of weeks it was
starting to look like a cover-up. That was not widespread yet, but it could
develop. First, that we have the matter of Gray focusing attention on the FBI,
which is unfortunate because it appears not to be beyond reproach now, and
also the position he's taken with Dean puts a cloud over the institution.
Especially the McCord statement, where he says he doesn't trust the FBI or
Justice. Second, the Kleindienst problem will be revived, on the theory that
you and the development of the idea that Kleindienst was
can't trust Justice
close to Mitchell, and Mitchell's name now is recurring in the subject. Third,
the judge, who appears now to be a man of integrity, fighting everybody. So
it's no longer a political battle. Before, it was the Democrats fighting us, so it
was political, but now it's the judge and the forces of righteousness, and that
concept will gradually sink into the public mind. Fourth, there's the continuing
possibility, actually certainty,of judicial and Congressional investigations,
which will keep the public interested. Especially since there's not much else in
the news now.
An accumulation of all these things, especially the McCord letter, brings
the thing into a new focus. The McCord letter is very significant just in itself,
^ regardless of what it does or doesn't develop. Also you have the added danger
that the press is just gloating over this whole thing, obviously, as Roger Mudd
(of CBS) showed on TV last night. He felt that the executive privilege question
598 H.R. HALDEMAN
wasn't much of a problem. But it's starting to become one. The thing is it
makes sense and the public accepts it if it's related to communications between
the P and his advisors. But it's very tough to hang on executive privilege in
other areas and the blanket exercise just doesn't wash. Fundamental problem
regarding the grand jury is now the suspicion is cast on the Justice Department
and the FBI. So you might have to appoint a special prosecutor. But that
would be a real slap to the Attorney General. As long as there's a cloud on the
FBI, everything else is clouded, because there's no pillar of integrity to rely on.
If Gray goes down the drain, we should get someone else in, like a Federal
judge, that everyone will trust, but that's too late for the immediate problem.
Also the Kleindienst problem because of his closeness to Mitchell.
Sending the White House assistants to the grand jury would relieve the
pressure about refusing to send them to the Hill. He thinks there is validity to
the idea, basically Ziegler's, that we should not allow the senior White House
staff togo to the Senate because that might be just the hypo that's needed to
really throw this thing over. The point being that it would be a complete circus
and would be very hard for us to have to live with. He thinks we should go very
slow on the idea of bringing in special counsel. That it's a bad idea, he has a
very negative viewpoint on it, because it would be construed as if the P is in
a jam and he has to hire a lawyer, but it is important, he thinks, to get a special
prosecutor. Someone like Walsh, because of the suspicions that are raised.
You don't want to appear that the P is worried about his position. The right
impression is that the P wants to be sure there's no cloud over the White House
or over Justice.
Maybe we should have the Attorney General retain special counsel,
since he's the P's lawyer. That's his job. Maybe Kleindienst should bring
(Solicitor General Erwin) Griswold The main issue is still
in for this purpose.
there, though. Doyou reverse your field and turn over everything to the
prosecutors and let the chips fall where they may, or do you still want to
keep some control? If you try to retain control, it's very difficult, because it's
hard to stop the thing from unwinding. We're thinking about people for the
special job. Walsh would be much better than Rankin. He's had a lot more
experience, great integrity, but once you turn him loose, you could never pull
him off.
You could consider him first as a special prosecutor before the grand
jury. But that breaks the china that you can't put back together. Second, as
counsel to the Attorney General regarding executive privilege. Third, as
P on a quiet basis, which would be very hard to
counsel to the do. He feels
we have some time and we shouldn't rush. We can take the first step of
Walsh talking privately to the P, but you'd almost have to decide first
whether to A) stay where we are and hunker down or B) change position
radically. Have an independent prosecutor and go all-out. Whoever is hurt,
gets hurt. The in-between position, to say we're pretty clean, but we've got to
hold back a little, is not tenable. We couldn't bring someone else in without
his becoming part of it, unless you hire a lawyer and do what he says. If you
do bring one in, you should make him a special assistant to the Attorney
General. You'd have to clearly define what for, in the public sense. That is,
he's to deal with the question of executive privilege and the court cases re-
garding that. Then in that capacity he can be used by the P for general
advice. He feels that using anyone else as the P's lawyer undercuts the Attor-
ney General totally and we shouldn't do that.
The P had me check with Dean on the phone to get a progress report, and
he says that Colson's concerned about the phone call to Magruder and our
overreacting to that. He, Dean, is going over all the options, reviewing them.
He's holed up at Camp David. He thinks that one alternative would be for the
P to direct Dean to go to the grand jury and tell everything, and then let them
decide if they want anyone else. The problem is that we've been bailing out
everybody else and it's gotten out of hand and compounded the problem. Now
we have to protect ourselves. The problem is that Dean, as they pointed out
in the case, Dean was everywhere. He feels that his testimony before the grand
jury won't hurt anyone in the White House. He thinks the only problem for
the White House is post-June 17. We did things to hold it down before the
election that are right on the border. If Dean is immunized when he goes to
the grand jury, then those things will go no further. But then he'd have to be
canned if they came out of the grand jury's secret coverage.
Dean says that he's devoted to Mitchell and has great loyalty to him, but
he has a higher loyalty to the P than to Mitchell, and he's concerned about his
own ass, so he thinks he ought to go for informal immunity and try to get this
cleared up at the grand jury.
The P also wanted me to call Rogers on the phone this afternoon while
I was over there, and I tried, but he was out playing golf, as one would expect
him to be on a Saturday afternoon when the weather is beautiful in Washing-

ton.
The P got Wondered about Walsh as head
into a discussion of the FBI.
of the FBI or Jerry Wilson. The problem is Walsh was involved as ITT's
that
lawyer and that would be a problem in appointing him to the FBI. Told me
to tell Ehrlichman that we now have to bite the Gray bullet fast and we should
move on it this week. Wants me to move with Rogers on getting him as the
inside advisor. Give him the whole story. Use him instead of Walsh or some-
one like that. Also discuss with him the question of Dean's going to the grand
jury and whether he ought to go before the sentencing this week. Said to tell
Ehrlichman that he's decided Gray has to go and that Ehrlichman should talk
to him. That we can't get the votes, and that even if we did he still wouldn't
have confidence, and for political reasons he's been irreparably damaged. So
we should appoint Jerry Wilson. The P won't go the Kleindienst, Mitchell
route regarding their reluctance on Wilson. He has the best crime-cutting
record in America.
The P raised the question of whether Dean should suspend himself as
counsel ifhe does go to the grand jury. Also we need a statement for Dean to
cover in a briefing with the Cabinet and leaders to assure them that the P and
600 H.R. HALDEMAN
the White House are not involved. And that we're doing all we can to cooper-
ate. We have to say that the P is not involved, nor is the White House staff,
and that we're vigorously following up. He also wanted to pursue the question
of the tactics on releasing the Segretti statement.
I did later get hold of Rogers this evening. He said he doesn't know Jerry
Wilson, so he can't give a view on that. His thought would be for the FBI that
we should get a young Federal judge who's had prosecutor experience. He
thinks it's very important for us not to let the FBI go downhill.
Regarding getting Rogers into it, he agrees that he's probably the one that
should do it. But initially at least, it should just be between Rogers and the P.
Then he could decide on maybe bringing me or someone else in. But it has to
be very closely held. On the idea of reassuring the Cabinet or briefing them,
he thinks that's not good, atleast now. And on the leaders, he thinks it's a very
bad idea. The point being that we can't answer all their questions and it doesn't
do any good to tell them everything is OK and then hold back some things.
The real problem on this is what's been done after the event, not the Watergate
event itself. That, we don't really have any problem with, but we do have a
problem on why it's been covered up. I talked to Dean on the phone and his
candidate for the FBI is Bill Webster, a former U.S. Attorney who's now in
the district court in St. Louis. He agrees with Rogers' idea of getting Federal
judge.

Talked to Dean on the phone this morning. He sees signs of the domino theory
coming in. For Hunt had dealings with the Cubans, Dean didn't.
instance,
LaRue may have, so some of them may spill. He thinks McCord will name
(former NYC policeman, White House undercover agent, and investigator John)
Caulfield because he leaned on him for some help. He wrote Caulfield a letter
and Caulfield met with him on some technical points on his defense. He'll
probably hit Jeb regarding perjury. Dean thinks we should take action before
Thursday when McCord will meet with Judge Sirica. Such as the action of
Dean going to the grand jury. He thinks that if we try to fight it, we'll
eventually lose. He's back to his cancer theory, that we've got to cut the thing
out.Cut out the cancer now and deal with it. He says Colson thinks we should
fightit, but he doesn't know the whole picture. He denies any knowledge of
Watergate. The question of who McCord names will not be made public on
Thursday so we don't have a problem with that. Dean has no knowledge of
what Mitchell knows or did, nor does he really on Jeb. Also he doesn't know
the full extent of Gordon Strachan's knowledge. He thinks that we ought to
check out the legality of Gray continuing as acting director of the FBI if we
withdraw his name from nomination.
The P called me over at 10:00 this morning. Had me there for a couple of
hours. Has decided that he is going to hold up the TV thing until Wednesday
night because we won't know for sure on Vietnam until then.
Thought that I should have Dean what Colson's

get a clear picture of
views are. What approach does he think we should take? Is he opposed to
waiving privilege at the grand jury? Wanted to explore what if McCord
names Magruder on Thursday, or Colson, or Haldeman. We have to re-
spond that those people will be appearing before the grand jury. But do we
take executive privilege? The thing is we want to see that our names are
clear. The alternative would be to put out a sworn statement, but that isn't
really very satisfactory.
He wanted me to check with Dean to see if he had ever talked to the
Cubans or if he knew who met with them at the Arlington Towers regarding
clemency. Also felt that we need an answer ready for Thursday on McCord.
Raised the question on Kleindienst, whether anybody could talk to Weicker,
who's making a lot of talk about how he's going to name higher names and
all (maverick Republican Senator Lowell Weicker was on the Ervin Commit-
tee). Feels that Kleindienst should check as to who the names are, and if
he's got anything, we should go after that we've seen what you said. He later
called Kleindienst himself and told him he ought to check this out with
Weicker.
Wanted me to check with Bill Rogers on the Bill Webster suggestion for
the FBI that John Dean raised. He thinks that sounds like a good idea. He
thinks I ought to talk to Ehrlichman, Dean, and Rogers about the FBI and the
question of leaving Gray as acting director until his successor has qualified,
and then the idea of naming a Federal judge-type to take as director and
moving Sullivan in as deputy. Cleaning out all the top brass. He wants Ehrlich-
man to handle the Gray withdrawal with Gray, Kleindienst, and Mitchell. He
thinks Ehrlichman and Dean should consider what our answer is if McCord
names people on Thursday, especially if it's people in the White House. Wants
to know from Dean who was the person in the White House to whom Barker
gave the reports from the Watergate. I checked with Dean and he says there
was nobody. It was somebody at the committee that Barker claimed he gave
them to.
On declassification, he wants E to get going because the P wants to issue
an order. He feels that everything should be declassified in ten years so we
can open up the Kennedy stuff on Vietnam. He thinks we should get Tom
Huston or someone in on this to be sure there's no cover-up and get out
the story on Diem and all that sort of thing. Went back to my talking to
Dean on who McCord will name, what's our action, if there's anybody on
the White House regarding going to the grand jury, does he still think he
should go to the grand jury, what about the Colson problem and so on,
what about Caulfield's name, what does he know. Then he went back to the
question of his TV speech or his use of TV and says he thinks he should do
more 7:30 or 7:00 press conferences and announcements and that on press
conferences he should always do them at 7:30 unless he has a major issue
and then he'll go on prime time. Wants me to analyze the audience sizes at
these various times. His point is that he won't have any more Vietnam an-
602 H.R. HALDEMAN
nouncements to make, so he's got to figure out other ways of getting on TV

and getting TV domination.
Wants Colson to spin out the whole grand jury idea and have me find out
why he's opposed to that.
Then late tonight I talked to Dean and there's a new problem develop-
ing, because it now turns out that McCord spent considerable time yesterday
and today meeting with the counsel, (Sam) Dash, from the Ervin Commit-
tee and filling them in on things. Supposedly on a secret basis, but Dash had
a press conference saying he had gotten a lot of information from McCord,
and then the LA Times and Washington Post picked up a whole lot of sup-
posedly what McCord told Dash and are running it in the paper tomorrow.
Among other things he says that Dean was involved in the Watergate and
that Magruder perjured himself and that he will be providing them with a lot
more information, based on what he's heard from other people as well as
what he knows himself. This, of course, gives Dean a whole new set of things
to worry about.

The P had me over again at 10:00 this morning for another six-hour session.
I talked to Dean on the phone first on how the reaction to the
to get a reading
story is going. He decided last him give
night to hire a lawyer and to have
notice to the papers that he would move for libel action if they went ahead with
the story. They did go ahead with it, so now he's faced with the problem of
whether to do anything on the libel thing.
Says that this morning he feels that Mitchell has a problem and that
Mitchell may not realize it and he, Dean, doesn't really know what Mitchell's
problem is. But he thinks he should go to Mitchell and ask if he really feels that
everybody should go to jail except him. The point is that if he'd stepped
forward, it would solve a lot of problems. For example, Jeb said that he and
Mitchell were afraid Colson was going to take over the intelligence apparatus,
so they went ahead, and Dean feels it was probably with Mitchell's OK. The
real question is why Mitchell is going to such great lengths to keep it quiet. The
only basis for his doing that would be if it goes higher than Mitchell, which
Dean feels is not possible.
He says that Moore and others are working on discrediting the Ervin
Committee on the basis of the press release of the meeting with Dash. He
thinks he should probably wait a few days to file his libel suit, because the
problem is and all that wouldn't be
that discovery starts with depositions
good. He thinks still problem for us is the after-the-fact bailing-
that the only
out; that the line of legal fees and personal expenses won't wash. The only
apparent defense is blackmail. He thinks I should check with Ehrlichman to
see if he feels Hunt is a threat in any way. Talked to Ehrlichman later. He said
that Hunt is a real threat and that the weak link here is Colson and that's why
Colson's hanging tough.
The P on a general review again on the whole Watergate thing.

started in
Covering the same ground. He said that on the Gray thing, we should hold
until all this is out of the way. We shouldn't just cave right away on it. Wants
to get a scheme developed regarding the Gray withdrawal so that we're ready
to go on it next week. Thinks the key now is that we've got to change our
appearance of cover-up. And the immediate question is Dean. At that point
Ziegler came in and the P agreed that Ron should get out today that there are
very serious allegations made by McCord, and as the P has directed, there will
be complete cooperation with the grand jury and Justice and the FBI to get to
the bottom of all this. He should be pursued in the judicial process. Feels we
may have an opportunity now to discredit the Senate committee.
He's concerned that we've lost sight of the P's statement that he's directed
complete cooperation with the grand jury, the courts, and the FBI and all
those with responsibility on this. He suggested Ziegler say that this rather
shocking action of the counsel to the committee making charges based on
hearsay and so forth, raises serious doubts as to whether the committee's going
to be bipartisan and work in a judicial manner. The charges are being put out,
printed, aired on TV, and a counsel to the so-called nonpartisan committee is
aiding and abetting it. But he wants Ziegler to try to get as the lead, the thing
that the P orders cooperation.
He had me go out and call Dean and I had a long talk with him, as a result
of which we decided not Dean, the idea of Dean going to the grand
to offer
jury this morning. Just to reaffirm the P confidence in Dean, and then Ziegler
left.
John Dean's Report

In my phone call to Dean I raised the question of whether we should
move today on announcing that he's going to the grand jury and what
problems he'd have with that. He said he had no problem, but that he just
talked with Jeb, and Jeb says that he'd testify differently than Dean would,
in that Dean
says there were two meetings and Dean turned off the intelli-
gence operation at one of those. However, Jeb testified differently. He said
there was one meeting and that it was regarding the new campaign spending
law and so forth, rather than intelligence. This would be a difficulty in the
fact that the two stories don't completely check out. Dean's idea was maybe
that he would say that he's requested to appear and that he's waiving his
privilege regarding lawyer /client. He thinks the privilege is a tough call,
especially regarding the post-June 17 thing. If there's any political embar-

rassment, though, certainly the grand jury is the right forum rather than the
Hill.
He said he wanted me some of the things out of his

to review with
statement in the problem areas. Then he went into a great deal of detail
on what he sees as the really serious problems now. The main one is the
blackmail situation. He says that he was aware that Mitchell and others
604 H.R. HALDEMAN
were being blackmailed by those involved in the Watergate thing, and he

sought to ignore this and therefore is vague on some of the specifics. He
first learned of it when Mitchell was told that the defendants wanted help
regarding money for their bond. This was a phone call or communication
from Mrs. Hunt via Bittman to Parkinson, the committee's lawyer, who
then went to Mitchell and LaRue and said they were threatening to cause
general havoc if they were not helped. Parkinson said he didn't want to be
involved any further in this, so Bittman used (CRP assistant counsel) Paul
O'Brien. He was unhappy in being in it, too, but agreed to go ahead with
it. O'Brien reported these threats over a period of time to Mitchell, LaRue,
and Dean. Dean passed them on to some people in the White House.
After Mitchell had the original threat, he told Dean to tell Ehrlichman
and Haldeman and to raise with them the question of using Kalmbach to
raise the money, which Dean did, and Ehrlichman and Haldeman autho-
rized that. Kalmbach raised the money on that authority and delivered it
per instructions to LaRue. Dean thinks it was about $70,000. The next time,
the threat was to the committee. There were no dollars available and Kalm-
bach was not able or willing to try and raise any more.
However, Stans, LaRue, Mitchell, and others of the committee were
aware there was $350,000 in cash that had been moved to the White House
during the campaign for polling purposes, and so forth. But the White
House had not spent this money and wanted to return it. Only Strachan
could spend this money, and with Haldeman's approval. And it was our
desire to return that money to the campaign, but there was a problem in
that $22,000 of it had been spent. We don't know for what purpose. The
problem was how to return the funds without making a big deal in the press
about it, because of all the attention on secret campaign funds. So the funds
sat in Strachan's safe while this was to be worked out. Mitchell at this point
requested Dean to ask Haldeman for some of that money to meet the
demand threats and assured that it could be replenished. Dean told Halde-
man, he said there was a bad situation and was growing worse. That LaRue
or O'Brien, one of the two, had said there was a crisis. So Haldeman said,
have Strachan get the money but clear it up as soon as possible. Get all of
the money out of here and get a receipt for it. Turn it all back to the
committee. Strachan did then eventually turn the money all back to the
committee, but got no receipt.
Dean's summary over the phone to me of his notes regarding his
areas of particular problem and concern: He says that Mitchell requested
Dean to ask Haldeman for some of the money that we were holding in
cash. Haldeman told Strachan to get all the money returned, which he
did, but didn't get a receipt. Then Dean said he was not aware of the
extent of the threats to the committee, but he was aware of two specific
blackmail threats to the White House. First, Mrs. Hunt called Colson's
secretary, made what Colson considered to be a veiled threat. Colson
didn't know what was about, so he referred it to Dean. Dean advised

it
Colson to take no more calls from Mrs. Hunt and then Dean referred the
whole matter to O'Brien. The second one was when O'Brien told Dean
that Hunt had insisted on meeting with him and had said at that meeting
that he wanted a message delivered to Dean. That he needed $72,000 for
personal expenses and $50,000 for lawyers' fees, and that if they were not
received within a couple of days (and this was just last week), that he
would reconsider his options and disclose some of the seamy things that
he had done for E and Krogh. This, of course, was the thing we were
dealing with last week. Dean's record says that he advised Haldeman and
E of this threat. E requested that Dean discuss it with Mitchell and Col-
son. Dean discussed it with Mitchell, but not with Colson. Later, in the
meeting Mitchell, Dean, E, and I had, Mitchell said that there was no
problem on this matter, and that's all we knew about it. Dean feels he's
not in a position to fully evaluate the blackmail situation, but it's clear
that all concerned felt there were dire threats to the White House, and
when you're being blackmailed you imagine the worst.
Regarding clemency, he says that O'Brien told Dean that Bittman was
asked by Hunt to meet with Colson. E said that Colson should meet with
Bittman, and he did. Colson came back from that saying that it's essential
that Hunt be given assurances regarding clemency, and E agreed. So Colson
told Bittman that he could make no commitment, but as a friend he would
assist Hunt. And he referred to Christmastime as when clemency actions are
usually taken. Hunt was satisfied with this report back from Bittman.
Another problem was that McCord wrote Caulfield requesting that
Caulfield turn off the line of defense they were developing that the CIA was
involved in the case. Caulfield gave this letter to Dean, Dean told Mitchell
about it, Mitchell told Dean to have Caulfield see McCord and take his
pulse. This was done. Developed out of this, apparently, that there seemed
to be a view that there was a one-year clemency commitment floating
around, and that Dean assumes that Caulfield assured McCord that he
would fight for him as a friend in the same way that Colson had agreed to
fight for Hunt.
Dean feels that if he testifies before the grand jury, he would volunteer
all of the information that he has prior to June 17 and lay out the details.
He feels sure that they would raise the questions on the post-June 1 7 and
we have to be prepared to answer them. He says he also has a problem on
the question of why there was a delay in his turning the evidence over to the
FBI, in terms of the material that he got out of Hunt's files. The story on
that is that Hunt called Colson right after the Watergate incident, that
weekend, and said to be sure to take care of his files. On Monday morning
Colson stirred around and told E and Dean that they had to get the files.
Dean was told to open the files. He had ( staff assistant to Haldeman Bruce)
Kehrli and the GSA guy do it with (Dean assistant Fred) Fielding also
606 H.R. HALDEMAN
They found the electronic equipment and some very sensitive politi-
present.
caldocuments. Dean didn't look at the documents, but Fielding did. There
were some things there, like a wire regarding the Vietnam war (a forged
cable implicating JFK in the Diem assassination), some evidence that Colson
had put Hunt into the Plumbers operation to spy on Krogh, and so on.
Dean was told to deep-six this material, but he felt he couldn't do it because
it was destroying evidence, so he decided to give it all to Gray. Gray was
called to Ehrlichman's office and given two sealed envelopes, told that they
contained material from Hunt's files that did not relate to Watergate, but
were highly sensitive. He doesn't know what Gray did with it, but he
believes that Gray took it to Connecticut, read the material, satisfied him-
self that it didn't involve the Watergate, and he's not sure what Gray's done
with it since then, but he feels this revelation of this would create a major
problem for Gray.
Another problem is that Liddy called Krogh before Gray's confirma-
tion hearings and wanted some assurances and advice. He was given a
brush-off and was very mad at Krogh. Krogh asked Dean to call Liddy and
reassure him, tell him not to worry, which Dean did. So much for the Dean
phone call.
Rogers' Evaluation
Bill
The P had me call Rogers and fill him in on all those problems of
Dean's and then get Rogers' evaluation as to what we ought to do. Rogers
raised the question of determining clearly from Dean whether he knew
anything about intelligence operations between the time in December, when
he told the group in Mitchell's office to turn off what they were doing, and
June, when the Watergate was revealed. Rogers feels we need to consider
the full significance of Dean's testimony. The important question is how the
Watergate was launched. That's the key thing. His Watergate things were
to cover up for the Watergate itself, and the fact that they were done makes
it look like the White House had to cover up for the Watergate. Dean's
story therefore seems incredible because why did we get into the cover-up
if we don't know what the real story was to begin with at the Watergate?
It just isn't believable. The attempts to cover up make the basic alibi of
noninvolvement of the White House inconceivable.

He feels that whatever the consequences, whoever is affected, they have
to be taken. That we can't continue not to get to the bottom of this. He
thinks it's hard to judge Dean's position, that he probably comes out
looking like he's trying to do the best he could. Clean but naive. Then that
he had an impossible situation because he's the lawyer for these people and
if something is wrong he becomes an accessory after the fact. The most
painful question is what happens to the P himself. It's not too bad if
Mitchell's not in it, but if he is, it would really be tough. McCord's state-
ment looks to Rogers as if he was pointing at Mitchell. On balance, he feels

that Dean has to offer to testify to the grand jury. There's no other way out.
He has no problem regarding the refusal to discuss his conversations with
the P, but as soon as Dean opens up, they'll question the whole range of
things, and he has to handle confidentiality on the individual questions. He
can't just take executive privilege overall, or lawyer-client privilege. He
should not count on telling part of the story.
As far as the P's interest is concerned, the best thing is to go ahead, get
it out in the open, and let whoever has to take the lumps.
John Mitchell's Views

The P then had me call Mitchell to get his view on having Dean go to
the grand jury. He said if we do, it gives credence to the charge, but it's
much better to be at the grand jury than at the Congressional hearings.

Mitchell says there would be a problem in Dean's testimony on the number
of meetings, because Mitchell wasn't specific on number of meetings, but he
did get into the thing of they were for the purpose of election laws. He didn't
mention that there was any discussion of intelligence.
He McCord's new lawyer, Fensterwald, is a mediocre
points out that
law practice, He used to be on Senator Long of
rich, white, super-lib type.
Missouri's staff. He's in the "cause" business generally, and he's the guy
who put up McCord's bond, which makes the thing a little bit fishy. He feels
that Baker should be doing something on this weekend stuff and that we
should be getting some action on it.
Chuck Colson's Feelings

The P also had me call Colson. Colson feels we have no options
regarding the grand jury, for any of us, unless they get into the national
security areas. But that, while we should go up, we should not grandstand
it, and we should definitely not waive executive privilege. We should coop-
erate in providing all the information we can to be helpful. He feels that
Dean has an obligation to the P. He cannot reveal confidences from his
relationship with the P, either as the P's lawyer or as the P's staff man. Also,
Dean has acted as the lawyer to staff members and he clearly has done so,
so he has to treat some of his communication with White House aides as
executive privilege or as lawyer-client privilege. We should say that he has
the desire and willingness to give the grand jury anything he can, the P's
instructed him to cooperate fully with the authorities, but we should stop
it right there. Not go beyond that. He should maintain the position of
cooperating fully.
Colson then raised the question of the Magruder phone call, which I
608 H.R. HALDEMAN
had raised with him the other day on the phone. He was worried about that.
He also feels that our problem is that we need someone who can handle our
side publicly and he urges again the special counsel to the P idea, which
Rogers shot down the other day. He reports that his contacts in the Demo-
cratic hierarchy say the Democrats want this whole thing to go away
because they're worried about the "glass houses" thing. He feels strongly
that someone has to take on Dash and deal with Baker and our people to
try and get them to stand up on some of this stuff.
The P then got to talking about it. He thinks Mitchell ought to call
Kleindienst, get him and get off his ass. The P can't keep calling
to step up,
him. He wonders if the Campaign Committee should hire a special counsel to
use as a spokesman, along the line Colson was talking about. He wants to
know whether Dean can go to the grand jury comfortably if he doesn't have
immunity. He wonders whether Kleindienst should name a special prosecutor.
He says that Kleindienst reported back to him yesterday and said Weicker
didn't have any names, but Kleindienst won't hit Weicker publicly on this or
follow up, which he should do. Also, Kleindienst should be fighting Dash,
instead of Ziegler having to fight him. Ziegler was in and we agreed not to do
anything on the Dean to the grand jury deal today. We'll hold up until
tomorrow on that.
He wanted me to talk to Rogers again on the question of how we handle
the special prosecutor idea. What do we do about the Segretti statement? What
about the publicizing of the Dean report? And overall, how do we appear
publicly to be taking the offensive? He wants Moore's judgment regarding the
Segretti statement. We should recognize that all of this is being fought in
public and worry about it on that basis, not just the legalities.
Wants me tomorrow and make the point that we all

to call Kleindienst in
stood by him and he damn on this thing himself. I called
well better get going
Mitchell and made a pitch on this, and Mitchell obviously wasn't willing to take
on the Kleindienst matter. Wants me to talk to Dean, Rogers, and Kleindienst
about the special prosecutor. Question of what will it buy us? Question of who
will talk to Silbert now that Dean is into the case as a principal. Thinks we should
get E into this privately. Wants E to make a good check on Dean's FBI guy and
be ready to go on that next week. We can't leave a vacuum there. All that session
took another six hours, during all of which the sun had come out. It's a beautiful
day at Key Biscayne, which I spent inside, locked in the P's villa. We'll leave late
tonight to go back to Washington.

