Reply #32: This is only a mild surprise to me [View All]

[Jack Rabbit]

I always suspected that Nixon knew more than the official story allowed. He resigned after the smoking gun tape was released. In this tape, Nixon and Haldeman discuss the burglary and the ivestigation on June 23, 1972, only a few days after the break in.

HALDEMAN:okay -that's fine. Now, on the investigation, you
know, the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the-in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have, their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they've been able to trace the money, not through the money itself, but through the bank, you know, sources - the banker himself. And, and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go. Ah, also there have been some things, like an informant came in off the street to the FBI in Miami, who was a photographer or has a friend who is a photographer who developed some films through this guy, Barker, and the films had pictures of Democratic National Committee letter head documents and things. So I guess, so it's things like that that are gonna, that are filtering in. Mitchell came up with yesterday, and John Dean analyzed very carefully last night and concludes, concurs now with Mitchell's recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we're set up beautifully to do it, ah, in that and that...the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC...they did a massive story on the Cuban...
PRESIDENT: That's right.
HALDEMAN: thing.
PRESIDENT: Right.
HALDEMAN: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, "Stay the hell out of this...this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it." That's not an unusual development,...
PRESIDENT: Um huh.
HALDEMAN: ...and, uh, that would take care of it.

All Haldeman says is that the FBI investigation is leading into some "productive areas." THat seems to be a very cryptic reference to the plumbers squad, but Nixon knows exactly what Haledman is saying. At least, he's not asking any questions about it.

One might expect Nixon to say, "What are you talking about, Bob?" But he doesn't. He knows. It always bothered me that he approved the cover up in a converstion where the details were left out and yet he seemed to understand just what they were.