926–4

Conversation No. 926-4

Date: May 23, 1973
Time: 10:20 am - 10:53 am
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Alexander M. Haig, Jr.

President’s Republican Congressional leadership meeting

Watergate
 -5-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

-White House response
-White Paper [Statements about Watergate Investigation, May 22, 1973]
-National security

Vietnam peace settlement negotiation
-Henry A. Kissinger
-Report, May 22
-President’s knowledge
-Negotiations with South Vietnam

-Saigon

-William Sullivan

-Note from President

-Forthcoming communique

-Timing

-Kissinger’s statement

-North Vietnam’s statement

-South Vietnam

-Negotiations

-President’s opinion

-US aid to South Vietnam


Bryce N. Harlow
-Role on White House staff

-Conversation with the President, May 21

-Counselor to President

-William E. Timmons’s role

-Congressional relations

-George H. W. Bush

-Haig’s role

-Politics

-Bush

-Barry M. Goldwater

-Spiro T. Agnew

-Announcement

-Problem

-Stock option

-Timing

 -6-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

-Conversation with President
-Announcement

-Part-time

-July


Watergate
-Congressional reaction

-Carl T. Curtis

-Ervin Committee hearings

-Ervin Committee hearings
-Testimony, May 22
-John J. (“Jack”) Caulfield and James W. McCord, Jr.
-McCord
-Testimony
-James R. Schlesinger

-Ervin Committee hearings

-White House response

-White Paper [Statements about Watergate investigation, May 22, 1973]
-Possible allegations regarding the President

-John W. Dean III

-David R. Young

-Memoranda of conversation [memcons]

-H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Charles W.
Colson
-White House response
-White Paper
-Effect
-Lt. Gen. Vernon A. Walters’s memcons
-Dean
-Haldeman and Ehrlichman
-William L. Safire’s opinion
-Call to Haig, May 22
-Possible press conference
-President’s possible testimony before Ervin Committee
-President’s conversation with Harlow, May 22

-Bush

 -7-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

President’s schedule
-Forthcoming economic meeting

-Oil

-George P. Shultz

-Proposal for Haig

-Testimony


Energy
-Program planning

-Shultz

-Cabinet members

-Roy L. Ash

-Review by Haig

-Peter M. Flanigan

-Role

-Confidence by Haig

-Concerns


President’s schedule
-Economic meeting
-Prisoners of war [POWs]
-Briefing

-Evening at White House

-Cabinet meeting

-Length

-Economic meeting

-Timing

-Recommendations


White House staff
-Harlow’s role
-Flanigan’s role

Hugh Scott’s note to President
-State Department
-[David] Kenneth Rush
-Haig’s possible meeting with William P. Rogers
 -8-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

-Kissinger

Kissinger
-Possible statements

-Summit

-Georges J. R. Pompidou

-National security

-White House response
-White Paper
-Defense

Soviet summit
-Postponement
-President’s opponents
-New York Times
-Leonid I. Brezhnev

Watergate
-Effect on people

-Harlow’s view

-Compared to Cambodia

-White House response

-J. Fred Buzhardt, Jr.’s role

-Leonard Garment’s role

-Cover-up

-Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]
-Funds for defendants
-Funds for defendants

-President’s knowledge

-Haldeman’s and Ehrlichman’s knowledge

-Cover-up

-Dean’s conversation with the President, March 21

-President’s response

-Dean’s role

-John N. Mitchell

-Dean’s conversation with the President, March 21

-Content

 -9-

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Tape Subject Log
(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

-G[eorge] Gordon Liddy’s conversation with Dean, June
19, 1972

-CIA

-Clemency

-Dean’s role
-Dean’s conversation with the President, March 21
-White House response
-White Paper
-Effect
-Walters’s memcons
-Possible release
-Huston Plan
-Ziegler’s conversation with President
-Recommendations
-Richard M. Helms, J. Edgar Hoover, Adm. Noel Gayler, and
Donald Bennett
-Elliot L. Richardson
-Confirmation

-Hugh Scott’s efforts

-Daniel Ellsberg and John V. Tunney

-Ellsberg wiretap
-Scott
-White House response
-White Paper
-Future allegations
-Ziegler

-Memcons

-President’s schedule
-Egil (“Bud”) Krogh, Jr.
-Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Colson
-Future allegations
-Dean
-President’s schedule
-White House response
-White Paper
-Dean
-Possible allegations
 -10-


NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM


Tape Subject Log

(rev. August-2011)

Conversation No. 926-4 (cont’d)

-Memcons of meetings with President
-Conversation with President, March 21
-Blackmail
-Administration’s response

-Helms’s testimony

-Schlesinger

-William D. Ruckelshaus

-W. Mark Felt
-Termination
-Notice
-Confidence
-Source of heat

-Comparison to Dean

-Wiretaps

-White House response

-White Paper

-Content and phraseology

-Plumbers

-President’s orders

-President’s responsibility

-Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Krogh


Haig left at 10:53 am.