The staff meeting morning was mainly taken up with the problem of
this
Wounded Knee because E feels the time has come that the White House has
got to get into it and bust up the siege. Also Shultz is concerned about his need
to meet the P on a lot of items sometime this week before he goes to California.
The P had a few odd items this morning about Julie's speech to the Jewish
group and some general schedule things about trips and state visits.
John Dean's Report

He shifted into the question of the Watergate again. Wanted me to talk
to Dean to get Mitchell down here today and to set up a meeting with
Mitchell and Magruder, as Magruder had requested. I called Dean to get
the morning report on him. He said that he'd had a long conversation with
O'Brien. That he's very distressed at Mitchell because he thinks Mitchell
could cut the whole thing off if he would just step forward. John feels that
Mitchell very definitely did sign off on the Watergate thing and so he tends
to concur with O'Brien. He says that Jeb told O'Brien and (CRP lawyer
Kenneth) Parkinson in his meeting with them yesterday that he believes the
—
whole Liddy plan was put together that is, the superintelligence opera-
tion — by us at the White House before it was presented to the campaign
group. He thinks Dean cooked it up, probably at my instructions. Mitchell
bought it, and it was an accomplished fact in December, when Liddy
arrived at the committee. Then there was a hiatus. The meetings occurred
in Mitchell's office, Liddy unveiled his plan, nobody bought the first plan,
so they went back. Then nobody bought the second plan, and so the whole
thing just kind of lingered along. Liddy was pushing to get something done,
Colson got into the act, pushing to do something, and then according to
Magruder, the final step was that Gordon Strachan called Magruder, saying
that Haldeman had told him to get this going, the P wanted it. Magruder
told Mitchell this, and Mitchell signed off on it. Also, Magruder says that
at a later point Mitchell called Liddy in and read him the riot act regarding
the poor quality of stuff they were getting.
Dean's theory now is that Mitchell and Magruder have their ass in the
sling and are mixing apples and oranges for their own protection; that is,
they don't realize, for instance, how little Dean told Liddy about the need
for political intelligence on the demonstrators and that sort of thing. The
fact is that at the first meeting, everybody laughed at the plan because it was
absurd. At the second meeting, Dean got Mitchell off the hook. He arrived
late, but said that the plan still was impossible, and then came and told me
afterward that it was impossible and we had to stay completely away from
it. Dean saw the problem and wanted to get ten miles away from it. The
problem then was that Liddy was never given any guidance. Mitchell was
in the middle of ITT and didn't focus on it. O'Brien says that Magruder
wants to meet and that that's his motive. He doesn't really believe Jeb, but
he's not sure, and he does see the mixing of apples and oranges. He's very
disappointed in Mitchell, but won't tell him so.
O'Brien suggested that if we want to force this thing to a head, the two
lawyers, O'Brien and Parkinson, have been retained by the committee and
610 H.R. HALDEMAN
they could waive their lawyer-client privilege and they could report to the
P on all of the facts at the committee. Hunt is at the grand jury today. We
don't know how far he'll go. Probably he'll get into the money question, but
he's not as desperate today as he was last night, but still on the brink.
Bittman called O'Brien yesterday, said that Hunt was shaky, that he saw
McCord walking out free and thinks maybe it's his turn. And he might
reveal the fact that he was given money.
Editor's Note: Sirica had freed McCord on bond, while Hunt got a provi-
sional sentence of 35 years, and the other four got 40 years. Liddy received
6 years, 8 months, to 20 years, plus a $40,000 fine.
Dean feels we're not really at the crunch that we were last night.
Liddy's lawyer is going to argue against immunity with Sirica. He'll proba-
bly fail. If he gets immunity, he'll stay in contempt by still not saying
anything. O'Brien and Parkinson are getting very shaky themselves. They're
wringing their hands. That's all for now, but there's a sort of a semithreat
to step forward. Dean has asked Liddy's lawyer for Liddy to give him a
private statement that Dean knew nothing in advance about the Watergate.
He thinks Liddy will do this, since he knows it's the truth. He says the
Mitchell office meetings were in December and January, and that Dean
heard absolutely nothing more regarding intelligence until June 17. He did
see Liddy five or six times, but only on campaign matters. Nothing that got
into the intelligence operation.
Dean then volunteered Liddy on June 19
that the reason that he called
was that Kleindienst told him
Liddy saw him, Kleindienst, on the 18th,
that
at Burning Tree about getting the men out of jail, which Kleindienst told
him he would have nothing to do with, and at that time, Liddy told Klein-
dienst that Mitchell had ordered the operation.
Regarding the idea of the Warren Commission-type thing, Dean still
thinks that it's possible. He's been trying to pick it apart with Dick Moore.
His idea is that the P says here's what's charged of the White House and the
committee. He puts it all into perspective in politics, this is all bad. Fact and
fiction are being confused. We're in an intense political situation. The press
and the Senate committee have prejudged the matter. Quote Ervin and
Weicker and so on. The FBI is falsely charged, Justice and the U.S. Attor-
ney are falsely accused. No man is above the law, but under these circum-
stances, there's no possibility of a fair hearing. The public is entitled to the
facts, but the people involved are entitled to fair treatment, so the P creates
a superpanel, with the cooperation of all investigative agencies, all the
people involved agree to tell everything. They agree to waive trial by jury,
etc.
The panel can remove Federal employees, levy fines, and pose criminal
sanctions, etc. The defendants can also submit to this. Anyone who does not
submit would be warned that all the information developed would be
turned over to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. There
would be no judgment until all the facts are received and then we'll make
public all the findings and the reasons for any action taken. Proceedings in
secret, decisions final. Advantages are, on the long haul, twofold. One,
nothing will be done until after the '74 elections, and two, the P maintains
the ultimate stroke with the power to pardon at a later point. For the panel,
he suggested Earl Warren, Tom Clark, some former governor, someone
who knows politics. He would call Ervin down and tell him the plan, explain
why, not that the present program isn't just and that there's too much finger
pointing. We'd ask him to hold his hearings in abeyance and ask him to
serve on the panel.
He also suggested considering the P and Mitchell have a one-on-one
talk for the P to find out Mitchell's true perception of what has gone on. So
that was Dean's view this morning.
Then E, Ziegler, and I met with the P and discussed how to handle the
Dean matter with the press today, and agreed that we wouldn't go for anything
on that at this point, but we do need to establish that Dean will have an
opportunity to clear his name. Ziegler then left and we had a long review of
the Dean report and general strategy. The P gave some guidance to E on the
FBI, as to going ahead and pulling out Gray. The P agreed to have Rogers
come over and see him this afternoon after I give him a briefing first. We
discussed Weicker's problem and some of the other general questions. The P
raised his idea of an alternate to the commission approach, which would be to
send everyone in the White House to the grand jury, but that the P would talk
to the judgeahead of time, and expedite it. He'd call the judge in, saying he's
sending all we want you to get to the bottom of this, and then
of them down,
the P would go out and announce that he's done that. We'd base this on the
argument that here's an honest judge, and so on, rather than a kangaroo court
in Congress.
He then had me call Mitchell to try and get him to come down today, but
he said he couldn't, and in the process said he was meeting with Magruder at
the time, so that was set up without our knowing it.
John Dean's Report

Talked to Dean a little later in the day, and he said Mitchell asked Jeb
up and Mitchell is going to tell Magruder that, "I ain't going to jail. You
can make your own decision." Mitchell told Dean to stiffen up, said, "If you
61 2 H.R. HALDEMAN
were to go before the grand jury, you wouldn't be believed, because your
story doesn't jibe with mine." Mitchell told him yesterday that his going up
would just open a can of worms. Dean thinks that Mitchell is saying
obliquely that Dean should reremember things Mitchell's way.
Jeb said that McCord did budget work for Liddy and that maybe
Liddy told him that the plan was presented to Dean, Magruder, and Mitch-
ell and they said to cut it down, which would be the way that McCord might
feel that Dean did have advance knowledge. Dean thinks that Jeb did talk
to Strachan ahead of the thing. He feels that Jeb now, in answer to my

question, should good lawyer; second, plead the Fifth; or third,
first hire a
seek immunity. He we should beat Magruder to
thinks in the latter case,
the punch on immunity by immunizing Dean. Which is John's solution at
each point now.
The problem is, Jeb's perception of the truth is bad. It changes all the
time, so he doesn't really know the truth. Dean thinks the Sirica idea of the
P's is bad, that it would scare everyone and there'd be no chance of a fair
trial. He thinks the panel is better. They can make a fair assessment of the
facts out of the public eye.
The P told E to get Kleindienst in, but John discovered later that Klein-
dienst is on the way to Arizona on a speaking trip.
John Dean's Report

I talked to Dean a He says that Hunt
little later. is going to give a
written statement at the grand jury today and then will take the Fifth on
everything else, and that (Justice Department lawyer Henry) Petersen won't
know what happens at the grand jury until later in the day, but we can
probably find out from him then.
He new development. F. Lee Bailey called Mitchell regard-
reported a
Then said that Fensterwald had called to request
ing his gold-reserve client.
that Fensterwald be present as co-counsel when McCord talks to Sirica, and
he then offered the comment that we don't give a damn about McCord.
We're after Richard Nixon.
Dean is thinking maybe Bailey will have a press conference. He thinks
Fensterwald has a link to Kennedy, that he was the chief counsel to the
administrative subcommittee when Kennedy was subchairman and then later
succeeded Long. The question is how to get the Fensterwald story out. Who's
paying him, who paid McCord's bail and expenses, destroyed a witness and
so on.
The P wants Dean and Moore to rethink the Sirica idea. And as a result
of the P's being with Rogers, filled him in on the whole plan. He felt that the
Sirica idea was pretty good, and then when he talked to the P, they modified
it on the meet with Sirica and say that the P to this
basis of Kleindienst should
point has relied on the statements of various people, but the McCord charges
raised a cloud on this serious issue and the P has therefore asked Kleindienst
to talk to Sirica. One, does he want to appoint a special prosecutor; two, does
he want to appoint a new grand jury; three, in the event of whether or not he
does either of those two, there will be total cooperation from the White House
with the grand jury, including testimony from the White House staff that have
been named directly or indirectly. Now all the White House people who have
volunteered to appear and testify, there's no question of privilege on matters
leading to the Watergate, because there was no communication with the P on
this before that. Then Ziegler would go out and announce that we've done this.
The P wanted me to check E, Dean, Moore, Kleindienst, Mitchell, and Colson
on this. He feels we need a way to blunt the committee and have to work that
out.
Chuck Colson's Feelings

I talked to Colson on the phone about the Sirica plan. He said he didn't
like the idea, that up now the assumption is that we've hidden behind
until
executive privilege. Now McCord blows, so we send the Attorney General
to the judge. It appears like overreaction. We should never offer the special
prosecutor. He said he'd tell me, when he saw me, why. Then I suggested
that he come over, which he did right then. This was late this afternoon. I
met with him. He said that the problem is that here's a case for conspiracy
to commit perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice. They can be made and
sustained, so the special prosecutor or the commission idea would insure
indictment and probably convictions. You can't limit the authority of a
special prosecutor. The greatest danger is a runaway grand jury and our
objective should be to control the grand jury. Especially regarding conver-
sations within the White House.
The problem on obstruction is that everyone is a participant except, as
Colson says, of course, Colson, who didn't say what he was told to say and
therefore isn't a participant. This is why the P needs one independent person
to advise him. A good, skilled trial lawyer. The worst thing is to overreact
now.
Kleindienst going to Sirica telegraphs to the judge the proof that the
Administration is in a conspiracy. He would blast the Attorney General and
he would know he had succeeded in smoking us out. A criminal lawyer
would say don't give any unnecessary targets and don't grandstand, so
Chuck says, first, we should get the best criminal lawyer possible, because
none of us can render good advice. Definitely Dean's in the soup and he
should take all the privileges he can handle. Second, don't overreact this
week, especially on Sirica; third, a question of a statement over the weekend
that the allegations are made public. The P says that he has instructed the
61 4 H.R. HALDEMAN
staff as last summer, to cooperate fully with the official investigating

he did
activityand on any charges of wrongdoing, any staff member is under strict
orders to comply fully.
I reported this back to the P and he said I should work out tomorrow
morning with Colson a statement for Ziegler, if he's pressed, to the effect that
all members of the White House staff have volunteered at any time to appear
before the grand jury and answer questions on these matters. We should line
up the statement as what Ziegler should put out, that much and no more. How
to handle the question of executive privilege at the grand jury, especially as
versus the Congress, and explain how the grand jury differs from the Ervin
Committee. One is a separation of powers problem, the other is regarding the
criminal activity and the grand jury is the proper place to investigate that, not
before the TV lights of a Senate hearing.
He feels that we should drop the Kleindienst-Sirica meeting because it just
won't work and would be a bad signal, as Chuck suggests. He liked my idea
of trying to hit Weicker directly, since Pat Gray has now found out that
Weicker's charges all relate to the Segretti matter and his thought that he's
going to get me on that.
John Dean's Report

found out from Dean late today that McCord goes to the Senate
I
before he goes to the grand jury. He'll go tomorrow in closed session. Dean
feels that within 24 hours he will have documentation proving he didn't
know anything about the Watergate ahead of time. He already has Jeb's
and John Mitchell's statements and Liddy will give him a good statement,
too.
Regarding the post-June activity, he thinks there's a good chance to
hunker down and survive. If Dean goes to the grand jury, he has to go. The
P should waive privilege as it relates to Dean personally. He then reported
that Woodward, the guy who's been writing all the bad articles at the Post,
came to Gerry Warren and said that they didn't want to be polarizers and
they realized that maybe they were running some stuff that was unfortunate
and all that, and they want to set things at rest, so they'd like to have an
interview with the P, which is the epitome of gall.
Chuck Colsons Idea

Colson called me later with an idea, which would be that Kleindienst
call in Hunt and Liddy, tell them to come clean, and if they do, Justice
would consider the question of parole or commutation. They would tell
Kleindienst, with a reporter, under oath, the whole story on Watergate and
would immunity from further prosecution. This would preempt the
get
obstruction of justice issue. Colson trusts Shapiro, his partner. He tried this
idea on him and he says it's brilliant. It cuts the ground from under the
McCord thing. This would accomplish Dean's objective of cutting the
cancer out and it's discovered by us instead of by a grand jury or Ervin. If
we accept the inevitability that it's going to come out anyway, this is a good
way to do it, and it extinguishes the issue of post-Watergate problems.

Another Watergate day. The P had his schedule cleared to work on his
speech, but spent a fairamount of time with me on the Watergate. I had
John Mitchell in at 8:15 and started with him. The P called me over for
about 15 minutes at 8:45 to the EOB. He said, with Mitchell we need to
know what he thinks about the grand jury appearance and his view regard-
ing Colson's idea of holding all the privileges because of our concern regard-
and so on, and get his legal views on obstruction.
ing obstruction of justice,
We need to decide what to do if events overrun us. The P would like a deal
that would show that we're cooperating. Offer an informal session of the
whole committee and take sworn testimony. Try to cut a deal with Ervin to
undercut the bad rap on cover-up.
John Mitchell Meeting

I spent a long time with Mitchell. that we know what
He feels it's vital
the grand jury and the committee are doing and that we've got to get our
sources set up to provide that. He reported on his meeting with Jeb yester-
day. Says that Jeb's view is the following: That the plan was hatched at the
White House by Hunt, Liddy, and Colson, Colson called Jeb twice to tell
him to get going on this thing, specifically, the Larry O'Brien information
regarding the Florida dealings. Liddy told Magruder later that he was in
Colson's office when Colson called. Gordon Strachan probably had a lot of
direct dealings with Liddy. He knows he had some. A copy of the output
came here, to either Strachan or Colson. Strachan told them I had approved
the plan and he feels that four people in the White House had full knowl-
edge of the Watergate. Colson, because of the phone calls: Howard, because
of conversations he had with him; Strachan, because he had copies of what
Liddy passed out; and Haldeman, because Strachan told Magruder that I
had approved the plan. He says the procedure was that Baldwin made notes
on the tap reports, gave them to McCord, McCord gave them to Liddy,
Liddy made two copies, sent one to Magruder and one to the White House.
Either to Strachan or to Colson.
61 6 H.R. HALDEMAN
Mitchell further said on his own knowledge that he believes Dean

agreed with Magruder, in Mitchell's about the
office prior to the testimony,
purpose of the meetings at the Attorney General's that they were to deal
with corrupt practices and so on. Not intelligence. Mitchell also says that
Magruder told him that Porter talked to Dean regarding his testimony
about the accounting for the purposes of the money that was given to
Liddy, and that Porter was happy to so testify. Magruder and Porter also
talked to Mitchell and to their lawyers.
Regarding the Senate, the view is that the P should reserve judgment
regarding sending White House witnesses to the Senate because of the
apparent political circus, but we will ask them all to cooperate with the
grand jury. That's Mitchell's view. On the post-June activities, there's a
question of who Dean talked to. There's a question of the significance of
Caulfleld's meetings with McCord. What was Caulfleld's purpose, and so
on? At that point, we had discussed the whole thing in general and we asked
Magruder to come in.
Jeb Magruder's Report

Jeb said to Mitchell and me that Liddy was ordered to prepare a plan
by someone. The question is who started him? Also, there's a question as
to whether Gordon Strachan told Magruder to rehire Liddy after he fired
him in April. Magruder then went problem of the cash disburse-
into his
ments made by Porter which have to be revealed, says Howard is
will
adamant that he's got to cover up one of $8,000 given to him prior to April
7, which Jeb said was for some purpose that would be very embarrassing.
I pushed him on what it was, and he said they used it to buy books, and I'm
sure that's to buy the Efron book, which, of course, wouldn't be embarrass-
ing at all (a book by Edith Efron on politics and the media which P had
decided he wanted to make a There were a lot of cash payments
best-seller).
to Colson in that period for ads, primarily. These were legal, but maybe
peculiar. Also, for a Kennedy mailing in New Hampshire, which Colson
said, according to Magruder, was ordered by the P.
Liddy wasn't the committee's operative during January, February, and
March, while he was working there, but was doing things at other people's
direction. Jeb doesn't know whose.
In an agreement that was reached at the meeting in Mitchell's office
with Dean, Magruder said he had only one meeting with Mitchell and
Liddy, and this was after Liddy was hired, and was to discuss his role. This
was Dean's Dean told Magruder to destroy his diary. Mitchell
idea. Also,
says there's no question regarding the meeting. He had to testify on the
meetings. Magruder has testified that there never was a meeting with Liddy,
and so forth, regarding intelligence. I made a note at that point that this
could be the little thing that does it. The typewriter or pumpkin of this case.
That is, on these meetings. (I was referring back to the Hiss

the discrepancy
case.) Jeb says he couldhave said that he did have a meeting on intelligence,
but he didn't, because Dean told him not to. So Dean cannot now say that
there was such a meeting. Magruder feels that McCord may name Strachan
because of his contact with Liddy.
The P called on the phone. Wanted a report on all this, but said while I
was talking with Mitchell to go down the checklist of his views on whether we
can work on an accommodation with Ervin. Second, whether we should
maintain privilege before the grand jury, third, what about problems with the
grand jury in New York and fourth, what do we do regarding Dean. On the
New York thing, Mitchell said they're looking primarily at Vesco. Our only
problem is Don Nixon and Cerni, and Ed Nixon, who was set up. They won't
get into campaign expenditures. Justice will handle those down here.
Editor's Note: Mitchell and Stans would ultimately be indicted —and ac-
quitted of charges that they tried to influence the exchange for a SEC in
$200,000 contribution from international businessman Robert Vesco.
There were also allegations, but no more than that, regarding the Presi-
dent's brothers.
P called me at home this evening to say that he has decided to read his
speech tomorrow night after rather than standing up for it. He wanted to
all
talkabout that for a little. I told him I thought that sounded fine and he
seemed pleased that I agreed with it. Raised the question of whether he should
praise those that stood with us on Vietnam against the flak from the people
who didn't. I agreed that he should.
Wants to be sure that I fill Colson in tomorrow on Magruder's charges
and his line. Wants me to give him a report if I get anything from Dean. Says
he's been thinking alot about working for Republican candidates in '74 and
thinks he'll really hit the stump on that.
John Dean's Report

Talked to Dean on the phone to get a progress report this evening. He
says Hunt spent four hours with immunity and created no problems for us.
That Sirica's changed his mind; is not going to hear McCord in court. He's
going to have him go direct to the grand jury, probably on Friday.
Dean said O'Brien had a long conversation with LaRue today, which
)
618 H.R. HALDEMAN
evolved into a discussion about Mitchell, and LaRue said he thinks Mitchell
ison the verge of breaking, by which he means suicide.
Dean says he can't do what Mitchell and Magruder told him to do.
The more he looks at it, the post-June activity, the more he thinks we can
work that out. Mitchell and Magruder both told him that they had both
signed off on the project, which Mitchell told me, also. Dean feels it's im-
perative that we get a criminal lawyer and suggests maybe he should hire
one. Then he could consult with him on the whole thing, which is a good
idea.
I Timmons on the Branson and on getting the word from

talked to
Gurney what went on today (Republican Senator Ed Gurney, also on the
as to
Ervin Committee He says he's got a tip, that apparently there's some guy
.
who's on the staff of the Judiciary Committee, who leaves a package at the
Senate newsstand every day at 12:00 and someone comes at 4:00 and picks it
up. The girl at the stand opened it by accident today and found it full of
Watergate stuff, so Timmons is going to stake that out and see if he can get
any lead out of that.
The P spent the whole day working on preparation for his TV speech tonight.
I spent virtually the whole day on various Watergate matters, and did have
to get to the P on a couple of points during the day, which he seemed to want
to do.
Bill Timmons's Report

Timmons called Ed Gurney last night to see if he would be willing to
provide us with input as to what was going on at the Committee so we'd
have some reading of what we were up against. Gurney said the Committee
spent a great deal of time over secrecy and that he would play by the rules
and expected others to, also, which is a little absurd since the whole thing
leaked in all the papers today. Bill tried a different approach by asking his
view of Dean testifying and so on. He volunteered that things looked pretty
bad for the White House, and that the P should take some kind of initiative
on the issue, and Dean's appearance would be one way. He also suspects
that Gurney would be more open in person rather than talking over the
phone, and he's going to try to get to him directly.
He also was going to watch the brown package switch business at
the Senate newsstand today. He's disturbed, though, because the delivery
service, the man on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a hard-line anti-
Communist, so he's afraid maybe the FBI's the final beneficiary of the
material.
I met with the P at 1 :00 with E and reported those things and we evolved
a plan that we should put out today a statement saying that what is involved
here are charges of criminal conduct and the proper place for such charges is
the grand jury. Therefore I'm sending Dean

grand jury and I'll waive the
to the
executive privilege regarding any personal involvement in the Watergate
crime. Told me to check this out with Mitchell, Dean, Colson, Ziegler, and so
on, and then get back to him. He feels that, or we talked about the problem
that the sticky problem here still is going to be the Mitchell-Magruder position
regarding the meetings. I also pointed out to him that we have a problem that
George Bush had called, wanted to see him, because he was concerned, too,
about the reaction that's building. He said he would see Bush Friday if it was
necessary.
I talked to Mitchell and he said that — the question of making such a
it
release of Dean to the grand jury —depends on how phrased, that we

it's
shouldn't get into privilege. Mitchell's main concern is that he thinks Ziegler
should have hit the senators for their attack on Mitchell today.
We met again at 2:30 because the idea was to get Ziegler to put this out
at 3:00. We had Ziegler in, too. He was very much opposed to putting it out
today (because of the President 's speech that night on TV), and we worked with
E, Ziegler, and the P on a statement that he then decided not to put out today,
but rather wait until tomorrow. Then, a little later, Dean called to say that you
can't put it out at all because the lawyers say that it would be wrong for him
to offer to go to the grand jury or for the P to offer him when they haven't
called him.
The P told me later in the afternoon to be sure to get ready to emphasize
the three big points tonight, then he named four. First a shot across the bow
at North Vietnam, and a jab on amnesty. Second, the ceiling on meat. Third,
the need to support the P on the vetoes, and fourth, don't cut the defense
budget.
John Mitchells Report

Later in the afternoon Mitchell called on the phone again. He says
Hunt through with the grand jury and had no problems regarding the
is
White House, post-June, or anything. F. Lee Bailey called. Was very

pleased with his treatment at the White House. He and Alch examined
McCord totally and what he said so far is all he knows. They told him not
tomake such statements, that he'd make a fool of himself.
Bittman told O'Brien that an LA Times reporter is getting information
620 H.R. HALDEMAN
from the Committee. He says that he has the story that the meeting in
February was attended also by Colson and Hunt, and in his meetings with
Dash, he told him about other break-ins, including a New York doctor's
apartment and some other things like that. Liddy's counsel refuses to allow
him to testify. Everyone says Dean is uptight. He's not making proper
judgment.
Mitchell strongly suggests that I make sure he doesn't go off the
reservation without my reviewing it. I'm the only one he'll trust. His opinion
of E is and frightening, so I should establish contact with Dean
incredible
and maintain it. He says Weicker came on with a big espionage plan in the
White House. The rumor is that he's going to hit E, not Colson. He then
probably has some of the earlier activities, that's what he's after.

The P had a solid round of appointments this morning, getting ready for the
departure for California. On P had me up for
the plane out to California, the
a little on Watergate. His concern is developing
while, talking almost totally
in terms now of the damage to the Presidency and his ability to govern and
feels that we have to take action to clear this up because of that. He's getting
a lot of heat from the likes of Goldwater, etc., who have a real concern and
are expressing it to him via letters, etc., which makes him feel that we've got
to face up to the erosion of confidence question and take some action to get
at that. E, of course, feels strongly the same way, and he spent some time with
the P afterward and hit him very hard on that point. Told me later that the P
comes down that the thing to do is put it to Magruder and try to draw the line
there. There's a question whether that's possible.
In San Clemente. E and I talked to Kleindienst to review the Gray question

and the FBI. We agreed that he was through and had to be out. We also got
into the question with Kleindienst of the Watergate handling and more partic-
ularly the need for some cooperation from him and some discussion of strat-
egy. He feels that he probably ought to appoint a three-judge panel to replace
himself as the prosecutor on the case, since he's basically disqualified.
Tonight was the John Ford dinner, which went very well. The super-
climax, which nobody will probably ever know, was when after he was wheeled
up to the stage, Ford did a magnificent job, of standing up by himself, walking
to the podium, and accepting the Film Institute Award, then sitting down
while the P made his remarks, then coming up to receive his Medal of Free-
dom. In his response to that, he said that he wanted to quote Captain Jeremiah
Denton, who had said he was stunned by the reaction of the people, and so on,
and that he felt the same way. Then he said the P had talked with him on the
phone about the reaction of the POW's and he had told the P that he had cried
and blubbered like a child when he saw them coming off, and then had gotten
out his rosary and said a few prayers and then had said a simple little prayer
himself, that was the prayer millions of Americans say in their homes — God
bless Richard Nixon. It was an extremely impressive moment, and one that
nobody there, I don't think, will ever forget. It really stuck it to the anti-Nixon
types in the film crowd.
LAST MONTH: APRIL

The big deal today was Weicker on "Face the Nation," where he hit me pretty
hard on knowledge of Watergate and that's the lead out of his thing. He seems
to think I had directed a master plot of sabotage and espionage, of which
Watergate was only a minor part. He admitted he didn't have any evidence,
but that didn't seem to stop him. The P called E several times but did not call
me on the subject. I guess he did call once this morning while I was out to
breakfast, but, missing me, he talked to John and then maintained his contact
with John the rest of the day. We didn't get into the office.

Big story today was my involvement in Watergate as charged by Weicker.
Major headline in the LA Times, not so big in other papers. Spent most of the
morning working on that, with time out for the Thieu arrival, which went very
well. Mitchell called to say that O'Brien had met with Dean and that Dean's
taken a "unique stance," as Mitchell put it, and that the only salvation is for
me to talk to him. What he's after is to try to get him to put his story differently
regarding the meetings. Mitchell says if Dean does say what he suggests, he will
unravel the whole thing, and after the meeting the other day, John thought
Dean understood. But he says Dean's using me as the reason for taking the
position he does, on the basis that I have to testify in the same way Dean
intends to. He says some of the post- June activities will also be a problem, and
we should consider the solution of having Dean not testify. That would solve
several problems and we have ample grounds for doing it.
622
John Dean's Report

I Dean. He says his lawyer has told him that he
talked right after that to
must not talk to Mitchell or Magruder. He says that he would rather take
the contempt citation or the Fifth Amendment than to cause anyone a
problem, and if it comes down to an impossible position, that's what he'll
do, but that opens the potential for indictment. He said Strachan is being
worked on by Magruder, that Moore had lunch with Kleindienst and got
into the special prosecutor thing, and John simply a device on
feels that's
Kleindienst's part to avoid Kleindienst having to do in Mitchell. If Dean

has to testify and tells the truth, it'll start the whole finger-pointing exer-
cise that he feels would be unbearable. He has no idea what Mitchell said
before the grand jury, but Mitchell must consider it will conflict with
Dean, or he wouldn't be so worried. O'Brien told Dean Saturday that Jeb
was not now concerned with Dean's testimony. Says O'Brien knows all
the facts.
After the Thieu meeting this morning, then a trip over to the house for
lunch, the P came back, had E and me in for a couple hours this afternoon.
The P said he wanted to make a couple of points on the whole Watergate
situation that he felt were very important. First, that the P must be isolated
from the discussions. That we've got to tell all parties, or that John does,
that the P has other problems during April and May, with the Congress, the
Soviet Summit, Vietnam, and so on, and he can't talk to the people that are
concerned, that is, Dean, Mitchell, Moore, Colson, George Bush, the VP,
and all of them. E must get the confidence of all those people and handle the
thing for the P. He commented on the side that the schedule for the first
three months of this year was all wasted as far as anything public was con-
cerned, and that he's got to concentrate on that side of things for the next
few months.
Second, that there must be no falling-out amongst our people. Having all
of them going off in all different directions. We can't have a situation of every
man for himself. They're all on the team. No one's going to flush anybody and
they must understand that.
He then launched into a fascinating review of the Hiss case, making the
point as to how he conducted the investigation and worked around to where
he trapped Hiss, using that as an object lesson in terms of what we've got to
watch out for, and what Weicker et al. are doing wrong in their conduct of this
investigation.
He then got into a strategy review and the question of whether I should
go out publicly. We agreed that I should not, but that we should consider my
doing the newspaper interview with The Washington Post, but I should defi-
nitely not go on TV. He felt that we've crossed the bridge on Dean and he's
not going to permit Dean to go up and testify, and John said, "Don't make
624 H.R. HALDEMAN
a final decision on it," but that's basically John's position, too, as the way
around conflicting testimony. He got into some personnel things. He feels that
we probably should move Kleindienst out and discussed possible Attorney
General, Ruckelshaus (EPA head William Ruckelshaus) being Ehrlichman's
candidate. The P decided he should not do a press conference this week after
the Thieu meetings, so he's not going to. Then we dropped that, and he spent
a lot of time just going round and round on the various aspects of the whole
Watergate situation as it now stands.

The P had no schedule today. He had E in for some general discussion on
Watergate, and then it was about 10:40 and we talked a little while about my
concerns and so on, and then I went out so he could have further discussion
with John. I went back in to give him Dean's report.
John Dean's Report

John had called me on the phone to say that his lawyers saw the U.S.
Attorneys Silbert and Glanzer, and just sat and listened to take their tem-
perature as representatives of Dean, regarding what will happen going to
He finds that first, he will be called, probably next week, the
the grand jury.
same as Mitchell. —
Same basis no cameras, and not announced until after-
ward. Second, Dean is not a target of the grand jury, also Haldeman is not.
They don't believe they'll have to call Haldeman except as perhaps a way
to corroborate other statements. Third, Liddy has talked to the U.S. Attor-
ney. His lawyer doesn't know it. They believe him, the U.S. Attorneys do.
And in his discussions he's freed the White House from their minds, al-
though John doesn't know what he said.

