Modified Limited Hangout
In a March 22, 1973 meeting between Richard Nixon, John Dean, John Ehrlichman, John Mitchell, and H.R. Haldeman, Ehrlichman incorporated the term into a new and related one, "modified limited hangout."
The phrase was coined in the following exchange:
| “ | PRESIDENT: You think, you think we want to, want to go this route now? And the--let it hang out, so to speak?
DEAN: Well, it's, it isn't really that-- HALDEMAN: It's a limited hang out. DEAN: It's a limited hang out. EHRLICHMAN: It's a modified limited hang out. PRESIDENT: Well, it's only the questions of the thing hanging out publicly or privately. |
” |
Before this exchange, the discussion captures Nixon outlining to Dean the content of a report that Dean would create, laying out a misleading view of the role of the White House staff in events surrounding the Watergate burglary. In Ehrlichman's words: "And the report says, 'Nobody was involved,'". The document would then be shared with the Senate Watergate Committee investigating the affair. The report would serve the administration's goals by protecting the President, providing documentary support for his false statements should information come to light that contradicted his stated position. Further, the group discusses having information on the report leaked by those on the Committee sympathetic to the President, to put exculpatory information into the public sphere.
The phrase has been cited as a summation of the strategy of mixing partial admissions with misinformation and resistance to further investigation, and is used in political commentary to accuse people or groups of following a Nixon-like strategy.
Writing in the Washington Post, Mary McGrory described a statement by Pope John Paul II regarding sexual abuse by priests as a "modified, limited hangout".
Read more about this topic: Limited Hangout
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