Spanned from june 1971may, 1973. The Richard Nixon president ial library conducted this interview as part of a project to document the 37th president s administration. This portion is about 50 minutes. On Labor Day Weekend after their unsuccessful operation in the break and go back to washington via new york. They stay at the pair i believe no, what was the hotel that kennedy was famous for going into . I associated with kennedy all the time. Whats the one the plaza. The one that the little girl remember . Metal line. Madeiline. They stayed at this hotel. A very fine hotel for them to stay in. That weekend, i think on a sunday, the office of senator goodale is broken into. My memory is not perfect on all the names but i believe the name of goodells assistant was andrew pair pierre and he told me there is no question there was a burglary that weekend in his office. My former wife this gets complicated had told the fbi in 1969 that i had given let me get that right she had told her stepmother and her stepmother told the fbi back in 1969 that i have given the pentagon papers to albright and the dell goodell. Goodell had almost been written out of the Republican Party after he lost office by his antiwar sentiment but he was also known to be very connected with me. From 19 since he on, i had been consulting with goodell but had not given him the pentagon papers but they believed i had. They exaggerated the degree of my intimacy with goodell. The fbi thought i gave the papers to him so his office is broken into on that weekend. I went and visited the office. It is about two blocks from the plaza where they were staying. I think hunt and liddy on the way home made a little operation into that office. Presumably with others. They probably had some help on that. It did not matter in the end. Did you ever ask about that . I think i did. He did not remember or did not know. As to what he did or did not know, thats another story. It did not believe he knew everything they had been up to. If we were unraveling all of this stuff, it would be interesting. Oh ,yes, why would they be interested in my wifes analyst and so forth . The plumbers, the cubans who worked for hunt and liddy, were interviewed at great length right Taylor Branch and george trial for a book they were doing on the plumbers operation, the bay of pigs. Their book never came out because their publisher went bankrupt. Branch and crile had a fight over how they would split the royalties or something if they found another publisher and it never came out. I was very anxious to get the files from branch thats a whole other story i did not get it. However, branch told me at the time a good deal about what they were after. , what he learned from the cubans. He said to me that the cubans i think they had talked to martinez and barker and some of the others and i cannot identify who told what but they had learned from the cubans that their objective was to find there were four objectives in this effort to neutralize me altogether. To get information basically that i did not want known blackmail type information. Their hopes were dashed the highest hope was that i would commit suicide. Rather than have this material which is what the fbi and Cointel Program due at Martin Luther king. They sent him a tape of his sexual escapades in a hotel room with a note saying you will know what to do. You have only one course of action. It was just before you got the nobel prize. Many others have discussed i can give you reference on this their highest hope was he would commit suicide if he did that. Otherwise, they would put it out and discredit him hopefully. Their hope was that i would commit suicide. Second, that i would leave the country and go to cuba. Like various other people. Eldridge cleaver and so forth. Timothy leary, algeria. Obviously again, putting me out of action, both of those keep it quite effectively. Third, one of the things was i would not go on the stand. Interestingly, they had been told a story which is little known. Some of the cubans hardly speak english. They had heard it from hunt and liddy. They had the and the in mind of the hiss case where his stepson was kept off the stand that he was the only person who could testify to the critical question of how often he had seen chambers which was crucial. It was how intimate was the relationship. The fbi had threatened informally huisiss that they would be let it known cross examination of his son that he was homosexual and hiss had not permitted him to be on the side on the stand. Some is willing to go on the stand anyway. His father said it would ruin your life and he did not let it happen so he did not get that corroborating testimony that he had not seen chambers very much. This was a story that was in the minds of these cubanamericans a very esoteric story that other people have testified to which may or may not be true. That was the kind of information they wanted so ranch said the cubans were as interested in the information that would be on your children or your wife as on you. Anything that i would not want told that would come at the very least, keep me off the stand which means i would be convicted. The other point was, keep me from telling. Krogue has told me his number one priority as the man in charge of neutralizing me was what other information i had and what i put it out and who might i be getting it from. Thats the critical conspiracy. Who might still be in the administration who was giving me or other people information about him, not about the pentagon papers. The concern of the plumbers under krogue and hunt was what else could i put out beyond the pentagon papers that would tell of nixons vietnam policy. Thats what i mean when i say the crimes of going into all of these different, a lot of different little burglaries in my doctors office, trying to shut me up and break my mouth barker said to lloyd sherer, my order was to break both of my legs. That would keep me in the hospital but not off the stand. Someone else wanted to take care of my job. Jaw. The purpose of these crimes had i given something to mcgovern he would not have told that i would have given it to him. He said i put at the pentagon papers. For other reasons. Because he was running for president and one of that publicity. And