Dean's lawyers had told him he must not talk to Jeb, and this morning
Jeb called him. Dean's lawyers talked to Jeb's lawyer to try and untangle
this. They discussed the business on privilege and so on. Dean, according
to the U.S. Attorneys this morning, can't take the Fifth Amendment. His
lawyers say he may have to on technicals. U.S. Attorneys say they won't
pursue that. Dean's lawyers think that in effect it'll be a practical immunity
granted regarding after-the-fact technical violations.
He says there's a funny position regarding the grand jury minutes to
the Ervin Commission. Sirica has heard the Justice Attorneys have filed an
amicus brief with Sirica regarding some rule that the grand jury minutes are
secret. This would violate that, and Ervin of course has returned a request
for the minutes, so the government is in a good position regarding not
releasing the grand jury minutes, John feels. Dean's view regarding Ervin
appearances some arrangement has to be made on ground rules so
is that
that we about firsthand knowledge, no hearsay. Regarding Dean,
talk only
he thinks we should hard-line it and have no appearance at all.
He says Mitchell called Dick Moore, who was in Dean's office with
Clawson, and they put Dean on the phone, too. Mitchell called to report
that he had talked to F. Lee Bailey, and Alch had told him that when
McCord was going to go before Judge Richey on the civil case deposition,
he had a letter that he was going to file saying that Parkinson had han-
dled the payoffs to the defendants via Mrs. Hunt. He told his lawyers that
this was a lie, but that he had wanted to get Parkinson somehow, and this
was the best way to do it.He and Fensterwald cooked this up. Mitchell
thinks we ought to find a way to get this out. Dean still thinks Jeb is the
most serious problem, but his lawyers are working with Bierbower, Jeb's
lawyer.
I reported all this to the P and John and then went out. The P and John
finished up about 12:15 and called me in again. Discussed Magruder and the
problem of what he would do if he was given immunity. I said I thought it
would be very serious, and the question was raised of whether Strachan would
tell Magruder to hire Liddy, something that we need to return to. In the
discussion with the P and John while I was in there, we got into the point that
the Weicker attack is an approach that we've got to contend with. We should
hit the press criticizing us, because we didn't campaign as a defense thing there.
"Reinforce the Presidency" was our campaign concept, and it's ironic that we
would be brought through the mud because of ill-advised people, since we have
taken such a high-level approach, and I should condemn any excesses that
took place. He then told John that he is to understand the overriding need for
Haldeman on the stafT. The P said, "Haldeman is more important to me than
Adams was to Ike. For example, the K situation, which only he can handle.
I can handle the rest, probably, but I can't do that. So protecting Haldeman,
in terms of whether his testimony is raising a greater doubt about him, is a

major consideration. He is the P's closest confidant, his Chief of StafT, and we
can't let him be tarred as a dirty SOB, and this is a case in point."
E, Ziegler, Higby, and I then spent the rest of the afternoon going over
a Q & A session to work out what might develop in my interview. It didn't
work out very satisfactorily, and we're back to a general discussion of how we
should approach this at this point. My feeling is that we have more problems
than solutions and that we've got to really consider the desirability of my
going. I'm not sure it would be productive.
John Dean's Report

Back to Deanmorning. He felt that he had a new idea that we
this
ought to consider, which is that we should go public, saying that we want
626 H.R. HALDEMAN
the facts to emerge in this case, but we have trouble finding out how to do
it, so we suggest that the Ervin Committee cut Watergate out of their
inquiry, let the U.S. Attorneys summarize that later, when the appeals are
not jeopardized, and at that time commit to releasing a full report. Then
Ervin could go ahead on all but the Watergate, because really the rest of it's
all "BS" anyway. The point is, we have nothing to hide, but we can't handle
Watergate properly with the Committee without jeopardizing the defend-
ants' rights, and so on, in a legal action. He suggests maybe the VP take the
lead on this. He says Jeb Magruder now thinks that he's going to be
indicted, but that he can beat it on trial, or at least his wife is telling Bart
Porter's wife that.
Dean goes to day next week and feels we need a plan
the grand jury one
for how have a session with the U.S. Attorneys to
to handle that. He'll first
discuss the parameters. He feels we should hold any release of the Segretti
material until we work out the plan for the Senate Committee.
The P's told E to Harlow to make it clear to the VP that he can follow
tell
his own course and the P will follow his own course. The P's very disturbed
because of the VP's unwillingness to step up on the executive privilege matter
unless the P will talk to him.
K talked to the P this morning. His theory is that Mitchell is responsible
and should come forward and say so. The P feels we need someone to have
talks with Mitchell, Magruder, and Dean, persuade them that we have to show
some motion, that we just can't sit in a bomb shelter, that we can do some
things that won't hurt them. Wants me to talk to Magruder and tell him that
this is all coming through on the jungle telegraph full circle, and he's got to quit
talking.
We talked to George Bush, who said he had a one and a half hour meeting
with Connally and wanted to talk to the P. Raised this with Rose Woods and
one of the things Bush raised, well, his primary thing, was the Connally matter.
He's concerned that Connally feels we've got to get the Watergate thing
clearedup (which hardly comes as a surprise). Bush says that Connally wants
something done drastically, that someone has to walk the plank and some
heads have to roll. The P told me to call Connally and tell him he wants to see
him in Washington next week, that there's nothing the P's greater concerned
about, but frankly he doesn't have answers to how to deal with it. Who does
he think ought to walk the plank?
I had a bunch of miscellaneous phone calls. Elliot Richardson all con-
cerned about personnel in the Defense Department and things being held up
there, especiallyon the Air Force Secretary where we vetoed his man. Bob
Hope was worried about the guest list and stars for the POW dinner. I talked
to Pat Gray this evening at the P's request. We removed him as FBI nomina-
tion. The P wanted me to call him and just say we were all thinking of him and
so on, which I did. Talked to Finch, who says he's made his decision. He's
going for the Senate, but he has to extract commitments. He has a list of
concerns, such as how to play it against '76, what did
you do with Connally,
what did you do about Nelson Rockefeller vs. Reagan vs. Connally, and so on.
He game with the P Friday night because he's speaking at
can't go to the ball
Marymount, but wants to see the P on Saturday, which I later set up. He feels
he needs a capability of having input on appointments in California. He wants
to work as if he were a senator with the White House. Probably he won't
announce until the first of the year, but he'll do some dramatic things now and
get out of the governorship hassle. He's going to talk to Reagan and all the
other candidates next week. Feels this must be closely held because he's got to
get commitments, especially from Younger and Reagan.
John Connally's Analysis

Had a long talk with Connally on the phone tonight. He says the
Watergate thing's gone too far to back off of, that we have to view it not
only as the Watergate, but Segretti and the whole thing. He says that we
ought to pose the Segretti approach on an attack basis, that we did it in
order to counter what we were confronted with by the Democrats. Go on
the offensive. Use the examples of what they did. He thinks the P should
waive executive privilege on the grounds that the Senate Committee is so
partisan and demagogic they've impaired the government's function. That
as many of us as can should go up there, they should get it away from
Haldeman and away from the White House. He says they won't let it rest
until someone else is brought in, involved, and hung. There's no way to
stop it, so we should get divorced from it. We should be outraged at their
demagoguery. Take them head-on in open session and grandstand it.
On a purely hypothetical, and he never mentioned his name, he said if
it gets to Mitchell, people would never believe that the P didn't know it. He
says if we don't know the facts, we should get a good trial lawyer and then
tell him all the facts and get his advice as to the possibilities. He thinks we
could say that at any cost the P has to sacrifice anybody in order to clear
the Presidency, but one particular individual is involved (and he's refer-
if
ring to Mitchell), then you can't get the taint off unless the P himself delivers
him up. It's entirely possible that there's a middle road, such as E going up
and saying to the Committee, "We know you're after Haldeman, so we'll
waive privilege for him if you'll agree to shut down after that." He then
agreed with me that wouldn't work.
He says assume Haldeman, E, Dean, Colson, Chapin all go up and
really put on an act, take the Committee on, try to nail them, that they'd
been on a witch-hunt. You need some phrases. You need to be coached and
rehearsed, each one of you. You might, by that, screw the Committee in
people's minds and destroy it, or at least pull its teeth. But you should
definitely get there at the beginning. Be the first ones on. He's very worried
about Wall Street and the uneasiness in the country, and feels we have to
628 H.R. HALDEMAN
deal withit one way or another, and, in a way, it's related to the whole
Watergate business, too.

K came bouncing in today to report that the P keeps telling him that he's under
great pressure to dump me, and that it's his feeling thathe should do so, but
he wants Henry's view on it, that this is especially coming from Connally and
he asked K what he thinks. K says he thinks this is the worst possible choice
of alternatives, that this would accomplish nothing and would create monu-
mental problems and that there's no way if I'm guilty that the P can separate
himself from this, and therefore that would be the strongest argument for his
not dumping me, in K's view; the next strongest being that he needs me, and
that isn't worth paying that price. Henry claims he wants to be helpful in all
it
this, and that he's very concerned that the P's going to make the wrong move
on it.
I coveredwith E and he said he could explain that. Yesterday the P

this
said he thinks what Connally was suggesting to me when he was saying we
couldn't save Mitchell was that I had to fall, and that's what he's basing it on.
He hasn't talked to Connally. He's going on the basis of my report. E, too, told
him that he thought that was ridiculous and he says the P agreed, that we can't
survive Bob's falling, and we must all hang together. And he says, in the car
going to the ball game, that the P got into his historical mood and said this is
the day we all go down defending Haldeman.
Dean called later today, said his lawyers had met with U.S. Attorneys
again, that they only want to get the facts on the Watergate and that they do
not expect to go beyond that. Dean believes this, says that Liddy has told
them everything he knows, they don't believe Hunt and are going to push
him harder, they want to meet with Dean tomorrow off the record with no
action, to discuss the problems of how he would testify at the grand jury and
questions of the Fifth Amendment, attorney-client relations, and all. Dean
feels we're at the moment of truth, in that he should go and that we've got to
decide it right away. He says the grand jury's scope is not broad in what
they're trying to cover, and they want what happened pre-Watergate.
They're not interested in post-Watergate, which they think is a can of
worms. They want Dean because of his knowledge, want to get those points
laid out so that they can move on their investigation of others to nail some-
one on the pre-Watergate planning.
Dean called again later today and thought it was imperative that he
decide. E wanted him to wait until we got back on Monday. Dean called later
yet and said that he wanted to meet with us tomorrow night when we get back,
so he's obviously really uptight on it. I'm going to try to keep that in Ehrlich-
man's ballpark where it belongs. We keep going round and round on various
approaches, and I E still comes down on the side of my testifying. He had

think
a long talk with Baker today, and Baker agrees that we should move to go up
soon, that would work very much to our advantage, would be the smartest
move that we could make at this point, and that the Committee would have
to go along with it, so John's idea is to try that in his meeting with Baker and
Ervin Monday evening. In any event, I think we've got to come to a final
decision on strategy on the plane tomorrow and just see what we can do from
there.

Got into the Watergate issue as usual. The P's gone over the whole thing and
we have to hang together. Feels now that we're faced with three basic prob-
— —
lems Watergate, prices, and foreign policy but that all of them added up
don't equal the problem that the war was until we ended it, as far as the public
is concerned with regard to the P. He says we've got to remember that we won
the election and we shouldn't get so disturbed about the problems. We should
be on the positive.
After we got back, E and I met at the White House with John Dean to
go over his problems. He's about to go to the grand jury and wanted to discuss
his approach to the prosecutor.

We got back into the Watergate discussion, of course, as we do all the time.
Had a long discussion about the monitoring facilities in his offices and he
wants them all taken out, but then he later changed his mind and said to leave
them in on a switch (activated) basis. He's obviously concerned about having
everything covered and wants to set up some kind of limited means of cover-
age. I spent most of the day, as usual, working on the Watergate. The P had
a fairly involved schedule that kept him otherwise occupied.

The VP called me over today and said he had a real problem, because Jerome
Wolff, who used to work for him back in Maryland, was about to be called by
the United States Attorney who was busting open campaign contribution
cases and kickbacks to contractors. seems that Wolff kept verbatim records
It
of meetings with the VP and others, back over the years, concerning fund-
raising,and has a lot of quotes about how much we ought to get from a certain
contractor, and so on, who has had good jobs. It wasn't shakedown stuff, it
was merely going back to get support from those who had benefited from the
Administration, but the way it's worded, the VP feels it would sound bad. He
630 H.R. HALDEMAN
made George Beall is (Senator) Glenn

the point that (Baltimore prosecutor)
Beall's brother, and that
Glenn Beall would talk to him, he could straighten
if
it out. The VP's tried to get him to, but apparently not successfully, so he
wanted me to talk to Glenn Beall, which, of course, I won't do, in order to

verify a White House awareness and concern. He feels that publication of this
stuff would finish the VP, because Wolf was with him for so long and is very
much concerned. He agreed he'd probably get Colson into it, and that it would
be the best way to handle it.
Editor's Note: On October 10, Agnew would plead nolo contendere to one
count of having knowingly failed to report income for tax purposes and—
resigned as Vice President.

I was out most of the morning. Mitchell called, which I returned from home.
He wanted about the settlement of the civil suits. He'd been talking to
to talk
Strauss of the Democratic National Committee and he said this morning that
he had cleared the whole thing with Mansfield and Albert and so on, and we
could go ahead and settle, but Mitchell said after two hours with Stans, he's
still holding out for damages in the O'Brien libel suit, and we need to turn that
off. That he had talked with E and thought he had that taken care of.
He also was concerned that Dean's testimony would be the one thing
that could really unscramble the whole operation. We should try to get Dean
not to go to the grand jury, in his opinion. I mentioned this to the P. He's
quite concerned about it. Told me to talk to E. He was raising the question
of whether that is the linchpin in the whole thing, and the P had Ziegler
come in and we went through the whole question of the White House going
up to the Senate. Ron argues strongly that we should not. His real fear is
that it's me and hang it on me and
going to focus the whole thing onto
destroy me, and he feels that would be extremely harmful to the P. The P
made the point again that the key here is to protect Haldeman, but Ziegler
feels that Ehrlichman's moves to lock up the Senate deal with Ervin are
going to basically haul me in.
Chapin and Strachan both testified at the grand jury today, and both said
that I had agreed to their approaching Segretti, and Chapin said afterward that
some assistant DA that's working with Silbert made the point that this was a
real bombshell and was probably going to destroy the P, because it laid the
whole thing right at the White House doorstep and really right at the P.
In the Ziegler meeting, E came in and there was general agreement that
we should put out a preemptive statement of some kind. In other words, that
I should make my statement ahead of going to the grand jury, so that we get
our story out in writing separately from the Q&A session story. Try and
establish our own position first, so I'm going to work on getting my statement
ready with that thought in mind.
The P still obviously very concerned about the whole issue and spending
quite a little time on it. E meets this evening again with Ervin and Baker to try
to resolve the ground rule question of whether we go up to the Senate and how.
Dean is still concerned on the whole grand jury question. Magruder called and
wanted guidance from me on what to do, and I had Larry call him back and
say I couldn't give him any guidance, that he should do what his lawyer tells
him to, and he apparently wasn't satisfied with that and said, well, he hated to
do it, and he wanted us to know he was still on the team, but he was going to
have to go ahead, if that's what we said, and he was going up to tell Mitchell
that tomorrow. Looks like we're nearing the moment of truth and everybody's
getting a little panicky in the crunch.
The P was pretty well tied up all day with NSC, other meetings, a couple of long
sessions with E on Watergate strategy, and a follow-up with K on the problem
in SE Asia, plus a Congressional thank-you reception for those who supported
him on the vetoes in the House and Senate. I had only a short session with him
at midday, and that was mainly a Watergate discussion as usual.
K came in late in the day and had a long session with me. He's very
concerned, because he thinks there's a serious strategic mistake in putting me
out front on this, because it will put all the focus on me and therefore render
me practically ineffective, and he went into all kinds of threats that if the P
dumped me or set it up so that I had to leave, he would leave, too. He wasn't
going to stay if I wasn't there; and he thinks E should be sacrificed, or someone
else, rather than me. I tried to explain that it wasn't either /or and that I didn't
feel I was being sacrificed. That I felt I had to have the opportunity to clear
myself, but he feels that no matter what the merits of the facts are, whoever
goes out front on this is going to be killed by it, and that, at any cost, it should
not be me. So that's another factor to weigh in the equation. I am going to have
to get my statement redone, which I keep talking about but never doing, and
get ready to put it out, maybe the first of next week. Ehrlichman's pushing me
for even getting it out this week, but everyone else feels strongly, that is,
everyone being K and Ziegler, and, of course, my staff feels strongly, that I
shouldn't get out front, so I may hold up on that for the time being.

Another long Watergate day. As I spent a good part of the day locked in my
office working on my revised statement, for whatever purpose we decide to use
it. There were, however, several major external developments.
—
632 H.R. HALDEMAN
Chuck Colson's Report

Colson reported to E this morning that he had reports that Jeb Ma-
gruder had met with two different reporters and with Mitchell this week,
and that he was putting out the story that Mitchell was not involved at
all in Watergate, and that he had discussed specifically with me both the
idea of bugging and the Watergate in particular. He claims he also had

the same discussions with Colson. Chuck's conclusion from this was
that Magruder and Mitchell were conspiring together to sink Colson
and me in their own self-defense, on the theory that if they could get that
much blood, the whole effort would be dropped and Mitchell would be
clear.
This he covered in some detail with John, and John reported to theP and
to me and whole track of revised thinking and emotion. Then,
that started the
a little later, while I was over talking that over with the P, John was meeting
with John Dean and he came over to report a whole new chain of events, which
was that
John Dean's Report

Dean's lawyers had met with the U.S. Attorneys and come up with
a whole new insight into the process of the case at the grand jury. Accord-
ing to this theory, they have the case totally made on Magruder and
almost totally on Mitchell and they have no doubt that they will com-
plete it, and they intend to bring indictments on both of them about
May 15.
The
indication from them is that they have nothing on anyone in the
White House, which, of course, there's no way that they could have, and
that they have no intention of trying to develop anything in that direction.
They are interested in the post-June area and will be trying to develop the
material in that as they go along, and they apparently feel they have some
pretty good leads into that.
Jeb Magruder's Report

In the process, I had Larry check with Magruder, and he came back
with an extremely interesting telephone conversation which fortunately he
taped, in which Magruder denied meeting with the reporters, denied having
talked with Mitchell yet, but then spelled out his position, which is the
recognition that he's had it and the decision to tell the story, or, at least,
probably to. He hasn't made the final decision, but if he talks at all, he will
tell the true story, which will be rough for Mitchell, but it will, of course,
clear the White House, specifically me. As would the current grand jury
development.
In a follow-up conversation, Jeb admitted to Larry that he had a
conversation with a reporter, but he had covered the same old ground,
denying anything and telling the standard story, which doesn't jibe with
Colson's information.
Colson originally, though, told E he had a tape recording of this inter-

view, but when I called him to say I'd like to hear the tape, he said he didn't
have a tape, he had a transcript, so I said he should bring the transcript over
and we'd review it, and he said, well, he didn't actually have the transcript, but
someone else did, so I asked him if he'd get it, and he backed off on that and
said he'd try but wasn't sure he could. Which sort of shoots some holes into
his story.
The thing was boiling along in that direction, with the Magruder tape
being the best thing we've gotten yet on clearing things up at our end, al-
though he does say he will, to a degree, implicate Dean, and to a minor

degree, Strachan, and, of course, to a major degree, Mitchell. While we were
working on that, E got a call from Colson, who said that he and his lawyer
partner, Shapiro, needed to come over immediately and see John. They came
over and reported that they've learned that Hunt is the whole
going to tell
story to the grand jury on Monday which set in a new chain of

at 2:00,
events, at least on the thinking side, as to whether we can get out in front of
them, whether there's a way to bring the whole thing to a focus now, have
Mitchell step forward and clean the whole thing up, or have Magruder do
his pitch early and get things moving in that way. They apparently also
that's Colson and his partner —
have some information about the results of
the Vesco grand jury, which is also probably going to indict Mitchell, as is a
grand jury in Washington that's hooking into some contractor who sup-
posedly gave money to Mitchell. That is involved in some way in the VP
matter that he raised with me the other day.
So right now we're in the midst of pursuing a whole range of alternatives.
E and I met with Dean for quite a while this afternoon to try to run out some
of the possibilities and figure whether there's any way we actually can bring the
thing to a head this weekend. Ehrlichman's main goal in it seems to be to try
to get the thing on the record as having come from the White House, so the
P breaks the case and cleans the thing up.
My view is that it's better to let it run through the grand jury, get the case
broken, and then the P can say that this shows, as it certainly does, that he was
following the right course right from the beginning of letting the legal process
run in the proper way, so that it brings the guilty people to account and
protects the innocent people, which all of these hearings and innuendoes have
not done. I strongly feel that's the best route for us, but we'll get back at it
tomorrow and see what we can develop.
634 H.R. HALDEMAN
Henry Kissinger's Viewpoint

Henry made comment that if the P does
the interesting let me down,
or does let the situation develop to the point where I have to get out, he too
will leave because he would refuse to serve in a White House that would
permit such a thing to happen. I think he really feels that his own position
would be untenable without me here, and also that the same chain of events
that would permit that to happen could also get him, and that he'd be better
off to get out ahead of time. Besides that, I think he has some desire to get
out anyway, and would use this as a means to do so. In any event I don't
think the P has that in mind, because his conclusion generally comes out
that they've got to keep me covered.
In any event, I don't see how there's any way that they can gain anything
by dropping me anyway, because the case simply does not hold, especially
now, of course, but I mean even before the developments of today. Today's
developments pretty well lock the thing on Magruder and Mitchell, with a few
others possibly falling with them. The P now is very concerned, as would be
expected, about Mitchell, and Jeb, but especially Mitchell and is adamant that
we are not to be the ones to bring him down, which, of course, we won't be,
since the case is 90 percent made already. As everybody's been saying, we come
closer and closer to the moment of truth, and this finally may well be it. We'll
determine tomorrow morning what immediate steps to take, and there's a
strong feeling that now is the time to take them.
The P agreed last night that he'd let E and me work out alternatives. Henry
reported to him about 1 1:00 or 1 1 :30 this morning, but he called us over at 9:00.
He kept us there for two and a half hours, reviewing his notes on alternatives and
so on. The point he was concerned about was the question of the P's involve-
ment, whether anything had developed on that, and he said that E had told him
that Colson argues that the P should persuade Liddy to talk, so that the P will
appear to crack the case. Based on doing that, this weekend, prior to Hunt
coming out on Monday or going to the grand jury on Monday, the P felt we need
to put all the pieces together, such as the question of Magruder going to the press
and all the other stories we've got, as to whether they've really worked out. E
then said that he had stayed up a good part of the night writing out what would
be his report to the P on his overall findings, and he wanted to review that with
the P. The P obviously didn't particularly want to hear it, although he listened to
several points on it. His interest was reviewing the checklist that he had prepared.
The Magruder question to the press was one item, the question of clemency to
Hunt and whether that had actually been promised, he is concerned about. The
point that the P is trying to determine with E and me is, who should talk to
Mitchell to him the jig is up, and that the only way for this to be a plus is for
tell
you to and volunteer a statement. Ken Rush, Bill Rogers, Haldeman, the
go in
P, Elliot Richardson, Kleindienst, Rebozo and then got to Ehrlichman. It was
agreed that really Ehrlichman was probably the only one that could do it. On his
checklist he also had the point that Rogers must be told now that it's essential
that he delay his departure until the whole Watergate thing is over; that we can't
have him leaving in the middle of it. During all this, the P kept interrupting,
wouldn't let us spin out any line at all. He had all these notes with his questions,
especially regarding Hunt and Colson that he kept coming back to, and insisted
that we work with those.
We did zero in then on the need to talk to Mitchell, and I suggested that
I ought to call him so as to set Ehrlichman up right and that Ehrlichman
should talk with him. So I went out, called Mitchell, told him that we had been
reviewing things with the P and the P felt that it was important that he come
down immediately, if possible, to meet with Ehrlichman and review where we
presently stand. Mitchell immediately said he would do so and that was at, I
believe, 11:00. He arrived by around 1:30.
We went over some other items, and the P agreed that E should also call
Magruder in and review things with him. The point of E's review with each of
them would be to say that he had been conducting an investigation of the
entire situation for the P for the last couple of weeks and that it had come to
his attention that it was possible that some people were laboring under the
assumption that their not testifying was in some way a service to the P, and
that the P wanted them to know they should not restrict themselves out of that
option. If they wish to say anything or take any action, they should not refrain
from doing so because of any concern that it would be harmful to the P. The
point here being to try to get the basic point to Mitchell that the time has come
for him to speak up.
I had trouble reaching Jeb, and when I finally did get him, he said he had
made his decision late last night to tell everything and that he was going ahead
with that. Then he sort of spelled out to me that he concluded now that there
was no hope There were witnesses on top of witnesses and there was
for him.
nothing he could do now but tell the truth, and hope that would lighten his
punishment. I told him the same pitch we gave Mitchell, that E wanted to talk
with him and review the P's thing. He said fine and he would come over at 4:00
PM and do that. E felt that when I reported to him that Jeb had already made
his decision that he didn't need to see Jeb, but in talking with the P a little later
to report on the Mitchell meeting, it was agreed that E should see Jeb so that
we'd be on the record.
It was further agreed that E should talk with the Attorney General
following these meetings and turn over what information he had gained to
him, so that the P would be clear on having cooperated fully with whatever
information he had.
E had his meeting with Mitchell, which lasted about an hour, and the
upshot of it was that Mitchell says he feels completely clear in his own heart
636 H.R. HALDEMAN
and in his own mind, that he has no guilt and has no intention of stepping
forward. That he has his reputation and position to protect and he's going to
have to defend that in every possible way and will do so. E apparently lobbed
in a number of sort of veiled allusions to Mitchell on things that might come
up, problems we might have and all if people started talking and totally
stonewalled any questions of his own involvement.
The next development was E's meeting with Magruder, at which Ma-
gruder told him he not only had made his decision but had carried out his act
and that he and his attorneys had met with the U.S. Attorney and had given
them the full story. Jeb's attorneys were with him when he met with John and
—
they said they'd be happy to give E the same story the same full report that —
they gave the U.S. Attorney. They proceeded to do so, spelling out the step-by-
step development of Watergate and related matters and follow-up.
almost totally and precisely confirmed what E had written down last
It
night in terms of how, based on the hearsay he picked up, he saw the thing as
having unfolded and very totally and clearly implicates Mitchell as part of the
planning, approval, review and so on of the Watergate, which is directly
contrary to Mitchell assertions, and will give Mitchell a serious problem when
they call him in, which now they will have to do, of course.
Jeb also implicates John Dean in the earlier planning meetings, which is
no problem because Dean intended to do that himself, but he also ties Dean
into the ongoing stuff and very heavily into the activity postdiscovery, post-
June. He ties Strachan in fairly heavily on knowledge, saying he had a copy of
the budget for the final and approved activity and that since he had no
objection from me assumed it was approved over here. He has no reason to
believe that I had seen the budget, which I didn't, and he apparently com-
pletely clears me of any involvement. But it creates a problem, indirectly, by
his involvement of Strachan.
E reviewed the whole story with me. Then we went over and reviewed it
with the P, and the general feeling is that pretty well settles things.
The P called me at home late tonight after the ( White House Correspon-
dents') dinner to talk through it. He felt it had gone pretty well. Laughed
about the quote he had used from David Lawrence because he said he never
told me that, but it's the kind of thing he might have said anyway, the only
tougher job than that of the P's waging war was that of the P's waging peace.
Then he sort of reviewed our situation, made the point that when you think
about it, the hopes for peace in the world really depend on the office of the P,
and we can't be compromised in carrying out that office by lack of confidence
in the P arising out of Watergate, and that really overrides the consideration
of any individual or any other problems.

I talked to the P at 3:30 this afternoon on the phone. He said that Kleindienst
and Petersen had met with him. That Kleindienst feels it's going to take four
or five years for Mitchell to run the full legal course on trials and so forth. He
still we should have a special prosecutor and the P also has come to that
feels
conclusion. Not for this case, but to look at the indictments and review them
to be sure that we cover all the people. Even (Deputy Attorney General U.S.
Justice Department Joseph) Sneed is compromised on this. So we'd have to use
someone like Wright from Texas. He referred to telling E about Magruder,
that two weeks ago Magruder tried to get Strachan to concoct a story and he
feels that Magruder's defense is that he was under pressure from higher-ups.
The problem is that Magruder doesn't know the truth. He feels Rogers may
have a point. That if we get a big fish, that takes a lot of the fire out of the case.
Says the idea that the P has to go and make a new Checkers speech, which he
feels he won't do. He feels the idea of a special prosecutor does help get
someone between the P and the case. He told me to talk to E, because he
in
thinks that Rogers thing makes sense. Then he said also they told him that, on
E, there was some connection on the conversation regarding the contents of
Hunt's safe, and on Haldeman, there was some connection with the $350,000
and that those were the only leads they had to us. Kleindienst recommends
that E and Haldeman take a leave of absence on this. The P said you ought
to come up with a better recommendation.
At about 7:00 the White House switchboard called and said the P wanted E
and me to meet him in the EOB office at 7:30. 1 got to the White House at 7:30.
The P wasn't back from dinner and boat ride he had taken with Bebe. At 7:45 he
arrived at the EOB, and E and I went over, and P was very cheery about what a
beautiful day it was and all, and then sat down and said, well, he had his second
talk with Kleindienst and Petersen, and that Dean had been in an all-day meeting
with the U.S. Attorney and that Petersen will report to the P tomorrow at noon
on the full details of that. But that the P will call him while we're there to get an
updating on anything new he's got this evening. He's now ordered Kleindienst
out of the entire operation and is dealing directly with Petersen. Instructed
Petersen that he is to report directly to the P.
Henry Petersen's Report

He now that the combination of Dean's and
says that Petersen says
Magruder's testimony means that E and Haldeman will have to be called
to the grand jury.
They told Dean that they'd do the best they can for him, offer them
their good offices if he cooperated. The P's not sure what that means. He
was obviously very awkward in getting into all this and is hedging around,
not knowing quite how to get to the point. He said Dean talked to the U.S.
Attorney all afternoon in Maryland and they want him to testify, to corrob-
orate the Magruder thing. The plan now is to get Magruder to plead
tomorrow and then immediately put out a statement that involves himself
and others, certainly Mitchell. They're moving fast to avoid being forced
into this by Ervin. They want to be sure they get the credit, rather than
638 H.R. HALDEMAN
appearing that the Ervin stuff forced them into taking action. The plan is
to takeMagruder in the morning and Strachan in the afternoon, and they're
going to be very rough on Strachan, going for corroboration and trying to
tie in bigger fish.
Petersen thinks Dean lied to him and to us. He says Dean hits E
regarding the line that they should deep-six the material in Hunt's safe and
get Hunt out of and about the documents that Gray has. On
the country
Haldeman, between Magruder and Strachan involving
there's a conflict
three or four things: the $350,000, the document furnished to Strachan that
I supposedly approved which was the budget for the bugging, and the point
that I had papers indicating Liddy was in the eavesdropping business. This
is totally different than what Magruder told E he had said, so we have an
interesting point there.

Kleindienst says that Liddy has not talked, that they don't have any-
thing on Colson. The problem is what will LaRue say that he got the
$350,000 for, that there is a problem there, they feel. The P was troubled,
because they said they don't want Haldeman and E until they hear the
others. He said to them, if they have anything on Haldeman and E they
should call them immediately and clear it up. Petersen said no, he didn't
want to do that until he heard all the others and got the case built. He feels
Petersen is crusading on this. They'll give Strachan a very hard time. One
point they want to hit him on is that logs of the bugging were given to
Strachan, they claim. Magruder says he won't lie for E, that he might lie for
the P.
Some discrepancy arose on the question that on June 17, after a meet-
ing in Washington, Kleindienst and Dean were supposed to come out and
report to the P and thenwas a call saying that only Dean was to come,
there
which apparently bothered Kleindienst. The question is where we were June
17. 1 thought we were in Florida, but the P has it as San Clemente. Petersen
said to the P, Dean did not serve us well.

