interviewer:
Frank Gannon
interviewee: Richard Nixon
producer: Ailes Communications, INC.
date: June 10, 1983
minutes: approximately 194
extent: ca. 272kb
summary: This interview, comprising four video tapes, or approximately
3 hours, 14 minutes, is the seventh in a series of taped interviews with former
president Nixon. The focus of the conversation is Watergate. Among related topics
discussed are wiretaps and taping systems in the White House, campaign ethics,
the press, particularly Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon's relationship with the
media, his reluctance to display emotion in public, his last days as president,
his decision to resign and his resignation, and how he will be viewed by history.
repository: Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries
(Main Library)
collection: Richard Nixon Interviews
permissions: Contact Media Archives.
Day Seven, Tape one of
four, LINE FEED #1, 6-10-83, ETI Reel #48
June 10, 1983
Day 7, Tape 1
00:01:51
[Frank Gannon]
What was your reception in Egypt like?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:01:55
[Richard Nixon]
Well, when I arrived at the airport, I was really somewhat disappointed, because I had been told before that we were--could expect a very warm reception. As we got to the top of the ramp and looked down, it reminded me of Peking and Moscow--no people there, just the V.I.P.s, a very good hon--honor guard, the usual red carpet, Sadat standing down below to welcome us. He was very friendly and courteous and so forth, and a--as we got into a big open car, I--I rather wondered why he had insisted on that, because our Secret Service didn't want to have an open car because of security reasons. But he wanted an open car, because there were no people. So we got in the car and we began to move out of the airport onto the main highway. And as we moved onto the highway, it was like hitting a tidal wave. It was just a sea of humanity surged around us, people by the thousands, shouting, and they were saying, "Long live Nixon! Long live Sadat! We trust Nixon! Egyptian-American friendship!" Over and over again the shouts came. And the crowd was, by all accounts, one of the biggest, certainly, that I'd ever seen, and certainly one of the most enthusiastic. The only one approaching it in enthusiasm was the one in Warsaw in 1959--emotional, enthusiastic, and friendly.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:03:16
[Frank Gannon]
How much does a crowd mean, though? Can't you--isn't it possible in almost in any country to bring out a lot of people in one place at one time?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:03:22
[Richard Nixon]
No question about it whatever. They can keep them away or they can bring them out. But Sadat made a very interesting comment in that respect. After we arrived at the guest house, he said, "You know, you can always get people out, but you can't make them smile." And he said, "Those people were smiling." I noted, for example, as we were riding along, he tried to say something to me over the din of the crowd, and he kept pointing to his heart, a--and I was a little worried then because I had heard that he'd had a couple of small heart attacks, and I wondered if he was suffering pain. And then I finally heard what he said. He said, "This is from the heart. They trust you. They love you. They are so happy you are here."
Day 7, Tape 1
00:04:03
[Frank Gannon]
Some of the signs over the road said, "We trust Nixon," and the American press particularly said that the--a lot of the trip was planned because of the d--intended domestic impact, because of Watergate. How did you read the signs "We trust Nixon?"
Day 7, Tape 1
00:04:18
[Richard Nixon]
Well, the signs had nothing to do with Watergate. They had to do with what the Egyptians felt about me and the policies that I had instituted after the war in 1973. They felt that after a long period, six years, of no communication between the United States and Egypt--or no relations, I should say--that we were again friends. They knew that I was pro-Israeli, because we had saved Israel in 1973 with the airlift, but they knew that I was not anti-Egyptian--on the contrary, that I thought it was possible and also necessary to be friends with the Israelis and also friends with the Egyptians and the Arabs. And they meant that they trusted me as one who would be fair, something that they had not had, they thought, in any U.S. administration for some time.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:04
[Frank Gannon]
One of the events during this summit was a long train ride to Alexandria, where for several hours you and he stood in an open car waving at people, which I think drove both security forces a little crazy.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:18
[Richard Nixon]
Well, as a matter of fact, it was a three-hour train ride.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:19
[Offscreen voice]
[Unintelligible.] We've got to pick up that question, Frank, your--I think your clipboard must have hit your microphone or something. [Unintelligible.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:26
[Richard Nixon]
Heh.
[Offscreen voice]
Let's just do a pickup on Frank. One, you get a tight shot on Frank. Three seconds, Frank, and you can do your question over, please.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:36
[Frank Gannon]
One of the parts of that trip was a--a long, several-hour ride, train ride, to Alexandria in an open train, which I think drove both security forces a little crazy.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:05:49
[Richard Nixon]
Well, the train ride, of course, was one of the highlights. I should say that the estimates of crowds from the airport into the guest house at Cairo was over a million. That was by press that was not particularly interested in seeing a large crowd be--coming out. They grew and grew all the way along the way, as we went to the pyramids--went there and came back. And then I really think the top was the train ride, and the welcome also in Alexandria which followed it. That very day, over three-and-a-half million people, by conservative estimates, were there at the train stations, along the sidings and so forth, and of course, in Alexandria itself. Actually what we rode on was a flatbed c--car. They didn't have any kind of an open car, as you have for a parade in an automobile. And so we stood there in the flatbed car, and we had to stand there, because the people were along the side waving and shouting and so forth. It was a little difficult for me, because I had had this phlebitis attack in Salzburg, and after standing for three hours, when I got to the guest house, I had to have somebody help pull my f--shoe off, because my ankle was swollen so. But, believe me, it was worth it. I didn't feel any pain while we were there noticing the crowds, and, of course, responding to them.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:07
[Frank Gannon]
It was--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:08
[Richard Nixon]
There was--there was a rather--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:09
[Frank Gannon]
Let's star--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:10
[Richard Nixon]
It's--
[Frank Gannon]
You want to start that again without any interrupting?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:12
[Richard Nixon]
Yeah. Incidentally, there was a rather eerie event there. As we were going along, there was a place where the highway ran parallel to the train track, and here was a hearse going along, keeping right up with the train. And I had a thought in the back of my mind. I wondered if some way it had leaked out, because I had warned Haig and the others--I said, "Don't tell anybody I've had this phlebitis attack." I wondered if it had leaked out and they had the hearse there, thinking that something might happen to me. But then I checked with his Secret Service and ours, and they said what had happened was they had the hearse there because on that same track they had had a few assassinations about two weeks before. So it was a rather dicey trip, but it turned out all right.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:07:56
[Frank Gannon]
Did you ever feel that you were in danger, that your life was being endangered by what you were doing on that trip? Even if you didn't feel pain, did you--did you feel that by extending yourself the way you did that the phlebitis might take you at any time?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:08:08
[Richard Nixon]
No, not really. I've always been very stoical [sic], very fatalistic about danger, whether it's the possibility of somebody shooting me or the possibility of having a heart attack or something of that sort. If it will happen, it will happen. The thing to do is to go on and do the best you can. People think it's a little stupid, and perhaps it is, but there's nothing you can do about it. So I would also say that those who constantly worry about--"Somebody's going to attack me," or "Maybe I'm going to exert myself, I have a physical condition"--they only make it worse. When you worry, you bring it on. Don't worry. What will happen will happen.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:08:48
[Frank Gannon]
There are people who think that you've made a pact with the devil and--and plan to outlive us all. I--A, is that true? B, do you--do you think about death?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:09:00
[Richard Nixon]
No, I don't think about death. As far as outliving people, I--I don't want to outlive everybody. I would like to outlive a few of my enemies, and I think that worries them a bit.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:09:11
[Frank Gannon]
What was--what was tea at--at Sadat's palace in Alexandria like?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:09:17
[Richard Nixon]
Well, that tea was very interesting because it was such a contrast to what Sadat had shown me as we left Cairo. Cairo is a huge city, and it has some of the worst slums in the world. And as we drove through the slum areas--you know, railroad tracks there, as they do in this country, they go through the worst parts of town--as we drove through it, he said, "I want you to see the worst as well as the best of our country." And then--so when we got to Cairo there, at his palace there, out on a lawn on an afternoon we had British high tea. Believe me, it was more British than the British--the liveried servants, the quiet, very civilized conversation, low tones--everything was done just right. But I thought an ominous thought at that point. I thought that--of the tremendous contrast between the wealth that was there, displayed there, and the slums that I had seen. And I also felt at that time that it was very important that in our programs toward Egypt--and I felt it then, I feel it even more today--that rather than concentrating so much on military assistance, there should be more economic assistance. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. They need assistance, and we should help them.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:10:34
[Frank Gannon]
In reading what you wrote about that, something appealed greatly to me. You said it was the--at that tea was served the most exquisite and extensive collection of pastries that you'd ever seen.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:10:47
[Richard Nixon]