wanted that publicity. It was matthias who had the incentive to confess to the administration immediately that he had documents from the nsc. Fortunately, from my point of view, he did not tell them what it was and he hardly knew what it was. Nsc documents which suggested immediately a mole from the nsc and the possibility that i have the likelihood that i had documents on mining or hai phong and Nuclear Weapons and i had to be stopped. This led to crimes which could have been kept secret. If the criminals themselves the cia office they did not think of themselves as criminals but as warriors, covert warriors. , patriots. Had they not been caught. Again, if they had talked earlier, they would have come out. If fielding had told me against the advice of his lawyer that his office had been broken into by the white house, we would have put that out and the plumbers would not have been hired to work for creek. Even though the police would not have known who did it, they would know. I dont think they wouldve have used those people again that the police were looking for to go into the offices of the Democratic National committee. The people who did go in would not have had these earlier crimes to reveal. They would not have had to be kept secret by the smoking gun by pretending it was a cia operation. That was the smoking gun conversation. Hunt would not have been paid off 100,000 or so. None of this guaranteed that nixon would leave office. A lot of other things have to follow, too. The tapes had to be revealed. The Supreme Court had to decide that the tape said to be given over. The saturday night massacre, a lot of things have to happen. Nixon was not terribly reckless to believe he could commit crimes like this and keep them quiet. President s did this kind of thing all the time and nearly all of them kept quiet. Moreover, once they come out george w. Bush has committed crimes like this right and left and a lot of them have come out and he is still there. I dont say he would get reelected this year if he was running but he will live out his office. He did not get impeached. None of his officials have gone to prison. Even libby will eventually be pardoned. He was not unusually reckless in doing this. He had bad luck to but he was vulnerable, there is a possibility and he took that risk to preserve of vietnam policy that he thought would work foolishly but not impossibly. He was wrong. Actually, it did work up to a point. In fact, he did get reelected in 1972 despite the war still going on. I believe it was entirely there is a lot of evidence on this his intention to renew the bombing of North Vietnam as some as american troops were out in march, april, 1973. According to Time Magazine in 1975, he had given the order to renew the bombing in april but dean on april 13, told the prosecutors maybe the 15th dean told the prosecutors who promptly told maxim. Told nixon. Nixon keeps a quiet for another 10 days or more but it does come out and now he is in deep trouble. Byrne has to put it up because he knows now that dean is talking, its going to come out. He cannot sit on it any longer. He has to put it out. Nixon lost all of that. You believe this is the most information that until the prosecutors . It was crucial that dean told the prosecutors. It was crucial. He told them lots of stuff up until them but it did not involve the president. He deliberately kept from defiling the president. For various reasons. Maybe loyalty but also dean very well that a fight with the president is a dangerous process. By that time, he knew he was dealing with people who were assassins. Hunt had organized and managed efforts to assassinate castro. While the other operations the plumbers were involved in was a plot to assassinate toreos . Do you know about that . No. Its good for the next library. There were all involved in a plot and they had done actions to further the plot to assassinate torreos to get the panel mocon now the panama canal to have another canal go through, to widen the canal or Something Like that. There was some idea of a sealevel canal. Toprreos was in the way of that so they were going to assassinate him and he later died in a plane crash. That seems to be white hunt and dean were involved in the breakin in las vegas. It had something to do with Howard Hughes and the torroes affair but there are records on this. A guy named Jonathan Marshall was on this. I can put you want to that. In 1968, i gave neil a series of topsecret leaks including west morelands yearend report, eyes only for the president topsecret. This was right after the tet offensive but i was doing this. His report which was only a month or so earlier, it ended in january, told the president that we have driven the vietcong out of South Vietnam to the borders where we are pursuing them. This was 10 days or so before the vietcong hit simultaneously every province capital in vietnam and saigon in a 2day period so it made west moreland look quite bad. The day that was leaked in the new york times, west moreland was told that afternoon that he would be replaced by creighton abrams. I was i just to see him replaced because i knew he was likely to use Nuclear Weapons over kaison which they were afraid would be another dien nien phu. I foresaw the president giving west moreland a large part of what he just asked for secretly, 2006000 troops. 2006000 troops. 