Now Petersen's set up to report only to the P,
not to Kleindienst. They
say the Magruder deal may break tomorrow. Mitchell will be accused and
there will probably be a tangential reference to Haldeman. Dean makes a
prima facie case against both Haldeman and Ehrlichman on obstruction of
justice. The P will tell Dean he owes it to him to come into the P and tell
him what he's doing.
The P thinks Magruder is lying to reduce his penalty. He has a lot of loose
stuff, like documents from home. E says LaRue told
the question of Gray's
Moore today that he's going to testify and that he's inclined to open up
completely, and the P came back to the deep-six and Hunt leaving the country
question again, saying that troubled him.
At 8:15 the P called Petersen and he said he had nothing further. He said
Liddy wants a signal to come clean, that Liddy talked to Mitchell today and
iswaiting for a signal from Mitchell, but Petersen says the P should give Liddy
some sign, and Liddy apparently told Mitchell he would tell everything if he
got a signal from Mitchell, and now Petersen says the signal from the P will
do it.
The P hung up on that and was trying to figure out what to do, when I
got a call from Larry and he said that Dean had called him to say that he
wanted to deliver a message through me to the P, that he did not want to talk
with me, and his message was number one, I hope you understand that the
actions that I'm taking are motivated totally out of loyalty to you (Haldeman)
and the P, and if that's not clear now it will become clear. Second Ehrlich- —
man requested to meet tonight, but I feel it is inappropriate at this time.
—
Third I'm ready and willing to meet with the P at any time to discuss these
matters. Fourth —
the P should take his counsel from Henry Petersen, who I
assure you does not want the Presidency hurt.
Right after that, the P called Petersen back and said to tell Liddy that the
P wants everybody to tell everything they know and he told him to do it
tonight. The P then decided he should get Dean in to talk to him and so had
me call the operator and tell Dean to be in his office at 9:00. We discussed it
somewhat further and at 9:00 Ehrlichman and I left the office and went over
to E's office. At Dean arrived at the P's office.
9:20,
E and I talked to Ziegler to discuss the PR plan. Ron
In the meantime,
makes the point that with the information now, the P must relieve Dean of
his Watergate assignment, at least. The P should receive assurances from any
other staff that have been implicated that what we've told them is correct
and then we'll have an opportunity to cover it with the grand jury. The P
should announce a special prosecutor who is not an Administration man. On
Magruder, the information he has says that he has to ask Magruder to re-
sign.
John Dean's Report

At 10:15 the P back over to the EOB and had finished with
called us
his meeting with Dean and he was obviously quite disturbed, or seemed to
be, or he was probably also tired. He said Dean will either testify or be
subpoenaed, he's not sure which. He's told his lawyers and apparently he
told the U.S. Attorney that none of us at the White House, especially
Haldeman and Ehrlichman, had any knowledge of the bugging, but on
obstruction he feels both Haldeman and E are involved. Whether or not
they intended to obstruct and whether or not they knew what they were
doing, they have conspiracy by circumstance.
He doesn't think that Kalmbach knew the reason for the money he was
raising. Dean says the $40,000 that went over first out of the $350,000 was
preelection, which doesn't check with Strachan. LaRue says there was no
640 H.R. HALDEMAN
question what it was for, but Dean knew and that Mitchell knew. The
question whether any of us knew and I still argue that we knew it was for
is
defendants, but not in any sense for obstruction of justice.

Dean made the point that he had briefed Ehrlichman and me every
inch of the way. On Petersen, he said that was just a daily report on the
grand jury and there was nothing improper. (We've made the point to the
P that Petersen was supplying Dean with all kinds of information out of the
grand jury and Dean's trying to put a cover-up on that.) Regarding clem-
ency he says there was a meeting with Colson, Ehrlichman, and Dean, and
E at that meeting said to make no commitments for clemency. On the
contents of Hunt's safe, Colson was the one who was worried. The bogus
—
wire there was apparently a bogus wire implicating Kennedy in Viet-
—
nam and so on. Dean thinks Gray may have destroyed it. Hunt told
Colson to get the stuff out of the safe. Dean believes that he's the most
vulnerable on obstruction, and that Haldeman and Ehrlichman are less
vulnerable,and Dean thinks he has a good chance to beat any rap on it, but
in the meantime the evidence is so overwhelming that it will probably
require Haldeman and Ehrlichman to take leaves. Dean had something on
the bug on Kraft and other newsmen that he lobbed in, but doesn't intend
to use it.
10:45, Ehrlichman got Gray at home about the envelope. Gray said
At
that he was going to say he knew nothing about it and he told E he had
destroyed it. At 1 1:05 John called him back and said he's got to tell the truth.
He should state the facts and not get crosswise on this. Gray says he didn't
know where the papers came from, he didn't open the envelope, he simply
destroyed it, but that Dean had told him they were politically sensitive pa-
pers —
although not what the source of them was.
Editor's Note: It was a stunning admission. Pat Gray, as Acting Director

of the FBI, had destroyed potential evidence in a criminal case.
With this, an end. The P made a semival-

the evening pretty well came to
iant attempt to buck us up and then and
to say that we're going to beat this
that it's an unfair thing, that we're being had, and that we just have to deal
with it as we go along.
The P called about 12:30, after I got home. He said that he had talked
to Petersen again tonight after we left, to report on his meeting with Dean,
and they talked about the question of legal obstruction of justice, and Peter-
sen admitted it's a very tough case to prove; that it's much the legal
not so
case as it is the appearances and the moral situation. He makes the point
that Ehrlichman and Haldeman are only involved, not as actors but just
exposed to it, and that that's the problem that they have. He says this is the
point where you need a lawyer and you should go ahead and talk to Rogers.
The P said maybe you ought to get Edward Bennett Williams, but then he
said no, as long as there's no indictment, there's no point in doing that, and
I feel sure there won't be an indictment. The problem dealing with a Wil-
liams will come afterward. I didn't like that idea, because of the publicity it
would create. He says he's really confounded by Mitchell, who must be in a

dream world on this, but when you boil it down, he's taking the only route
he can if he doesn't accept taking the rap and going to jail. The P said he
had been sitting there making some notes and thinking about the whole
thing. He obviously wanted to talk on and on about it, but I didn't encour-
age that. He said Petersen had indicated they would not get to Ehrlichman
and me until next week. They won't take us this week, because they want to
build all the rest of the case. So the P basically is in a position of just trying
to sort it all out and having trouble in doing so.

Another all- Watergate day, as they generally tend to be now. The P had me
in at 9:30 and asked that Ehrlichman and I spend some time today putting
down what we think our vulnerabilities are and a game plan for dealing with
them. He then had Ehrlichman come in, too, and told him he's getting Dean
in to have him sign the letters. They agreed he should sign both the resignation
and the leave of absence letter. Then he said again he wanted Ehrlichman and
me to put down our cases at the worst, and he says he'll make no decisions
until he's had his responses.
Also he wanted a scenario on his role, what he did as he found out
Dean, the Camp David, the Ehrlichman report, and so on. Had a PR plan as
to how we disclose the P plans. He also told Ehrlichman to talk to Moore and
have him talk to Gray and Fielding about the Hunt safe problem. We went out
because he had to meet with John Dean, and then he brought us in after the
Dean meeting, and he said he had asked for his resignation, but Dean then
said, well, what about Haldeman and Ehrlichman. The P said I have their
resignations in hand always and that's no problem, and then Dean asked to
have the letters to redraft them, so that they wouldn't do him any harm in his
hearing. His lawyers think that his criminal liability is very limited, because it's
very hard to prove because he's just a conduit. They say it's the same with
Haldeman and Ehrlichman, because it's tangential and that Justice may very
well come out with no White House indictments at all.
He says Colson's involved in three areas. The P couldn't remember what
they were, Bittman and Hunt and something else; and the P says the PR was
the real concern, not the legal thing. Said he'd like to meet with Rogers this
Wanted me to meet with him first and brief him, and that
afternoon at 4:00.
he would see Garment after that. Garment is of the opinion that the P has to
make a massive move and cut the whole thing out in one blow, which means
642 H.R. HALDEMAN
getting rid of Ehrlichman, me, and Dean, and anybody else that may be at all
involved. That kind of thinking sort of rambled on through the day.
The Ervin Committee decided today to hold off in starting their hear-
ings untilMay 15. So we've got some time there, and by then Justice will
probably have something out. It turns out, however, the P met with Peter-
sen, and he says that they're having a problem with Dean and Magruder
because their attorneys in both cases are holding out for complete immunity,
which the prosecutors aren't, at least now, going to grant. Dean's lawyers
apparently have threatened that they're going to pull the case in and take on
everybody, right on up to and including the P, if he isn't given immunity. So
everybody is playing a pretty tough game at this point, and it could get
pretty bloody in the process. Magruder, too, is holding out for complete
immunity, so they couldn't make the deal with him and get him on his guilty
plea with a big public announcement today. They may not be able to work
that deal out either. They hauled Gordon in and really roughed him up
apparently. Gave him all kinds of threats about his family and disbarment
—
and that sort of thing then told him to go away and get a lawyer and come
back when he was ready to get down to business. So they got him a little
shook. Ehrlichman and I are trying to locate a lawyer, and other than that
no major developments.

Today was another major Watergate day. This time super-major. The P called
me in at 9:45 and said that he wanted to meet with Ehrlichman, Rogers, and
me.
He made the point that he agreed we'd probably have to move today. He
said you and John should be thinking in terms, not just of the Presidency and
all that crap, which I know you think about all the time; but also think in terms
of yourselves and the question of this dragging out bit by bit and whether it's
not better to cut it off. He said the incentive with the U.S. Attorney and
everybody else in this case is to nail the highest people they can get. The
prosecution is very clever, that this had to come out and it's just as well that
it's coming this way.
Dean is the one who surprises and to some extent disappoints him. I
found the latter rather shocking, considering the fact that Dean has turned
total traitor,and he shouldn't be surprised and disappointed. He should be
shocked and furious. Then in discussing this during the morning with Ziegler,
I spun out a theory that I think has proven to be correct. Which is that the P's
concerned about additional knowledge Dean has and threats that Dean is
making to reveal that, or that perhaps Dean has already revealed it to Petersen,
and the two of them are working together in threatening in order to try and
nail us.
These suspicions were confirmed when Ehrlichman and I met with the P
at 12:30, and Ehrlichman reported on his meeting with Colson, who says Dean
must be dealt with summarily. The key is that Dean must not get immunity,
and the P, Colson feels, has total control over that. Colson told Ehrlichman
he must see the P to pass this thinking on to him. The P said he didn't want
Colson to come in and didn't want to see him, and that John should tell him
that the P has his message and there's no need for him to come in to cover it.
Then the P said the problem here in dealing with that is we have to look at
what Dean has. He has threats on other things in government. If he gets
immunity, he will pay the lowest price he can. In other words, if they give him
immunity, he will give them the least amount of information he can and still
get the immunity. That's what he tells the P obviously, but the key to that is
that it has to reach all of us. That is, Ehrlichman and me, as well as Dean. The
P talked to Dean about his resignation, and Dean made the point that Halde-
man and Ehrlichman would have to resign if he was going to.
Petersen told the P that his view is that it's all going to come out. So
Haldeman and Ehrlichman should resign, not because there's any legal expo-
sure, but because they'll be eaten alive. So they should get a leave now and get
away from the White House. The P says there will be a big hassle and that's
on who is lying. Also the problem of what Dean said to the P regarding the
need for the $120,000, and the problem continuing down the road on that
apparent blackmail route which would, in Dean's estimate, cost a million
dollars.
The P discussed that conversation, although I reminded him that I was in
it, which I think startled him some. He says we have to figure that Dean could
put out that story to someone else. For example, the press. He then said to
John and me, you are the two most valuable members of my staff and that's
why they're trying to reach you. You're also the two most loyal and the two
most honest. I don't want a public clamor, as there was with Sherman Adams,
where the ultimate result is that he has to be asked to leave. So we have to
figure what kind of blackmail Dean has.
Dean apparently rewrote his resignation the P gave him yesterday on the
basis that if Haldeman and Ehrlichman resign, I will. The P said I think I'm
trapped, because I told Dean that Haldeman and Ehrlichman are willing to go
if that's needed. Also Dean has an ally in the U.S. Attorney and the Assistant
Attorney General. He then said, and I'm quoting, "The problem I've got is
that I think maybe I've trapped myself." The P says he told Petersen that
letting Dean off is an incentive to him to lie. Petersen said that's what you do,
Mr. P, in criminal cases. He said that they have to have corroborating testi-
mony on the value of Dean's evidence. And that's why he's calling Strachan,
Colson, Kalmbach and so on.
The point they make is that the White House staff kept Dean's highly
sensitive information from the P. That's another They say that Strachan
lie.
had reports that were clearly identified as wire tap material and also that he
had plans regarding the wire taps.
Then we got back to the problem of Hunt's materials and reworked that
ground. The P said in both Colson and Dean, I think he meant Magruder and
644 H.R. HALDEMAN
Dean, we have clever liars that we're dealing with. He then said, in going back
and agonizing over this, that there's no sense in aggravating Dean. This was
in the question of suspending or canning him. He'll do anything to save his
own ass.
Then we get into the question of the date of Hunt's threat and when the
Dean-Haldeman meeting with the P was, where that came up. And the P says
how do I handle the problem of the Assistant Attorney General telling me that
he has charges against Haldeman and Ehrlichman and says that they're of such
nature that he must put them on leave? So why doesn't he do it? The answer
is that he can say, when you tell me you're going to file charges or indict them,
then I'll suspend them. Until then, I have no basis for it. He said the real
problem is what if we end up in the gray area, with no charges filed, just
implications, such as knowledge in advance and so on. Then what action do
we take? The P raised the question of why can't we just leave Dean in his office,
but everybody not to have any further dealings with him.
tell
Ehrlichman urged the special prosecutor to take over from Petersen and
made his case again on what a bad guy Petersen was, and the need for the P
to get special counsel, but the P didn't buy it, I don't think.
Gordon Strachan's Report

Later I He had a conference
got a report from Strachan. with Silbert
and Glanzer and his lawyer and they convinced him that they have enough
on Dean on all kinds of things that they can indict him on perjury on two
counts. One, on the discrepancy on the amount of cash. The $350,000 vs.
$328,000, and second his knowledge of Liddy's activities and spying and so
on. The question then is whether he continues his present lines and gets
indicted or takes the Fifth and goes to jail. This is the way the message came
through, which doesn't make sense. He said they won't let him correct his
statement regarding the $350,000 and that they have information regarding
another expenditure from the fund which Strachan doesn't know about. He
said to check the seven points he covered with Ehrlichman, but that's where
the things are vulnerable, and the deal they are trying to make with him is
that if he goes through all those points he covered with Ehrlichman Sunday,
the seven items, and everything else he knows, including some of which they
say they already have, so this would just be to corroborate, then he'll have
a chance of getting out, which means he'll become a witness and not a
defendant. But they do not guarantee immunity. He says obviously they're
trying to make a deal with him and they're not really offering him very
much. The problem is that Strachan bared his soul to Dean, and so now it's
all coming back to haunt him.
At 4:00, after the P had a long meeting with Petersen, he called Ehrlich-
man and me back in and said he went the rounds with Petersen again. That
Petersen agrees on Dean, that he ought to be dismissed and has argued that
point with the U.S. Attorneys. But they say that they suppose that's the only
way, that Dean's the only way to get at Ehrlichman and Haldeman, and they
can't jeopardize that.
The new elements are, first, the P told him immunity was out. In other
words, he would not tolerate immunity for Dean, and he told him he had
discussed this with Bill Rogers, who said it was totally wrong to give Dean
immunity. Second, regarding the leaks by Petersen from the grand jury, he said
Mitchell was aware that Dean had leaked this material and so on. Petersen said
that it didn't get very far and was no problem. Third, Petersen's talked to
Gray, and Gray says he destroyed the material and that he's going to have to
bring that out. Gray was told there was no Watergate material, just political,
but there's still problem of destruction of evidence on Gray's part.
the
The P on Ehrlichman and Haldeman finally comes out.
says the situation
First, they don't have the Magruder deal, but they will give the P twelve hours
notice when they make it. They will say that they're hauling him into court to
plead guilty, and then put out a statement which would be both as broad and
as narrow as possible. They'll say he's named certain people, and that other
people are nonindicted co-conspirators that will be named as a group. This will
include Dean, but Petersen says it will not include Ehrlichman and Haldeman
if they take a leave. The P said, are you saying that if Haldeman and Ehrlich-
man take a leave you won't prosecute them? He said no, it just means they
aren't on the list. They'll still appear at the grand jury and I'll have to make
their case there.
Petersen says it will appear bad if Haldeman and Ehrlichman are left off
the and were not suspended prior to that, and that Sirica will hit them on
list
that, and it will appear that the Justice Department is covering for the two top
White House people. The P said he was concerned about our vulnerability, he
doesn't think they can make a case against us. Petersen's really saying that
we'll be on the list unless we decide to take a leave. Dean's lawyers said that
Dean will try this Administration if they don't give him immunity. In other
words, he's going to nail the P, supposedly.
Ehrlichman and I then took a break for an hour to meet with our new
attorney, Mr. Wilson. This was a very satisfactory meeting just to give him the
preliminaries. I think he's going to work out very well. We regrouped at 6:00
in the EOB with Rogers and the P, and went back over the point that Klein-
dienst and Petersen are pushing the P that Ehrlichman and Haldeman should
resign. But the conclusion is that we should not go on a leave or resign or
anything at this point until there's some reason for it in terms of action. Rogers
then left.
The P says we were right in not following Garment's course of dumping

you guys. It would have made the prosecution case for Dean's immunity, and
that we don't want. Regarding Dean, I'll either make a deal or not, and when
it's done he has to be dismissed. The P raised the question of whether he should
see Dean again and thought he should not.

646 H.R. HALDEMAN
He said we should consider libel suits; especially I should, that I should

get the most vicious libel lawyer in the country and sue right down the line,
including Weicker, and depose him fast. The P was obviously extremely awk-
ward and upset during this conversation. He made the point that I'm not
emotional, as you know, and I won't be now, but you guys have been through
hell and we've got to fight this rap all the way. He said there's a real problem
in the area that you may beat the rap, but may not be able to come back to
government. If that's the case, I want the two of you to take over the founda-
tion and get that set up if you have to leave. Then we said we appreciated that
thought. Ehrlichman said if he gets indicted, whether or not he's convicted, he
feels he's through as far as any career is concerned, as well as in government
and that he'd be through as a lawyer. The P said, well, you can be my partner.
John said, yes, and then we can try traffic cases out in San Clemente.
He talked over ideas for a new counsel to the P and some ideas on
Attorney General, referring to Kleindienst as a bowl of jelly. The P also told
us that he had available some contributed gift funds that could be made
available to us for legal fees. This would be via Bebe and could be up to a
maximum of $250,000. He does not want us to have to take care of our own
fees.
He then looked at me and said, if all this takes place, how do I replace
Haldeman? Then I suggested that he shouldn't try to, that he would just have
to set up a new structure and work without him. Replacement for me would
just work in a different way. Which I honestly believe he can do. My position
at this point is that we've just got to ride this out. Take whatever comes,
however it comes, and handle it as best we can at the time. It's very hard to
tell what that'll be, but there's every reason to believe that at some point the
right result will develop and that we can have confidence in that. In the
meantime, we have to contend with whatever comes along.
The P called me at midnight after the Italian dinner and said, well, I just
wanted to say keep the faith. I kind of laughed and said, how was the dinner.
He said it was fine, then he said, as a matter of fact, it was one of the worst
I've ever had, because of what's on my mind. He said John and you and I
should meet again tomorrow morning to go over what's coming, look at the
names that are involved and be prepared for it. There's a question of whether
someone should talk to Dean. Maybe the P should. Obviously, Dean's trying
to save himself, and the P thinks the U.S. Attorney will give him immunity. If
he tells the truth, that doesn't bother him. Ifit's an incentive to lie, that's
another problem. We
have to get some kind of line regarding the defendants
on their fees and support, because we don't make our case clearly enough on
that. He says we should think over and talk with Moore about the one thing
that troubles him about Dean when he came in with the information from
Bittman, because the argument is that the P should have turned it over to the
U.S. Attorney. Which is a real problem that we should give hard thought to.
Of course, it isn't really a problem. He says if Dean has immunity, he'll go with
that.
The problem isthe P talked freely with him on the blackmail point and
all that because hewas trying to draw him out. He then said he wished there
were a way to separate Ehrlichman out, because the vulnerability of the lawyer
in this kind of thing is enormous. He said let's see now, they've got clear cases
apparently on LaRue, Mitchell, Mardian and Magruder, O'Brien and Parkin-
son. It's important to know what Ehrlichman's investigation was that trig-
gered it. We have to figure how we can save what there is left of the Presidency.
The White House is involved apart from Ehrlichman and Haldeman. There
would be Strachan, possibly Colson and Fielding. Then he asked, it doesn't
touch Higby, does it? They haven't subpoenaed him, have they? I said no. Said
the real tragedy is Mitchell, why doesn't he step up? He's going to get it
without any question. We don't think he can stall it out. He should assume the
responsibility, which is, of course, what we said all along.

The P had me in at 8:00 this morning. Said that if this thing goes the way it
might, and I have to leave, he wants me to take all the office material from
his — —
ah machinery there and hold it for the library.
Reviewed some of the items; wants to figure out when the meeting was
with Dean. Make the point that the P had no knowledge until he got into this,
which is, of course, true, but we have to be objective on Dean, don't get carried
away with our attitude on him. At that point he had Ziegler in to discuss
Dean's threat to Ziegler. Ziegler should tell Dean that no one's hitting him.
The P is obviously very concerned about how he handles Dean. Not to appear
to be hitting him. Dean said to Ziegler, I can't take this rap. We'll have to call
in some friendly reporters and so on. Wanted Ehrlichman to fill the P on the
circumstances regarding putting him on the case. Ziegler kept coming back to
the point, you don't need to worry about Dean because he's completely lost
his credibility. Which was missing the P's point. He doesn't want Ron to hit
Dean on his loss of credibility or confidence in him. The P told Ziegler to say
today to Dean that the P said specifically no one is to be thrown off on the basis
of hearsay. We're not throwing anyone to the wolves. The "full of holes" line
in the paper regarding the Dean report did not come from the White House.
We're not going to characterize anything from here. And he sent Ziegler out
to call Dean, and made the point that where Dean has the gun to our head is
on the pre- Watergate stuff on national security, and on the Hunt blackmail
report, which is also national security.
Ehrlichman and I have to figure out how to handle the Dean thing.
Ziegler came back in, said Dean said the P is out front in this. Ziegler reassured
him there was no focus on any individual and he seemed to be in pretty good
shape. Dean said he understood, but you have to keep in mind the Dean report
also involved the (March) 21st discussion with the P. The P said, don't leave
the impression the Dean report was false. Told Ron that. And Dean said, I
understand the position you're in. The important thing is we now have the P
648 H.R. HALDEMAN
out in front on this. The P wants to get Dean in with Ziegler, but I think we
talked him out of that.

Then at noon we talked about what Ron should say and decided that he
should take the position of no comment now, because he's been advised by the
legal authorities that any comment on this case could prejudice the prosecution
or the rights of defendants. Therefore he will make no further comment,
period.
The P had Ehrlichman and me come up to Camp David with him for
dinner and to spend the night tonight. Talked about it in general terms on the
way we were waiting for dinner, Ziegler called. Said that Henry
up, and while
Petersen had called him to say Carl Bernstein from the Post had called him and
talked to Burke, his assistant, and told him to tell Petersen that they have the
whole story. The Magruder aspects and the O'Brien/ Bittman aspects, they
said. And Petersen thinks this refers to the McCord statement and on the thing
that Hunt's lawyer presented demands to the White House, which were met to
keep Hunt's silence. Petersen said to Ziegler that he has held this up, the fact
they have it, for ten days now trying to pursue it through the process of the
grand jury. Ziegler asked him what it meant by the O'Brien aspects, what
names were involved, and Petersen said we didn't ask the Post, because we
didn'twant to have to respond. But he would assume it would be Mitchell,
LaRue, Dean, and principal White House people. Ziegler said what principal
White House people, and Petersen said it pains me to refer to it and didn't give
him the names. Petersen told him to let the P know, and he said he'll know
what we're talking about. Ziegler then also talked to Dick Burke on a callback
and he said Petersen was talking to Bernstein again at that time. Ziegler told
him to call back.
Petersen called him back, said that Bernstein said he had information
from three sources that he was going to run tomorrow, naming Mitchell and
Dean, with no reference to anyone else. Saying they were involved in large
amounts of cash payments to keep the defendants silent. Thus, it's likely that
this will involve Mitchell, Dean, O'Brien, Bittman. He doesn't know if they
have Haldeman and Ehrlichman. Bernstein was calling various people at the
White House also to get comment. Says he's running the story and wants to
check it before it's played, so we told Ziegler to talk to him, and he did.
Petersen referred to the fact that O'Brien and Bittman are lawyers and
they're terribly distressed. He said we'd hoped to beat the press on this. I went
over to Aspen for dinner with the P and reported this to him. He had already
had the same report from Petersen, whom he had called to raise Cain with him,
on ordering him not to get into the testimony on what Hunt was involved in
with national security. Petersen told the P Dean had already told him about
the Hunt break-in in California.
Ziegler then called and said they're also going to say that Magruder has
been before the U.S. Attorney and will testify at the grand jury tomorrow.
That he will directly implicate Mitchell and Dean in the preplanning and
directly implicate them in the payments to the defendants after the fact.
Garment talked to Bernstein to see what he could get out, and he says
basically the same thing. That Magruder on Saturday over the weekend gave
a full statement and so on, and also that an attorney came out to California
on April 3 and discussed the whole thing with Ehrlichman, this not in a
negative way. This would relate to postpayment activities. Bernstein volun-
teered that the story will say that the P had no knowledge, that indictments are
expected shortly on Dean and Mitchell. Didn't mention the Magruder indict-
ment.
The dinner was rather painful because the P got into the whole problem
of whether John and I should go. He said the points to consider are, 1) whether
we're nailed in open court by Magruder, which we can't let happen. Or, 2) if
we leave, will it buy them off on the indictment. And, 3) by constant nibbling
as we stay here, we can be destroyed. We don't want to be destroyed, therefore
we have to move. We have to figure out another strategy. Get out and then
fight like hell. We have to deal in two dimensions. First, the court, and second,
the Ervin Committee. The P will not allow Weicker and Scott to force him to
move on us. We should move ahead of them and fight it.
The P keeps saying during this that he hasn't decided. But he went
through quite a thing in an emotional way about how Ehrlichman and I would
always have the use of Camp David regardless of what happens, for the next
three and a half years, and that he wasn't emotional, but he really is and that
this was a terribly painful thing and so on and so on. I think it really was, and
hard for him, but it's also counterproductive for us. I mean the time going
it is,
around and around on the same ground with him, when we should be develop-
ing our own case for our interest and his. It was clear, though, that his feeling
was that there was no real way out, except for us to pull out and fight rather
than trying to stay.
At Camp David. Ehrlichman and I spent the night up here last night with the
P after a painful sort of farewell dinner. At least, I think that's what he had
in mind. Kissinger called first P had called
thing this morning. Said that the
him Tuesday night late after the Sinatra dinner and said that he thought
Ehrlichman and Haldeman would be destroyed by what is going to happen.
And Kissinger said that we should, in his view, pull the wagons around the
White House and fight. On Wednesday, the P asked Kissinger again. Henry
said that if we were going to be destroyed, that we should be given a way to
get out without being implicated. One way I could leave was on the grounds
I was implicated. The other is that on the grounds that I didn't know, and this
only I should do if we're going to fall eventually anyway. Kissinger believes
every effort should be made to keep me, and probably I'll end up stronger. But
if I'm going to be destroyed anyway, I must be sure that I get out before the
slow erosion starts. The course now would be to pull the wagons around until
the hysteria subsides. Haldeman should not be lumped with Magruder and
650 H.R. HALDEMAN
Dean and should not be bled to death. If I stay, I should start asserting
command, giving orders. If not, everything is going to go on leaking around
the White House. The leaks will stop if they think I'm out or if they think I'm
in. You
need one or the other.
Onthe chopper in today, the P talked about the question of our law-
yers. Wondered about the question of what kind of immunity Ervin can give
Dean. What effect the resignation would have on the prosecution and on the
Dean deal. What kind of a bargain can we make. He made the point over
and over that the thing we must avoid at any cost is being indicted. Went
into the question of the grand jury leak and the legal possibilities there, and
our idea of a libel action against Weicker for what he said about me on TV
last night.
The P is trying to get Dean nailed down. He makes the point that we relied
on Dean for both supervision and advice. That is, he'd say you don't want to
know that, because of a deposition of a civil case and so on. Ehrlichman argues
that the prosecution of Dean is what we need to destroy his credibility. After
we got back from Camp David, he had us in the Oval Office. Made the point
that he can't run the White House without a strong person, and that if
Ehrlichman can survive, that will solve it. If not, and we both have to leave,
then he's going to put Lynn over here to replace me. He feels we should not
let the day come when comes out and the P has to be forced to
the grand jury
move on us. It's getting to the point where we have to bite the bullet. He had
thought we should separate the innocent from the guilty, Mitchell, Magruder
and so forth. So Haldeman and Ehrlichman should step out and say they want
to fight this battle. We must fight all the way with every legal device to avoid
prosecution legally.He wants us to think of the PR side in terms of ourselves
and the Presidency both.
John and I then pulled out of there to meet with our lawyers and go over
the things. They feel strongly we should not leave and, having covered that
ground, it was decided it would be a good idea for the P perhaps to meet with
the lawyers this evening. Which he decided to do. He spent the afternoon
pondering this with other people over at the EOB. Then went out for dinner
on Came back and met with our lawyers for about an hour.
the Sequoia, alone.
In the meantime Ziegler called me at home to say that the Post has another
story for tomorrow. Saying Dean's associates have said that Dean will impli-
cate people above and below and that Haldeman engineered a cover-
himself,
up to hide the involvement of Presidential aides in the bugging matter, and he
goes on with other details of the story. We checked this back and forth, and
Ziegler finally checked it with Dean, who said that he suspects who it is who
put it out. That he has things scrambled, that he never mentioned Haldeman.
That there's some fact and some fiction in the story. Eventually, Dean agreed
to have Ziegler say that he denied mentioning Haldeman. And so we're going
to try that to see if it'll help any.
The P called me at 9:30. Said he had talked to the lawyers and I told him
about the Post story. He liked the lawyers and felt that they had been a good
meeting. He sounded much more relieved than he has up to now. I told him
about the Post story and he said, well, we've just got to expect that kind of
thing, don't we? He said the lawyers don't buy Garment's idea. That is,
Haldeman getting out. He feels now we have to play it day by day. The P
warned them about the news stories and said it's going to be tough to ride, but
we'll see what we can do. Wilson, the lawyer, called, said he had a good
meeting with the P. He's a little concerned about word getting out as to why
we have counsel and suggested the line that we simply say we thought we
should get the advice of competent counsel.

The P had me morning. Read me a note Julie had written,
in first thing this
talking about how and the family all stand behind him. We had a
great he is
quick discussion on Watergate, and the P then had to go into the head and had
me come in with him while standing in the hall, and we continued this discus-
sion. Mainly about the need to hunker down following up on last night.
The P had us in at 1 1:00, said he had talked with Bush. He wants to be
helpful but he's a worry wart. He brought up Rietz (Ken Rietz, member ofCRP
staff). He was involved in the dirty tricks department and has hired a lawyer
now, because he's into this thing, so Bush is going to fire him. He says 15
people in the White House, past or present, are involved, according to News-
week, who talked to him. Wants to know what we do with it the way it's
burgeoning. He thinks the P has done the right thing, but needs more and he
reflects concern.
The P won't ask Petersen about Hunt's testimony. He feels the critical
point now is and the public perception of it. The P
the Presidential posture
pushed Petersen on speeding the grand jury. Doesn't think it will do any good.
They still have only arm's length arrangement with Dean. He thinks we should
have a talk with Moore about the LaCosta thing. He's Special Counsel to the
P and can't reveal conversations.
Dean says no one in the White House is involved. That he's not trying to
obstruct justice. He had no exposure himself and no one in the White House.
Did not know anybody was obstructing justice. (Don't know where that comes
from. Dean said that somewhere.) Dean told us that Mitchell and LaRue were
raising the money, but he had no knowledge of corruption or improper pur-
pose. We had a suspicion, but Dean kept from us any knowledge. (This is
Ehrlichman's basic outline, I guess.)
The P then wonder where we stand on "Operation Surgery." That
says I
is, letting us go. Our lawyers convinced the P it's not the right course. He then
says, though, if eventually, why not now. Both legally and in the public gray
area. The theory is the White House staff has to accept the responsibility as
stewards. We argued we should take one step at a time. First, the legal, then
the public decision on stepping down, and then the New York Times theory on
stewardship.
652 H.R. HALDEMAN
Ron Ziegler's Report

The P left at noon for Key Biscayne. Ehrlichman and I came up to Camp
David. Ziegler called tonight to say that he had painfully thought through
the whole thing, and especially after watching the news tonight with Mitch-
ell coming out of the grand jury and stonewalling charges and counter-
charges. He feels that if I'm dragged in, not on a legal basis but public
opinion, and this applies to Ehrlichman also, that if we don't move volun-
tarily to get out front and make it seem voluntary, they will have a very
negative impact on me as a man. Then he doesn't want to see me as he saw
Mitchell tonight. The more I'm weakened by dragging it out, the more it
will weaken the P. If I take a voluntary leave of absence, that will have a
bad impact on the P; but if I'm forced by public opinion to leave later on,
that will have a far greater bad impact. So both from the human and P's
viewpoint, not only considering legal but also public opinion, he thinks I
ought to take the leave.

