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March 21, 1973

Introduction

This almanac page for Wednesday, March 21, 1973, 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, March 20, 1973

Next Date: Thursday, March 22, 1973

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.

  • 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, March 21.

      The President had his usual Wednesday clear except for a few ceremonial items at midday. And spent most of the day on Watergate, which he's becoming more and more involved in, and I guess concerned about, as time goes on. He had a long session with Ehrlichman first thing this morning, then had John Dean at 10:00 for a couple of hours and had Dean give him a complete rundown on all the facts, which he had told him last night he wanted him to be prepared to do. And I told John to do exactly that, cover all the facts in considerable detail, so the President would actually know precisely what the situation was.

      Then he called me in at the end of the Dean meeting. We had some general discussion about options and alternatives. Ehrlichman's intrigued with the possibility, which he raised yesterday, of convening a grand jury and having all of us go up there and file our statements under oath and getting that done. The President also became somewhat interested in that, especially after talking with Dean, but has some concerns about it. Felt that the time had come that Dean and Ehrlichman and I should all sit down with Mitchell, and that Dean should give us the same total fill on the facts as he had given the President today, and we should then try to come to some conclusions. He called me back in at 3:00 and went over some of his thoughts again before Dean, Ehrlichman and I met at 3:30. At that point, the President felt that we needed basically to determine, first of all, what to do right now about the Hunt threat. He's asking for money, and says he'll blow the Ehrlichman story and Bud Krogh thing if we don't pay him off now, or if they don't. And the question is to evaluate the whole thing and determine a course of action. That we now have a different situation than we did during the election. We've got to figure all the problems and possibilities. For example, the Krogh problem on where he is. Maybe it can be solved by national security considerations or we can get him immunity, and there's a question of Sullivan's memo and whether to use it.

      He thinks, on thinking it over, that the grand jury is appealing, at least at first blush, because it's an opportunity for all the White House to be questioned on a sworn basis with no cover-up. We'd precede it by a general statement that would be based-- or take off from the statement by the judge at the sentencing on Friday. Then we're following up now, that the court has proceeded and then have Dean put out a general disclaimer. He feels we need something, and unless it's necessary to tough it through, we shouldn't. However, if it involves criminal prosecution of the top people, then that would be worse than having to tough it out. But if we do tough it out, it means living with it, which is going to be very tough, very difficult. He feels that the critical thing is regarding Ehrlichman and Krogh versus Hunt. The question is, can we let Hunt go. Also he thinks I ought to talk to Colson and see what would happen, as far as he's concerned, if Hunt blows. He suggested also that if we do the grand jury we should invite the press to testify, not subpoena them, but they should be invited. Not on their sources or their files, but on any facts that they have. The advantages of this, of course, are that the grand jury approach covers all the ground under oath, provides the answer about going to the Senate. How else can we show that the President is trying to get the facts and avoid anything falling on us? That becomes the basic problem, and the question is whether to go one way or the other, or just ride it through on the containment theory that Dean's been pursuing up to now. Generally you come out that the latter is really the only actually possible course, but it's not a very good one.

      The President then had Ehrlichman, Dean and me in at 5:15 for another hour or so and reviewed our afternoon discussion which comes down that Ehrlichman doesn't think the Dean approach to the grand jury is satisfactory, because Dean bases it on going for immunity before the people testify, which John doesn't think is a salable approach. So we talked for quite a while and came out about the same as we went in. We'll meet with Mitchell tomorrow morning and see if we can advance it there. Dean, after the meeting, made one point that maybe we should just draw the wagons up around the White House and let things fall where they may outside; which, of course, is the tempting choice, since there is no complicity within the White House, and we'd come out in good shape on that. But the problem is what happens to Mitchell, Magruder, etcetera, on the outside.

      End of March 21.
    • Original audio recording (MP3)

  • The National Archives Catalog is the online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records. It is the main way of describing our holdings and also provides access to electronic records and digitized versions of our holdings. 

    The Catalog searches across multiple National Archives resources at once, including archival descriptions, digitized and electronic records, authority records, and web pages from Archives.gov and the Presidential Libraries. The Catalog also allows users to contribute to digitized historical records through tagging and transcription.

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Context (External Sources)