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June 30, 1971

Introduction

This almanac page for Wednesday, June 30, 1971, pulls together various records created by the federal government and links to additional resources which can provide context about the events of the day.

Previous Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1971

Next Date: Thursday, July 1, 1971

Schedule and Public Documents

Archival Holdings

Any selection of archival documents will necessarily be partial. You should use the documents and folders identified below as a starting place, but consult the linked collection finding aids and folder title lists and the collections themselves for context. Many documents to be found this way do not lend themselves to association with specific dates, but are essential to a complete understanding of the material.

  • Selective document listing

    President's Office Files

    The President's Office Files consists of materials drawn together by the Special Files Unit from several administrative subdivisions within the White House Office. It is the handwriting and sensitive papers sent to the Staff Secretary that now comprise much of the President's Office Files. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    President's Personal File

    The President's Personal File is essentially a President's secretary's file, kept by Rose Mary Woods, personal secretary to the President, for two purposes: (1) preserving for posterity a collection of documents particularly close to the President, whether because he dictated or annotated them, or because of the importance of the correspondent or the event concerned and (2) giving appropriate attention–letters of gratitude, invitations to White House social events, and the like–to members and important friends and supporters of the Nixon administration. This generalization does not describe all the varied materials of a file group which is essentially a miscellany, but it does identify the reason for the existence of the file group's core. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

  • The H. R. Haldeman Diaries consists of seven handwritten diaries, 36 dictated diaries recorded as sound recordings, and two handwritten audio cassette tape subject logs. The diaries and logs reflect H. R. Haldeman’s candid personal record and reflections on events, issues, and people encountered during his service in the Nixon White House. As administrative assistant to the President and Chief of Staff, Haldeman attended and participated in public events and private meetings covering the entire scope of issues in which the Nixon White House engaged in during the years 1969-1973. Visit the finding aid to learn more.

    • Transcript of diary entry (PDF)
      Wednesday, June 30th. We had the court decision today, this afternoon, and that pretty much dominated the developments. Earlier in the day, we had learned that there was a leak from inside the court about what they were going to do, and the President wanted to try and get someone to rap that, which might help knock their decision the other way, but it didn't do any good. The Court went 6 to 3 against us. After the NSC meeting this afternoon, the President had Laird and Mitchell into his office and he called Kissinger and me in for a discussion on the court decision and how we should handle the reaction. Laird took the view that he should supply copies of all of the Pentagon Papers to the press, because the papers have agreed to delete the sensitive sections; and that we should make copies available to all papers, with our deletions, as a way of getting them to the Chicago Tribune and the other good papers, who will carry the stories with the slant that we would want. Henry argued very strongly that we have to maintain the principle of the security of government and that we should not give the papers out. Laird argued a line of not declassifying the papers, which was one thing that discourage, that distressed Henry, but rather release them, because the Supreme Court has allowed the stolen documents to be printed, and in fairness to other media, we have to allow them to have those documents too; make the point that we fought against printing any of it, but we lost. The President decided that we must declassify only on the merits of the material, not on the basis of what was printed.

      There's a general agreement that there is very definitely a conspiracy here, on these papers, and Laird alluded to some intelligence they had that he didn't get into detail on. He did mention a guy named Cooke who works for Elliot Richardson, who had moved from the Defense Department to the State Department under Elliot, and then to HEW with Elliot. They think he had some of the stats of these things and he's part of the big conspiracy; that he apparently photostatted and delivered classified documents, apparently to Ellsberg, while he was at the State Department. So the President ordered me to follow up on Richardson with that, which I did. I covered the problem with him and told him that the President needed the report back. Elliot called me back late tonight to say that the guy had shown some cables from Ellsworth Bunker regarding the Chow case to Ellsberg, while Ellsberg was at Rand; so there was no violation, because Ellsberg had a clearance. The cables then leaked and were printed in the Washington Star in a column by Jimmy Doyle. Elliot excuses this on the basis that a number of people who knew Chow had gone to bat for him; that Cooke and Ellsberg were in that group, as was Bunker who had talked to Thieu about trying to protect him. Cooke volunteered the fact that Ellsberg, could have been the leak, and the State Department people at the time talked to Rowan, the head of Rand, and urged him to fire Ellsberg, but by then Ellsberg was already gone, so State dropped the matter. Elliot talked to Cooke tonight and asked him if he had given, or shown, any other information to Ellsberg and he said that he had not and that he had no other communication with him. Elliot then went through a whole run down on what a fine fellow he is and how strongly he endorsed him.

      Earlier in the evening, the President called me at home, following up on our meeting, said that we should not release the papers that the President wants to take a hard line and not cave-in. He wants Ehrlichman to develop a plan on that basis. That we ought to start...

      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      DECLASSIFIED - E.O. 13526, Sect. 3.4: by MS, NARA, June 12, 2013
      Audio Cassette 10, Side A, Withdrawn Item Number 7 [AC-10(A) Sel 5]
      Duration: 3 seconds

      ...using Laird and his espionage unit on this...
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      …that we have to get all the information out. He wants me to follow up some more on the Richardson thing. He's concerned because Mitchell was obviously sold on the repression problem, and the President's not concerned about repression, if we can make secure, the security issue. He doesn't want any cave-in of the security system, and he doesn't want to listen to Scali, etcetera, on taking a soft line on it. He was pleased about the stock market increase, but analyzed that as being the necessity of the funds to buy before July 1st. Also, he called ecstatic about the unemployment figures which will come out on Friday that show it down from 6.2 to 5.6. He wants to get the maximum mileage out of that, naturally.

      End of June 30th.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

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Context (External Sources)