He can't sense the P's mood and tone, although he had to spend a lot
of time with him this afternoon after they got to Key Biscayne and had
he's
four or five phone calls since. He says he's moving all over the lot. Buchanan
wrote him a memo making the point that those who can't maintain their
viability, for their own sake and the P's, should be leaving at their own
initiative. Ziegler thinks it is inevitable from a PR standpoint, especially
with the Dean factor and Mitchell's decision to stonewall. Even if there is
no grand jury action, the PR will drag me down and the P along with me.
I should consider a voluntary leave with forceful action afterward. Not a
resignation in any way. Action on my part so as not to burden the Presi-
dency with charges and so on.
If I'm mentioned at the grand jury, the ballgame's over. So I should
take the leave, clean it up, and then come back to work. He also says you've
got to consider the P's frame of mind in this. The problem is the timing, and
you've got to work it against when you think the grand jury findings will
come out. I should say that my name is mentioned and that puts me on the
defensive. The tough call is when to do it. I go under a stronger negative if
it's after my name is raised, than if I go ahead on the high ground and on
the offensive. The critical point is timing. The more I'm drawn in, the
weaker I become.
The P is still in Key Biscayne. Ehrlichman and I are still at Camp David. We
spent the day working on our background material for the lawyers and the
factual data.Wilson called me to say he was bombarded by reporters. He
had stated that he had been retained by the two of us to consult on refer-
ences to us in the media. He won't say that it's in the Watergate case. Said
he had no comment on the question of whether hesaw the P Thursday
night. Said he was not retained by the government or the P. That he had no
other connection with the case. He said the press is concentrating on the
exact moment that he was retained. Whether it was before or after the P's
speech, and he says it was after. He had said he had met with the prosecu-
tors and they asked him if there's anything in the case that involves us. He
said I could say no comment, but I will say that there is nothing that they're
involved with that gives me any concern. WTOP called him and said they
were recording when he answered the phone. So he said that's the damnedest
impertinence I've ever heard of. He said it's really building up on the when
and what question.

The P called this morning from Key Biscayne. Said I didn't want this Easter
to go by without reminding you of how much tougher it was last Easter, and
just remember you're doing the right thing. That's what I used to think when
I killed some innocent children in Hanoi. Then he got into the general Water-
gate problems. Said the question is whether I can say anything publicly. The
one factor on the political side is that the Senate comes back Wednesday, and
there's a question of whether the senators pass a resolution or something that
will create a problem for us. He thinks it was good for Ziegler to get Chappy
Rose (a Nixon personal legal consultant) and Pat Buchanan down. Thinks
Garment shouldn't come because he's too emotional. Thinks that times have
overrun Garment's view, but he would probably say the same thing this week.
Thinks the Dean thing is very hard to figure. Can't figure out what his lawyers
told him.
Then he reviewed the whole question of what we talked about before,
the detail on the blackmail and all that. Said Krogh should clearly say that
his motive and involvement was national security. The P says he's aware of
all the options and there's no good choice, but we have to do the best we
can. We should look down the road to the critical question which Ziegler
raises. That is, that we don't want Haldeman or Ehrlichman to be in the
position that Mitchell is in, to be named. The question is whether the P, after
all, is looking into the matter. Now what do Haldeman and the aides do?
Wait until they're named or move ahead? If we take a leave of absence we

must fight, but not within the White House. There'd be no consideration of
resignation, only a leave. And it's obvious that that's the direction he tends
to push in at the moment. Other than that, we had Easter Sunday with the
families at Camp David. Spent a lot of time working on the background
material for the lawyers. Families went down this evening and Ehrlichman
and I went back through my chronological files while he pulled out notes to
be typed up.
654 H.R. HALDEMAN

Ehrlichman and I stayed at Camp David all day today. Worked on the back-
ground material for the lawyers and some discussion of strategy regarding
leave of absence and so forth. Came down for dinner at home. Ziegler called
me early this evening and was obviously in a very emotional state and covered
things as follows:

He have to say that his mind is made up, as far as I can see.
said well, I
It was made up at Grand Cay last night. It's not decided finally, but I think
he's really set. He feels there are no good choices. He returned today from
Grand Cay and had a six-hour meeting with Chappy Rose and Buchanan
in the whole session. And the P, at the conclusion, said there are no good
choices, and he talked to Ron sort of on the way out and had tears in his
eyes. Went out for a boat ride, then came back. Called Ziegler and told him
to call me and tell me. Ron thinks he's going in the direction, and he said
he had talked to Rogers and others, and he's aiming in the direction,
although he says that he's not decided, that there's no choice but for
Ehrlichman and Haldeman to move away and above it in the appropriate
way.
He bases this on the argument of three premises that he evaluates.
First, the legal standpoint, where he thinks we will survive. Second, public
opinion probably won't make the case in the long run. Then he goes into
a long dissertation on that, agonizing. Ron says everybody fought it, but
something has to be done. The P feels guilt. As P, he must get this out of
his mind. He has an obligation to run the nation and he cannot, as a human
being, run the country with this on his mind. He told Ziegler he knows what
it means, and that's why he's fought it and so on. He told Ziegler to call me
and tell me that from the standpoint of the Presidency, and from my own
standpoint, I should consider seriously that the P has no alternative and
that I should resign and fight this, as I know how to fight it.
Ron said the separability idea was argued at length and the view is that
it can't be separated. Ehrlichman and I both have to go. The P said these
two men are strong enough to deal with this, to move on their own to make
their case. But the Presidency cannot be encumbered by it. The points of
history, separability, won't go away anyway, no guilt and so on were all
argued, and the P argued the most strongly; then got up and walked out the
door. And Ron realized that basically it was done. He's leaned on Rogers
heavily. Rogers argued the case the other way, but he thinks this is the right
decision.
Then Ron read from his notes as to various things the P said, which
is whatfollows. There's no good way to handle this. It will in no way
separate Ehrlichman and Haldeman from me, and this is irrelevant anyway.
They did no wrongdoing, but they cannot assume that they will not be in
the swirl of controversy. I know now the grand jury won't act for another
month. There's no way that this will not go down in history as a very bad
chapter, that the Presidency is seriously hurt, and I must accept responsibil-
But Haldeman and Ehrlichman are strong men that have served
ity for this.
the Presidency as dedicated a way as any man has served the Presidency.
Probably the strongest men in terms of dedication who have ever served the
Presidency. But as we look at the political forces, the forces against the
Presidency, the country must have a P moving in a direction. He realizes
there will be clamor. This will not pass, I'm still involved. Charges and
claims are still made that I knew about it and was aware of it. But I must
make a decision and move ahead in a new tone and a new way. The best
thing I can do is make the decision, but I just can't do it because I can't
prejudice their rights. I believe in these two men, I love these two men. The
White House can't respond and can't operate with this force against us,
though.
Ron says then after Rose and Buchanan left the P said, I will face this
on my own. I will make these points to the men involved. They have to
realize where we are in all this. Ziegler again said he was sure he had decided
on this in Grand Cay last night. Ziegler says he raised the question of
resignation vs. leave of absence. Gave all The P said there's
the arguments.
no choice, a leave is not a viable choice. They have to make their case and
I must separate the Presidency from them. Then they discussed who should
talk to Haldeman and who should talk to Ehrlichman. Ziegler raised the
point that this would prejudice their legal case. The P said he's convinced
we have no legal concern. May not even have a public opinion concern. But
he then says I am not the type of man who can run this country with this
force against us, and then went into a 20-minute dissertation on the prob-
lems of the Middle East and all that. Ziegler said what if they relieve
themselves of their duties. The P pointed to his own head and said, I can't
relieve myself of it. Ziegler emphasized this can't be separated from the P.
He said I must go out to the public and say that I can't run the Presidency
with this burden. That's why I've accepted this.
He feels the way to do this is for each of us to submit our resignation
at our own request. The question of Dean's resignation and how to handle
that has to be determined. Ron says he's very concerned about Colson. Told
Ziegler he talked to Colson yesterdayand had Ziegler call him a couple of
times today. Then him again at all. Said I now
told Ziegler not to talk to
know what kind of a man Colson is. He started into the whole "What'll I
do now without them" business, and Ziegler said don't talk about that now.
The P wants to move immediately. He was going to have Rogers talk to us
tomorrow. Then said to Ron, what if Haldeman and Ehrlichman roll him.
Ron said they wouldn't try.
The P raised the point about keeping Higby in. Ziegler said I don't
think he'd stay. Then Ziegler said if I stay, I don't know how I'll handle
656 H.R. HALDEMAN
things, and the P was horrified at the thought of Ron leaving, but Ron made
may have to, but Ron said he couldn't in any way replace
the point that he
me.He pushed Kehrli and Parker and all those people as able to take on
many of the tasks, and said the P responded favorably to that. In the P's
summation, he said he can't separate himself from this, his true responsibil-
ity. He argued a long time about the buffer theory and the lightning rod
idea, but said it doesn't matter. I have to make a decision, I have to make
a move, and I have to go on.
I called Larry and which was quite a shock. Also called Ehrlich-
told him,
man, who took it very hard. He thought
I ought to call Wilson, the lawyer,
which I did. He felt it was a great surprise and will definitely have an effect on
the legal case. Said they had discussed this, but had no indication that it was
a real possibility. He understands the P's concern, but wonders if this is the
right way to handle it. I called Ehrlichman back to report on that. He said he
was having a very hard time with this. I said, why? He said it seems unfair.
Which, of course, it does.
I made a long speech to Ziegler, a medium one to Larry, and a short one
to John, on the need to treat this as a progressive step and approach it on that
basis, recognizing that each step takes us ahead in some way, even though we
don't perceive that at the time. Ron was obviously flabbergasted by my reac-
tion and the way I tried to deal with him and strengthen him, and he kept
saying someday he wanted to tell me what he really thought of me or some-
thing. It's obviously very hard on him, because he's had to take all the long
sessions over the weekend, plus delivering the final news which must have been
very rough to face up to, but he did it very well. Larry called back later to say
he would be happy to do anything he could to help and so on. Obviously
disturbed, and we'll see where it goes from there.

This is another Watergate day. The P in Key Biscayne returning tonight.
Ehrlichman and I spent the day working on various Watergate matters. Ziegler
called this morning. Said the decision still hasn't been made. That he talked to
Rogers and that the P is going to talk to Rogers again today.

Henry came in and had a long talk with John and me this afternoon, and
his view is strongly that if it's inevitable we're going to fall eventually, then we
should get out as soon as we know it's inevitable, but definitely not before.
Which is different than the way the P expresses Henry's view. Henry went
through some of what he feels are the problems if we do go. He came up with
the very sound idea for me that, if I go, I should not make a full statement
trying to explain my role. I should go above the battle and say that I'll clear
my name in the courts and the other processes and at the appropriate point
after the dust has settled, I'll make a full public disclosure of my position in
total. But it would serve no useful purpose to do so now. I think this might be
a very good move.
John and I have both come down gradually, as the day rolls on, on the
basis that we're going to confront the P pretty strongly tomorrow with the
challenge that if he has something that is going to come out on us, he must tell
us about it and we'll act on that basis. If he doesn't, then there isn't a case to
be made for our going, at least at this point. We'll just have to see how that
works out. The lawyers ought to soften him up some ahead of time on that.

VP called this morning and said he was going out in public today, which I said
was his first mistake,and he laughed and agreed. Said there is a question on
how to handle the Watergate thing. Says he'll say he has full confidence the P
will handle it properly and he feels that we're going to have to stiff-arm them
from there on. That this thing is driving the same lousy people to say things.
He feels the P has to make clear that the rights of people involved can be
jeopardized, and more so by the P than anybody, if he speaks out improperly.
He also said if he can be of any assistance, to let him know.
Ehrlichman and I met with Ziegler at 9:30 to get a fill from him before we
got into the Watergate round for the day. Ron said we should be prepared to
work on the basis that the P feels we should leave, and thinks we should in
order to permit this matter to be ironed out outside the White House. And the
problem is how to assess the situation from the standpoint of the Presidency
and the serious impact against the Presidency. It requires a shift of atmosphere
and a shift of tone to move it away from the Presidency. And it's assumed from
the press that the force will continue against the White House and specifically
against Haldeman and Ehrlichman. So we were in positions that, if we were
not aware of the legal impropriety, at least we could have stepped in and
stopped it all. If we remain, it's virtually impossible for the P to do what he
must do, which is to disengage himself to the degree that he can and move on
with the business of the Presidency. Everyone realizes Haldeman and Ehrlich-
man didn't do anything. Because of the weight of public opinion, a voluntary
departure is necessary. The real question is, can the Administration function
in the future with the presence of two advisors who fall under the cloud? And
we do fall under this cloud? And so he made basically the pitch that what the
argument is for resigning, which we basically don't and can't buy because it
just doesn't add up.
We met briefly with our lawyers to go over their plans for meeting with
the P, and then met again with them after they had an hour and a half with
the P. They said that they made the point that an amputation isn't going to
get the gangrene out of the White House, and the P agreed, but said that if
the patient survives, then maybe it's still worthwhile. They pushed him hard
on Petersen to clamp down, get the charges, get him moving fast and all
that. Told him they cannot time the removal of Dean with Haldeman and
658 H.R. HALDEMAN
Ehrlichman, and the P agreed with this. Said timing was extremely impor-
tant. They didn't support the idea of leave of absence. They said the P's
position was there's no real distinction between a leave and a resignation.
Said the P was very apprehensive. They have no doubt that the P feels resig-
nations are in order, but he's unresolved as to timing. And the lawyers ar-
gued that indictment is the only real excuse for a resignation. They felt they
made some progress with him.
Ehrlichman and I then went over and met with him for a couple of hours
at the EOB. I reviewed the Connally and Rogers views, as expressed to me last
night, and the P said now we need to look at the facts. First the legal vulnera-
bility. Then he got everybody agrees that we must do
off the facts. Said
something, that we need an overt both for our own sakes and for the
act,
Presidency. Otherwise the crescendo keeps beating at us. We need to say that
we want to be heard and cleared and we're innocent. We can't just sit and wait
until the grand jury goes through the whole process. The prosecution now has
a maximum incentive to hit pay dirt, especially since they're being criticized for
the grand jury leaks and all that stuff.
The P says he will push Petersen hard to wind up the hearings, to hear
Haldeman and Ehrlichman soon, to examine them and report to the P, and to
put down for the P what is the case against Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and
against Dean. Then he said let's turn to the Dean problem. That's damn tough
at the moment. Ehrlichman said Dean is obviously trying to manipulate the P.
The P said he sure is. Ehrlichman said this is the key, Dean's threat to the P.
Ehrlichman then says let me spin out a far-out point. It's conceivable that if
Dean is out of control and not handled adroitly, he could lead us to the
resolution of impeachment on the ground that the P committed a crime and
there's no other legal process available. So we have to consider that. What is
the crime, how serious, is Dean a threat, what do we do about it? He feels that
what Dean has in terms of evidence is short of a crime, but we don't know. But
he may be building corroboration on it. The only solution is to listen to the
tapes. If it didn't come out of those meetings, then it's manageable. If it did,
we'd better know what Dean's hole card is. Ehrlichman's not afraid of Dean
himself, he says; and he doesn't feel Haldeman should be. The P told me to get
the conversations and listen to them. The P says he thinks he remembers
especially regarding the Bittman conversation, regarding blackmail of a mil-
lion dollars and all that.
The P asked Petersen if he should talk to Dean before he pleads, but feels
he should not. Ehrlichman says we have to deal with the P's ultimate problem.
The question of whether he's involved. The P says Dean could have described
the payoffs during his "Cancer on the Presidency" speech. Ehrlichman said,
then we have to decide how to decide on Dean. The P said we can't run the
risk of Dean saying something regarding the P. If immunity is the price, we
have to pay it. I made the point that that's the one thing you can't do, is pay
any price to Dean and let him hold the permanent level of blackmail over the
Presidency. You've got to destroy Dean. The P said how, and Ehrlichman said,
well, you could call in. Tell him that Dean talked to Liddy and that
Petersen
I talked to Dean, and have no concrete evidence of blackmail, but that is a
I
distinct impression. This P is not subject to blackmail. You must turn this on
Dean and trap him and drop the full weight of the law on him. We have to
assume that Dean is also blackmailing Petersen, or trying to. We had consider-
able discussion of this and obviously concerned the P greatly. He kept coming
back to it.
Then hesaid get back to subject A. A lot hinges on the Dean problem. We
can't put Dean, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman in one bag. It would be wrong
from an individual standpoint, and from what we know Dean is culpable
without question. Dean claims that Haldeman and Ehrlichman knew all the
way. Dean makes the point that the $40,000 was paid before the election,
which has to be checked out. Petersen told the P, and said you must not tell
anybody this, they gave Strachan and Magruder lie detector tests. That Stra-
chan didn't pass and Magruder did, regarding the information, according to
Strachan, regarding the budget and the output of the Watergate.
Regarding us, the P made the point that we could consider a leave,
coupled with a statement by the attorney to the P. That was one of the ideas
the attorneys came up with, is that they'd give the P a letter saying that they
saw no criminal liability on our part. So we consider a leave. The P makes a
statement or we put out the statement by the attorney to the P saying that we'd
asked to go to the grand jury. We need to prepare for that, and the essential
business of the government must go forward. Therefore, it's imperative, until
cleared up, that we step out because we feel our ability to carry on our duties
is impaired. This poses a problem down the road but buys time, keeps the
option open, and we're able to see what does come out. Then the P can say he's
not going to judge the case or anyone in it until it runs the process. The P
would probably have to include Dean at this point, he feels.
Ehrlichman has a different approach. He says we really have three situa-
tions. First, you have Dean, that type, who will be indicted or given immunity,
and the P in that case can say he's advised that Dean has indicated sufficient
involvement that he must ask for his resignation. The second category is
people in the White House openly charged, such as me, but without determina-
tion by the judicial process. So we ask them to take a leave until cleared. Third
is the group that's not publicly charged but has some direct or indirect involve-
ment. I know and they know who they are, but I'm going to leave them in place
for the time being with the expectation that the facts will become available.
Ehrlichman said you should treat Dean differently than Haldeman, and
Haldeman differently than Ehrlichman. So fire Dean, Haldeman take leave,
Ehrlichman stay, but ready to go if anything comes up. John also points out
this also divides him PR-wise from Dean and Haldeman, which is to his
interest. He feels there's a real practical problem with the resignation, which
is, how can he live?
The P said, the more I think of the resignation, which is the option
everyone comes down on (Harlow comes down on that too), the less I think
660 H.R. HALDEMAN
it works. The difficulty is at this point it condemns us and doesn't clean up the
problem, and so Haldeman and Ehrlichman leave. We were cleaning house, we
put in a new team. Rush replaces Haldeman, Cole replaces Ehrlichman, Gar-
ment replaces Dean. But the P
go through the whole White House and
can't
fire everybody. So he feels we should not move this week in any event. We can't
do us before we do Dean.
Then I left to review the tapes. Did that and went back over and went over
what's on the tapes, which had the P again very concerned because of the
implications that are in there. The actual facts work out pretty well because he
did a superb job of getting the information out of Dean, which is what he was
after.But he's concerned that Dean may have had a tape recorder on him and
would use the tape itself, which could be made to appear more damaging than
the facts would actually testify.
He then met with Petersen for quite a long time. Called me at home
afterward, said the prosecutor now is not about to give Dean immunity. That
he's too much involved as a principal. He told him about the need to expedite.
Told him about the paper he wants from him regarding Ehrlichman and
Haldeman, which he says he'll have by Friday afternoon. Said he wants
Haldeman and Ehrlichman at the earliest opportunity to meet with the prose-
cutor, and he said they'll have counsel request it. He said he wanted us to go
to grand jury now and he said he may have us twice, then the P said OK but
go fast on it. Then he gave me (the P) a paper regarding a note they had sent
to the prosecutor in the Ellsberg case, making the point of the break-in at
Ellsberg's psychiatrist by the Watergate people. And Petersen says I (the P)
was blackmailed by Dean on them and they had to send it out to avoid
cover-up in the Ellsberg thing, although it will not blow the Ellsberg case
because it wasn't used.
The P says he leveled with Petersen regarding our conversation and told
him he will not be blackmailed on it, and that was the interview in which I (the
P) started my investigation. And the P wants me to hold that conversation to
the P and me, not discuss it with Ehrlichman. Petersen said Dean always
indicated that he won't lie for Ehrlichman, but he will never hurt the P, which
would imply that he's trying to set up a semiblackmail of the P.
The P feels there's no choice but to fight him. He agrees that you can't
temporize with Dean to try and keep him from putting out any public stuff.
He learned from Petersen that Dean's likely to be called in the Vesco
grand jury because he made a phone call to quash an indictment on Vesco.
They're trying to make Dean's lawyers come to them, and that's what they're
waiting for. There can't be any move on Haldeman or Ehrlichman until Dean
is resolved, and he told Petersen this. The P gave him the impression that he
wasn't going to act on us anyway, but wants to see his paper on us. The belief
now is to stand firm through the weekend.
know when he'll meet with Dean to get his big threat.
Petersen doesn't
(The P had learned from Kleindienst apparently this afternoon that Dean had
some big threat he was going to deliver to Petersen when he met with him.)
There's noway to stay with Dean on this, but we have to try to keep him from
becoming a total enemy, so we treat him decently.
When Ehrlichman talks about impeachment, I don't see that based on the
word of Dean. The P's worried that he may have made a tape recording, as I
mentioned. The P then said, well, this is April 25. Put this down as the day we
start up. He agrees with the lawyers that the resignation just won't work.
Leave of absence question really doesn't buy us anything.
The P called a little later to see whether I thought there was a way I could
find out if Dean had a tape recorder on him, and I explained there was no way.
Wanted me to listen to the rest of the tape. Ziegler informed me later that Dash
called Len Garment and said the Senate committee wants to see Ehrlichman
and me next week in their private discovery process, apparently. So that poses
a new bit of excitement.
Another all day shot on the Watergate. The P had me in at 9:00 for an hour
and a half. Said we've got to be sure that we go to the grand jury first, not to
the Senate committee, and that we should request an opportunity to see the
committee as soon as we're through with the grand jury. This arises because
the committee counsel has notified Len Garment that they want us up there
next week. He said on Segretti, that Petersen told him that he apparently had
something to do with the Jackson thing on Muskie (that's the sex letter), and
also that they're questioning whether he did the Canuck letter.
Editor 's Note: Shortly before the Florida primary, letters on Muskie cam-
paign stationery accused Senator Scoop Jackson of fathering an illegitimate
child — and of being arrested on homosexual charges. The "Canuck" letter
insulted Canadians.
He wants to be sure Buchanan is preparing a counterattack on their

campaign tactics and get ready to hit them. Said I should tell Ehrlichman that
they may call Dean out to the Ellsberg trial and he'll have to reveal the Hunt
operation on that psychiatrist office break-in. Says Ehrlichman and I should
put together, for Ziegler to put out, the Presidential initiatives within the staff
to get this out. Says that I should be prepared before the Ervin Committee to
defend the White House and the campaign, and defend the campaign itself,
and that Ehrlichman has to get out the Nixon record in the Watergate, and
why his effort to try and get the record out.
On the tapes, he says that he's given me the directive that the tapes are
only made for national security information. All other stuff will not be tran-
scribed. The question he has is, did the P at that time order Dean to do
anything? And the answer is no. Regarding clemency, he said the matter was
662 H.R. HALDEMAN
discussed. There was talk about pre-Christmas, but we couldn't even consider
it The P may have called Dean. The question about what's been done
until '74.
on that. But he's trying to find out how deep this ran. The question is why the
P didn't go right to the Attorney General with this information. The reason of
course was he was running an investigation and that this was not related to the
Watergate, in any event.
Raised the question of when McCord's hush money story was to be put
out. Says Ehrlichman and I have to develop a game plan on how we handle
—
Dean. The question is how Dean will be most vindictive as a witness with
immunity or as a defendant. Also the question of when did Dean's attorneys
go to the U.S. Attorney and when did he get an attorney? In no way can Dean
now do any more to Ehrlichman and me than he is. So Ehrlichman's theory
of firing Dean has to be examined. The question of whether it unnecessarily
gives Dean a motive to go wild, and that it's no problem against Haldeman
and Ehrlichman, because he already is, but the question is against the P, and
we have to look hard at that. So we can't fire him and put the blame on him.
That would justify Haldeman and Ehrlichman, but it wouldn't help except to
discredit Dean, which of course would be valuable, but not to the P. We can't
give him immunity and let him blackmail, but the question is how to deal with
him.
Dean apparently was lobbing Dean told the P when
threats at Petersen.
he talked to him on Easter that he may want P before his pleading.
to see the
Petersen's told the P not to see him. The only purpose of bringing Dean in to
see the P, which he still thinks maybe he should do, is the human factor, which
he says you, oddly enough, understand better than Ehrlichman. Dean says that
he expresses the greatest respect and affection for the P and maybe it would do
some good to see him. Petersen doesn't see Moore as a defendant. Also, he
doesn't see Kalmbach as a defendant, except possibly on the money stuff.
Moore was very close to Dean, how about having him talk with Dean and see
what he has in mind. I didn't think that was too good an idea, but the P wanted
at least to have it thought about.
John and I met with the lawyers from 10:30 to about 1:30. Wilson said
that Hersh of The New York Times called him this morning, just before he
came over, and said that Hersh, the press, has investigated Wilson thor-
oughly and he's clean. Second, and Wilson thought he was giving notice on
this probably, that Mitchell, in an off-the-record statement which Hersh
heard with his own ears, said that Haldeman and Mitchell engineered the
cover-up. Also they reported to us that the P told them yesterday about the
fact that Dean told him of the blackmail threat and that surprised them
substantially.
I then spent considerable time listening to the tape. At 4:00 went over to
the EOB, reviewed the tape findings with the P, reviewed my files through the
whole March 20-28 period, and we had a general discussion of Watergate. The
P called Kleindienst to get a report on the Ellsberg break-in deal. And Klein-
dienst had no report. Then the P called Ehrlichman, to tell him that, and
Ehrlichman reported to him that The New York Times has the Pat Gray story.
That is, that Gray had destroyed the evidence out of Hunt's safe. So the P told
Ehrlichman to come over to the EOB.
Then the P called Kleindienst regarding Gray and said, don't you feel
under these circumstances Gray has to resign? Also told him to find out what
Petersen thinks we should do about it. The P says I want the whole thing out.
These things have happened, I as P have to get them out. It's my responsibility.
The P then called Petersen regarding his reaction to the Gray situation in The
New York Times. Then he said he's a needless casualty in doing a dumb thing.
He asked him what Gray's line is regarding why, and apparently he will say
that he had explicit confidence in Ehrlichman and Dean. The P said that won't
wash, they didn't tell him to destroy it. He will say he was told that the papers
should be destroyed. The P asked Petersen what his view is as to what Ziegler
should say. And Petersen told him that Gray now says, I was told to destroy
them.
By this time it's 6:20 and the P calls Kleindienst and says there's a story
to the effect that Gray came to Ehrlichman' s office and recommended or
received documents and was told by Ehrlichman or Dean to destroy them, and
that's not true. What happened is that he was told they were not Watergate,
they were political, and he must not say something that's not true. He's in a
bad enough situation already. Dean apparently says there was discussion
regarding destroying them, but it was not done. It's bad enough for the
Director to say he destroyed them, but if he says he was ordered to, it would
be terrible. By then Ziegler's in, and the P told Ziegler to call Dean and see
what he's going to say on it. The P's view is that Gray has to resign tomorrow.
The problem is who do you move in as acting director. Ziegler left to make the
Dean call, came back in and said he couldn't reach Dean. A little later, the P
told him not to try. Ehrlichman suggested Ambrose as acting FBI director and
the P suggested Ruckelshaus. In this process, the P picked up the fact that
Magruder is ready to plead, but they need Dean, too, and they're trying to get
Dean to plead. So they're still talking to Dean's lawyers, and he guesses Dean
lobs that stuff in to increase his bargaining power on the plea. There's not
going to be any blackmail, though. We've crossed that bridge.
By this time Ehrlichman's left the meeting, and the P gets into a discussion
of whether this changes our situation regarding the leave of absence, in view
of the barrage of innuendo and the kind of thing we have to now expect from
Dean. He sayson a leave, we'd put out a lawyer's statement that there's no
criminal However, because of the charges made, the leaks in the grand
liability.
jury, the stories in the press and so on, my ability to conduct my responsibili-
ties has been seriously impaired. The only course is for me to take a leave until
I am completely cleared of any wrongdoing. That it would be inconsistent with
the high standards of integrity that you have insisted on the White House. I
believe under the circumstances, for proper functioning, you should appoint
a replacement, and so on.
At that point, the P stopped and called Petersen. Said he had checked his
664 H.R. HALDEMAN
notes, and so on, and Gray was not told to destroy this, and he must not say
that or the P will have to say he lied. Petersen suggested that Gray should not
necessarily leave.
Then we got back to the discussion of the replacement. He feels Rush is
problem is getting the White House run.

the only possible replacement, the real
It won't work with Ehrlichman and me here, and so a leave becomes impera-
tive for running the White House in terms of morale, and so on. Maybe let
Larry stay to break Rush in.
Then Ehrlichman called to say he had given his statement to Clifton

Daniel of The New
York Times, and Daniel asked him two questions, first does
Dean know you're putting this out? Second, the way we got the story is that
you said to Dean, you live across the river, why don't you throw the stuff in
the river on your way home tonight? Also we had the report that Woodward
has the story in the Post that Ehrlichman and Haldeman were told by Dean
on March 20 that the jig was up and they should be prepared to go to jail if
necessary and that we agreed.
Then we got back P said everyone else feels
to the discussion of the leave.
that there should be a resignation, the P doesn't agree. He won't condemn on
unsubstantiated evidence. That would mean everyone under fire should resign.
The P's responsible to see that all in government, especially in the White
House, meet a higher standard than just not doing anything illegal, and that's
the test I will apply.
By then it's 7:45 and Kleindienst calls back, gives a long report to the P,
who says, mmhhmm mmmm — as he goes through it. I picked up some bits and
pieces.
Dick Kleindienst's Report

Gray should say nothing tonight. Regarding Dean immunity: no one's
advising it, and there's no way to give it regarding suborning to perjury.
Petersen told the P that Gray would say that Ehrlichman ordered him to
destroy the documents. Now Kleindienst has given a different story, so the
P says I know that Petersen hates Ehrlichman, and that's okay, but I don't
want him to mislead me. I like Petersen myself, you trust him, don't you?
I'm talking to him as if he's my counsel. Your judgment is that he should
do it because he's due to change. He should say exactly what happened. The
documents were sensitive, not related to the Watergate case. He didn't open
it. That's why his destruction line won't work. Why didn't he look in and
see what they were? No, no, Pat must not ever say that publicly. If he says
the White House counsel ordered him to destroy, or that he drew that
conclusion, he looks like a fool and the two would be conspiring to destroy
evidence. He should not impute that to Dean, and he can't impute it to
Ehrlichman, because he didn't say it. He was there, however. He's interested
in the Presidency, and the worst thing he could say was that he was ordered
or had the impression that he should destroy. He would resign tomorrow
because of this charge. Under the circumstances, put it this way: this matter
is grand jury, I don't think the grand jury will indict.

to be heard before the
Why not? Not of the view that he should resign because of the newspaper
story. He'll be out shortly, anyway, so do nothing on the basis of the
newspaper story. Tell Petersen I appreciate his hard work, but Dean floated
this story. Dean's trying to sink everybody, I'm glad I never saw him. (It's
obvious from the reaction there that Dean had given Kleindienst the im-
pression that he saw the P frequently on Watergate.) He said, I don't want
Gray's resignation in conflict with Ehrlichman. Gray will say nothing, he
will appear before the grand jury, and he will say to the grand jury that he
came over to Ehrlichman's office, that Dean handed him a packet of highly
sensitive national security papers, absolutely nothing to do with the Water-
gate, that should not see the light of day, therefore they should not go to
the FBI. Gray gathered from that that they should be destroyed, and he
made the mistake of bad judgment and destroyed it. They don't feel he's
guilty of a crime, just bad judgment.
P then resuming the discussion, said regarding Ehrlichman, his vulnera-

bility is that he was there and heard this. There was never any intent of
destroying it, he was amazed when he heard they had been destroyed, which
we know, because we were watching him when he was on that phone conversa-
tion Sunday night of the 15th. On the resignation argument, the P says what
they say is that we need to clean house, cut our losses, Caesar's wife, Presi-
dency more important than any man, P cleans his own house. But the argu-
ment against it is that the P is then judging the case himself, on
noncorroborated statements. Therefore he should wait for the grand jury.
On the other hand, the leave is imperative from the standpoint of running
the joint, and our own well-being. How to handle the problem of being paid,
of course, until this is determined, we go on paying him. Problem of Dean in
the same bag is a difficult one. Can't take a leave from us without him. He'll
soon separate one way or the other. Kleindienst is totally opposed to immu-
nity. Dean is thrashing out at everybody.
Told us to write leave-of-absence letters, get them out on Saturday,
before the weekend, and go before Dean goes, not with him. Have to avoid
having Congress demand we go, just don't have any hard-liners that will
stand up for us.
He went on some more in this vein, and then as I was trying to leave, got
into sort of the usual sentimental discussion of how
he told Rogers he was
tempted, because he had to tell Adams Rogers should tell us to go,
to go, that
but then said no, I totally reject that out of hand, I'll tell them myself. (Of
course, he's never gotten around to doing that. He had Ziegler tell me, and
then I told Ehrlichman. Which is even worse than having Rogers doing it.)
Another sidelight on the Adams story, he said Len Hall had written him saying
that not only did Eisenhower make Nixon call Adams in and tell him to leave,
666 H.R. HALDEMAN
but when Adams went in to see Eisenhower, Eisenhower said he wanted to

keep him. To a degree, the P is doing the same thing in getting the word to us
indirectly and then backing off when we hit him with it frontally, although now
he's down to raising it on terms of a leave of absence, which he obviously
thinks is going to be permanent, because his idea in bringing Rush in would
be to put him permanently in the job, which I argued would do away with the
leave of absence idea. Then he thought maybe he would just go without a Chief
of Staff and see how
that worked. Or be his own Chief of Staff.
After I got home, he called and said well, just wanted to let you know that
I just had some corned beef hash, a couple of eggs, and some bacon, and I told
him that I just had some corned beef hash, a couple of eggs, and some creamed
spinach. He suggested I check Connally about the leave-of-absence idea, that
he feels it's the right decision at this time, and he feels best about it. I should
tell him that, and see what he thinks. Also thought maybe I should check
Rogers. I wasn't able to reach Connally, and the P called me a little later, and
saidwhat about Connally for Attorney General, would he be approved by the

Senate? It would be part of a bold move. I told him I didn't think Connally
would take it. He says that Connally says he'll do anything that he has to do,
so we'll see.

