The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (107 page)

Ziegler: If I run into Dean, I may ask him.

News conference, 11:21
A.M.
, October 11, 1972, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Nixon library. It is my recollection that Ziegler asked me shortly after I returned from San Clemente in August about my so-called investigation, and I had told him then that I had done no such investigation.

12
As Nixon’s recorded conversations reveal, the president had volunteered during his June 22, 1972, press conference that no one in the White House was involved, based only on his conversations with Haldeman, with no investigation whatsoever other than what Haldeman had learned from Ehrlichman, Mitchell and my conversation with Liddy. See National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 344-14. According to Nixon’s memoir, he created my purported investigation because “Ehrlichman assured me that there was still one thing of which we were certain: John Dean, the Justice Department, and the FBI all confirmed that there had been no White House involvement.” Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 680. Nixon was correct: There was no White House involvement in the Watergate break-in, notwithstanding the fact that I had not conducted an investigation under his direct guidance, as he claimed, nor had anyone else conducted an investigation. In fact, I had not spoken with the president about Watergate and had been in his office only once since the arrests at the DNC’s Watergate office—on August 14, 1972, when he and his wife signed an updated estate plan; I was there with Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Butterfield, two of his former law partners, who had prepared the testamentary documents, and a White House clerk and a photographer. And I had advised Ehrlichman that I had told Haldeman of Liddy’s plans in Mitchell’s office and tried to kill them.

13
Joseph A. Califano, Jr.,
Inside: A Public and Private Life
(New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 271–72.

14
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Liddy and Hunt Reportedly Fled During Bugging Raid,”
The Washington Post
, September 1, 1972, A-1.

15
Califano, Jr.,
Inside,
272.

16
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Democrats Called in Watergate Case,”
The Washington Post
, September 6, 1972, A-1.

17
Conversation No. 772-6.

18
Conversation No. 773-1.

19
Conversation No. 773-17.

20
Conversation No. 360-9.

21
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “Bugging ‘Participant’ Gives Details,”
The Washington Post
, September 11, 1972, A-1.

22
Conversation No. 774-3.

23
Conversation No. 360-12.

24
Conversation No. 360-20.

25
Nixon,
RN
, 680.

26
Conversation No. 775-6.

27
Several days earlier both Haldeman and Colson had told me that the president wanted to know what counter lawsuits might be filed against the Democrats. In turn, I spoke with Mitchell and the reelection committee lawyers, who had been developing potential counterclaims, and counter lawsuits, against the Democrats, based on abuse of process, libel and malicious prosecution, saying that they were using their lawsuit to harass the Nixon reelection committee. In addition, the reelection committee lawyers, and particularly Henry Rothblatt, whose showboating made the reelection committee lawyers cringe, were looking forward to taking depositions against the Democrats because, as they explained to me and I noted in my September 12, 1972, memorandum:

Depositions are presently being taken of members of the DNC by defense counsel in the O’Brien suit. These are wide ranging and will cover everything from Larry O’Brien’s sources of income while chairman of the DNC to certain sexual activities of employees of the DNC. They should cause considerable problems for those being deposed.

Dean Senate testimony, 3 Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities
(SSC)
1178.

28
Conversation No. 210-13.

29
In his self-published book, James W. McCord, Jr.,
A Piece of Tape, The Watergate Story: Fact and Fiction
(Washington, DC: Washington Media Services, Ltd., 1974), McCord writes on page 25 of the first Watergate entry into the DNC offices on May 28, 1972:

I had been asked to install only one device but had brought a second “for insurance” in case needed. I found an office with a direct view from across the street at the Howard Johnson Motel, pulled the curtain and made the installation in the telephone in about five minutes, tested the device and found it working. I did the same on an extension off a telephone call directory carrying Larry O’Brien’s lines in an adjoining room. Surprisingly, both devices were to remain in place and both to operate for months after the arrests. The first was to remain in place until early September 1972. Al Baldwin was to tell of its location in July 1972. In September 1972 one of the lights on the telephone lighted up, a repairman was called and it was found. The second was to remain in place for almost a year, until early April 1973, when I told the federal prosecutors of its exact location. It was still in operating condition and transmission from it could possibly have been picked up in the Watergate apartments and office building during the 10 month period.