When we think of tea in this country, unless we've been to Britain, we think of a--of a tea bag, which makes a most horrible brew, incidentally. It isn't done with class or style or what-have-you. But in Britain, tea is really an extra meal, and you have all sorts of cakes and cookies and pastries and so forth, and set out so well--i--it's really very, very high living. And I must say, I have seen it in Karachi, where they are more British than the British, I've seen it in Sydney, Australia, and also in Auckland, New Zealand, where they're more British than the British, but, believe me, nothing to equal what I saw in Cairo. Incidentally, I think I should say that the welcome in Egypt, I think, was due to three things. First, what we have already touched upon, the fact that they felt that I was fair, that they could trust me to be fair. And second, they thought I was a friend. They want to be friends with Americans. They didn't like the Russians. They wanted to be friends with Americans. Third, because they wanted peace, and--and, as Sadat said to me, "They are aware--our people are--that you have worked for peace, not only with us and in this area, but with the Soviet Union, with China," and so forth. But there was another factor. I don't think there's any question but those millions we saw, over six-and-a-half million in those three days in Egypt, realized the United States was a rich country, and they s--thought that, possibly d--that good relations with the U.S. would bring a better economic life for themselves. They probably thought I was carrying a good bag of money.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:12:32
[Frank Gannon]
Ten or a dozen years from now, when one of your grandchildren, Alexander or Christopher or Jennie, is old enough and asks you, "Granddad, what was Watergate?" how will you answer?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:12:48
[Richard Nixon]
Well, it will depend, first, on what they're learned in school, whether I will have to disabuse them of what they may have learned there or start afresh. If I were to start afresh, it would be, I s--think, somewhat along this line. Watergate was a botched-up attempt to break in and to bug the Democratic National Committee. When I say it was botched up, I am referring to several things. One, I could never understand why anybody would want to bug a national committee. I know national committees. There's nothing in the Republican National Committee worth knowing. You go to the Campaign Committee, and I'm sure the same thing is true of the Democratic National Committee. The second was the way that it is done. I remember reading about it when the report first came out, when I was in Miami, and I saw the Miami Herald, and I read about six men wearing surgical rubber gloves who had been caught trying to bug the Democratic National Committee. And I instantly thought, "Six men doing the job that one professional could do?" I also was mystified by the fact that it was later indicated that the C.I.A. had advance knowledge of the break-in. They never told me. The Democratic Committee had ad--advance knowledge of the fact that a break-in was to occur, and Jack Anderson, the columnist, had advance knowledge. As a matter of fact, it was so clumsily done that I would have to say that a pretty good case could be made, as some have made it, that it was deliberately botched-up, that they wanted to get caught. So much for that. And so I would also say Watergate was illegal, and that it was wrong, and that it was--very, very stupid thing to do. But whatever the stupidity of Watergate, the original break-in, or attempt to break in, I should say, which failed, was that was exceeded by our reaction to it. It was stupidity at its very highest. Looking back, I don't understand why it happened that way. I think I do understand, but the reasons were apparently that the people on our White House staff and in the committee, with perhaps the best of intentions, felt that it was very important not to allow this particular break-in to be escalated into a way that it would affect so-called "higher-ups." A--and so, consequently, they tried to contain it. Now, there was no reason to be concerned about it affecting a higher-up. After all, that wasn't going to affect the election. We were leading McGovern, who was going to be the Democratic candidate, by a margin of two to one when that occurred. We were going to win going away anyway, because I wa--just come back from the great triumph of the Moscow summit. And, of course, we were making progress in ending the war in Vietnam. But, nevertheless, they felt that. And so, as a result, they tried to come up with various schemes to contain it, to keep it from touching people higher up. And we didn’t concentrate on doing what we should have done, to clean it up right then when we could've. After the election, now, of course there was even less excuse for not doing something about it. My notes and diaries made when we were at Camp David when I was trying to bring the war to [sic] Vietnam to an end, to reorganize the government, prepare the--the inaugural speech, to select new members of the Cabinet, my notes indicated that over and over again I said, "Let's get a report on this thing. Let's clean it up, because the election is over now." But nothing was done. And then we simply compounded those failures. We even considered giving clemency to those that had done it so that they wouldn't talk about those higher up. We didn't do it, but we considered it. We talked about it. We even considered, as the infamous t--or notorious tape of March twenty-first, 1973, indicated, considering playing--considered playing-- paying blackmail. We didn't do it. We decided not to, as that tape also disclosed. But, nevertheless, we talked about it. And the problem was that all of that was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that what we talked about, even though we didn't do it, was on tape. And so what happened was that the way we handled it--and we're responsible for it--the way we handled it took what was basically a misdemeanor, a--a break-in in which nobody was hurt, and made it the crime of the century--I must say, with the assist o--of the media and the assist of our very, may I say, intelligent and ruthless Democratic opponents.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:17:33
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think people should have been shocked or surprised or appalled, as people were, that in the Oval Office, or in the Office of the President, whichever of your offices it was--that you even considered paying blackmail?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:17:49
[Richard Nixon]
Oh, yes. I think they would be surprised. They would not be surprised if they had studied politics generally. Tha--they wouldn't have been surprised if there would be a discussion of that, because, let's face it, many administrations have had problems, and in--instead of allowing those problems to become politically negative, they try to avoid it. I mean, Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Bobby Baker case, for example, was certainly no attempt to bring all the facts out into the open. I think one--another point that should be made about the--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:30
[Offscreen voice]
[Unintelligible.] Excuse me. One second. I need to make a quick stop here.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:39
[Richard Nixon]
We're gonna stop--
[Offscreen voice]
Keep [unintelligible], please.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:40
[Richard Nixon]
[Unintelligible] look at the watch now, huh?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:42
[Frank Gannon]
Yes, now you can.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:47
[Offscreen voice]
Sorry, gentlemen. I'll be right with you, okay?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:50
[Offscreen voice]
Excuse me, sir, your right eye is tearing a little in the corner. [Unintelligible.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:53
[Richard Nixon]
Is it pulling it off?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:54
[Offscreen voice]
Yes, in the corner there?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:55
[Richard Nixon]
Right here?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:56
[Offscreen voice]
[Unintelligible.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:57
[Richard Nixon]
[Unintelligible.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:58
[Offscreen voice]
Right in this corner.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:18:59
[Richard Nixon]
Oh.
[Offscreen voice]
The other corner.
[Richard Nixon]
Okay.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:01
[Offscreen voice]
--you just keep it more in this direction, I think that's what they want.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:03
[Richard Nixon]
Well, it m--must be from that--
[Frank Gannon]
Yeah.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:05
[Offscreen voice]
It could possibly be.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:06
[Richard Nixon]
Yeah.
[Offscreen voice]
You might have s--a little bit of that hay fever.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:08
[Richard Nixon]
I got a little of that hay fever. Oh. Oh, it doesn't make any difference.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:12
[Offscreen voice]
[Inaudible.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:14
[Richard Nixon]
Well, thanks for putting the tears on.
[Action note: All three laugh.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:17
[Frank Gannon]
Yeah, where is it when we need it? This is too soon.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:20
[Richard Nixon]
I had a little sneezing spell when you put the powder on today, I forgot to mention.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:24
[Offscreen voice]
Okay.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:25
[Richard Nixon]
I'll just start out when we finish here.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:27
[Frank Gannon]
Are we going to pick up with the president?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:29
[Frank Gannon]
Yes.
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, well, come up.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:30
[Offscreen voice]
[Unintelligible] asking a question.
[Offscreen voice]
I think--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:32
[Frank Gannon]
Or--no, I was asking--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:33
[Offscreen voice]
Just lean forward. I'll pull your coat down.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:35
[Offscreen voice]
Coat.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:37
[Offscreen voice]
Now lean back [unintelligible].
[Richard Nixon]
Mm-hmm.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:38
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, stand by, everybody. Ten seconds out, and we'll pick up on the [unintelligible]. Ray [unintelligible].
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:42
[Offscreen voice]
Yeah.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:43
[Offscreen voice]
The president--on the right temple--a hair. On his right side. See it?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:47
[Frank Gannon]
Lower down.
[Offscreen voice]
No, down lower.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:48
[Frank Gannon]
Right on the sideburn, yeah.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:51
[Offscreen voice]
That's it.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:52
[Richard Nixon]
I wonder if it's--
[Offscreen voice]
Ten seconds.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:53
[Richard Nixon]
--we really should try to have everything so perfect like this. I think it's sort of silly.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:58
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, let's--
[Action note: Sound of feedback.]