P had me in at 7:55 this morning before our staff meeting. Wanted to raise the
question of what was the meeting with Ehrlichman, Dean, and Haldeman on
the 20th that was reported in the Post this morning. And wanted me to discuss
Ruckelshaus with Ehrlichman, thinks it's important to move on Gray.
At the staff meeting, I tried to turn the thing to constructive approaches
on the non-Watergate base, but Henry went in to how the P has to give a
speech on Watergate, and that turned everybody into that, and I couldn't turn
it off.
Then on the plane to Mississippi, he had me up, said he had talked to

Ehrlichman about Ruckelshaus, and that temporary isn't the answer, we've just
got to lay it to Ruckelshaus that he's got to take the job on a permanent basis.
Then he said we've got to come down on the leave business, like today. Wants me
to talk to Ehrlichman in very direct terms, say there are no good options, but we
can't wait until next week and let Congressional problems develop. It's obvious
the P expects us to leave. So there's no hiatus, we believe the positions should be
filled, and we have a desire to serve in some other position in the future. In asking
for a leave, we say it's important there be no hiatus in the work of the
government, make the leave effective not immediately, say three-or-four-day
transition period working with our successor. That we'd be glad to serve in any
capacity in the future, but we would not want to return until we're fully cleared.
Question of toughing it out until the grand jury acts.
What really brought it home to him was last night on Ehrlichman and the
FBI stuff, and the question of who would put out the news story.
He had a chat with Stennis, and Stennis' talk was rather alarming to the
P. He feels time is running out. Made the point that down their way they have
a saying that the rainfalls on both the just and the unjust, and if the rain falls
on people, they've got to go, whether they're just or not.

Then the P had us up on the way back from Mississippi, with John in, too.
Went into how to handle the question of why we didn't fire Gray on the 1 5th
and John had the answer to that. In the meantime, while we were down there,
I got word from Larry that Gray wanted to resign today, and we approved
that. Decided to put Ruckelshaus in as Acting Director, and I set up an

appointment for Ruckelshaus at 4:00, for the P to sell him on that, which he
later did.
We had a discussion of how they should handle the Pentagon Papers
story, make it on national security, that there was a national security investiga-
tion as a result of serious leaks of highly sensitive national security secrets, that
this was an aspect of that, and we can't discuss it beyond that, except to say
this actwas never authorized. Then it was agreed that we couldn't say that the
act was never authorized. P makes the point that we've got to be forthcoming.
Ehrlichman makes the point that Petersen has known about this for a long
time.
Then we talked about the leave question again. P arguing that we move
now, taking the high ground, because we want the P to carry on, so we want
a leave of our duties. Physically, we would stay in our offices, use our files, and
so on, remain to work with our successor, etc. Say we and the P looked at this
and took action. We could wait until the grand jury finds some technical
but then it's not our decision, we got caught. Or we could wait until
illegality,
our blowups, which hang us publicly and the clamor is so great that we have
to go under Then the problem is if we take the leave and the grand jury
fire.
doesn't indict, what do we do? We have the problem of the committee, and
maybe so much stuff out then that it becomes a close call as to whether we can
survive. After the grand jury, we can say I've been cleared, but there should
be a new team and step out. It's obvious he's still thinking that we've got to
go out and that temporary measure in that process.
this is just a
At Ehrlichman lobbed in that we're meeting with the U.S.
this point
Attorneys at 9:00 Thursday, which I hadn't known. He says he told me
yesterday, but I missed the message if he did. Then after we got back to the
White House, P talked with Petersen who says he can't make a deal with Dean,
so he cannot any longer ask the P to wait on taking action on him. Problem
now is how mad the P makes Dean, and he has to take a hard look at that.
They've set up a meeting for us with Dash of the Senate Committee at 1 :30
on Thursday, so we have the DA in the morning. They think this is a good
program. Ehrlichman suggested we take a vacation instead of a leave, which
they thought at first was a great idea, but it isn't really. Strickler thought it was
worth another run at the P, which I decided to do. I came up with the idea of
taking a 30-day leave, and they thought that was a good idea, too.
P says he should fire Dean tomorrow or Monday, and then hold us
668 H.R. HALDEMAN
through next week. He doesn't see the leave as a result of the Senate and DA
being too bad. There's some merit to leaving before these meetings, though, he
agrees.He gets back to Dean and says that's a real problem, the P must take
Dean's resignation, he must make a distinction between Dean and us, he can't
sweep Dean under the rug. If we go now, what will the press think? It gives
Dean boy aspects because he's the one who made the revela-
the fair-haired
tions. These are the hard questions.
After that, I went in to meet with the P again, by then it was 6:45, and I
spent about an hour and a half in there. He wanted to clarify one point on the
critical conversation of (March) 21st. He questioned me again on whether
Dean had any basis to feel that he'd been instructed by the P to go out and get
the money and I said no. That wasn't the case.
P had a long meeting with Petersen, he didn't report much of it to me, but
he said O'Brien is scared and is the key to the whole payoff scheme. They think
they're going to break him. P feels the 30-day idea won't operate, it's too
gimmicky, it should just be a leave couched in the right words. He will handle
Dean differently.
The P has decided on his own thing, that he will go to Camp David
tomorrow morning, work Saturday and Sunday, and try to be ready Monday
night, and try to get it all out. Then he went through a long moaning process
about how he has no one to help him and all. He feels we've got to take the
lead, and he says he'll take care of Dean. Why not accept the voluntary leave
for Dean? Who can tell Dean this? I told him I didn't know. He came up with
Garment, which is probably the best bet, although not very good. What the P
would prefer is that Haldeman and Ehrlichman take the high road, we leave
because of the situation and we're asking for the leave. The P then gets Dean
in, and under these circumstances, asks him to take a leave. He says if that's
too prejudicial, that's too bad. Meaning if it's too prejudicial to us to follow
that route, then it's made up his mind. Then he
too bad. In other words, he's
says I have to help him on the Dean deal, not to make his lying against the P
infinitely worse. Dean's lawyers said they're going to tie in the P on other
matters than Watergate. Hersh of the Times apparently has from O'Brien the
point that the P is involved in other than Watergate.
He then started pushing for having us go on Saturday, to get more
separation, and thinks that's better. Based on that, I had a talk with our
lawyer Wilson tonight. He says that he thinks we're better off to go on
Sunday, that Saturday gives Dean too much time. He thinks our deal is not
too good, but it's better than some of the other options. He's convinced,
though, that this is going to mean to the public that this is the first move
toward getting rid of us.
P phoned first thing this morning from Camp David. Was really upset about
the Vesco story on Ehrlichman, which is a really lousy shot. Then said what
time would John and I be up there today, he wants to move today on our leave
of absence because he's got to get to working on his speech. I explained to him
that we had gone into this in considerable detail with the lawyers and all last
night, and felt strongly that we wanted to do it tomorrow instead, and ex-
plained to him why, and he agreed to that.
Told me to get the statements written in the best possible way. Says he
isn't going to mention our names in his TV talk Monday night. He thinks it
will be a pretty good talk, and he's convinced now it's the right time. He thinks
it'sgood that we didn't move earlier, that it's best to hit after they've thrown
a big chunk of their wad. He obviously has a cold, and was coughing into the
telephone, and saying he was pretty run down, and going through the "Feeling
sorry for himself bit.
On Dean, he says he has a very tough plan on him, that it will be handled
properly, that he's got it all worked out, it will be very peremptory, he won't
see him, so on. He's going to tell Garment that the Assistant Attorney General
said that the P should not see Dean and that Garment must ignore any threats
that he makes and be very firm with him. Says it's interesting that no one ran
the story about Dean's implicating the P, although the P is confident that they
do have the story, which I am too, since we picked it up from a number of
sources. On the decision, he said we do have to go forward. The decision's
made, I want to talk to Rogers today, because I'm going to move on trying to
get him to take the Attorney Generalship. Then I'm going to go to work on
the speech on that basis.
So as of 9:00 this morning, he said now, if I can understand that the
decision is made, I'm going to go ahead and write on that assumption, and it's
okay to put this off until tomorrow, and I said the decision is made, we will
take a leave, and so on. Then I talked to Ziegler on the phone and outlined my
idea for the P's speech, making the point that he should move now, and put
Rogers into Justice, make that change, and then make the point that the P's
moving of! of the Watergate case, and away from it, and that someone else will
be handling it from here on, and so on.
We had a long meeting with our lawyers, mainly going over the leave-of-
absence statements. Wilson feels very strongly that Dean isn't nearly as dan-
gerous as we think he is. I agree with that, it's the P who thinks he's dangerous.
There was hours of going back and forth on the letters themselves, working out
all the details. We finally ironed that out and closed down for the day. I came
home, went to an early dinner and a movie with Jo.

When I got back, Ziegler called and covered a few things on the P's
mood, which he said was very bad, he was feeling sorry for himself and so
on. He said, would you like me to tell you what I really think at this point
on a personal basis, and I said sure, and he said I think you're making a very
major mistake, that you should resign rather than taking a leave, that if you
670 H.R. HALDEMAN
take a leave you're simply setting yourself up as a supertarget for the press,
and they're going to bore in on you mercilessly and force you to resign
anyway, and then you'll have to do it under pressure, and under much
worse circumstances than you're doing it now. He made this argument quite
strongly, fairly effectively, and over and over, to the point where I felt there
was some merit to it.
John Wilson's Analysis

Called Wilson, made the points to him. He said nothing that I've
said appeals to him, that he doesn't think this will appeal to Ehrlichman
either,and that Ehrlichman would probably still take a leave, even if I
decided to resign. He makes the point that you can always resign, and if
you do it under exterior pressure, this is not the P doing it, so it can't be
interpreted as the P's knowledge of guilt. He says a public clamor for
resignation doesn't convict you, because the public doesn't know the
facts, but a Presidential acceptance of a resignation is much worse. Also
he feels that Ehrlichman, Dean, and Haldeman would go out together, it
all happens day apart idea is a fiction, and that hurts us. His
at once, the
point is that you don't amputate if there's any chance for anything else.
He feels the resignation may be better for the P, but not for me. If when
you go back, it will be a different world, but still, for now, the leave of
absence is better. If this is prompted by the fiction of payroll problems
and all that, then go without pay on a leave. The hue and cry for a
resignation that the press will raise will be at the P, not at you, so that
isn't a problem either. His theory really boils down to the fact that a
leave implies that the P has confidence in you, where the acceptance of a
resignation shows no confidence and implies that he knows things that
make this necessary.
Then we're up to about 10:30 and Gerry Warren calls, saying the Post
has a story referring to two White House officials, saying that Dean was
under the direction of Haldeman and Ehrlichman on the cover-up thing,
has been reporting to us, and has knowledge of other illegal acts, including
wiretapping. That this is all being delayed because officials in the White
House are trying to mount a counterattack against Dean. He and Gerry
both wanted us to answer that, but we declined to do so. Ehrlichman felt
Ziegler ought to handle it because it goes beyond us. Says the only blessing
in that is that it may persuade the P about Dean. He thinks he and I have
to consider going for a TV play next week. So we went full cycle tonight,
and ended up back where we were. We'll go tomorrow for the leave of ab-
sence.

The papers today are full of columns and analysis calling for resignations and
all, which caused me, after reading through them quickly, to say to Jo first
thing this morning, if the P really gets a hold of this thing, what's he going to
do is call us up there today and tell us that he's concluded that we have to
resign, and from his viewpoint that's where he has to come out. It'll be
interesting to see whether he does. I still at that point had the feeling that there
could very well be a better course for us also.
Kissinger called just to say I'm thinking of you. Says the Restons and
all those people are out for blood. He rambled on a bit. Obviously he is out
of the play and sort of feeling sorry about it. P called at noon, right after I
got home from church, from Camp David, said he was wondering if we
could get up there at and that John had said he wanted to meet with
1:30,
the P alone, and the P he should do that, and also he would of course
felt
meet with me alone. Felt it was appropriate for him to do so, in view of the
decisions that I want to present to you, and then he said that all I can say is
that I hope that Ehrlichman's as big a man as you are when I talk with him.
He said everybody's trying to get at him to give him advice, but he's talked
to no one, except that he spent virtually all day yesterday with Rogers. He's
concluded that we've got to face up to what's right for the Presidency, and
he was sure I would agree with that. Said he would talk to me first when we
got up there.
Ziegler then called on the phone, said he wanted to tell me that the P's
feeling very strongly now is that both Ehrlichman and I should volunteer a
resignation, and that he's going to ask us to do that. He's thought it through.
Ziegler argued with him last night and this morning. He's not concerned about
my stepping up to it. And if Ehrlichman comes in and fights him, he's going
to stick to it and force him to do it. He feels that if we take a leave we'll be eaten
alive, and it won't work. A resignation will work. Wants a letter saying that
we considered leave, but asked for resignation instead, so there won't be a

period of uncertainty. He's confident we'll be cleared and will show our inno-
we must resign. He's also made the firm decision
cence, but at this time he feels
that he will fire Dean tomorrow. So his plan is one, to accept the voluntary
resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and then tomorrow, fire Dean. He
definitely will separate Dean totally out. Will say that he accepts the responsi-
bility, he's going to try and bring this back.
Apparently said to Ron, "I made this decision in Florida last week." I
called Wilson and reported this to him, and he said Ehrlichman should not
put himself in a position where the P has to remove him, he hopes he will do
what the P wants him to do, he should not fight it, it won't help him. I told
Ehrlichman that on the helicopter on the way up to Camp David, and he
said he wanted to think about it, and we didn't talk any further on the
helicopter.
672 H.R. HALDEMAN
When we got there, Ziegler said he wanted to see me and he came out,
went for a walk while we were waiting over at Laurel. He was quite alarmed,
because he said the P has made another firm decision that he communicated
to Ron this morning, which is that he, too, is going to resign. Ron said he's
deadly serious and absolutely firm on it. I told him that I was sure that was
not the case, that it was part of his steeling himself for meeting with us, that
he's creating a big crisis that he knew he couldn't meet, in order to be able to
meet the lesser crisis that he has to meet.
I told Ron to go over to the P and tell him I was ready to meet with him.
Ron said, "I'll tell him you're going to go along," and I said you can't tell him
that, he's got to ask me, and I've got to say it to him, don't give him any
indication, simply tell him I'm ready to meet with him.
When I got to Aspen, the P was in terrible shape. Shook hands with me,
which is the first time he's ever done that. Told me to come look at the view
out the window, then stepped to the door and said let's go outside and look
at the flowers and all. So we were looking at the tulips from the Aspen porch,
talking about the beauty and all, and as we started back in, he said, well, I have
to enjoy it, because I may not be alive much longer. We got inside and he went
through a discourse, saying that while nobody knows it, and he's not a publicly
religious man, that it's a fact that he has prayed on his knees every night that
he's been in the Presidential office. He's prayed hard over this decision, and it's
the toughest decision he's ever made. He made the points on why he had to do
it, but he's come to the conclusion that he has to have our resignations. He
wants us to stay on to handle the transition. Then he went through his whole
pitch about how he's really the guilty one. He said he's thought it all through,
and that he was the one that started Colson on his projects, he was the one who
told Dean to cover up, he was the one who made Mitchell Attorney General,
and later his campaign manager, and so on. And that he now has to face that
and live with it, and that for that reason, after he gets his other things com-
pleted, that he too will probably have to resign. He never said that directly, but
implied it.
I made the pitch that he can't make move, that Ehrlich-

that kind of a
man and I are expendable, and where there's a problem, we can step out and
deal with it, but he can't do it. He doesn't have that luxury. He's got to stay
in the office, he's got to pull things back together, and move them upward,
and that he can. He said he thinks Ehrlichman feels he should resign, and he
got that impression on the phone last night. Apparently Ehrlichman told
him that he had evidence that the P knew about the fake cable about Diem,
and that the P really was the one who had ordered all these acts, and that
he's got to face up to that fact. I guess that really jarred him, which well it
might. He says he's going to make Elliot Richardson Attorney General, he's
going to force Kleindienst to resign today, he's going to announce both of
those Monday night.
He told me about Tricia, that he had told the family not to come up to
Camp David, but when he walked out last night into the living room, there
was Tricia sitting there. She said she and David and Julie had stayed up
most of the night before, talking about this, and she had just come up to tell
him that they all loved him. He's getting very sentimental went through the —
whole thing about how Ehrlichman and I are the two best men he knows,
and goes through all that kind of thing. On that note, I left, having assured
him that I disagreed with this decision, as I had with a few other decisions
he'd made, but that I had my input, and that I would abide by the decision,
I would do everything I could to implement it, and make sure it came out
right.
I went back over to Laurel, and Ehrlichman went over to Aspen to meet
with him. Ehrlichman was over there about a half hour, then the P called me
back, and Ehrlichman left. P reviewed the E meeting with me. He said he's
concerned because he thinks that E wants him to admit that he ordered illegal
acts, but apparently E agreed to the resignation. So he was pretty relieved
about that.
Then E and I had our phone call with Wilson from Laurel while we were
working out our letters of resignation. He suggested, first, that we Dean
insist
be fired tonight in the same breath as us, because if he's as smart as he might
tomorrow if we resign out
be, he'll get his resignation in in time for the papers
ahead of him. Second, that both of us should announce in our letters our
meeting with the U.S. Attorney and the committee counsel.
He told E to strike his words in his letter about his appreciation for his
opportunity to serve the —
P he feels it's his burden to appreciate us, not us
him. Feels that we must now move on a very affirmative, open basis. Our
meetings should be at the lawyer's office, they have a good room to do it. We
should come and go openly and not sneak around or hide. He hit hard on the
point that the P must not say anything complimentary about Dean, that that's
absolutely essential. I think we've got that point through.
P John and me back over at 5:30, we reviewed our letters and the
called
release plan and all of that. He had Bill Rogers come in at six. P said that he
had emphasized the National Security area with Elliot, and the fact that they
must not get into that in the investigation. Then he had us read our letters of
resignation, Rogers had a few points of correction, and that was the end. P got
into somewhat of the emotional mood again as John and I were leaving, but
we finally got out, and he remained to have dinner with Rogers, and then to
get back to work on his speech. So today, the 28th, is the end of my White
House career. Jo notified the families. I called them all this morning to say I
was going to take a leave, and Jo called them to say we had changed it to a
resignation. Covered the bases with them on that.

Resignation day. We finished up our resignation statements this morning, I
had a meeting with Bull, Parker, Larry, and Kehrli to impress on them the
need to carry on the ongoing system just as it is until a new system was worked
674 H.R. HALDEMAN
out and ready to put into place, and urged that they not fall into the trap of
any sort of internal struggle for position. And explained the importance of
their holding everything tightly together during the interim period while the P
would be in very tough emotional and physical shape, and so on.
Ehrlichman and I then met with the senior staff. Shultz couldn't be there
because he was testifying on the Hill, but we had Ash, and Kissinger, Tim-
mons, and Ken Cole, and told them what our decision was, and made some-
thing of the same points. John was quite emotional in that session, broke down
or was on the verge of it at least, several times. Everybody, I think, was
genuinely shocked, and I think we successfully impressed on them also the
need to deal very carefully with this interim period.
I made a number of phone calls, talked to Billy Graham. He seemed to
feel it was the right thing to do, said that he didn't believe that in government
he had met two finer men than Ehrlichman and me, that we have his full
—
support he feels we've been caught in a web of evil that will ultimately be
defeated. He has great affection and love for me as a man, that I should count
him as a friend, and that what I'm doing is going to help the P.
Called the VP, he said he had almost called me yesterday, wanted to let
me know about the charges that came out then, that they were tremendously
unfair, and that they were nothing but smoke. Said he'd like to see me before
I actually left. That he would like to be as helpful as he can, and thinks this
is probably the right move.
Talked to Connally, he says I think this is the right thing to do at this time,
although I'm awfully sorry that it came out this way. Then emphasized the
great opportunity I would have to influence the P on who follows in my
footsteps and in the staff restructuring. He emphasized the need to implore the
P to get top people and go at the restructuring right.
The announcement plan hit a snag when Ehrlichman and Jerry Jones were
unable to reach John Dean to inform him that the P was requesting his
resignation, so there was a little flap at 1 1 :00 about that, but Ron went ahead
with the announcement anyway. The first lead out of it was rather unfortunate
because it implied that Dean, Ehrlichman, and I had all resigned. But Ron
worked all afternoon and got that corrected, so that by the time of the evening
news, it came out that Ehrlichman and I had resigned, as had Kleindienst, and
that Dean had been fired. There was no reaction from Dean all day.
P called in the afternoon from Camp David, where he was working on his
speech for tonight. Sounded terrible, said, well, I just wanted you to know I
still love you. Commented on the problem of reaching Dean, and said so be
it. Said basically I have all resignations in hand anyway, don't I? And I said
that he did. Told me to tell Ehrlichman that he was in the middle of the speech
draft, but to tell him the same as he had told me, and also to tell him (he said
you won't understand this, but John will) that I think he's a great man, and
his wife is a great lady, and I won't let her down tonight. This was because
Jeanne had written the P a letter which John left with him yesterday when we
were up at Camp David.
John and I then spent the afternoon with our lawyers, going through the
whole process of how to approach our appearances. P's TV speech tonight
was, to say the least, not one of his finer efforts, but it probably was effective,
because he was obviously shaken, and as the commentator said, didn't exhibit
the normal confidence we associate with him. He's obviously in heavy weather,
and so on. He sure showed that. It was interesting that I called him, and they
said he wasn't taking calls, but he called back a little after ten. I said well,
you've got it behind you now, and you should approach it that way. He said
it was a very tough thing, and I'll never mention it again. Then he got feeling
sorry for himself. He said Cap is the only Cabinet officer who's called. I told
him that the operators were telling people that you weren't taking calls. Said
to me you're a strong man, you've got to keep the faith, you're going to win
this, God bless you.
Then he asked me if I thought I could do some checking around on
reaction to the speech as I had done in the past, and I said no, I didn't think
I could. He was the case. He called again about midnight, rather

realized that
bitter. Said Kissinger's reaction is typical, he's waiting to see how it comes out.
Said again, keep the faith, and that was that.

Earlier this evening we'd gotten into something of a flap because Garment
had met with Richardson and Ruckelshaus, and they had all decided that it
was imperative that they put FBI guards on all of our files so there couldn't
be any charge that we had destroyed anything, destroyed any evidence and so
on. Ehrlichman didn't like that, but we went round and round and it was
agreed that they were just there as guards, not as custodians, and so they said
they would do it on that basis.
End of April 30 and the end of my official career in the White House.
Afterword
by Stephen E. Ambrose
When Nixon announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman, he

called "one of the most difficult decisions of my Presidency." He referred to
it
his aides as "two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to
know." He went on to say that the resignations were not to be taken as an
implication of any personal wrongdoing on their parts, but rather that their
ability to function had been impaired by rumors, accusations, and charges
generated by the Watergate investigations.
In a statement, Haldeman said he had "hoped and expected to have had
an earlier opportunity to clear up various allegations and innuendos that have
been raised," but it had become "virtually impossible ... to carry on . . .
regular responsibilities in the White House."

A couple of months later John Dean, fired by Nixon the night he accepted
the Haldeman and Ehrlichman resignations, testified to the Ervin Committee
that as early as September 15, 1972, Nixon was well aware of the various
ongoing cover-up activities. This contradicted directly Nixon's claim that he
knew nothing about the cover-up until his "cancer on the Presidency" meeting
with Dean on March 21, 1973. So it came down to Nixon's word vs. Dean's
—
word but Nixon had a tape. He asked Haldeman, who had moved to Califor-
nia, to review the September 15, 1972, tape, which Haldeman did on July 10,
1973.
Six days later Alexander Butterfield revealed to the Ervin Committee
the existence of the White House taping system. That meant the evidence
existed to decide who was telling the truth, Nixon or Dean. The different
reaction of the two men immediately convinced most Americans: Dean was
overjoyed and wanted the tape made public right away; Nixon was angry
and insisted that the tape was covered by executive privilege and would
never be made public.
Nixon assumed that the tapes were as sacrosanct as any Presidential
document, that they were his personal property, and that he could use them
677
678 H.R. HALDEMAN
as he saw fit. Right there is the answer to why he didn't burn the tapes.
Haldeman later said in a CBS interview that he had committed a "failure in
judgment in advising Nixon not to destroy the tapes after their existence
— —
became known. I never stupidly did really think the thing through. Nor . . .
did I think through the enormous damage that would be done to me and to
Richard Nixon and to all the other participants. I thought it was a good idea
to keep them for the historical value. And beyond that, because at that time
Watergate was developing, I thought they would be valuable to the President
knowing what had actually been said at various meetings in his office."
At that time, in fact, mid-July 1973, Haldeman was listening to the tapes,
and although there was at times damaging language, Nixon was certain they
were covered by executive privilege and that Nixon could use them selectively.
As Nixon wrote in his memoirs, "Haldeman said that the tapes were still our
best defense, and he recommended that they not be destroyed." Haldeman
believed strongly that if the tapes were listened to in their entirety, the White
House would indeed be vindicated.
So confident was Haldeman in his belief that when he returned to Wash-
ington to appear before the Ervin Committee two weeks after Butterfield
revealed the existence of the tapes, he said he had listened to the September 15,
1972, tape and could confirm Nixon's version —
i.e., that Nixon had known
nothing of a cover-up. He declared, "President Nixon had no knowledge of or

involvement in either the Watergate affair or the subsequent efforts to a
'cover-up.' " He said he was certain of his facts because he had listened to the
March 21 tape, and could swear that Dean had lied. Haldeman said that the
President had not indicated that he had discussed clemency for the burglars,
nor had he given any indication that he was aware of payments to silence the
conspirators.
He CRP. "At the White House, at
put the blame on John Mitchell at the
least," he "John Dean was the only one who knew that the funds were
said,
for 'hush money' if, in fact, that is what they were for." In his concluding
statement, he spoke of the "high standards Nixon set for the White House staff
and of his deep regret and sorrow that in a few instances there was a failure
to live up to them."
In March 1974 Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell were indicted.
Haldeman was charged with conspiring to impede the Watergate investigation
through the improper use of government agencies, the covert raising and
distribution of payoff funds, and the concealment or destruction of records
and documents. He was also charged with three counts of perjury relating to
his testimony before the Ervin Committee.
Eventually, the Congress, the courts, and the Special Prosecutors forced
Nixon to turn over some of the tapes. This in part led to the conviction of
Haldeman for perjury, for allegedly protecting his old boss. More important,
they led to an irresistible move to impeach the President. To forestall that fate,
Nixon decided to resign.