30
Facts on File, Yearbook: 1972
at 742–43.

31
Conversation No. 778-5.

32
Conversation No. 779-1.

33
Conversation No. 779-2.

34
Haldeman may have been referring to an infamous memorandum I had written on August 16, 1971, entitled “Dealing with Our Political Enemies.” As I later testified, Haldeman’s junior staff pestered me for months, even threatening to have me fired, before I produced a plan, which I wanted nothing to do with. I summed up what they wanted in an opening paragraph that addressed what they wanted to hear: “[H]ow we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be effective in their opposition to our
Administration. Stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” The memo went on to explain a process and structure to accomplish this goal, but while doing so excluded me and my office. When Haldeman’s staff later sent me the names of people for the “enemies project,” other than to toss them into a file, I did nothing. By April 4, 1972, Higby was having his assistant prepare “a talking paper for Mr. Haldeman on the problems we are having with Dean” on this and similar projects. On April 17, 1972, Gordon Strachan sent Higby a note pointing out that “Dean has not implemented the political enemies project.” So on May 17, 1972, Higby drafted “Talking Points—John Dean,” a document for Haldeman in which Higby emphasized that I was not “putting enough emphasis on some areas” where he thought I could be of unique assistance, namely the enemies project. All noted documents can be found in H. R. Haldeman’s chronological files at the Nixon library in the NARA. (Copies are also in the author’s files.) When Watergate occurred, Haldeman’s eager beavers backed off the enemies project. But soon Ehrlichman ordered me into action. In a meeting with Ehrlichman in his office, on September 6, 1972, he asked me if I knew Johnnie Walters, the head of the IRS. I said I did, for we had served together at the Department of Justice, where he had been the head of the tax division. Ehrlichman told me that within the next few days he would be sending me a list of McGovern’s staff and contributors that had been prepared by Murray Chotiner, and Ehrlichman wanted me to call Johnnie Walters to the White House to request that the IRS undertake tax audits of them. He did not explain why he wanted me to do this, but the instruction was given in a manner that both made it clear that I was not to ask and that it had come from the president. When the list arrived, however, it was sent from Haldeman’s office, so I knew the president’s most senior aides were involved. It was a remarkable document: It had 617 names, including former IRS head Mortimer Caplin; prominent Washington Democratic attorney Clark Clifford; Democratic activist and candidate for governor of Texas and vice president Sissy Farenthold; McGovern campaign manager Gary Hart; actress Shirley MacLaine; Senator William Proxmire; former JFK press secretary Pierre Salinger—and two dozen other prominent members of the Democratic Party, plus almost six hundred McGovern contributors from all over the United States. Statement of Information, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, Book III, Internal Revenue Service, “List of McGovern Staff Members and Campaign Contributors” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), 248–71.

While I could ignore Haldeman’s staff, for they were my juniors in the pecking order, I could not do so with Ehrlichman and Haldeman. At the time it occurred to me that they were testing me, for I had become rather adept at ignoring, finessing or even blocking requests of this nature since I arrived on the White House staff. While I suspected the true source of a request of this magnitude, at the time I did not know for certain. But I proceeded as instructed, literally. I called Johnnie Walters and requested he come to my office on September 11, 1972. Fortunately, he made notes during our meeting. I simply told him that I had been instructed—although he wrote “directed” in his notes, which was not inaccurate—by John Ehrlichman to provide him with a list of McGovern staff and contributors because the White House wanted the IRS to investigate them for any tax problems. Walters asked me if this request had come from the president. I said I had not discussed the matter with the president. He asked me if I had discussed this with Secretary of the Treasury Shultz, and I said I had not. When he advised me that he must discuss it with Secretary Shultz, I assured him I had no problem with that: I was trying to make it clear that this was not my idea. I merely hoped it could be done in a manner that would not cause ripples. September 11, 1972, John Walters Affidavit and John Walters Notes, Statement of Information, Internal Revenue Service, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, Book VIII, 237–44. That was where the matter sat when Haldeman called me to come over to the Oval Office on September 15, 1972; I was totally unaware that Haldeman had painted me as “ruthless,” which he undoubtedly did, because he knew this was what the president wanted on his staff.

35
Conversation No. 780-16.

Late September Through October 1972

1
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 143-9.

2
Conversation No. 783-25.

3
Conversation No. 30-21.

4
Conversation No. 213-31.

5
Conversation No. 787-4.

6
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Mitchell Controlled Secret GOP Fund,”
The Washington Post
, September 29, 1972, A-1.

7
Conversation No. 788-1.

8
Conversation No. 789-6.

9
Conversation No. 789-7.

10
Conversation No. 790-16.

11
Conversation No. 791-2.

12
Conversation No. 791-7.

13
Public Papers of the Presidents: Richard Nixon 1972
at www.presidency.ucsb.edu.

14
H. R. Haldeman,
The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1993), 513.

15
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats,”
The Washington Post
, October 10, 1972, A-1

16
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
All the President’s Men
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), 112–21.

17
For a summary and overview of the Segretti matter, see Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC), Final Report, June 1974, 160–87.

18
G. Gordon Liddy,
Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 202, 204.

19
Dean Senate testimony, 3 SSC 962–66. See also SSC, Final Report, June 1974, 160–87.

20
The Senate Watergate committee’s final report contains an excellent summary of their Segretti investigation. See SSC, Final Report, June 1974, 160–87.

21
Notwithstanding the fact that Felt had access to everything collected about Segretti and related activities, both
All the President’s Men
and the October 10, 1972,
Post
story, which contained some of the same information, reveal that his account is filled with falsehoods. For example, Felt reportedly told Woodward, and the
Post
reported, that the Nixon campaign was “investigating potential donors . . . before their contributions were solicited”; “[a]ccording to FBI reports, at least 50 undercover Nixon operatives traveled throughout the country trying to disrupt and spy on Democratic campaigns”; “[b]oth at the White House and within the reelection committee, the intelligence-sabotage operation was commonly called the ‘offensive security program,’ according to investigators.” Not only did I know this information was hogwash when I read the October 10 story, and later
All the President Men
, but over the years I have plowed through the massive FBI Watergate investigation and discovered that there are absolutely no documents to support Felt’s less than accurate statements to Woodward. Except for a few redactions, and possible missing files, that investigation is now online at http://vault.fbi.gov/watergate. Woodward and Bernstein and the
Post
did phenomenal work reporting on Watergate, but they did not get it all correct, for they were only as good as their sources, and off-the-record sources cannot be held accountable. For a full account of the games played by Mark Felt, and why, see Max Holland,
Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012).

22
Conversation No. 795-1.