Day 7, Tape 1
00:19:59
[Richard Nixon]
They ready?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:20:02
[Frank Gannon]
Er--not yet. You going to start?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:20:04
[Richard Nixon]
You ready? Yeah.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:20:05
[Offscreen voice]
Take two seconds, Mr. President, and then start.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:20:08
[Richard Nixon]
One. When anyone would ask me what was Watergate, I think we should indicate, too, what it was not. No one was killed at Watergate. No one profited from Watergate, our scandal, as compared with the Teapot Dome scandal and the Bobby Baker scandal and the Truman [5-percenter IRS scandals] and the [Abscam scandals.] No election was affected or stolen by it, as some believe the election of 1960 was stolen. As a matter of fact, Watergate cost us votes. It didn't gain us any. I would say that what happened here was that because of the way we handled it, however, it allowed our opponents in the media and our opponents among the more partisan Democrats to exploit the issue a--and to indicate to the public at large that the whole administration was shot through with corruption, that we were repressive, that we were frightening people, that we were bugging people by the hundreds, by the thousands, that we were engaging in, quote, "dirty tricks" at every opportunity. And so much of that, of course, was untrue.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:21:26
[Frank Gannon]
When you say no one was killed at Watergate, what--what do you mean by that?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:21:31
[Richard Nixon]
I mean by that, very simply, that when you think of any kind of an incident of this sort, a so-called "high crime," you think of somebody dy--losing his life or somebody losing a great deal of money or something of that sort. This was not in that category. I--it was a political shenanigan--wrong, illegal, and very stupidly handled, true.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:21:54
[Frank Gannon]
Are you aware of the bumper strips th--referring to Chappaquiddick--"No one died at Watergate"?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:21:59
[Richard Nixon]
No, as a matter of--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:00
[Frank Gannon]
"No one drowned at Watergate."
[Richard Nixon]
I--I've seen those bumper strippers. "No--no one"--those bumper strips--"No one drowned at Watergate." And I guess the implication there is to point out this is in contrast to the Teddy Kennedy situation as far as Chappaquiddick was concerned and what some think was a cover-up.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:20
[Frank Gannon]
How--do you think it was a cover-up?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:23
[Richard Nixon]
I would say that I don't know what the facts are, and that would lead--make a prima facie case that it could have been.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:30
[Frank Gannon]
You're aware that the--the judge in the case said that Senator Kennedy couldn't have been telling the truth?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:35
[Richard Nixon]
Yes. No--no reason to judge him at this point. I mean, he's--he's paid more of a price that anybody will guess, and as far as I'm concerned that's all in the past.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:22:49
[Frank Gannon]
How extensive--you say that--that the dirty tricks were not done at every opportunity. How extensive, in on--a ten-point dirty tricks scale, looking at politics over the last thirty years, do you think that the Nixon Campaign 1972 dirty tricks were?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:23:04
[Richard Nixon]
I'd say about one or two. I recall, for example--I've been the victim of dirty tricks, including bugging i--in 1962. There was no question about that. There's a very famous character, a real professional, delightful fellow, as a matter of fact, named Dick Tuck, and he used to sabotage our campaign schedules and send people the wrong way and disrupt our meetings and so forth. He did it in 1962, in that campaign, and he did it again in--of course, he had done it als--he--no--strike that. He did it in 1960 in the presidential campaign, and then he did it in spades in 1962, when I was running against Pat Brown. But the media being, shall we say, not particularly in my corner, just called that fun and games. And then when Segretti, our so-called "dirty tricks man," whom I frankly had never had the opportunity of even meeting--when he tried to practice some of these things on our Democratic opponents, they became high crimes and misdemeanors. It's just a double standard. This sort of thing happens in campaigns. I don't particularly like it, I--particularly when it happens to me, and I don't like to see that be interjected in what should be partic--ticularly a high-level presidential campaign. But it's going to happen because people are human.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:24:29
[Frank Gannon]
You say you were bugged in 1962. Who bugged you?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:24:33
[Richard Nixon]
Oh, the opposition.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:24:35
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think that Lyndon Johnson bugged your campaign in 1968?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:24:40
[Richard Nixon]
We had reports to that effect, as a matter of fact, directly from J. Edgar Hoover. So I would assume that that was the case.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:24:47
[Frank Gannon]
How--looking back now, how--how do you tell yourself that somebody as wary, as canny, as experienced as you got dragged into the Watergate cover-up the way--the way that you did?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:25:05
[Richard Nixon]
Well, th--there's no excuse for anybody, as you say, and I can't make the self-serving statement that I am so canny and experienced and all that sort of thing, although I have lived quite a bit. There's no excuse for what happened, but there could be a reason. I just made a basic mistake at the beginning, the beginning of that year, that campaign year. You know, I have always been criticized throughout my political career for running my own campaigns. I ran my own campaign in '46. I did it in '50 when I was elected to the Senate. I did it in '52, and '56. Oh, I had campaign assistance, but everybody knew that I was watching every jot and tittle of everything all the way along the line--'68 also. I was constantly th--our campaign people thought, interfering with how it was going, but I was watching everything. Came 1972, and here I was going to China in 1972, we were negotiating an arms control agreement with Russia, we were trying to end the war in Vietnam, and so forth. And I decided, "Well, this is one time I'm not going to get involved in the campaign. I'm going to delegate it all." That was a mistake. I--I should have watched it. If I had been watching it, believe me, we wouldn't have ever bugged that--but if we had done it, it would have been more successful. But we would never have done it--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:26:24
[Frank Gannon]
There's--
[Richard Nixon]
--and never handle it that way afterwards, because, as I say, that compounded it. It was not the initional [sic] break-in that caused the problem. It was the failure to move on it as we should, and I would say that, had I been running it, and I was responsible, then I would have known where to turn. But since I wasn't running it, I then had the problem of feeling--and I think, in retrospect, I'd probably do it again--that I should stand by my friends. I don't know who was responsible, but I was bound to stand by them and try to avoid it moving higher up.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:27:01
[Frank Gannon]
There has never been any evidence that you knew about the plans for the break-in in advance. In fact, there's significant evidence that you didn't know. Why do you think, though, that from the very earliest of the first polls taken after the break-in--public opinion polls--I think something--in the first one something like forty-six percent of the people felt that you had known about it in advance and that it was just normal kinds of politics?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:27:22
[Richard Nixon]
I think for the very reason that I've indicated. It was pretty generally known among the people that I ran a tight ship. It was pretty generally known, because criticism had been made of the fact that I constantly ran my own campaigns, that I was in control. Bob Haldeman wrote, as a matter of fact, that anyo--that "anybody who watched the Nixon administration would figure nothing like that's going to happen without his knowing about it," although he does not say that I knew about it.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:27:50
[Frank Gannon]
Given--
[Richard Nixon]
Of course, I didn't.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:27:52
[Frank Gannon]
Given the way that you've described the development of the events, the kind of information you were get [sic] in the kind of time frame that you were getting it, would you do the same things again? Would you make the same decisions again?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:28:07
[Richard Nixon]
No, in retrospect, what I would have done at the beginning was to sit down, I think, with all of our campaign people and say, "Now look here. We're going to win this election. I--if we're going to have to take some heat about this thing, let's take it. Now, I want to get all the facts and get it out," rather than continuing to do what I did do. You see, the problem was that in that period--we're talking in the period around June twentieth or the balance of the year--I wasn't thinking that much about Watergate. Oh, there's a lot of--on--on the tapes, but only an infinitesimal percentage of what is on tape is about that. My main concern was ending that war. We were negotiating. We were sending messages to c--to continue our various initiatives, to keep them alive and healthy, with China, with Russia, and the rest, and, frankly, I just didn't concentrate. That was the mistake. I should have remembered, however, something that Winston Churchill wrote. I--I read quite a bit and read quite a bit before I ever became president. And he said something that every leader in the future should have in mind. He said it has been his observation that the great leaders do the big things well, but they tend to stumble on the little things. You can't do all the little things, but, believe me, in this case a little thing became a big thing, and, of course, destroyed us.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:29:36
[Frank Gannon]
One of the theories postulated is that one of the reasons that you didn't sit down with all the campaign people and say, "What happened?" and "Let's get this out," is that you were afraid to ask that very question, because you were afraid that it would lead--that the answer would involve or implicate people who were your friends and long-time associates.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:29:57
[Richard Nixon]
I'd have to say that was true. I--I'm--I think that subconsciously I didn't want to know. If, for example, one of my t--top people, long-time associates, because he didn't have control of the situation, had made a stupid mistake, I didn't want them to become involved. Very tough thing--I--I remember, for example, speaking of books and so forth, the--another quotation that is of considerable interest. It was one that--about Gladstone, who, of course, was a great Liberal prime minister of Britain in the nineteenth century, and he made the comment to the effect that the first requisite of a good prime minister is to be a good butcher. I wasn't, frankly, a good enough butcher, I must say. I--I recall very well when Henry Petersen, who took over the investigation of the Watergate issue, after the second term began--he came in to see me, and he laid before me some accusations that had been made against Haldeman and Ehrlichman, a--and I said, "On the other hand"--I said, "However, those aren't proved." I said, "I--I can't fire somebody simply because of the appearance of guilt." And he responded, he said, "Mr. President, that speaks very well of you as a man. It does not speak well of you as a president." And so I would say, perhaps, and I'm not referring to Haldeman or Ehrlichman, but anybody else in a campaign organization--that's a decision that every president at times has to confront--is he going to be human and compassionate or is he going to be ruthless and cold? I must say, looking back, I've got to admire Harry Truman in a way for the way he stood by his people even though he--they were political liabilities. It's a close call.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:31:01
[Frank Gannon]
Some of your critics think it was very ignoble of you when you wrote in your memoirs that Watergate wouldn't have happened without Martha Mitchell. What did you mean by that?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:32:14
[Richard Nixon]
John Mitchell is one of the ablest men in politics that I've ever known, and a very able lawyer, a--a very careful man. He's also a very honorable man. I can never imagine that John Mitchell would ever have approved the Watergate break-in, and, assuming he didn't approve it, would have allowed it to slip by through the cracks if he had been concentrating on the campaign. And whether that was ignoble or not, there was no question that Martha M--Mitchell had a problem, a very deep problem. Some thought it was just alcohol and drugs and so forth, but it--it was even more than that. She was emotionally unstable, a--and it just drove John Mitchell crazy. He couldn't concentrate on it at all, and that's why he resigned from the campaign committee shortly after Watergate had broke [sic].
