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D: Along that line, one of the things I've tried to do, I have begun to keep notes on a lot of people who are emerging as less than our friends because this will be over some day and we shouldn't forget the way some of them have treated us.
P: I want the most comprehensive notes on all those who tried to do us in. They didn't have to do it. They are asking for it and they are going to get it. We have not used the power in this first four years as you know. We have not used the Bureau [FBI] and we have not used Justice, but things are going to change now. And they are either going to do it right or go.
D: What an exciting prospect.
P: Thanks. It has to be done ...
They discuss how to head off pending hearings by the House Banking and Currency Committee on improper campaign practices. The President agrees that "heat" should be put on Speaker of the House Carl Albert. The hearings, in fact, were called off.
P: You really can't sit and worry about it all the time. The worst may happen but it may not. So you just try to button it up as well as you can and hope for the best, and remember basically the damn business is unfortunately trying to cut our losses.
D: Certainly that is right and certainly it has had no effect on you. That's the good thing.
H: No, it has been kept away from the White House and of course completely from the President. The only tie to the White House is the Colson effort they keep trying to pull in [Charles Colson, former special counsel to Nixon].
D: And, of course, the two White House people of lower level—indicted ... That is not much of a tie.
FEBRUARY 28, 1973, 9:12 A.M.
The Oval Office. Present: the President and Dean.
By late January, the Watergate seven had either pleaded guilty or been convicted. At the end of the trial, Judge John Sirica had warned that he was not satisfied that all the guilty persons had been brought to justice. In early February, the Senate voted to set up the Watergate committee to investigate 1972 presidential campaign practices. L. Patrick Gray was making his first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was holding hearings for his confirmation as permanent FBI director. The President is concerned about the leaks on Watergate from the FBI.
P: The Bureau is leaking like a sieve to Baker [Senator Howard Baker, vice chairman of the Senate Watergate committee]. It isn't coming from Henry Petersen [chief of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department] is it?
D: No. I would just not believe that.
The problem of the sentencing of the Watergate conspirators comes up.
P: You know when they talk about a 35-year sentence, here is something to think about. There were no weapons! Right? There were no injuries! Right? There was no success! Why does that sort of thing happen? It is just ridiculous! [Characterization deleted]
∎
P: Well, you can follow these characters to their Gethsemane. I feel for those poor guys in jail, particularly for Hunt with his wife dead. [She had been killed in a plane crash while delivering $10,000 in hush money for Watergate defendants.]
D: Well, there is every indication