The Most Critical Nixon Conversations

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hard."

P: Take a hard line ... Anything on that they better watch their damned cotton picking faces. Because boy, if there's one thing in this case as Henry will tell you, since March 21st when I had that conversation with Dean, I have broken my ass to try to get the facts of this case.

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P: If there's one thing you have got to do, you have got to maintain the Presidency out of this. I have got things to do for this country and I'm not going to have —now this is personal. I sometimes feel like I'd like to resign. Let Agnew be President for a while. He'd love it.

Toward the end of the 44-minute session, Petersen decides to get something bothering him off his chest. Citing a personal example, he brings up the growing public doubt that the President is telling all that he knows about the Watergate coverup.

HP: Mr. President, my wife is not a politically sophisticated woman ... But she asked me at breakfast — she, now I don't want you to hold this against her if you ever meet her, because she's a charming lady —

P: Of course.

HP: She said...

P: "Why the hell doesn't the President do some thing?"

HP: She said, "Do you think the President knows?" And I looked at her and said, "If I thought the President knew, I would have to resign." . . . Well, when that type of question comes through in my home —

P: We've got to get it out.

Three days later, what gets out is Nixon's announcement that Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Dean and Kleindienst have resigned, that Elliot Richardson is being appointed Attorney General with authority to name a special prosecutor and that he, the President, takes full responsibility for what has happened. Nixon also recalls that at his second inaugural he gave each Cabinet member and senior White House staffer a special four-year calendar marked to show how many days remained in his Administration. It began with 1,461, and on the day he delivers the speech, he says, "It showed exactly 1,361 days remaining in my term." More than a year has passed, Watergate is far from over, and the figure on the President's special calendar is now down to just under 1,000.