Day 7, Tape 1
00:33:09
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think that the media exploited her instability?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:33:12
[Richard Nixon]
Shockingly. I've never forgiven them for it.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:33:18
[Richard Nixon]
Why did you bug yourself?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:33:21
[Action note: Nixon laughs.]
[Richard Nixon]
The amusing thing about that is that, had the tape system that we had been exposed apart from Watergate, nobody would have given it a second thought. I remember the headlines--"Nixon Bugged Himself." Well, as a matter of fact, what really, I must say, at first amused me and then it angered me, was to see the hypocritical, sanctimonious statements by people representing the Kennedy camp and the Johnson camp saying, oh, they had never had a taping system. They were horrified that there could ever have been a taping system in the White House. Now, come on, who are they kidding? Franklin Roosevelt, it's now revealed--he did taping. Ei--even Eisenhower did on selective cases. There are two hundred reels of tapes in the Kennedy library. There are thousands of hours of tapes in the Johnson library. Taping was done ostensibly--in my case it was done for the purpose of having it for the historical pur--record. And under the circumstances, then, when we said did we bug ourselves, it was for the historical record and not for any other purpose. I must say that, in Johnson's case, when I came in to the White House on that first day in, January twentieth, I saw this taping equipment around--it hadn't been removed--that he had put in. He had it not only in the Oval Office and also in the Cabinet Room, but also in the Reception Room where people who were to come in to see him were sitting, so that he could hear what they said about him before they came in to see him. Of course, we didn't install any in any places like that. We had it only in the Oval Office, in the Cabinet Room, and in the E.O.B., which were all recognized to be formal places. But I would say that the place that I was most surprised to find it--when I looked under the bed, just happened to, to--looking for my shoes, a couple of mornings later, and I found all the--a lot of--all the taping equipment right under the bed. He even had the bedroom taped. Incidentally, just so there won't be any improper in--connotation about that, Johnson often saw people in his bedroom. I saw him there the only time I went to the White House from the time I was vice president till I became president. Is--had a cup of coffee with him there after a Gridiron dinner.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:35:45
[Frank Gannon]
In your memoirs, you tell a story about Bobby Kennedy going in to see Johnson.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:35:53
[Richard Nixon]
Johnson had a practice of using his taping system in--in a very deliberate way. Let me explain the difference between his taping system and the one Kennedy had, and the one that Eisenhower hid--had, and ours. In their cases, it was manually operated. In other words, when they had somebody coming in that they wanted to make a record of, they turned the tape on. They didn't tell people, but they turned it on so that they'd have the record. In our case, it was voice-activated. Everything was taped, which, of course, was probably stupid, and yet perhaps a bit more honorable, because if you weren't going to tell the individual that he was being taped, far better for it to be done on a general basis rather than on a selective basis. Well, on this day Bobby Kennedy was scheduled to come in to see Johnson. This is the day that Johnson was going to get his revenge. Johnson didn't particularly like Jack Kennedy. He hated Bobby Kennedy. J. Edgar Hoover has told me that chapter and verse. And so here was his opportunity. After Bobby Kennedy had been so rough on him while Kennedy was president--Jack Kennedy was president--he was going to get back at him. He was going to have the pleasure of telling Bobby Kennedy that he, Johnson, was not going to support Bobby Kennedy for president. After the meeting was concluded, and apparently it was a pretty hairy confrontation, a--and Johnson called in the fellow that was running the taping system and says, "I want you to transcribe the tape." The fellow came back ashen-faced. He couldn't do it. It had been scrambled. And what had happened, apparently, they thought, was that Bobby Kennedy, who knew Johnson and also knew himself, had carried a little scrambling device in with him, and he put it on so that it scrambled the conversation.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:37:44
[Frank Gannon]
Why didn't you--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:37:45
[Richard Nixon]
Too bad we didn't have a scrambler for some of ours.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:37:48
[Frank Gannon]
Why didn't you burn them?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:37:52
[Richard Nixon]
I must have had several thousand letters on that since leaving office. It was stupid. Should have been burned, because a--at that particular point, once they were exposed, then they could not be used for historical purposes. They were going to be used for purposes that I did not think were appropriate. There were several reasons they weren't burned. First, when the taping system was disclosed, it was the wrong time. I was in the hospital with pneumonia, and I just couldn't make a tough decision like that. Second, I had bad advice, bad advice from well-intentioned lawyers who had the--sort of the cockeyed notion that I would be destroying evidence. But these tapes at that point hadn't been subpoenaed by anybody, and the best evidence were the individuals themselves who were there. But, on the other hand, they listened to them. I--I think there was a third reason, however. I think that I felt that the tapes were probably an insurance against people who had participated in meetings and who, in the light of the Watergate thing, might go out and lie about what had been said. I had listened to the tapes involving John Dean on June fourth, and I felt that they were an insurance against that kind of per--of--of, shall we say, misrepresentation.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:39:11
[Frank Gannon]
So, looking back and balancing all this, if you knew then what you know now, can you say that--that you would have destroyed them?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:39:18
[Richard Nixon]
Oh, yes. I should have destroyed them.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:39:20
[Frank Gannon]
Still would have done it.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:39:21
[Richard Nixon]
It should have--they should have been destroyed, and they should have been destroyed for another reason. If I had thought--let's face it, i--i--if I had thought they revealed criminal activities, I would have been out of my mind not to destroy them. So I would have destroyed them not because I thought there were criminal activities on them, but because it was an invasion of the very purpose of the tapes, which were for historical purposes and not to hold people that had come into the president's office and talked freely to those words that they had spoken so many years before. That's just not right.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:39:59
[Frank Gannon]
You're the man who criticized Harry Truman for using phrases like "Give 'em hell," or using the word "damn" and said that he was a bad example to the youth of America. How do you reconcile that kind of position with the language, your language, that appeared on the White House tape, all the "expletives deleted"?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:40:20
[Richard Nixon]
Well, one thing that I would have preferred is to not have had that term "expletives deleted." That leaves an implication that probably they were worse than they were. They were bad enough as it was, and eventually, of course, everybody will know what it was, if they don't already know. The point that I should make is that, as far as profanity is concerned, I'm, I must admit, a bit old-fashioned. I never swear in public, in all of my public life, and I never swear in front of women. As a matter of fact, let me make an exception. On occasion, just in the family sometimes, I'll--"damn this" or something of that sort, and Mrs. Nixon really shapes me up right away. She says, "That's a bad example for the girls." And she's right. On the other hand, we all know, or I would say any sophisticated person knows, that profanity for many people is a way of blowing off steam. That doesn't make it right, but, on the other hand, it's done. And I would say that while the tapes show our profanity, that isn't the first time a few expletives haven't been hurled around the Oval Office. I was there when President Eisenhower was ranting a bit, as he had occasion to de--he--face would flush about "those moss-back Republicans," "those damn moss-back Republicans," and how they were holding back some of the programs that we wanted. Now, I met with Jack Kennedy right after the Bay of Pigs disaster, and, I m--mean, he knew all the four-letter words. And I didn't blame him one bit. I wa--I was--really appreciated the fact that he felt that I was a good enough friend that he could let his hair down. And I'm not going to indicate what he said. And, of course, L--Lyndon Johnson's earthy language, shall I say, was legendary. Mine was different. It was on tape and different from Johnson and Kennedy, because, as far as their tapes are concerned, they're safe in their libraries, and the expletives will be deleted. In my case, they will not be.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:42:21
[Frank Gannon]
So you will--you will be known warts and all?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:42:25
[Richard Nixon]
That's right. And I'm embarrassed by it, because it gives an indication that--I think of, basically, hypocrisy. But, on the other hand, I think that a public man does have a responsibility to set an example. I don't think he should swear in public. I don't believe that men should swear in mixed company. That's old-fashioned, I agree. But, on the other hand, I--I must say we're not going to be able to outlaw profanity in private among men, particularly when they've served in the armed ferv--services and particularly when they served with the Navy and Marine Corps, as I did. I heard all the words.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:43:03
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think there was, or could have been, a C.I.A. conspiracy to remove you from office?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:43:14
[Richard Nixon]
I don't know. I know many people think so. I would say that I've had it--found it difficult to understand why the C.I.A., which apparently had advance knowledge of the break-in, didn't inform me. I've found it difficult to understand how it could have been that at least two of those involved had C.I.A. connections and, nevertheless, that it was not brought to my attention as t--far--the break--break-in occurring. I must say, too, the C.I.A. had motive. It was no secret that I was dissatisfied with the C.I.A., with its reports and particularly with their appraisals of Soviet strength and our other problems around the world.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:44:02
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think they feared you?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:44:03
[Richard Nixon]
