COLLECTIONS
ABOUT
EXHIBITS
COLLECTIONS
ABOUT
EXHIBITS
Date: April 14, 1971
Time: Unknown between 4:33pm and 4:36pm
Location: White House Telephone
Participants: President Nixon, White House Operator, Ronald Ziegler
Download Audio Files: MP3
Listen:
President Nixon: Hello?
Operator: [White House Press Secretary] Mr. [Ronald L.] Ziegler, Mr. President.
President Nixon: Yeah.
Operator: The President.
Robert Ziegler: Hello, Mr. President?
President Nixon: Hello? Yeah, hi.
Ziegler: Yes, I’m sitting here with [White House special counsel] Dick Moore and I’m getting ready to go out to brief. I’m going to get a question, Mr. President, on this [Sen. Edmund S.] Muskie [D-Maine] statement regarding FBI surveillance of last year’s Earth Day.
President Nixon: Who’s birthday?
Ziegler: Earth Day. Earth Day.
President Nixon: Earth Day? Yeah.
Ziegler: Earth Day, the event last year.
President Nixon: Yeah, yeah.
Ziegler: Both Dick and I feel that, although I don’t get into this in any detail, I refer to the fact that political statements are being made and go back to the [Hale] Boggs statement, which was somewhat—1
President Nixon: Yeah.
Ziegler: —political and without—
President Nixon: Yeah.
Ziegler: —substantiation. And that . . . Then refer to the fact that the two areas of electronic surveillance that are conducted by the FBI are those dealing with criminal situations, and secondary, relating to national security, which has been the case with every president and every attorney general since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
President Nixon: Right.
Ziegler: And that this administration uses these powers at the President’s specific instructions very judiciously and sparingly.
President Nixon: That’s right.
Ziegler: And—
President Nixon: And you can say further: that this administration is using them less than they’ve been used in any previous administration. Say that.
Ziegler: Right, right, right. Using them less than any previous administration.
President Nixon: That’s right.
Ziegler: And indicate that it’s easy to grab a headline simply by saying that—
President Nixon: Making the charge. [Unclear]—
Ziegler: Making the charge.
President Nixon: And then suggest that he, like Boggs, that he should, if he’s got facts, he should present them.
Ziegler: Right and then—actually, he said that—I thought I’d make the other point: it is absurd to say that surveillance is being undertaken at a public event, particularly when an individual’s making a public speech which is widely reported!
President Nixon: That’s right.
Ziegler: You know. And then I’ll—
President Nixon: He’s just lashing out for—
Ziegler: Well, I could let this—Dick and I were talking about letting this thing go with a “no comment.”
President Nixon: No, no.
Ziegler: We’re going to do that, but I’m not going to do it if I’m pressed into a situation—
President Nixon: No.
Ziegler: —that it looks like we’re doing something and we don’t want to talk about it. And that’s what I thought I’d use this line, but I wanted to check with you.
President Nixon: That’s fine. That’s fine. That’s OK.
Ziegler: And in regard, if they get into the activities of the army, I’m going to say that as soon as the President found out about that he directly ordered curtailment of that activity that was authorized under a previous administration, that the army, at this time, has absolutely no intelligence role to investigate any type of activity regarding civil disturbance.
President Nixon: Now, is that true?
Ziegler: Yes, sir. Dick Moore has checked it and that is true.
President Nixon: All right, say it then. OK.
Ziegler: OK, sir.
President Nixon: These are matters that . . . but that main thing: there’s less in this administration and on a very—and only where there’s a clear, clear indication of national security.
Ziegler: When it relates to national security, right.
President Nixon: Right, right. Well just let them come down here and kill somebody, that will, that’ll stir people up.
Ziegler: Right.
President Nixon: OK.
Ziegler: OK, sir.
1 House Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs [D-Louisiana] had accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of tapping congressional phones and called for Director J. Edgar Hoover’s resignation. (↑)
D R A F T