On June 14, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, and Henry A. Kissinger talked on the telephone from 7:19 pm to 7:22 pm. The White House Telephone taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 005-070 of the White House Tapes.
Transcript (AI-Generated)This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.
What is your advice on that Times thing, John?
You would like to do it?
I would believe so, Mr. President.
Otherwise, we will look a little foolish in not following through on our legal obligations.
Has this ever been done before?
uh publication like this or no no no as the government ever done this to a paper before oh yes advising of their oh yes we've done this before have we all right yes sir
I would think that... How do you go about it?
You do it sort of low-key?
Low-key.
You call them and then send a telegram to confirm it.
And say that we're examining the situation and we just simply are putting you on notice.
We're putting them on notice that they're violating a statute because we have a communication from Mel Laird as to the nature of the documents and they fall within a statute now.
I don't know whether you've noticed it, but this thing was...
uh mel was henry henry's on the other i just he just walked in i'll put him on the other line go ahead uh mel uh had a pretty good go up there before the committee today on it and it's all over town and all over everything and i think we'd look a little silly if we just didn't take this low-key action of advising them about the publication mel take a fairly uh hard line on it
Yes, he gave a legal opinion, and it was a violation of the law, which puts us at where we have to get.
Well, look, as far as the Times is concerned, hell, they're our enemies.
I think we just ought to do it.
And anyway, Henry, tell them what you just heard from Rostow.
Well, Rostow called on behalf of Johnson, and he said that it is Johnson's strong view that this is an attack on the whole integrity of government, that if you, that if whole
whole file cabinets can be stolen and then made available to the press.
You can't have orderly government anymore.
And he said if the president defends the integrity, any action we take, he will back publicly.
Well, I think that we should take this, do some undercover investigation, and then open it up after your McGovern hat film.
We've got some
information we've developed as to where these copies are and who they're likely to have leaked them and the prime suspect according to your friend rostow you're quoting is a gentleman by name of ellsberg who's a left-winger that's now with the rand corporation who also have a set of these documents yeah so subpoena them christ get them
So I would think that we should advise the times.
We will start our covert check and after McGovern-Hatfield just open it up.
Right.
Go ahead.
Does that agree with you?
Yep.
All right, sir.
Will do.