No question about it, and they had reason to. I was going to shape up that organization and the Defense Department--the whole government, for that matter--but particularly that one. At one occasion I said I thought we could cut a third of the people out of the C.I.A. and do a better job. I didn't want to weaken it, as unfortunately it was castrated in the post-Watergate era. I wanted to strengthen it. I wanted to get rid of some of the deadwood and so forth. And they knew it. So they had a motive. I'm not prepared to say whether there was a conspiracy or not. I would only say that it should make a fascinating study for an investigative reporter. He--he won't win any prizes by writing anything that would not be anti-Nixon, but, on the other hand, it would, perhaps, be historically interesting.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:44:53
[Frank Gannon]
If there was such a conspiracy, do you think that reporter would would ever live to write about it? Is it the kind of thing that will ever come out?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:45:00
[Richard Nixon]
I have a feeling that all of this talk that the C.I.A. is going to knock off those that will, shall we say, reveal some of their covert operations--those in this country--I think that's exaggerated. I think that may have been the case t--in times past--not now.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:45:21
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think that you had--do you think that you had control of the C.I.A. when you were president, that it was responsive to you, and that--that you knew what it was doing and that it--that it wasn't doing anything you didn't want it to do?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:45:36
[Richard Nixon]
I think the C.I.A. under Dick Helms tried to reflect what the president wanted. I know, for example, that there were no plots to assassinate a foreign leader while I was president. They knew that I would never have approved such a thing. My concern about the C.I.A. was basically its--its competence. I just thought that they had a lot of deadwood, a lot of the Georgetown types and so forth, that were holdovers from previous administrations, and I wanted to clean them out and strengthen it. And I'm sorry I didn't get that chance.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:46:10
[Frank Gannon]
In your memoirs, you refer to a--a conversation with John Connally early in 1974, when he told you that the Arizona--what he called "the Arizona Mafia" was out to get you. What do you think he meant by that?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:46:24
[Richard Nixon]
I think what he meant was that in addition to the understandable opposition of the Democrats, the partisan Democrats--not all, but the partisan Democrats--that I had better worry about my right flank as well. What he meant was that there were several Republicans who wanted me out of office and Ford in. Let me say, I know Ford was not one of those. I know that, because I know the man. He's an honorable man. He would never countenance it. However, I would well understand that some--not in a conspiratorial way--but that some might have felt that I was a liability, which probably I was at that point, politically--that I was a liability and that they'd be better off with Ford in and me out. And so, consequently, i--it is possible that Connally's report was correct. But I am not prepared to say. I just don't know.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:20
[Frank Gannon]
Why do you think it was called the Arizona Mafia?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:24
[Richard Nixon]
I don't know--possibly because the--the group was probably conservative-oriented, which would be surprisingly--you would think mostly, usually, it would be the liberals who would've wanted me out.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:34
[Frank Gannon]
You don't think it referred to Senator Goldwater--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:36
[Richard Nixon]
It--
[Frank Gannon]
--or to Congressman Rhodes?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:38
[Richard Nixon]
I would doubt that. I--I--I d--just don't know. As far as Goldwater was concerned, he, of course, denied that he had any part of that sort of thing.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:47:48
[Frank Gannon]
Do you have any sense that there was from the--say, the beginning of 1974, or earlier, a concerted effort to--if not to railroad you or if not to--to at least grease the skids? Henry Kissinger has written that one of the ironies of your selection of Ford, who wasn’t your first choice, was that while you thought because of his good relations with Congress he'd be able to make your case there, the opposite was the case. He was so acceptable to them and so unthreatening to them that by choosing him you almost made it inevitable that you would be replaced.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:48:20
[Richard Nixon]
I think Kissinger makes a very shrewd point. Usually he's the first to admit he is not a political expert, but in this case it is a shrewd observation. They felt certainly that they would be better off with Ford than with me. And that had, perhaps, something to do with it.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:48:38
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think there was plotting going on during--formal or informal--during the year?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:48:44
[Richard Nixon]
I think "plotting" is too strong a word, because everybody's going to interpret that in the most sinister way. I think what happened is it was simply a coalescence of forces. There were some Republicans that wanted me out because they thought I was a political liability. They could get along better with Ford than with me. There were some Democrats, partisan Democrats, that wanted me out because they wanted to reverse the situation, the result of the elections of 1972, in which they had suffered such a shattering defeat. And I think, under the circumstances, they all kind of ended up not working together in one huge sinister plot but each in parallel ways coming together and in the end, of course, bringing about the inevitable result.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:49:32
[Frank Gannon]
You were under such tremendous, enormous, emotional, physical, mental pressures during Watergate. A lot of people thought it would kill you. It would have killed a lot of people. Why do you think it didn't? Wh--how do you--why and how do you think you survived?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:49:51
[Richard Nixon]
Well, curiously enough, I've had a lot of practice. I've gone through some pretty tough crises--the Hiss case, when I fought the whole Washington establishment and the media, the fund, when everybody was--thought that I could not survive on the ticket, 1956, the attempt to keep me off of the ticket, two shattering defeats, one for the presidency and then one in 1962 for governor of California. Having been through all of that--that toughens your hide a bit. And as far as being able to survive this, I felt I was on the right side. I was sustained by what I thought was the right cause, and I must say, too, that I g--drew great strength from my family. The way they stood by me was really something very inspiring, very heart-warming.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:50:49
[Frank Gannon]
Was this pressure different in quality or quantity from these earlier pressures?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:50:54
[Richard Nixon]
Different certainly in quantity, because whatever the earlier pressures were, they finally ended. This was so intense for so long. And this, of course, reached enormous public attention. For example, Watergate for months on end led the three network programs--not one, not two, but all three, day after day after day. There were headlines in papers across the country, day after day after day. That takes its toll. But I stood up under it rather well, and I'm rather surprised that I'm still here.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:51:37
[Frank Gannon]
You've described all the things that--or some of the things that Watergate wasn't and described your--a number of the elements of your role in it. What do you think you were guilty of?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:51:56
[Richard Nixon]
Well, I was guilty of--not malfeasance--malfeasance means an intent to do something wrong, but misfeasance, failure to take wh--a situation like this and to deal with it effectively. L--let us understand what Watergate is not, because I think it's very important for us to realize that once the Watergate thing broke, then those in the media who had a vested interest in my being driven from office and our partisans on the other side immediately expanded that to indicate that corruption infected the whole administration. For example, it was a repressive administration, and they made a great deal out of the fact that there were wiretaps. Now, let's look at the wiretaps very objectively and very fairly. A lot of myths about it. One, that they were illegal. They were not illegal. Wiretapping without warrants was legal for every president up till 1972, and we discontinued it then when the Supreme Court said warrants would be required thereafter even though the president had ordered it for national security purposes. And every president since World War II had used wiretaps. Second myth--we were wiretapping our political opponents, we were wiretapping across the country--radical groups, and so forth and so on. A myth. Believe it or not, there were only a total of nineteen wiretaps--five newsmen who printed stories which had s--top-secret material in it [sic] and fourteen government officials who had had access to that same kind of material, or whom we thought had access. That was all there were. The purpose of the wiretaps was to avoid leaks of that sort in the future, to find out who was leaking. And, incidentally, that purpose was legitimate. I should point that that wasn't always the case. For example, during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, Martin Luther King was wiretapped. Why? Because, as J. Edgar Hoover once said, he was wiretapped at th--apparently at the Willard Hotel because a sex orgy might have been going on there. They wanted, apparently, for reasons that I'm not aware of and I can't understand, to find a way to embarrass him. And speaking of newsmen, people think that that's the first time newsmen were wiretapped. I--I should remind them that there's a record on file o--of a reporter being wiretapped during the Kennedy administration because it was learned that he was going to write a book on Marilyn Monroe that might have derogatory comments in them [sic] about the Kennedys. Now, understand, I'm not saying this in condemnation of anything that others did. Maybe they had reasons that I am not aware of. I am simply saying--one, what we did was not illegal. Two, it was justified because it was very important to stop the leaks so that we could continue negotiations that led to the opening to China, that led to the settlements with the Soviet Union, and the ending of the war in Vietnam. And finally, I would say that as far as the wiretaps are concerned, the idea that this was a repressive administration simply doesn't add up. Now, of course, some ask, "What about the Plumbers?" Who were the Plumbers? Was this a big w--conspiracy of people flo--floating out across the country intimidating people and the rest? Four people for less than a year trying to plug leaks. It was a sort of a Keystone Kop operation. "Plumbers" is a pretty good name for it, and very ineffective, as it turned out, as were the wiretaps.
