Nixon Plots Retaliation Against Leakers in Latest Batch of Tapes

Determined to strike back at leakers, Richard Nixon is heard on newly released White House tapes ordering aides to conduct break-ins and to circulate damaging stories about his political foes.

“We have got to go after everyone who is a member of this conspiracy,” Nixon said on July 2, 1971, two weeks after the New York Times and the Washington Post began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page study of American involvement in Vietnam.

The White House tapes, made public Tuesday by the National Archives, show a worried Nixon crafting a strategy to attack perceived enemies. Instead, the tapes ultimately revealed Nixon’s role in the Watergate cover-up and led to his resignation on Aug. 9, 1974.

The recordings cover familiar ground but add details about Nixon’s anger over the publication of the Pentagon Papers and his obsession with curtailing leaks. Nixon’s attempt to keep newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers was thwarted by the Supreme Court.

Among the new tidbits:

* On April 19, 1971, Nixon makes disparaging comments about federal workers. “We have no discipline in this bureaucracy. We never fire anybody. We never reprimand anybody. We never demote anybody,” Nixon tells John Ehrlichman, counsel to the president. “That’s true in the State Department. It’s true in HEW [the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare]. It’s true in OMB [the Office of Management and Budget], and true for ourselves, and it’s got to stop.”

* On April 27, 1971, Nixon tells secretary Rose Mary Woods that the administration must stand firm in the face of protesters opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. “They’re all a funny bunch, but, uh, well, I tell ya, we’re going to stand firm against ‘em; I got [National Security Advisor] Henry [Kissinger] in here. I said, ‘Now look, just, they’re not going to rattle us one bit. We’re gonna stay on our course. This country’s not gonna be run by a bunch of goddamned rabble.’ Don’t you agree?”

* On May 7, 1971, Nixon underscores his belief that the antiwar demonstrations represent only a tiny slice of American public opinion. “I thought, uh, that guy standin’ up there naked in front of everybody, that must’ve just turned off the heartland by the millions.”

Many Hundreds More Tapes Still Unreleased

All told, 445 hours of recordings, capturing 3,650 conversations of Nixon talking to staff members, foreign policy advisors, congressmen, Cabinet secretaries and reporters, were released, more than doubling the hours now available to the public. Many hundreds of additional Nixon tapes are still unreleased.

On many of the tapes, buzzing and humming noises from the recorder drown out many words. But Nixon can be heard discussing Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, the environment, busing, unemployment and antiwar demonstrations.

In one June 14, 1971, segment, Nixon tells aides that he’s worried that his own staffers, particularly the national security staff, could leak information about the war efforts.

He blamed the leaking on a conspiracy of intellectuals--”they will lie, cheat, anything.”

“Basically they have no morals,” Nixon says.

He instructs chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to get journalists to write stories that discredit Leslie Gelb, a former member of Nixon’s national security staff at the Brookings Institution who was thought to have helped compile a paper outlining the Nixon administration’s involvement in Vietnam.

“I’ll tell you what I want done. Get the story out on Gelb right away. Get a columnist. . . . I want that out,” he ordered.

Another order: Break into Brookings to get the Vietnam study.

“I really meant it when I, I want somebody to go in and crack that safe,” Nixon said on July 2. Earlier tape releases have Nixon ordering the break-in two days before.

On July 3, Nixon and Haldeman discuss information gathered by a snoop hired by a longtime political associate, Murray Chotiner, who interviewed Democratic congressional leaders with fake media credentials.

“Chotiner’s spy guy--you know the guy who does the interviewing, snooping around--has come up with some kind of interesting stuff,” Haldeman tells Nixon.