206,000 troops. I wanted the president johnson to feel that his administration at high levels had suddenly become transparent, a goldfish bowl, that he would not be able to give west moreland secretly 100,000 troops or 200,000 troops and lie about what he was giving as he had always done in the past. He had always given westmoreland until 1957, more troops, promise of more troops than he revealed to the public. To keep them from doing that in this case which i thought would lead to the invasion of North Vietnam which is what west moreland wanted and thus to chinese involvement and eventually the use of Nuclear Weapons, to keep them from doing that, too thinking he could do it secretly, i wanted him to know that if he made that decision it would leak out. The way i thought of convincing them of that was to make it a major topsecret leak every day for a number of days. I gave neil sheehan that and the new order of battle which doubled the estimate of viet cong which would not have been revealed. And several other items to come out sequentially. I felt the times a double those quite well. I trusted neils discretion on this and had taken never to cover me on this in various ways. That was all in 1968 when neil was the pentagon representative of the times. I think in 1971 when i went to him he was no longer i cannot remember this exactly but not sure he was any longer covering the pentagon. For the times. Mainly, i had gone to him before and i trusted him when he was in town. When it became a question of giving it to somebody on the times, neil was the obvious person. At that point, you have decided on a new strategy with the pentagon papers . Yes it was suggested they suggested i give it to neil sheehan. They had already given it to him. You mean the three at the ips . Yes, this is the part that has yet to be worked out at this late date exactly what happened here. Neil and mark raskin tell quite different stories. They all agree that ips gave a lot of documents to neil sheehan and the significance of that is disputed or what followed from that. Youre are not the first to give him the pentagon papers . No i did not know that until a year or two ago. Ill tell you exactly what i learned in the spring of 2002, i guess the spring of 2002, mark raskin gave some interviews which led me to talk to ips. He would be a good one to talk to. This is the first i knew of this. Neil had never told me anything about it. Concealing his sources, you know. They had, in fact, given him all i had given them which was 1000 pages of important stuff and did that in january late january of 1971. Its in the book, i think i went to him in early march of 1971 after it was suggested i go to neil. It was not once a dental that they suggest i go to neil. With their calculations were is complicated. That means to me that someone at the times knew about that story long before they admitted because neil had to have discussed that with people high on the times who probably kept it closely held. Have you talked to neil since then . He has not talked much about them. About that. The times involvement remains very sensitive, and internal secret of some sort. What i have to infer is that the times has been lying steadily, everybody on the times, many of them probably didnt know the facts. Some did and whoever it was who knew has been dissimilarity all this time about who knew diss imilating all his time about who knew. It was even before i dealt with neil rather than much later. Anyway, thats another story. What warning did you have that the papers would appear on the front page . For reasons that neil would not really talk about all of a sudden, he was very friendly to me, as far as i knew. Some of the reasons for not saying some things are not ordinarily journalistic practice not to tell me of the time that he had an earlier from somebody else and keeping them secret is normal journalistic practice. Why he would keep that up for 35 years seemed in particular, it remains somewhat mysterious to me that he did not tell me from the time he himself copied the papers and he said he wouldnt to which i gave him access, he had copied them and then later, he asked me if he could have physical possession of the copies which i postponed. This is all getting complicated. Let me say its more simply. When i gave him access to the papers in the apartment of patricias half brother in cambridge, i asked him not to copy them or to take them with him to the times in dealing with them to get a decision because i felt as soon as there was a copy out, its totally out of my control and those copies will be copied by other people. There will be copies around and then i figured the times would probably not agree to publish them in the end. They will think about it and they will shy away from it just as albright had. And mccloskey and matthias and everybody have had second thoughts. I thought they would not do it in the end. Then the copies would be all over the place. Somebody will tell the fbi. Later events showed there was a good deal of realism to that concern. I said i will take that chance at the point you tell me that the times is seriously interested in running these. They think they probably will. I dont ask for guarantees. They can change their minds of the last moment, obviously. But i want to know that they really think and they probably will. Its their current intent. Then i will take the chance of letting them have the copies and if they change their mind afterwards,. Thats too bad before that, i dont want you to have copies, just discuss it. He said to convince them to do it, i need more. I said im sorry neil i dont want you to give them until i have more insurance. You just have to try to convince them. In fact it turns out he said can i read them . I said i can read i said you can read them and take notes but dont xerox. I gave him a key to the apartment where they were being held so he could read them and take notes. He immediately arranged with the times to get money for copying and brought his wife down to copy them and checked into a motor hotel and took all the papers out and got them copied for the times. So that i could not back out. I never blamed him for doing this. In effect, it was he did not have to do that but i felt it was pretty much what i had done. This material must get out and i want to be sure that it does. He got it copied. When i learned about it, that seems to me i can even admire that as journalistic behavior. Even though it involves lying to me. What i never fully understood was why he never did tell me that the times was working on it. The reason why that is odd is not knowing that they were serious, i continued to try to get them out by other channels. He was taking that risk that i would succeed in getting it out. It was after that that i talked to mccloskey, for example, and gave him about 1000 pages or so or more. I showed it to some other people and i showed some to howard zannon and noam chomsky. To get their feedback and i dealt with matthias and so forth. He was taking a real risk that by not telling me i think he feared that if he told me that they were about to do it that i would get real busy and try harder to get it ou