Day 7, Tape 1
00:55:50
[Frank Gannon]
Didn't the--the June twenty-third tape show that your involvement in Watergate went beyond sort of this--sort of a passive malfeasance, because on that tape you ordered Bob Haldeman to go to the C.I.A. and ke--to tell them to tell the F.B.I. to keep out of the Watergate investigation? Didn't that go over the edge and actually involve you?
Day 7, Tape 1
00:56:12
[Richard Nixon]
Well, let us understand how the June twenty-third tape came about, how that conversation--it had been long conversation [sic] about scheduling--
Day 7, Tape 1
00:56:20
[Action note: Screen goes black.]
The following text appears in the original transcript but does not appear on a tape. It has not been edited.
[Richard Nixon]
--about another trip that I was going to have to take and so forth. And at the very end, Bob Haldeman said that he had had a meeting with John Dean, that John Dean had come up with a scenario that might confront the Watergate investigation. He felt that it was important to contain it because it was getting into areas that might be embarrassing to us. He then went on to say that the F.B.I. that was conducting the investigation thought the C.I.A. was involved, as, of course, former C.I.A., at least, agents and operatives were involved, and that if the C.I.A. could let the F.B.I. know that they did not want the F.B.I. to continue an investigation that might expose some of their activities, that then the F.B.I. would draw back. I made a very stupid mistake. I said, "Fine--go ahead and do it. We’ve done some things for--
Day Seven, Tape two of four,
LINE FEED #2, 6-10-83, ETI Reel #49
June 10, 1983
Day 7, Tape 2
00:00:58
[Action note: Screen goes black; no sound.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:01:03
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]
[Richard Nixon]
--Helms. There's no reason why he shouldn't do something for us on this." But let us understand, as far as my motive was concerned, you just don't look at it in terms of words said at a time. You look at it in terms of what you did and what you did later. Just two weeks later, after this conversation, the director of the C.I.A., Pat Gray, called me on the phone. He said that he thought that some people on the White House staff, I think he said, were wounding me by their conduct. And then he went on to say that he had--was concerned about this contacting the C.I.A. I said, "Have you talked to them?" He said, "Yes." He said, "They say they're--they have no interest in suppressing or limiting the investigation." I said, "Fine. Go right ahead with your investigation." I didn't stop there. I called in Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and I said, "We cannot have a cover-up." I said, "I want to stop this. Be sure that the word gets out to everybody to continue." What I am saying here--yes, we considered the possibility, and I had hoped, for example, that the C.I.A. would find th--that they didn't want the investigation to go forward. But when I was informed that they were not concerned about its going f--f--forward, I didn't hesitate one bit.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:02:22
[Frank Gannon]
Isn't it true, though, that--that you--the information as it was presented to you and on which you made your decision was--that it was a political reason? That Dean was afraid that the money would be traced to the committee and that's why you approved calling in the C.I.A. in the first place, whatever the other C.I.A. involvements may or may not have been?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:02:38
[Richard Nixon]
It was primarily political, as it turned out. My recollection at a later point was of the conversation with Pat Gray, in which I said, "Go ahead with the investigation," and, consequently, that's why I left the impression, which was incorrect, but what I remembered at the time, that it was not political. It was primary [sic] political there, but, on the other hand, I would never have approved it unless there had been indications that the C.I.A. might be interested. So there was a subsidiary reason--lone as well.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:03:07
[Frank Gannon]
How--how--
[Richard Nixon]
I--I didn't tell--I didn't s--in effect, say, "Look--get the C.I.A. to get into this thing whether they're interested or not." I said, "If they are concerned, then of course the F.B.I. should not go forward."
Day 7, Tape 2
00:03:17
[Frank Gannon]
Even given that it was months later and a lot had intervened and that the Gray phone call did direct your--direct the conduct, how could you forget such a--a central thing, that the initial cause was political?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:03:31
[Richard Nixon]
It's difficult to understand, but--and again--no excuse that--perhaps, will explain it. I had a lot of things on my mind. I remembered it as well as I could, and, as a matter of fact, before I went public on that particular thing, I called Bob Haldeman on the phone, and I said, "Look. What do you remember about it?" And he remembered it eza--exactly as I did. Neither of us, of course, had refreshed our memories by l--listening to the tape.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:04:01
[Frank Gannon]
Do you think the country would be better off if the cover-up had succeeded and Watergate had never surfaced, or, at least, had never have gone as far as it did--led to your resignation?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:04:11
[Richard Nixon]
Ray Price, one of my biographers and my long-time speechwriter, and a very honorable man who would feel that any kind of a cover-up is wrong, morally, et cetera--believes that that's the case. I am not able, really, to be the best judge of that. Certainly I--I think that under the circumstances, from a personal standpoint, it would have best--been best that Watergate not be expanded to the point that it was. In other words, to have a misdemeanor become the crime of the century didn't make any sense, and to have s--people today talk about not the crime of Watergate but the crimes of Watergate simply didn't make sense. It was that, of course, that brought us down.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:05:03
[Frank Gannon]
People do think about, for example, in the crimes of Watergate, about your taxes--that you paid vir--little or no taxes during the years that you were president and were probably a paper millionaire.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:05:16
[Richard Nixon]
Well, just look at my presidency. Except for Harry Truman, I think I am the only president in this century who left the White House with his net worth less than when he came in. Now that would tend to knock down the thing that I had ba--profited from my service in the White House. There was a story, for example, that the--seventeen million dollars had been se--spent on my place in San Clemente and the one in Florida. I sold the place at the height of the market five years after I left office for two-and-a-half million dollars. And, as a matter of fact, what the--the G.S.A. had put in there reduced the value. I'll give you an example. Our--in California, gas heat is cheaper than electric heat. We had a gas heating system in it. The Secret Service thought that a gas heating system ran the risk of fire. They changed it to electric, a--and so it reduced the value. Enough of that. Coming back to the tax situation, that, of course, was a really low blow, a low blow because I was very scrupulous about my tax returns throughout my life. I--I--I majored in tax law when I was in law school. However, I, of course, didn't prepare my own tax returns. I left it to my staff people, who were supposed to be expert in the field. They made a mistake that was understandable. What happened was that I gave two million dollars worth of my vice-presidential papers--they were appraised at that--to the government. That was common. Johnson had advised that he had done it. He told me that. He suggested that I do it, and previous government officials had been doing it for years. It was a legitimate tax deduction. Then, in January--and then in 1969, at the end of the year, I signed a bill--I signed it--in which the Congress revoked that right to tax exemption. Now, as a matter of fact, at the time I signed that bill, I didn't have any feeling at all, and I wasn't doing it with relationship to my own gift of papers, because I had made my gift in March of that year. It had been delivered. My papers had been brought back down from Ne--New York and delivered to the government. So what happened? What happened is that our tax man felt that there had to be a deed to the papers. He wrote a deed out, he signed it himself, in my behalf, and dated it at the time that they were delivered. Now, lawyers do that on occasion. In this case, it was made to appear that this was all a fraud in order to avoid the payment of the taxes. So I paid the three hundred thousand dollars in taxes that I otherwise would have been able to take as a deduction, as Johnson and others had done previously. When I left office, intres--interestingly enough, my tax attorneys begged me to reopen the case. They said they would take it on a contingency, and they could get the s--the decision reversed. But I had agreed at that time, when the matter came up, to accept whatever the Joint Committee on Taxation would agree to, what they would recommend. They had recommended that I pay the tax, and I did. That happens.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:08:25
[Frank Gannon]
When people talk about Watergate, they also think about how your administration used the Internal Revenue Service to harass people and how you even had a--a written-down enemies list of--of opponents to go after and hurt.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:08:42
[Action note: One frame of color bars.]