On August 7, 1974, Nixon called Haldeman in California. "Bob," he
opened, "I want you to know that I have decided I must resign because of its
effect on the office of the Presidency." Haldeman urged him to stay on and
fight. Later Haldeman conveyed through others to the President that if in fact
he had to resign, "I firmly believe that before you leave office you should
exercise your Constitutional authority and grant pardons to all those who
have been or may be charged with any crimes in connection with Watergate
and at the same time to grant amnesty to the Vietnam War draft dodgers. I
think it's imperative that you bring Watergate and the Vietnam unrest to an
end before you leave —for the sake of the country and especially for your
successor."
Nixon said he would think about a blanket pardon. Haldeman followed
with a written recommendation. He called it in to his lawyers in Washington,
who typed it up and got it to the White House that night. It read, in part:
—
"On a personal basis better to close the chapter now than to have to sit
by helplessly for the next several years and watch trials and appeals.
—
"Historically would be far better to grant the pardon and close the door
to such a process than to let it run and have the trials become a surrogate
impeachment. . . .
"Solves problems of potential prosecutor access to files and tapes by

eliminating basis for further prosecution —
also solves problem of defense forc-
ing access to files.
"The only way to wipe the slate clean is to shut down the prosecution
totally.... As long as it is there, there is a possibility of other things."
At one level Haldeman's memo was straightforward, businesslike, con-
vincing, just like the man himself. The points he made were logical, indeed
obvious. At another level Haldeman might be said to be continuing the cover-
— —
up, trying to protect Nixon and himself from whatever damaging material
there was on the thousands of hours of unreleased tapes or the tens of thou-
sands of documents in the files. On a third level it's possible Haldeman was
making a disguised threat. That "possibility of other things" line might be read
as a warning that Haldeman would implicate Nixon if he did not get a pardon.
Nixon did not flinch. He rejected the idea coldly. Amnesty for the draft
dodgers was "unthinkable," while a blanket pardon for Watergate defendants
could cause a "hysterical" political reaction.
On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned and went into exile in San Clemente.
He was never put on trial, because President Gerald Ford pardoned him. He
was never asked in a court of law about his actions, because a life-threatening
illness kept him away from the trials of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and Mitchell.
The only time he answered questions in public about Watergate was on televi-
sion, with the questions being asked by David Frost and Nixon receiving a
handsome fee for his answers. Nixon depicted himself as a man done in
because he was too loyal to his subordinates. He blamed Haldeman, Ehrlich-
man, and Mitchell for the cover-up.
Haldeman, meanwhile, was convicted on January 1, 1975, in a U.S.
district court in Washington, D.C., of one count of conspiracy, one count of
680 H.R. HALDEMAN
obstruction of justice, and three counts of perjury. He was originally sentenced

to from two and a half to eight years, but this was
later reduced to from one
to four years. Eventually he was paroled after serving eighteen months in the
Federal minimum-security facility at Lompoc, California.
In prison, Haldeman wrote a book (with Joseph Di Mona as coauthor)
entitled The Ends of Power. In it Haldeman theorized that it was Nixon who
had erased the eighteen and a half minutes of incriminating tape and who was
ultimately responsible for the cover-up. When the book was published in
mid- 1978, Nixon was miffed at Haldeman for the compromising position he
had taken.
Haldeman was released on December 20, 1978. Nixon called him in Los
Angeles. "Merry Christmas," Nixon said when Haldeman answered, "and
welcome back."
They talked, easily and smoothly. Nixon discussed his travels and the new
book he was writing. Haldeman said he was thinking of going into business on
his own; Nixon offered to put him in touch with friends who could help. He
invited Haldeman to drop by whenever he could; he wanted to hear Halde-
man's views on the current political scene.
Haldeman began putting out the word that it was Joseph Di Mona who
was responsible for the negative things The Ends of Power said about Nixon.
By 1990 Haldeman was repudiating the book and saying that it was his hope
to someday write another one. He read everything published on Watergate,
including my own work; he told me that if he ever published another book,
he wanted to make certain he had every fact exactly right.
In early 1993 he decided to publish his diaries instead. was a wise
It
decision. The diaries are invaluable. A book arguing that he was innocent
would have had little impact. The diaries are certain to have a major impact
on historians and scholars, and the general public.
Haldeman's diaries, taken as a whole, remind us that there is much more
to the Nixon Administration than Watergate. Bob Haldeman was the insider's
insider on some of the great events of the second half of the Twentieth Cen-
tury. He was proud of his role as a participant in the opening to China, in
achieving detente with the Soviet Union and the beginning of the end of the
arms race, and in ending American participation in the Vietnam War. He was
right to be proud, and he was courageous to publish this record of what he did,
saw, and said.
After his release from prison, Haldeman made a successful career as a
businessman, gaining an interest in hotels, development, real estate, and res-
taurants in Florida, among other investments.
He did not hide from his own past. Although he rarely gave interviews to
reporters, he frequently met with students and scholars. In 1987, when I was
teaching in a mini-semester at Whittier College, Haldeman came to my under-
graduate seminar on Watergate. I had told the students they could ask any-
thing they wanted to, and they did, tough questions about the cover-up.
Haldeman was open, forthcoming, informative, gracious in his replies. The

students came into the seminar hostile; after two and a half hours they were
Haldeman fans.
I have been on panels on the Nixon Administration with Haldeman on a
number of occasions, most notably at Hofstra University's conference on

Nixon, and I always found him to be polite, charming, honest, absolutely free
of any bitterness. Indeed, it was impossible not to like him. In 1987 I asked him
to read the manuscript of the secondvolume of my biography of Nixon, which
covered the first term. He
and he made hundreds of comments in the
did,
margins, sometimes agreeing with my point, sometimes disagreeing with an
interpretation, sometimes pointing out errors of fact, thus putting me deeply
in his debt.
H. R. Haldeman died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, on
November 12, 1993. He was survived by his wife of almost 45 years, the former
Jo Horton, and four children, Susan, Hank, Peter, and Ann.
Nixon issued a statement: "I have known Bob Haldeman to be a man of
rare intelligence, strength, integrity, ... He played an indispens-
and courage.
able role in turbulent times as our Administration undertook a broad range of
initiatives at home and abroad."
The obituaries in themajor newspapers (especially Haldeman's least fa-
vorite ones, The New York Times and The Washington Post) focused almost
exclusively on Watergate and were hostile if not actually snide, which was a
pity, because as every reader of Haldeman's diaries can attest, there was a great
deal more to H. R. Haldeman's career as Chief of Staff than Watergate.
Final Note
For four years following Bob's resignation as Chief of Staff, he concentrated

solely on his legal battles brought on by Watergate. While it would have been
far easier —financially and emotionally — to plea-bargain, he was convinced of
his innocence and fought to prove it. Throughout the long ordeal he remained
at peace with himself, believing that his actions had been proper, legal, and in
the best interests of the nation. He had hoped for a verdict which would
exonerate him, at least legally, if not in the minds of the public.
—
Ultimately, however, he was convicted of three counts of perjury which
was particularly painful for him, and ironic to those who knew the value he
placed in honesty —as well as the more intangible charges of obstruction of
justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The prosecution, having proved
there had been a conspiracy, succeeded in tying Bob into it as an intending
member.
In this regard Bob always placed great emphasis on the distinction be-
tween "containment" and "cover-up," or obstruction of justice. He knew of
no organized cover-up and certainly never approved of one. However, he did
recognize containment, wherein steps are taken to minimize the political dam-
—
age of an issue, as a legal, political reality and an ongoing practice of all
presidents and political figures. Given the adversarial tenor of the times —
the
animosity between the President and the national press, the vehemence of the
opposition between the two parties, the divisiveness and domestic violence
sparked by Vietnam, and the intensity of the power struggle between the
—
Executive Branch and the Congress containment was critical for effective
leadership.
Bob believed that the break-in and bugging of the Democratic National
Committee Headquarters was neither legal nor acceptable. He considered it a
worthless endeavor and never knew who gave the orders to set it up. When the
break-in was first reported, it was merely a minor incident amidst many major
issues in which the Administration was involved; negotiations with China, the
683
684 H.R. HALDEMAN
SALT Treaty, Paris negotiations regarding Vietnam, reorganization of the

Executive Branch, and the reelection campaign.
Much has been written about Watergate, including Bob's own book, The
Ends of Power. He read almost everything on the subject, searching for a better
understanding of its complexities, but became resigned to the fact that no one
really knew the whole story. At the same time, he became equally convinced
of the greater historical importance of having the full story of the Nixon years
told. It is to this end that he decided to publish his diaries. They are not the
entire story, but they do contribute to it by documenting in detail the daily
operation of the Nixon White House for four and a quarter years.
As the unexpurgated reflection of what was happening at the time it
happened, they provide one insider's view of the trivial and the momentous,
the mistakes and the triumphs
— "warts and all."
Bob has stated in his foreword that he believed that the diaries can be a
valuable resource to historians in their struggle to understand one of the more
tumultuous times in our century. For the general reader, he hoped that they
would help put the Nixon Presidency into more complete perspective and
thereby continue the healing process which must follow the national trauma
of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Jo Haldeman
March 1994
Index
Allen, Mort, 413

Allen, Richard, 91-92
Abel, I. W., 334 Allott, Gordon, 103
Abernathy, Ralph, 55, 56 Alsop, Joseph, 227, 317
Abplanalp, Robert, 25, 424, 490, 547 Alsop, Stewart, 406
Abrams, Creighton W., 77, 155, 169, Anderson, Jack, 385-86, 393, 404,
250, 259, 436-37, 440, 447, 450, 405, 407, 425-26, 428, 430, 473,
455, 458, 564 521
Acheson, Dean, 294, 364 Anderson, Robert, 208
Acheson, Mrs. Dean, 364 Andreas, Dwayne, 490, 567
Adams, John Quincy, 251 Andrews, John, 233, 373, 447^8, 455,
Adams, Sherman, 2, 12, 31, 52, 625, 461, 496
643, 665-66 Annenberg, Lee, 119
Agnew, Spiro T., 3, 8, 27, 36, 52, 53, Annenberg, Walter, 119, 388, 456, 581
63, 66, 78, 79, 94, 96, 99, 106-9, Arendt, Hannah, 5
111, 117, 118, 122, 127-30, 138, Armstrong, Anne, 277, 556-57
147, 150, 156, 158, 161-63, 169, Armstrong, Neil, 73, 111
170, 174-77, 179, 180, 183, 186, Ash, Roy, 82, 211, 212, 582-83, 588,
192, 208, 223, 240-41, 247, 674
258-59, 269, 272, 275, 278, 296, Ashbrook, John, 397, 426
306-7, 317, 324-27, 332-33, Atwater, James, 67, 68
335, 336, 356-57, 378, 395, 396,
403, 428, 442, 457, 470, 478, 485,
491, 492, 495, 498, 499, 503, 515, B
527, 534-36, 547, 557, 566,
580-82, 590, 623, 626, 629-30, 657, Bailey, F. Lee, 503, 612, 619, 625
674 Baker, Howard H., Jr., 89, 190,
Agnew family, 498 366, 367, 593, 594, 607, 608, 629,
Aiken, George D., 158 631
Ailes, Roger, 60, 226 Baldwin, Alfred C. Ill, 502, 615
Albert, Carl, 114, 260, 305, 336, 630 Barker, Bernard, 475, 568, 601
Alch, Gerald, 619, 625 Bartlett, Dewey, 531
Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Marcellus Baudouin, king of Belgium, 32, 33,
Clay, Jr.), 258 46
Allen, George, 192, 384 Baumsgaard, Hilmar, 150
685
1
686 INDEX
Bayh, Birch, 101, 129, 148, 338 Bunker, Ellsworth, 86, 98, 183
Beall, George, 630 Burden, Amanda, 490
Beall, Glenn, 630 Burger, Warren, 59-61, 158, 241, 278,
Beard, Dita, 425-26, 428-31 356, 357, 365, 370
Bedell Smith, Walter, 311 Burke, Dick, 648
BeLieu, Ken, 31 Burns, Arthur, 21, 29, 40, 42, 43, 52,
Bellmon, Henry, 190 54, 59, 113-14, 125, 161, 169,249,
Benny, Jack, 499 310, 314, 331-32, 340-45, 347,
Bernstein, Carl, 648-49 372
Bernstein, Leonard, 351 Burns, John A., 500
Bhumibol Adulyadej, king of Thailand, Bush, George, 1, 62, 116, 208, 210, 216,
76 217, 251, 290, 318, 368, 379, 540,
Bierbower, James J., 625 545, 553, 580, 619, 623, 626, 651
Bittman, William O., 564, 595, 604, Butterfield, Alexander, 9, 22, 24, 29, 37,
605, 610, 619-20, 641, 648, 658 48, 49, 234, 352, 404, 424, 677, 678
Black, Hugo L., 355-57, 359 Butz, Earl, 372, 438
Blackmun, Harry, 149 Byrd, Robert C, 147, 361, 363, 563,
Blair, Stan, 109 593-94
Blount, Winton M. (Red), 27, 128, Byrd, Harry F., Jr., 123
141-43, 175 Byrnes, John, 113, 180

Boggs, Hale, 260, 267
Bolger, Ray, 359
Borman, Frank, 24, 71, 73-75, 80,
81, 105, 108, 111-13, 150, 202,
579 Cahill, William, 97
Brando, Marlon, 574 Califano, Joseph, 565
Brandt, Willy, 148, 149, 236, 367 Calley, William, Jr., 264-66, 269, 270
Braun, Ted, 82 Carruthers, Bill, 223, 238, 254
Brennan, Peter, 326 Carson, Johnny, 505
Brezhnev, Leonid, 271, 381, 440, Carswell, G. Harrold, 6, 121-22, 130,
442, 445, 446, 452, 453, 462, 463, 143, 146^18, 152
467 Carter, Jimmy, 1
Bridges, Harry, 358 Casey, William, 541

Brock, William, 406 Cash, Johnny, 136, 151
Brooke, Edward W., 214 Caulfield, John J., 148, 600, 601, 605,
Brothers, Joyce, 495 616
Brown, Les, 588 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 77-78, 205, 272
Bruce, David, 183, 282, 307, 324 Chancellor, John, 379-80
Bruno, Hal, 583 Chandler, Otis, 520
Buchanan, Patrick J., 1, 20, 22, 31, 39, Chapin, Dwight, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 30,
49, 61, 74, 80, 90, 94, 99, 106, 109, 43^5, 48, 64, 66, 69, 79, 84, 110,
120, 128, 129, 140, 149, 169-71, 128-29, 136, 138, 150, 163, 173,
177, 178, 191, 192, 234, 240^1, 204, 219, 350, 363, 384, 413, 416,
267, 282, 287, 391, 397, 398, 444, 468, 491, 518, 520, 525, 526,
423-26, 431, 469-70, 486, 502, 546, 534, 542^45, 627, 630
576, 578, 587, 652-55, 661 Chapman, L. F., Jr., 94
Buckley, James L., 207 Charles, prince of Wales, 182, 183
Buckley, William F., Jr., 207, 332, 368, Chennault, Anna, 271, 567
424 Chisholm, Shirley, 460, 461
INDEX 687
Chotiner, Murray, 119-20, 126, 134, 563, 567, 583, 586, 626-28, 658,
202, 208, 332-33 666, 674
Chou-En-lai, 282, 307, 315, 316, Connally, Nellie, 216, 220, 251-52, 399,
318-19, 339, 355, 364, 367, 369, 405
412-23, 587 Cook, Marlow W., 428
Christian, George, 10-11, 565 Cooper, John Sherman, 143, 167, 238
Church, Frank, 222 Cormier, Frank, 227-28

Churchill, Winston, 134, 225, 227, 256 Cox, Edward, 231, 298-99, 436, 447,
Clark, Ramsey, 493-94, 520 552
Clark,Tom, 595,611 Cronkite, Walter, 96, 512
Clawson, Ken W„ 515, 578, 625 Crosby, Jimmy, 25
Clements, Bill, 393 Curtis, Carl T., 578
Clifford, Clark, 65, 169, 170, 305, 535 Cyrankiewicz, Josef, 468
Clinton, Bill, 5, 88
Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 88
Colby, William, 540 D
Cole, Kenneth, 20, 28, 75, 84, 491, 660,
674 Daley, Richard J., 244, 306, 349
Collins, Mike, 240 Daniel, Clifton, 664
Colombo, Emilio, 249 Dash, Sam, 602, 608, 620, 661, 667
Colson, Charles W., 130, 131, 142, 182, Davis, Angela, 188, 470
183, 195,208,211,215,222, Davis, Sammy, Jr., 567, 584
224-26, 245, 249, 257, 287, 297, Dayan, Moshe, 218
302, 313, 314, 351, 354, 356, 366, Deacon, Jim, 409
374-76, 378, 400, 406, 426-31, Dean, John, 10-13, 72, 281, 473, 474,
433, 443, 448, 458, 460, 466-67, 476, 483, 484, 494, 502, 504, 527,
470-73, 476-78, 480, 482, 483, 485, 529, 534, 535, 542^5, 552, 563-65,
488, 491, 494, 500, 502, 503, 567-68, 577-78, 581-84, 587,
508, 513-15, 522, 527, 531, 535-36, 590-97, 599-620, 622-33, 636-53,
542, 546, 548, 550-52, 563, 564, 655, 658-74, 677, 678
568, 574, 584, 591-95, 599-602, De Gaulle, Charles, 34-36, 46, 59, 124,
604-9, 613-17, 619, 620, 623, 627, 151,209,210,215, 227,230
630, 632-35, 638, 640^14, 647, 655, De Gaulle, Mrs. Charles (Madame
672 Billotte), 35
Connally, John B., 1, 3, 7, 10-11, 102, De la Garza, Eligio, 508
134-35, 212, 215-17, 219, 220, 225, DeLoach, Cartha (Deke), 11, 565, 567,
227, 232-34, 242, 246, 247, 251-52, 576

255, 256, 258-59, 265, 266, 269, Dent, Harry, 31, 66, 90, 114, 183, 184,
272, 275, 277, 285, 289-90, 296, 208, 338, 470, 552, 587
298, 306-8, 310, 316, 320, 321, Denton, Jeremiah, 585, 620
323, 325-27, 330, 335-36, 338, Derge, David, 49, 119
340^6, 348, 352, 353, 364, 372, De Valera, Eamon, 201
375, 377-79, 383, 385, 391-92, Devine, Samuel L., 43
398^00, 404, 405, 407, 424, 427, Dewey, Thomas E., 257
431,432,435-36,439,441^5, Diaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 85
449-50, 453-55, 457, 460, 461, 470, Dickerson, Nancy, 218
482-86, 488, 489, 491, 493, 496, Diem, Ngo Dinh, 302, 355, 356, 409,
497, 499, 501-4, 508, 513, 522-23, 601, 606, 672
530, 536, 537, 544, 546-49, 553-54, Dietrich, Noah, 405
688 INDEX
Di Mona, Joseph, 680 399, 401, 403-5, 407, 408, 411,

Dirksen, Everett, 79, 84, 85, 87 412, 425-27, 429-31, 438, 439, 443,
Disraeli, Benjamin, 246, 505, 506, 444, 451, 460, 461, 466, 467,
532 470-74, 477, 480, 481, 483, 485,
Dobrynin, Anatoly, 30, 37-38, 50, 101 488-92, 494, 499-502, 506, 513-14,
103, 147-48, 178, 181, 184, 195, 518, 520-22, 526, 527, 529-31,
197, 226, 234, 239, 258, 275, 533-36, 540-43, 546, 549-51, 553,
286-89, 307, 336, 339, 449, 458, 575, 577-78, 581, 582, 584-88, 591,
459, 464, 476, 495 592, 599, 601, 602, 604-6, 608,
Docking, Robert, 193 611-13, 619, 620, 622-31, 633-75,
Dole, Robert, 182, 190, 193, 216, 217, 677-79
219-22, 224, 225, 233, 251, 273, Ehrlichman family, 653
277, 324, 427, 438-39, 473, 485, Eisenhower, David, 7, 30, 44, 62, 64,
486, 534, 537, 539, 540, 544, 545, 70, 73, 84, 86, 125, 146, 157,
550-53 172-73, 176, 257, 299, 436, 552,
Dorati, Antal, 352 561, 673
Douglas, Bob, 522 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1-6, 12, 26,
Douglas, William O., 151 31, 39,41,43^6, 116, 127, 151,
Drury, Allen, 262 157, 186,229, 251, 311, 356-57,
DuBridge, Lee, 24, 39 397-98, 433, 474, 496, 499, 505,
Durante, Jimmy, 499 532, 570, 625, 665-66
Eisenhower, John, 44
Eisenhower, Mamie, 44, 45, 351, 359,
496-97, 557
Eisenhower family, 557
Eagleton, Thomas, 482, 484-90, 495 Elan, Harriet, 128-29
Eastland, James O., 110, 428, 432, 433, Ellender, Allen J., 487, 488
488, 509 Ellington, Duke, 31, 54
Echeverria Alvarez, Luis, 191, 210 Ellsberg, Daniel, 303, 311, 315, 591,
Efron, Edith, 616 592, 660, 661
Ehrlichman, Jeanne, 674 Ellsworth, Robert, 29, 31
Ehrlichman, John D., 1, 7, 10-13, 16, Ervin, Sam, 11-13, 221, 575, 576, 587,
18, 20-22, 24-27, 30, 31, 37,40, 589, 594, 597,601, 602, 610,611,
41, 43, 47-49, 52-54, 56, 59, 614,615, 617,618, 624, 626,
62-64, 66, 69, 71-75, 81-87, 91, 629-31, 637-38, 642, 649, 650, 661,
93-97,99, 101, 102, 107-12, 114, 677, 678
116-19, 123, 124, 126, 127, 130, Evans, Rowland, 48, 532-33, 577
132, 134-37, 139^2, 145, 147, 148, Evans, Tom, 233
150, 154, 156, 157, 159, 163-65,
167, 169-76, 179, 180, 182, 185-87,
189-91, 208, 211, 216, 223, 227-29,
232, 234-37, 240, 246, 249, 251,
252, 255, 266, 267, 269, 270, 272, Fabiola, queen of Belgium, 32, 33
276, 283-84, 286-88, 292, 293, 297, Faisal, king of Saudi Arabia, 293
298, 302, 304, 305, 308, 313-15, Farley, James A., 567, 568, 574, 577
320, 323-25, 328-30, 332, 335, 338, Fensterwald, Bernard, 607, 612, 625
341, 344, 346-48, 356, 359, 370, Fielding, Fred, 605-6, 641, 647
374, 378, 379, 385-86, 388, 393, Finch, Mrs. Robert, 268
INDEX 689
Finch, Robert, 17, 24, 25, 29, 31, 41, Goldwater, Barry, 368, 494, 532, 620
66, 71,98, 110, 114, 168, 171-72, Goldwyn, Sam, 261
174-76, 179, 186, 187, 189, 191, Goode, Mark, 223
202, 208, 216, 219, 223, 266, 268, Goodell, Charles E., 48, 98
291, 295, 432, 535, 626-27 Goodling, George A., 552
Fisher, Max, 24 Goodpaster, Andrew, 1-2
Fitzhugh, Gilbert, 175 Graham, Billy, 10, 17, 22, 91, 101, 138,
Fitzsimmons, Frank, 304, 326, 431-32 151, 165, 224, 318, 338, 353, 405,
Flanigan, Hap, 192 472, 476, 477, 481, 483, 484,
Flanigan, Peter, 67, 156, 157, 160, 18 1, 493-95, 497, 505, 508, 524-25, 554,
183, 192, 193, 196, 208, 246, 256, 674
298, 307-8, 366, 439, 443 Graham, Mrs. Billy, 22
Fonda, Jane, 520 Gray, Bob, 21
Ford, Gerald R., 151, 260, 285, 288, Gray, L. Patrick, 11, 403, 451, 460,
408, 540, 567, 584, 679 474-75, 481, 565, 577, 578, 583,
Ford, Henry II, 88 593-94, 597-601, 603, 606, 611,
Ford, John, 578, 620-21 614, 620, 638, 640, 641, 645,
Fortas, Abe, 54, 56-58, 60, 61, 89, 663-67
93 Gray, Paul, 626
Fortas, Mrs. Abe, 54 Griffin, Robert P., 89, 95, 110, 112
Fowler, Henry H., 70 Griswold, Erwin, 190, 598
Fox, Sandy, 67-68 Gritz, "Bo," 212-13
Franco, Francisco, 200 Gromyko, Andrei, 177-78, 204, 336,
Frazier, Joe, 258 360, 463, 464, 467, 510-12
Freddy (White House elevator Gurney, Ed, 618
operator), 589
Friedersdorf, Max, 306
Friedman, Milton, 212 H
Frost, David, 222, 223, 679
Fulbright, J. William, 158, 246, 411 Hagerty, James, 1
Furness, Betty, 19 Haggard, Merle, 589

Haig, Alexander, 10, 33, 116, 135, 136,
145, 182, 189, 194, 196, 197, 205,

224, 226, 230, 248, 250, 255, 256,
275, 283, 285, 287, 299-300, 307,
Gabor, Zsa Zsa, 88 314-16, 318, 319, 324, 329, 351,
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 326 363, 364, 366, 367, 381-82, 385,
Gallup, George, 79 386, 395, 396, 426, 442, 444-48,
Gandhi, Indira, 370, 371 453, 454, 458-59, 482, 494, 500,
Gandy, Helen, 451 501, 510, 512, 515-17, 520-22, 524,
Gardner, John, 193 526, 537-39, 541, 542, 545^6, 548,
Garment, Leonard, 39, 130, 136, 140, 551-54, 558, 562, 564-66, 568-72,
147, 186, 359, 366, 641^2, 645, 588-90
649, 651, 653, 660, 661, 668, 669, Haig, Mrs. Alexander, 539
675 Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia,
Gladstone, William, 246, 505, 506 69, 70
Glanzer, Seymour, 624, 644 Haldeman, Ann (daughter), 267-68,
Gleason, Jackie, 581 681
690 INDEX
Haldeman, Hank (son), 72, 681 Hitler, Adolf, 295

Haldeman, Jo Horton (wife), 17-19, 40, Hodgson, James D., 179, 307-8, 334, 412
66, 299, 356, 669, 671, 673 Hoffa, Jimmy, 146, 370, 377, 382
Haldeman, Peter (son), 681 Hoffman, Abbie, 470
Haldeman, Susan (daughter), 681 Hollings, Ernest F., 110, 354
Haldeman family, 17-19, 47, 456, Home, Alec Douglas, 164
538-39, 653, 673 Hoover, Herbert, 229
Hall, Len, 665-66 Hoover, J. Edgar, 5, 53, 57-58, 66, 86,
Hallett,Doug, 395 166, 171, 184, 191, 192,214,240,
Halperin, Morton, 248 243, 267, 270, 272, 315, 351,
Halpern, Seymour, 67 355-57, 370, 450-51, 453, 587
Hammer, Armand, 484 Hope, Bob, 88, 111, 117, 378, 588, 626
Hardin, Clifford M., 275, 301, 400 Hopkins, Bill, 105
Harding, Warren G., 347 Horton, Adele, 66
Harlan, John M., 356, 357 Hughes, Don, 32, 36-37, 41, 45, 63, 74,
Harlow, P. Bryce, 20-22, 25, 29, 31, 37, 75, 152, 193, 199,259, 363
39, 43, 44, 47, 62, 66, 67, 70, Hughes, Howard, 397, 405, 407, 499,
73-74, 79, 84-88, 90, 91, 93, 95, 501-2
96,99, 107, 109-10, 114, 127, 128, Hume, Brit, 428
141, 142, 154, 167, 173, 175-76, Humphrey, Hubert H., 11, 98, 198,
179, 180, 186, 187, 208, 210, 229, 274, 293, 389, 395, 438-39,
216-18, 317, 325-27,400,487, 441, 460-61, 469,471, 531, 565,
551-52, 626, 659 567
Harriman, W. Averell, 169, 170, 250 Hunt, E. Howard, 11-13, 472, 474,
Harris, Louis, 94 504, 535, 563, 564, 568, 591-96,
Hart, Gary, 428 600, 602, 605, 606, 610, 612,
Hassan II, king of Morocco, 273 614-17, 620, 628, 633-35, 637, 638,
Hatfield, Mark O., 182, 183 640, 641, 643-44, 647, 648, 651,
Haynsworth, Clement, 6, 89, 93-96, 98, 661, 663
99, 101, 107, 109-10, 112, 126, 130 Hunt, Mrs. E. Howard, 604-5, 625
Heard, George A., 165, 176, 177, 183 Huntley, Chet, 182, 185
Heath, Edward, 221 Hussein I, king of Jordan, 194, 196,
Helms, Richard, 27, 90, 153, 154, 156, 217
192, 234-35, 315, 482, 507, 540, Huston, Tom, 172, 191, 304, 313, 356,
541 601
Herblock (Herbert Lawrence Block), 39
Hersh, Seymour, 568, 662, 668
Hershey, Lewis, 95, 98, 359 I
Hesburgh, Theodore, 31
Hickel, Walter, 19, 21, 27, 28, 139, Ibsen, Henrik, 366
161-64, 167, 168, 208, 213, 358 Ives, Burl, 358
Higby, Lawrence, 18, 19, 28, 29, 39, 48,
69, 80, 204, 219, 324, 477, 571,

625, 631-33, 639, 647, 655, 656,
664, 667, 673-74
Hirohito, emperor of Japan, 337, 358 Jackson, Henry (Scoop), 4, 217, 250,
Hiss, Alger, 2, 280, 302, 303, 311, 313, 401, 406, 661
443, 587, 617, 623 Jackson, Ron, 502
NDEX 691
Javits, Jacob K., 48 Kennedy family, 2, 34, 236, 287, 338

