P: Say, 'The president just feels that ah, without going into details--don't lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is a comedy of errors, without getting into it, the president believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.'

The following are edited White House transcripts of the taped conversations between President Nixon and his former chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, on June 23, 1972. The transcripts cover three separate meetings.

10:04 a.m.-11:39 a.m.

HALDEMAN: Now, on the investigation, you know the Democratic break-in thing, we're back in the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control it and they have--their investigation is now leading into some productive areas--because they've been able to trace the money--not through the money itself--but through the bank sources--the banker. And, and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go. Ah, also there have been some things--like an informant came off the street to the FBI in Miami who was a photographer or has a friend who is a photographer who developed some films through this guy Barker and the films had pictures of Democratic National Committee letterhead documents and things. So it's things like that that are filtering in. Mitchell came up with yesterday, and John Dean analyzed very carefully last night and concludes, concurs now with Mitchell's recommendation that the only way to solve this, and we're set up beautifully to do it, ah, in that and that--the only network that paid any attention to it last night was NBC--they did a massive story on the Cuban thing.

PRESIDENT: That's right.

H: That the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters call Pat Gray and just say, "Stay to hell out of this--this is ah, business we don't want you to go any further on it." That's not an unusual development, and ah, that would take care of it.

P: What about Pat Gray--you mean Pat Gray doesn't want to?

H: Pat does want to. He doesn't know how to, and he doesn't have, he doesn't have any basis for doing it. Given this, he will then have the basis. He'll call Mark Felt in, and the two of them--and Mark Felt wants to cooperate because he's ambitious--

P: Yeah.

H: He'll call him in and say, "We've got the signal from across the river to put the hold on this." And that will fit rather well because the FBI agents who are working the case, at this point, feel that's what it is.

P: This is CIA? They've traced the money? Who'd they trace it to?

H: Well they've traced it to a name, but they haven't gotten to the guy yet.

P: Would it be somebody here?

H: Ken Dahlberg.

P: Who the hell is Ken Dahlberg?