[Richard Nixon]
I don't think, incidentally, that the thought is that I had a written-down enemies list. I think they said there was a--I think it's been claimed that there was an enemies list within the bowels of the administration, and so forth and so on.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:08:52
[Frank Gannon]
That John Dean had prepared.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:08:54
[Richard Nixon]
That John Dean had collected, whatever that might be. And I wouldn't be surprised. Every administration has its friends and its enemies. We always divide press, everybody else, up in those categories. You reward your friends and punish your enemies, if you can.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:09:07
[Frank Gannon]
Did you use the I.R.S. to do that?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:09:08
[Richard Nixon]
[Unintelligible.] Certainly not. As a matter of fact, what happened here was simply a natural reaction of anybody in that office. I got reports--complaints, as a matter of fact--from friends of John Wayne and Billy Graham that they were being harassed by the Internal Revenue Service on their tax returns, and they thought they were being harassed because they were my friends. Now, they didn't tell me that, but, you know, the word gets to me. When I learned this, I hit the ceiling. And so I said, "Get the word out, down to the I.R.S., that I want them to conduct field audits"--and that's the way--that's the term, the technical term they use--"of those who are our opponents if they're going to do our friends." And I suggested that one they ought to look into was Larry O'Brien, who had received very heavy fees from the Hughes organization. What happened was that the word went to the I.R.S. The I.R.S., as it turned out--is often the case--did nothing. They made a big hullabaloo about the fact that we had attempted to use the I.R.S. for political purposes. And then a f--months later, Don Alexander, the head of the I.R.S., put out a report saying the I.R.S. had not audited anybody for political purposes, not one. So, what I am say--saying here is that what I suggested was simply a reaction to what I thought was I.R.S. policy that was unfair. I wanted them to be even-handed on it, and I must say that I probably should have gone f--further in--if I wanted to be political, in view of what had happened to me, because I knew from an I.R.S. auditor in California that they got orders directly from Washington to audit my returns in 1961, when I was running for governor of California. That's the way it works.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:11:03
[Frank Gannon]
If you had had more control, would you have used it? Would you have used the I.R.S. to s--in--in sort of a tit-for-tat way? It had been done to you, and therefore--does--does that power go with the office?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:11:13
[Richard Nixon]
Oh, I would have been tempted. No. I--I don't want to indicate that I was simply going to turn the other way when an opportunity might present itself like that. But what I am saying here is this. We are charged with--we are charged in this Watergate period with enriching ourselves. We did not. We are charged with abusing the I.R.S. and abusing other people and using the I.R.S. for that purpose. We talked about it and so forth, but it did not happen. As far as this administration is concerned, oh, it isn't pure, but, on the other hand, it was one that w--that--that is being held to a different standard than previous administrations. I'm not suggesting that because it was done in the past that makes it right now. I--I don't take the line that--that one n--one right--well, what is it?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:12:07
[Frank Gannon]
Two wrongs make a right.
[Richard Nixon]
That two wrongs make a right, but I do say that two wrongs make two wrongs. I just want a single standard.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:12:15
[Frank Gannon]
Do you mean to say that when you were in the Oval Office talking to John Kennedy when he called you in to ask for your advice and your support at the time of the Bay of Pigs--that--that you knew he was pushing the audit of your income tax returns?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:12:30
[Richard Nixon]
Oh, I didn't know that he was pushing it. I assumed that he wasn't. No, I was assuming that was done by some of the very good political operatives that he had in his organization. No, I'm not sure that--I th--I doubt if he would do it. I doubt if he would do it. I think, however, he--he--he could play hardball. I don't think he would have minded a bit if an audit came up that was embarrassing to me. I--I know--know, for example, that one of the tapes which, incidentally, have come out since it's finally been revealed that the Kennedy people did tape, was a telephone call that he made to Pat Brown after Pat Brown beat me for governor. He wasn't interested in my s--political success, and I don't blame him one bit. I wouldn't have been either. He considered to--me to be one that almost beat him. He didn't want me to come back again.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:13:20
[Frank Gannon]
In China, you told Chou En-lai that you always learned more from your defeats than you did from your victories. What did you learn from Watergate?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:13:31
[Richard Nixon]
From Watergate, I think, first, a leader, much as he is interested in--as a matter of fact, obsessed by big issues, must not overlook the little issues that may become big. Second, once you have a problem, far better to deal with it quickly rather than to procrastinate, because a problem, if not dealt with quickly, is going to expand and become something not only different in size but different in kind, as was the case with Watergate. And third, I--I would say a leader in those cases where the whole White House itself, the presidency, is involved, sometimes it's necessary for him to put his own survival and survival of the institution above his personal loyalties. That's a tough one. The last one would be the hardest for me, and I think it'd be very hard for President Reagan, for example. He's a--one of his fine qualities is he--he's loyal to his friends.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:14:37
[Frank Gannon]
If, following the Gilbert and Sullivan line, "the punishment had fit the crime," what do you think would have been the proper--unless you think resignation was--what do you think would have been the proper punishment for what you did or the way you became involved in Watergate?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:14:56
[Richard Nixon]
Well, I don’t know as it serves any purpose even to speculate on that. There were some who suggested that a proper way to handle it would have been a resolution of censure by both houses of the Congress. But, on the other hand, that didn't happen.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:16
[Frank Gannon]
We've reached the end of our hour.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:25
[Action note: Screen goes black.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:30
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:47
[Action note: Sound begins.]
[Frank Gannon]
It's up--I would say ten minutes. It's up to you.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:48
[Richard Nixon]
Ten minutes is fine.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:49
[Frank Gannon]
Yeah.
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, we'll take ten minutes here--
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:50
[Richard Nixon]
The movie.
[Offscreen voice]
--and come back--
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:51
[Frank Gannon]
Yes.