Jesus Christ, 383 Keogh, Jim, 22, 213, 227
Johnson, Lady Bird, 571-73 Keyes, Paul, 378
Johnson, Luci Baines (Mrs. Patrick Khrushchev, Nikita, 411
Nugent), 494 King, Billie Jean, 361-62
Johnson, Lynda Bird (Mrs. Charles King, Martin Luther, Jr., 143, 248
Robb), 113, 299,494 Kissinger, Henry, 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 12, 16,
Johnson, Lyndon, 4, 6, 9-11, 17, 19, 22, 24-25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35-38,
21, 23, 25-27, 54, 62, 65, 74, 80, 41, 44, 50-52, 54-55, 57-59, 61-66,
82-83,88,91, 102, 111, 113, 114, 69-70, 73, 74, 77, 79, 81-88, 90,
116, 124, 125, 146, 151, 153, 169, 91,94,95,97-100, 103, 106, 110,
172, 174, 192, 229, 230, 241, 267, 111, 115-17, 119, 121-24, 127, 128,
280, 290, 291, 300-302, 339, 349, 130-33, 135^0, 143, 145-50,
408, 447, 455, 457, 485, 493-97, 152-59, 162-67, 169-72, 174,
501, 504, 517, 520, 532, 565, 567, 176-78, 180-82, 185, 186, 188-92,
571-73, 590 194-98, 210-14, 217-19, 221-24,
Johnson, Tom, 83, 113, 572, 573 226, 230, 232-37, 239-45, 247-51,
Johnson, U. Alexis, 237, 516, 517 253-56, 258-61, 263, 267-75, 277,
Jones, Jerry, 674 281-82, 285-90, 292-95, 300, 302,
Juan Carlos, king of Spain, 239 304,305,307,308, 311-12,314,
Juanich, Elmer, 33 316-25, 329-32, 336-339, 349-55,
359-60, 362-74, 377, 378, 380-88,
391-97, 400^06, 410-16, 418-26,
K 430, 432-59, 461-65, 467, 469, 474,
476, 482, 485-86, 491, 496, 500,
Kalmbach, Herbert, 212, 349-50, 405, 501, 504-7, 510-17, 519-25,
520, 592, 604, 639, 643, 662 527-30, 534-58, 561, 562, 564-75,
Kaplow, Herbert, 227-28 579, 581, 587-90, 625, 626, 628,
Kehrli, Bruce, 605-6, 656, 673-74 631, 634,649-50,671,674,675
Kendall, Donald, 47, 135, 459, 576 Klassen, E. T. (Ted), 142
Kennedy, David M., 139, 160, 168, Klein, Herbert, 24, 26, 31, 37, 58, 60,
186, 208, 219-20, 247, 383 74, 104, 109, 136, 141, 154, 182,
Kennedy, Edward M. (Ted), 48, 72-76, 234, 248, 397, 432, 465, 535
79, 134, 142, 148, 158, 198, 211, Kleindienst, Richard G., 10, 157, 214,
215, 222, 224, 227, 229, 237, 248, 216,281,283, 361, 369,403,411,
274, 293, 297, 395, 428, 435-36, 425-26, 428, 432, 433, 437, 442^3,
438-39, 443, 460, 461, 476-77, 481, 450-51, 460, 461, 473, 499, 503,
482, 486, 487, 489, 490, 505, 577, 582, 586, 593, 594, 596-99,
507-8, 533, 536, 577, 612, 616 601, 608, 610, 612-15, 620, 623,
Kennedy, John F., 4-6, 21, 36, 58, 74, 624, 635-38, 645, 646, 660, 662-65,
83, 116, 124, 125, 151, 157, 172, 672, 674
174, 229, 248, 287, 300, 302, 338, Kosygin, Aleksei, 61, 111, 463, 467
387, 398, 401, 430, 476-77, 567, Kraft, Chris, 151
568, 572, 574, 577, 582, 585-86, Kraft, Joseph, 184, 640
601, 606, 640 Kristol, Irving, 134, 137
Kennedy, Robert F., 72, 192, 248, 582, Krogh, Egil (Bud), 101, 108, 163, 292,
586 293, 329, 591, 592, 605, 606, 653
Kennedy, Rose, 350 Krol, John Joseph Cardinal, 190
692 INDEX
Kuhn, Bowie, 437-38 Luce, Clare Boothe, 500

Ky, Nguyen Cao, 86, 349 Lucke, Jane, 167
Ludendorff, Erich, 294
Lukash, William, 470
Lynch, John Mary, 201, 257
Lynn, James T., 650
Laird, Melvin R., 22, 27, 39, 42-44, 50,
62, 63, 69, 86, 88, 90, 94, 97, 98,
100, 102, 104, 122, 136-37, 145, M
148, 150, 152, 155-57, 161, 166,
168, 177, 180, 192, 196, 211,218, MacArthur, Douglas, 294
224, 234-35, 237, 239, 248, 266, McBride, Robert H., 209
268, 285, 287, 311-12, 323, 354, McCain, John, 86, 500-501
360, 372-74, 379, 382, 386, 394, McCarthy, Eugene, 502
401, 402, 404, 439, 446, 449, 453, McCarthy, Joseph, 431
455, 456, 485, 534, 564 McClellan, John L., 509, 585
Lake, Anthony, 226, 230 McCloskey, Paul, 249, 274, 397, 426
Lamour, Dorothy, 88 McCord, James, Jr., 471, 502, 563, 564,
Laraki, Ahmed, 171, 273 568, 594-97, 600-603, 605-7, 610,
Larson, Chuck, 45 612-17, 619, 625, 648, 662
LaRue, Frederick, 471, 477, 563, 600, McCormack, John, 90, 103, 112, 114,
604, 617-18, 638-^0, 647, 648, 169
651 McCormick, Ed, 489, 577
Lawrence, David, 636 McCracken, Paul, 21, 124, 128, 160,
Le Due Tho, 322, 331, 410, 504-5, 517, 341, 343, 375
539, 541, 542, 547, 556 McGovern, Eleanor, 500
Leonard, Jerris, 184 McGovern, George, 2, 182, 183, 192,
Lewis, Hobe, 25, 189 338, 348, 426, 427, 435, 443, 449,
Liddy, G. Gordon, 11, 471-72, 474, 461, 469-72, 474-78, 480-90,
479, 484, 504, 520, 563-65, 568, 492-97, 499-501, 504, 505, 507,
591, 594-96, 606, 609, 610, 612, 509-10, 512, 515, 517-19, 522-25,
614-17, 620, 624, 625, 628, 638, 527, 529-32, 553, 577, 583
639, 644, 659 MacGregor, Clark, 208, 216, 217, 323,
Lilley, Mildred, 366, 367 354, 379, 385, 400, 433, 477, 478,
Lincoln, Abraham, 37, 227, 231, 266, 480-81, 485-88, 492, 493, 495-96,
271, 347,478 503, 513-14, 522, 533
Lincoln, Mary Todd, 271 McKee, Pat, 503
Lindsay, John V., 2, 132, 192, 211 McKeithen, John J., 488
Linkletter, Art, 102, 123 MacLaughlin, Maraya, 494
Lisagor, Peter, 263, 538 McNamara, Robert S., 299-300, 533,
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 98, 107, 186, 574
302 Magruder, Jeb Stuart, 82, 257, 471-72,
Loeb, William, 337 474, 480, 483, 484, 494, 591-92,
Lollobrigida, Gina, 88 594-96, 599-603, 607-9, 611-12,
Lombardo, Guy, 31 614-20, 623-26, 631-39, 642^5,
Long, Russell B., 70 647-50, 659, 663
LonNol, 143, 153, 157, 177 Malek, Fred, 366, 480, 564
Loory, Stuart, 117, 203 Manolo (Nixon's houseman), 6, 262,
Lord, Winston, 447^8 334, 397, 516, 550, 571
NDEX 693
Mansfield, Mike, 98, 103, 107, 112, 577-78, 580, 590, 594, 596, 602,
157, 158, 180,211, 224, 286, 608,610,612-13.623,625,638,
304-5, 307, 322, 354, 357, 407, 641, 646, 651. 662
487, 630 Moorer, Thomas H.. 154. 166. 195.
Manson, Charles, 185-86, 218, 265 211, 224, 234-35, 239, 265-66, 354,
Mao Tse-tung, 315, 324, 367, 413-16, 379, 386, 402, 435, 451, 454
418, 421, 462 Morton. Rogers. 37. 66. 90. 139. 20S.
Mardian, Robert, 272, 430, 471, 647 233, 432
Martin, Judith, 246 Mosbacher. Emil. 133
Martini (Nixon's barber), 21, 45 Mountbatten, Louis, 207
Mayer, Jean, 112 Moynihan. Daniel Patrick. 20. 29. 39,
Mayo, Robert, 41, 110, 114, 115, 134, 41, 42, 71. 79. 96. 100. 112, 114,
137-38, 160 130. 132-33. 136. 137, 144, 147,
Meany, George. 39, 145, 151, 173, 192, 162, 166, 172, 173, 189. 191. 209.
285, 326, 347, 348, 351, 374^77, 211, 213,224, 257, 400, 493
380,431-32, 457,471,485,487, Mudd, Roger, 597
491 Mulcahy. Jack. 201. 212. 349-50
Meir, Golda, 65, 90, 136, 192, 195, 256, Murchison. Clint. 192
583 Murphy. Franklin, 171, 172
Menzies, Robert Gordon, 29 Murphy, George. 139, 140
Meyers, Johnny, 407 Muscatello. Jimmie. 123
Milhous family, 201 Muskie. Edmund S.. 148. 198. 206-7,
Miller, Cliff, 82, 97 213, 226, 229, 230, 236, 244, 249.
Mills, Wilbur, 113, 132, 180 250,274, 288, 293, 347. 348, 351.
Minh, Duong Van, 349 395, 397, 405-6. 408, 409, 422,
Mitchell, John N., 1, 10, 13, 28, 52-54, 426. 427, 430. 435. 470. 661
57, 59, 60, 66, 80, 81, 83, 84, 89,
93,98, 103, 107, 108, 110, 126,
136, 137, 146-49, 156, 157, 165, N
167, 170, 171, 185-86. 190-92,
208-11, 216, 231, 233, 236-37, 240, Nader. Ralph. 349
242^4, 266, 267, 270, 272, 275-78, Nasser. Gamal Abdel. 198
281, 291, 295, 300, 302, 311, 315, Nathan, Richard P.. 114
332-33, 336, 338, 348, 351, 355-59, Nitze, Paul, 465
365, 366, 368-71, 379, 382, 385-87, Nixon. Don. 47. 404, 405, 407, 408.
392, 394-96, 401, 403-5, 407-10, 617
425, 426, 428-31, 437-39, 453, 470, Nixon. Ed. 408, 552, 617
471, 473-78, 483, 484, 487, 490, Nixon. Hannah Milhous. 277, 305-6
492, 495-96, 503, 522, 537, 539, Nixon. Julie (Mrs. David Eisenhower). 7.
540, 542, 544, 551-52, 565, 567. 30, 40, 43-45, 62. 64, 70-71, 73, 78,
568, 581, 583, 591-620, 622-28, 84, 86. 106. 110-11, 118, 125, 157.
630-41, 645, 647-53, 662, 672, 678, 172-73, 176, 188, 226, 262, 293-95.
679 298, 299, 373, 382, 387-88, 436.
Mitchell, Martha, 52, 149, 167, 475-78, 477, 488, 494, 503. 506, 533. 552.
490, 502 554, 557. 565. 584. 609. 651. 673
Mitchell family, 126 Nixon. Pat. 7. 18-19. 21, 22, 25, 29. 30.
Mollenhoff, Clark, 74, 92, 144 40,44,49, 54, 58, 61. 62. 65, 77,
Moore, Richard, 203, 218, 266, 359. 79-80, 82, 88, 106. 118. 119. 125,
367, 376, 449, 451, 527, 544, 563. 133, 152, 154, 176, 178, 188, 189.
694 INDEX
207, 209, 220, 246, 255, 270, 273, Petain, Philippe, 177
296, 298, 299, 349-52, 363, 364, Petersen, Henry, 612, 636-45, 648, 651,
367-68, 373, 382, 388, 395-96, 404, 656-68
431, 463, 467, 477, 488, 489, 494, Peterson, Peter, 307-8, 341, 343, 374,
497, 498, 500, 502, 506, 520, 522, 375, 503
539, 552, 554, 557, 561 Pham Van Dong, 99, 100, 351, 516-17,
Nixon, Tricia (Mrs. Edward Cox), 7, 528
22, 29, 30, 40, 43, 62, 64, 73, 78, Philip, duke of Edinburgh, 105
88-90, 125, 156, 181, 188, 202, Philips, Kevin, 145
231,236,258,259,262,298-99, Pincus, Walter, 91
396, 436, 477, 488, 489, 503, 506, Podgorny, Nikolai, 467
509, 533, 539, 552, 672-73 Poff, Richard Harding, 361
Nixon family, 47, 81, 94, 95, 112, 118, Pompidou, Georges, 2, 129, 131-33,
157, 178, 226, 246, 257, 279, 296, 210, 372, 383-84
299,498, 531, 533, 539, 552, 557, Pompidou, Mrs. Georges, 133
651, 672-73 Porter, Herbert L. (Bart), 484, 596,
Nofziger, Lyn, 74, 90 616, 626
Novak, Robert, 48, 532-33, 577 Porter, Mrs. Herbert L., 626
Nunn, Louie, 531 Porter, William J., 329, 348, 447
Potter, Phil, 512
Powell, Lewis F., 366-68, 370
Price, Raymond K., 31, 45, 112, 118,
120, 130, 347, 395, 398, 400, 407,
O'Brien, Lawrence F., 134, 473, 489, 466, 492, 496, 518, 528, 567, 571,
492,499, 501-2, 567,615, 630 577
O'Brien, Paul, 604, 605, 609-10, Prouty, Winston L., 186
617-20, 622, 623, 647, 648, 668 Proxmire, William, 148
Odle, Robert, 596 Pusey, Nathan M., 145
Ogilvie, Richard B., 85, 87
Osborne, John, 555
Quinn, Sally, 584
Packard, David, 38, 195, 196, 256, 283,

285 R
Panetta, Leon, 126, 132
Parker, Dave, 436, 439, 656, 673-74 Rabin, Yitzhak, 188, 196, 256, 501
Parkinson, Kenneth Wells, 604, 609-10, Rankin, J. Lee, 595, 598
625, 647 Raspberry, William, 130, 133
Patman, Wright, 504 Rather, Dan, 34, 242, 294, 389, 392,
Patton, George S., 58, 106, 147 504, 571
Paul, Roland, 91 Reagan, Nancy, 348-^9
Paul VI, Pope, 36, 184, 198 Reagan, Ronald, 80, 132, 157, 206,
Peale, Norman Vincent, 151 231, 238, 266, 291, 295, 325, 335,
Pearson, Drew, 66 348^9, 368, 369, 437, 444, 478,
Percy, Charles H., 48, 113 488, 492, 506, 507, 627
Perot, Ross, 1, 57, 106, 108, 112-13, Rebozo, Bebe, 7, 25, 26, 28, 45, 61, 81.
116, 125,393,432,433, 579, 585 95, 117, 118, 135, 149, 154, 157,
INDEX 695
167, 172, 176, 189, 224, 267, 290, 597, 599-601, 606-8, 611-13, 635,
299, 408, 423, 458, 473, 490, 539, 637, 641, 642, 645, 654-56, 658,
547, 565, 567, 577, 581, 635, 637, 665, 666, 669, 671, 673
646 Romney, George, 19, 41, 95, 128, 139,
Rehnquist, William H., 93, 367-68, 370 168,208,210-11,491-92, 534

Resor, Stanley, 90, 91 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 4, 5, 81, 116,
Reston, James (Scotty), 247-48, 339, 168, 192, 228, 304, 346, 352, 493
354, 355, 406, 554, 671 Roosevelt, James, 535
Rhodes, Joe, 174 Roosevelt, Theodore, 3, 125, 151, 168,
Rhodes, John J., 112 576
Ribicoff, Abraham, 129 Roper, Elmo, 327
Richardson, Elliot, 62, 63, 127, 168, Rose, Chappy, 653-55
172, 186, 187, 209, 231, 276, 293, Rosenberg, Ethel, 311
369-70, 457, 536, 539^0, 626, 635, Rosenberg, Julius, 311
672, 673, 675 Rossiter, Clinton, 567, 570
Richey, Charles R., 474, 625 Rothblatt, Henry B., 563, 568
Rietz, Ken, 651 Rubin, Jerry, 470
Rizzo, Frank, 370, 401, 504, 518 Ruckelshaus, William, 624, 663, 666,
Robb, Charles S., 113 667, 675
Rockefeller, David, 522 Rumsfeld, Donald, 80, 114, 168, 169,
Rockefeller, Mrs. David, 522 175, 179, 186, 187, 194, 208, 216,
Rockefeller, Nelson A., 2, 54, 90, 132, 219, 221, 234, 268, 291, 338, 431,
157,209, 211,282, 353,424,444, 540
504, 522, 627 Rumsfeld, Mrs. Donald, 268
Rogers, Irwin, 213 Rush, Ken, 635, 660, 664, 666
Rogers, Mrs. William, 363, 364 Rusk, Dean, 574
Rogers, Ted, 426 Russell, Richard B., 70, 128, 222
Rogers, William P., 2, 8, 11, 17, 18, 26, Rutland, Robert, 1, 14
29, 30, 32, 36-38, 42, 44, 48, Ruwe, Nick, 49
50-52, 55, 69, 74, 80, 81, 83, 84, Ryan family, 299
94,97,98, 100, 103, 104, 110, 123,
126, 127, 131, 136, 139, 140, 145,
148, 150, 152, 155-58, 161, 164,
167-68, 172, 176-78, 181-82, 184,
186, 189, 191-97, 209, 211, 214-18, Sadat, Anwar, 566
220, 224, 226, 230, 232, 234-35, Safire, William, 48, 81, 101, 120, 150,
237-39, 241, 243-45, 247-51, 192, 206, 218, 235, 257-58, 341,
253-55, 262-63, 266-68, 271, 274, 344, 345, 354, 362, 366, 398, 552,
275, 277-79, 282, 286-90, 293, 296, 577, 582, 589
298, 307, 314-22, 332, 336, 347, St. John, Jill, 176
352, 359-60, 362, 365, 368, 369, Sandburg, Carl, 251
372-73, 379, 380, 383-85, 387, 388, Sandoval, Hilary, Jr., 208
392, 395-97, 399-401, 403-7, 409, Sato, Eisaku, 109, 204, 393
414, 418, 420-22, 424, 426-27, 430, Scali, John, 271, 294, 320, 333, 352-54,
436, 439^2, 446^17, 449, 453, 455, 363, 371-72, 376, 387, 406, 418-19,
457, 462-65, 474, 485, 491, 495, 449, 478, 513
496, 500, 501, 507-8, 513, 516, Schecter, Jerry, 383
517, 520, 525-27, 533, 534, 536-38, Schenkel, Chris, 503
544, 557, 564, 569, 575, 576, 580, Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 574
696 INDEX
Schlesinger, James, 541 Sihanouk, Norodom, prince of

Schorr, Daniel, 347, 348, 391 Cambodia, 143
Schweitzer, Pierre, 374, 375 Silbert, Earl, 563, 564, 608, 624, 630,
Scott, Al, 97 644
Scott, Hugh, 67, 89, 98, 102, 110, 113, Sills, Beverly, 246
128, 167, 190, 219, 307, 406-8, Simpson, OJ, 520
540, 567, 584, 649 Sinatra, Frank, 378, 491, 499, 567, 649
Scott, Rex, 581 Sirica, John J., 564, 568, 592, 595-97,
Scowcroft, Brent, 579, 580 600, 610-14, 617, 624, 645
Scranton, William W., 175, 183, 197, Sisco, Joseph, 103, 195, 196, 401
202, 221 Skelton, Red, 124
Seaborg, Glenn, 23 Sloan, Hugh, 502, 523, 527, 595, 596
Sears, John, 31 Smith, Gerry, 287, 288, 464-65
Segretti, Donald, 514, 518, 520, 521, Smith, Howard K., 258, 259
534, 542^3, 552, 553, 588, 593, Smith, Malcolm, 585-86
600, 608, 626, 627, 630, 661 Smith, Merriman, 89
Semple, Robert, 61, 149, 233, 405, 491 Smith, Rick, 62
Senghor, Leopold, 302-3 Smith, Stan, 361-62
Serkin, Rudolf, 129 Smith, William French, 355
Sevilla-Sacassa, Guillermo, 22, 246 Sneed, Joseph, 637
Shafer,Raymond P., 27-28 Sophia, princess of Greece, wife of
Shah of Iran (Mohammed Reza King Juan Carlos of Spain, 239
Pahlavi), 468, 469, 554 Sorensen, Theodore C, 112, 574
Shapiro, David, 615, 633 Spector, Aden, 356
Shaw, Denny, 333-34 Sperling, Godfrey, 526
Shea, George Beverly, 22 Stans, Maurice H., 18, 114, 128, 272,
Shelton, Isabel, 246 307, 337, 387, 400, 429, 500, 502,
Shepherd, Tom, 333 504, 527, 542, 556, 578, 585, 604,
Sherman, George, 365 617
Shipley, George E., 339 Stanton, Edwin M., 271
Shriver, Eunice, 36 Stein, Herbert, 341, 343^4, 360, 431,
Shriver, Sargent, 34, 209, 490, 492, 497, 439, 488, 507
503, 505 Stennis, John C, 240, 304, 667
Shroeder, Virginia, 494 Sterling, Wallace, 81
Shula, Don, 570 Stern, Isaac, 352
Shultz, George P., 31, 71, 80, 114, 127, Stone, Clement, 212, 244, 350
128, 137, 141, 146, 160, 171-73, Strachan, Gordon, 543, 544, 591, 594,
175, 176, 179, 180, 182-84, 186, 600, 604, 609, 612, 615-17, 623,
187, 190, 228, 234, 236-37, 247, 625, 630, 633, 636-39, 642^4, 647,
255, 275, 301, 307-8, 310, 314, 659
323, 334, 336, 341, 343, 344, 350, Strauss, Robert, 553-54, 630
352-53, 357, 360, 369, 370, 372, Stravinsky, Igor, 352
374-75, 377, 380, 382, 394, 399, Strickler, Frank, 667
424, 427, 431, 439, 442, 471, 488, Stuart, Connie, 136
582-83, 588, 608-9, 674 Stuart, Hope, 89
Shumway, Devan L., 568 Suharto, 169
Siciliano, Rocco C, 208 Sullivan, William, 274, 516, 517, 578,
Sidey, Hugh, 4, 294, 324, 401, 512, 532, 587, 591, 601
574 Symington, Stuart, 91, 253, 254
NDEX 697
W
Taft, Robert, Jr., 175-76, 240 Walker, Charls E., 208
Taft, William Howard, 3, 125 Wallace, Cornelia, 472, 486, 488
Tanaka, Kakuei, 492 Wallace, Dewitt, 202
Taylor, Bob, 106, 203^, 413, 468 Wallace, George, 2, 129, 140, 171,
Teague, Charles M., 28 243-44, 276, 292, 361, 404, 408,

Thieu, Nguyen Van, 38, 57-61, 65, 430, 459-61, 470, 472-73, 475,
76-77, 110-11, 156, 223, 235, 260, 483-86, 488, 515, 554
293, 331, 349, 353, 355, 409, 510, Walsh, Lawrence, 593, 595, 598, 599
512, 515-17, 519, 524, 525, 528, Walters, Barbara, 404, 494, 583
533, 535, 538, 539, 543, 547, 550, Walters, Dick, 432, 433
552-53, 558, 566, 568-69, 571, 572, Walters, Johnny, 439
580, 585, 622-24 Walters, Vernon, 10, 169, 275, 410,
Thomas, Helen, 227-28, 347, 475 458, 475, 481
Thurmond, Strom, 470 Warren, Earl, 19, 56, 611
Timmons, William E., 31, 67, 136, 324, Warren, Gerald, 62, 614, 670
379, 480, 618-19, 674 Washington, George, 37
Tito, Marshal (Josip Broz), Washington, Walter E., 192
198-200 Watson, Marvin, 484, 489
Tkach, Mrs. Walter, 299 Wayne, John, 499
Tkach, Walter, 6, 28-29, 43-45, 80, 81, Webster, William, 600, 601
227, 232, 571-72 Weicker, Lowell, 601, 608, 610, 611,
Tolson, Clyde, 451 614, 620, 622, 623, 625, 646, 649,
Tolstoy, Leo, 225 650
Tower, John G., 129, 219, 220 Weinberger, Caspar W., 168, 171-73,
Train, Russell E., 208 179, 228, 247, 297, 330, 346, 488,
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 42-A3, 378, 506, 675
379, 440 Welk, Lawrence, 351, 362
Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leonidas, 305 Wells, H. G.,3, 397
Truman, Harry, 4, 5, 31, 116, 229, 347, Westmoreland, William C, 259

550, 558, 587 Wheeler, Earle G., 50, 98, 148
Tunney, John, 428 Whitaker, John, 31
White, Kevin, 489
White, Theodore H., 20, 574, 590
Whitehead, Tom, 574
Whitman, Ann, 5, 6
Wilkinson, Bud, 31, 58, 67
Ulasciewicz, Tony, 148
Williams, Edward Bennett, 502, 527,
Usery, Willie J., Jr., 142, 145
641
Williams, John Bell, 22
Wilson, Dick, 137
Wilson, Harold, 33-34, 119, 123
Wilson, Jerry, 284, 597, 599, 600
Vance, Cyrus R., 169, 170 Wilson, John J., 645, 651-53, 656, 662,
Vesco, Robert, 617, 633, 660, 668 668, 670, 671, 673
Volcker, Paul, 341^12, 344, 352 Wilson, Malcolm, 209
Volpe, John, 19, 52, 128, 139, 181, Wilson, T., 288
534 Wilson, Woodrow, 151, 231
698 INDEX
Windsor, Duke of, 146 Young, David, 386, 504

Wolff, Jerome, 629-30 Young, Whitney, 257-58
Wolper, David, 489
Woodcock, Leonard, 431-32
Woods, Rose Mary, 10, 18, 20, 23, 25,
27, 32,64,65,67,71,74, 115, 118,
122, 126, 142, 152, 157, 192, 227, Ziegler, Ronald L., 1, 22, 26, 28, 31, 37,
237, 345, 350, 378, 382, 405, 407, 45, 57, 58, 60, 62, 72, 74, 82, 86, 89,
414, 423, 424, 426, 443, 462, 482, 103, 109, 113, 116, 123-26, 135-36,
489, 492, 567, 571, 589, 626 140, 141, 152, 154, 156-59, 163, 174,
Woodward, Bob, 614, 664 185-86, 188, 203, 212-13, 221, 225,
Wright, Jim, 637 227-30, 232, 233, 235-36, 242, 251,
Wyeth, Andrew, 129, 577 253, 261, 270, 275, 276, 280, 294,
298, 302, 307, 319, 320, 339, 352,
363, 369, 370, 373, 379, 385, 397,
403, 407, 408, 413, 414, 416, 422,
449, 463-66, 475, 486, 490, 494,
496, 497, 503, 512-14, 520, 521,
Xuan Thuy, 410, 542
523, 524, 529, 532, 542, 552-58, 562,
564, 567, 568, 571, 575, 579, 581,
584, 587, 589, 596, 598, 603, 608,
611,613, 614,619, 625, 630,631,
639, 642, 647-^8, 650, 652-57, 661,
Yahya Khan, Mohammad, 272, 316, 663. 665, 669-72, 674
322, 381 Zumwalt, Elmo, 533
(Continued p '{.flap)
shrewd, complex, ;:>etty, obsessive, sensitive, manipulative,

and self-absort
Here we teams of:
• Nixon's dotiolccjposs of Senator Howard Baker and his

chance for a Supreme Court seat;
• Nixon's plan to photograph Ted Kennedy in compro-
mising positions, then leak the photos to the press;
• Nixon's attempts to get John Connally to replace Agnew
on the 1972 ticket;
• How Nixon attempted to get LBJ to fix the Senate
Watergate investigation;
• How Nixon's inner circle hunted for a fall guy as the
Watergate drama unfolded, and who some of the sur-
prising candidates were
The Haldeman Diaries is perhaps the most meticulously

reported and eye-opening chronicle we will ever have of
those years, a definitive insider's account so illuminating
and candid thatwe will never look at the Nixon White
House in the same way again.
Harry Robbins (H. R.) Haldeman, a graduate of UCLA,

spent twenty years in advertising with J. Walter
Thompson before going to the White House. Haldeman
was Chief of Staff for President Nixon from 1969 until he
resigned in 1973 — the period covered in these diaries.
After leaving the White House, he wrote a number-one
New York Times bestseller, The Ends of Power, and
became a successful businessman as well as serving as
mentor and advisor for several start-up companies. He
worked on assembling these diaries up until the time of his
death. Haldeman is survived by his wife of forty-four
years, Jo Haldeman, four children, and five grandchildren.
Stephen E. Ambrose is one of the preeminent historians

of our time. He is Boyd Professor of History and director
of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New
Orleans. He is also the author of the current D-Day, June
6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, as well as
three definitive volumes of biography on Richard Nixon
and two critically acclaimed volumes of biography on
Dwight Eisenhower. He lives in Mississippi with his wife.
This book is also available on CD-ROM from

SONY Electronic Publishing.
Jacket design © 994 by One Plus One Studio

1
Back jacket photograph © 1994 by Fred J. Maroon
Q. T. PUTNAM'S SONS
a member of
The Pwnam Berkley Group, Inc.
(
Continued from front flap )
"This is a unique document. No other Presidential chief of staff has gone to

such lengths to make a record in anything approaching such detail. No other
Presidential chief of staff spent as much time with his boss, or was so deeply
involved in discussions and decision-making about such a wide range of sub-
jects Sherman Adams, the first of the modern chiefs of staff in the White
House, was important to Eisenhower, but nowhere near as critical to the
President as Haldeman was to Nixon. And none of Haldeman's predecessors

or successors as chief of staff worked for a president who was involved in such
high drama or low skulduggery. This is politics at its cutting edge, tough as
nails." — Stephen E. Ambrose, from his introduction
ISBN 0-3^-13^5-1
780399"139628

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riARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

r^T oi> ?>„

Inside the Nixon

Introduction and Afterword by Stephen E. Amnros

'For anyone interested in modern American politics, H. R.

for gripping reading, better than the best political

—Stephen E. Ambrose, from his introduction

(Continued on back cover)

"It is probable H. R. Haldeman never told all he knew

mies," wrote Newsweek upon Haldeman's death on

haunt American history and politics to this day.

With keen observations and complete frankness, this

revealed more intimately than we have evw seen him

(Contmmd im hack flap)

G.P. Putnam's Sons

Copyright © 1994 by The Haldeman Family Trust

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haldeman, H. R. (Harry R.), 1926-1993

Book design by H. Roberts

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

invaluable assistance and contribution of Scott Klososky, who worked both

The Nixon White House,

Afterword by Stephen E. Ambrose 677

Handwritten by President Nixon at my request and presented to Bob upon the

discussing other individuals was not characteristic of Bob. When a particular

of foreign and domestic policy. He usually described himself as a "sounding

and continuously worked on perfecting it.

I could do some checking around on reaction to the speech and . . . I said

the end result.

I was married to a remarkable man, whose devotion, integrity, and

Winton (Red) Blount — Postmaster General, January 22, 1969, to July 1,

Peter Brennan — Secretary of Labor, February 2, 1973, to March 1975

Earl Butz— Secretary of Agriculture, December 1971, to November 1976

John Connally — Secretary of Treasury, February 1971, to June 1971;

Clifford Hardin — Secretary of Agriculture, January 22, 1969, to November

Walter Hickel — Secretary of Interior, January 24, 1969, to November 25,

James Hodgson — Secretary of Labor, July 2, 1970, to February 1973; for-

David Kennedy — Secretary of Treasury, January 22, 1969, to February 1,

1971; later Ambassador-at-Large; Ambassador to NATO

Melvin Laird — Secretary of Defense, January 22, 1969, to February 1973

Pete Peterson — Secretary of Commerce, February 21, 1972, to February

Elliot Richardson — Secretary of HEW, June 24, 1970, to February 1973;

George Romney — Secretary of HUD, January 1969, to February 1973

George Shultz — Secretary of Labor, January 1969, to July

Maurice Stans — Secretary of Commerce, January 22, 1969, to February

Staff and Other Administrative Personnel

Pat Buchanan — Assistant to the President; speechwriter

Alex Butterfield — Deputy Assistant to the President; aide to H. R. Halde-

Kenneth Cole — Haldeman Ehrlichman

Chuck Colson — Special Counsel to the President

Lee DuBridge — Science Advisor; State Department

John Ehrlichman — Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs

Leonard Garment — Counsel to the President

Erwin Griswold — General

Alexander Haig — NSC Deputy; 1972 Vice-Chief of Army Staff,

H. R. Haldeman — Chief of Staff

Bryce Harlow — Counselor to the President

Larry Higby — Assistant to H. R. Haldeman