what happened after that -- i was telling you about the plumbers -- bud krogh stopped in san clemente on the way home and got the assignment to start the plumbers unit, the special investigation unit. when he came back to washington, he said i am doing something that i'm not allowed to tell you about. he said normally i suspect your office would be doing it but there are some people in california that you've got a little old lady in you. i knew what he was talking about and was not troubled by it in the slightest. i did not know what he was doing with the special investigation unit. i would not learn about that until after the watergate break-in. >> this little old lady comment was after or before the brookings? >> it was after i shut that off. i've got to say the brookings institute, all these years, has never sent me a note thanking me for not having them firebombed in 1972. or 1971. >> one of the things bud krogh told us he was told was that there were suspicions that ellsberg was sharing his material with the russian embassy. did that material come through your interagency group?

but i told them, as i say, went to mitchell, went to haldeman, to krogh, others, i said this is very painful, but it is the only way this going to end. and it is the only way it did end. i told -- and actually, that is another thing, i should say, i certainly included nixon. that was the conversation on the 15th, which is probably the most interesting of all of my taste -- tapes, a very long session. moderator: it sounds like you had personal conversations with most of these men, with the exception of president nixon after. john: afterwards. curiously, i ran into haldeman when he was working for a fellow by the name of murdoch, a developer of your -- developer here in los angeles. and we were going to have lunch. we never did. we had a nice exchange in the hall. i was coming down an elevator, and he was getting on, and i was seeing someone, and we just had a brief reunion. we never did. next thing i knew, he had stomach cancer and passed away. the, ehrlichman i first ran into when we shared the same publisher up in new york, and when i years later filed a lawsuit for some defamation