[Offscreen voice]
--and do an hour.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:15:52
[Action note: Sound ends.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:19
[Action note: Apparent cut or splice.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:23
[Action note: Screen goes black.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:31
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:34
[Action note: Screen goes black.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:48
[Action note: Something happens.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:16:54
[Action note: Picture appears on screen.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:17:01
[Frank Gannon]
When you got back from the Middle East and from Russia in June of 1974, how did you see your position in terms of impeachment?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:17:13
[Richard Nixon]
Well, I guess, first, I saw it through the eyes of others. Things seemed to be better. The media seemed to be less vicious than usual, or--r--and some were even quite objective. Our own people in the Congress felt that the vote count was going fairly well, and the mood was simply better. But some way I didn't share that. I just had an intuition that beneath the surface things were not going that well, despite the fact that we had had good publicity out of the Middle East and fair publicity even out of the visit to the Soviet Union. And I guess I can put my finger on it in a couple of ways. You know, politicians--I guess like women, and--and women politicians particularly would have it--that we just have intuition, sixth sense. I remember so well in 1948 I campaigned around the country as a young congressman for the Dewey ticket. He was going to win by a landslide. Everybody said he was going to win. I just sensed it wasn't going right, and I remember telling a [sic] editorial meeting of the Kansas City Star about three weeks before that I didn't feel good about it. They thought I was crazy. Well--doesn’t show that I'm so smart, but I sensed it. In this case, I think I was worried for reasons. First, for the reverse reason that we were doing better. I knew that if the opposition felt we were doing better, they would panic. And by panicking, that meant bad news for us. They could not afford--I'm referring now to the partisan Democrats, who were out to get me, of course, and the media--they could not afford to fail now. Millions of dollars had been spent on the Watergate investigation. They had a vested interest in conviction. And so, under the circumstances, as they saw the w--news get better, they had to do more to bring me down. And then something had happened while I was in the Soviet Union. Here I was, negotiating with Brezhnev about arms control and missiles and the rest, and a story came out of Washington to the effect that Rodino, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had made a comment, which he didn't expect to be published, but which revealed something--in which he said that all twenty-seven members of the Judiciary Committee--the Democrats--were going to vote for impeachment. This is before the hearings were even held. And so that concerned me. I was concerned, too, by the fact that my political position, not being as strong as it was--that maybe there would be softness in the Republican ranks. But--but all of these things caused me to worry. And then another factor--I knew that with the opposition worrying, they'd put in their first team, and, believe me, they did. Carl Albert, the speaker of the House, was a very fine man. We'd come to Congress t--together. He was very bipartisan, supporting me on my--Vietnam and other issues and so forth. But he was not partisan enough, and so they gave the job to Tip O'Neill, who was the majority leader. Now, I've known every speaker since World War II, including Sam Rayburn, one of the great ones. I would say that Tip O'Neill is certainly one of the ablest, but, without question, he is the mowth [i.e., most?] ruthless and the most partisan speaker we have had in my lifetime. The only time he's bipartisan is when it will serve his partisan interest. He plays hardball. He doesn't know what a softball is. So, under the circumstances, when I heard that he was taking over shaping up the Democrats, I knew that we were in trouble. Those are the things that worried me before going to California. And yet, I must say, on the twelfth of July, just before taking off for California, we had a bill-signing ceremony in the Oval Office, and Jerry Ford came up to me afterwards, and he's usually not an overly optimistic type--although he's not the pessimistic type, either--but he said, "Look," he said, "we've got this thing made. We're going to win by over fifty votes in the House." And then Bryce Harlow, who was a real professional--served with Eisenhower, served with me as well--came up--said, "You've got it won, boss." Well, I felt pretty good, and yet, some way, it didn't feel right.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:21:32
[Offscreen voice]
Excuse me for interrupting. I'm sorry. I've got a key light problem on Frank. Can we correct it? Thirty seconds. Keep the tape rolling.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:21:43
[Offscreen voices]
[Inaudible.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:21:46
[Offscreen voice]
On the two-shot, he's just much darker than the president. We must've lost a key somewhere.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:21:53
[Action note: Nixon sighs.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:21:57
[Offscreen voice]
How about over near the [unintelligible] door [unintelligible]?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:22:01
[Offscreen voices]
[Inaudible.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:22:51
[Action note: Gannon exhales loudly.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:22:59
[Offscreen voice]
That's it. If we can freeze it there, we're in good shape.
[Offscreen voices]
[Inaudible.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:09
[Frank Gannon]
Can you--you had talked about the s--the microscope and the p--
[Action note: Sound ends.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:21
[Action note: Sound resumes.]
[Richard Nixon]
--dia thing?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:22
[Frank Gannon]
Yeah. We talked about--ask--that they--they thought they--
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:22
[Offscreen voice]
Everybody back in position. [Unintelligible.] Get ready to go. [Unintelligible.]
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:25
[Richard Nixon]
Huh?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:26
[Frank Gannon]
They said that they--they thought they treated it like a microscope but in fact that treated it like a proctoscope.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:29
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, tape still rolling, and locked.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:33
[Offscreen voice]
Everybody in position. Is that ladder out of the way now?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:36
[Offscreen voice]
Yeah.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:37
[Offscreen voice]
Okay, Frank. Start on five-second countdown and cue Frank.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:42
[Richard Nixon]
That was a good line. That's your line.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:43
[Offscreen voice]
Here we go. Five.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:45
[Offscreen voice]
Four, three.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:23:49
[Frank Gannon]
You say that the--the opponents were the partisan Democrats and the media. It's easy to understand why the partisan Democrats were the opponents, but why were the media the opponents?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:24:01
[Richard Nixon]
Well, my fights with the media, of course, are legendary. It goes back a long time, from the time I started with the Hiss case, the fund crisis, coming back after defeat, when they wrote me off and af--read them off--I had read them off after 1962. So, consequently, it is sort of assumed that the media and I are not friends, that we're always adversaries. Now I think we've got to put that into context. First, it is not personal. I have some good personal friends in the media. It is not general. I--there are some people in the media that I respect, that I think are objective, single-standard-type reporters. But, on the other hand, I--I would have to say that the great majority of those in the media, in the Washington press corps, both television and print media, were against me. They have been in the past. They were before Watergate, and, of course, even more so during Watergate. Now, the reasons for that, I think, are several. One is I'm a conservative, and an effective conservative, in their view, and they are liberal. I'm speaking of those that are against me. The second reason goes to the war. We just totally disagreed on the war. I was insisting on and worked for peace with honor. And they wanted peace at any price. They didn't think that at that point we should even continue to try to get peace with honor. And then I think there was this subtle reason, the subtle reason that, in 1972, when the country was voting for me sixty-two percent, seventy-eight percent of the Washington media heavyweights were for McGovern. I had beaten them and beaten them very badly. They knew that after the election that I would th--owe them nothing but a good kick in the seat of the pants. I don't think they felt that I was going to repress them. But, on the other hand, they would like to see that verdict of 1972 reversed. And so what happened was along came Watergate. They had the big guns, but we passed them the ammunition, and they proceeded to shoot it right back at us. And I know that--I've talked to people in the media. You know, we do talk on occasion, and they say, "But it's the responsibility of the media to look at government generally, and particularly at the president, with a microscope." I don’t mind a microscope, but, boy, when they use a proctoscope, that's going too far.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:26:40
[Action note: Gannon laughs.]
You--you used the example--
[Action note: Gannon laughs again.]
You used the example of peace with honor versus peace at any price. A lot of the people in the media--a lot of people would say that that's a quintessential Nixonism, to--to equate the two as if the opposite of what you wanted, peace with honor, was peace with any price, which sounds sort of furtive and a bit--like appeasement, dishonorable--peace with honor as opposed to dishonor. Their argument would be that it was a--an unfortunate, unhappy war which was--was unwinnable, that our commitment was--was wrong, and that the honorable thing to do precisely was to cut our losses in a coherent way and pull out. They would say that that's a kind of devious setup on your part, and that--and that's one of the reasons, throughout your career, why they've opposed you. Do you see any of that?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:27:34
[Richard Nixon]
No. They're absolutely wrong, and history shows that they're wrong--what happened in Vietnam. They felt that we should bug out. I always knew that if we bugged out of Vietnam, if we failed to prevail there and the Communists came in--first, that it would be a disaster, that a bloodbath would come to all of Southeast Asia, and that's happened, and second, that it would be harmful to the United States in other parts of the world. And third, it would encourage the Soviet Union to engage in aggression in other places as well, and that's happened. So, I would say when I was for peace with honor, I--I meant by that give the South Vietnamese, which we did through the [Paris Peace Agreement,] a chance to survive on their own, but not to bug out simply because the war had become unpopular. I--I must say I--I respect their right to disagree with me, but on this I think that my position has been vindicated by what's happened.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:28:30
[Frank Gannon]
This isn't really a question of position, though. G--do you see that, in terminological terms, to say that you were for peace with honor implies that anybody who wasn't with you was somehow dishonorable, or for peace with dishonor, even if peace was a desirable end, and that this was the kind of thing that got their back up in dealing with you?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:28:49
[Richard Nixon]
Maybe it got their back up, but I--in my view, to let down an ally and to allow a bloodbath to occur, that was dishonor, and I repeat it right now.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:29:04
[Frank Gannon]
You flew to San Clemente in mid-July. What did you expect to do on that trip?
Day 7, Tape 2
00:29:13
[Richard Nixon]
Well, I thought we would have an opportunity on that trip to sort of catch our breath after the--the visit to the Soviet Union and the rather intense pressures that we'd been under. I knew, too, that the Judiciary Committee was going to begin its hearing shortly--its public hearings--and we had to be prepared for that. So, under the circumstances, I--it was a good time for us to take a rest and to look at things from afar in a more objective way.
Day 7, Tape 2
00:29:43
[Frank Gannon]
Getting back to the--what we were just talking about, the media, on a--on a--on one of my favorite ten-point scales, a ten-point bipartisan scale, h--how much would you say, in terms of the Democrats in Congress and the media, that there was a