The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (110 page)

12
Conversation No. 866-4.

13
Conversation No. 37-37.

14
Conversation No. 866-17.

15
Conversation No. 867-1.

16
Nixon news conference, March 2, 1973, at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4123.

17
Conversation No. 867-8.

18
John P. MacKenzie, “Nixon Says He Won’t Let Aide Testify on Gray Appointment,”
The Washington Post
, March 3, 1973, A-3.

19
In fact, the FBI raw investigative reports, known as “302s” as that is their form number, were useless information, for Gray provided me dated material. The only use I ever made of them
was to try and determine who might be leaking information from the FBI to the news outlets, but that information never did match.

20
Conversation No. 867-16.

21
Journalist Gloria Steinem described Pappas in a 1968 report on the Nixon presidential campaign: “Then there’s the matter of Greek-American millionaire Tom Pappas, who was an important backer of Nixon’s campaign against Kennedy [1960], and of Spiro Agnew’s campaign to become Governor of Maryland [1966]. (Nixon has said Pappas was one of those who ‘influenced’ him in the [1968] choice of Agnew.) An avowed supporter of the Greek Junta, whose interests include steel, chemical, and Esso oil refineries in Greece, Pappas and his brother also established the Pappas Foundation, which has been named as one of the CIA-backed groups transferring money to Greece, presumably to strengthen the Junta.” Gloria Steinem, “In Your Heart You Know He’s Nixon,”
New York
magazine, October 28, 1968, http://nymag.com/news/politics/45934/.

22
Conversation No. 868-7.

23
Conversation No. 868-20.

24
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “FBI Says GOP Unit Hurt Case,”
The
Washington Post,
March 6, 1973, A-1.

25
Conversation No. 869-13.

26
John P. MacKenzie, “Gray Says He Didn’t Want Dean at Quiz,”
The Washington Post
, March 7, 1973, A-1.

27
Conversation No. 871-4.

28
The leaks were extraordinary. Now it is known what was occurring. With Mark Felt heading the Watergate investigation and seeing all the reports, Felt and his cronies were passing out information to favorite reporters at will, and as it turns out, Bob Woodward of
The Washington Post
was way down on Felt’s list. Ironically, the excessive leaking by the FBI helped drive the Nixon White House to cover up. Even more troublesome, much of the information Felt leaked to Woodward and others was false, although the reporters to whom it was given were unaware of this fact. See Max Holland,
Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 128, 143, 159–60, 183, 244–45 n. 40, 252 n. 24, 257–58 n. 12 ; see also, John W. Dean, “Appendix: Why the Revelation of the Identity of Deep Throat Has Only Created Another Mystery,”
Writ
(June 3, 2005), at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050603.appendix.html.

29
Conversation No. 871-5.

30
Ibid. The shift in tone and style of the president’s speech makes clear they both know what the president is talking about when the following conversation occurred. I am not the only person who recognized that they were talking about Watergate, for the archivists at the National Archives label this segment of the conversation as follows: Watergate// - Pappas’ activities/ -President knowledge/ -Maurice H. Stans// -Gratitude/ -Stans/ -Innocence// -John N. Mitchell/ -Innocence// -Committee to Re-elect the President [CRP]/ -Involvement/ -Guilt/ -Low level staff// -Break-in// -White House Involvement// -Pappas support// -Break-in/ -Democratic National Committee[DNC]/ -Value.

31
This conversation, along with the March 2, 1973, one with Haldeman, would appear to establish violations of Section 600 of Title 18 of the United States Code (prohibiting the sale of ambassadorships), Section 201 (public official bribery), and Section 371 (the conspiracy statute). These conversations were apparently unknown to the Watergate Special Prosecutors when they called former president Nixon before the final 1975 Watergate grand jury, when his only exposure, given his pardon, was if he committed perjury—and he flatly denied ever selling ambassadorships, notwithstanding substantial evidence to the contrary that could have but did not include the March 2 and 7, 1973, conversations. See, e.g., Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, “How Much Is an Ambassadorship?”
Chapman Law Review
(Spring 2012):71.

32
Conversation No. 872-1.

33
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, “FBI Chief Says Nixon’s Aides Paid Segretti,”
The Washington Post
, March 8, 1973, A-1.

34
Conversation No. 37-89.

35
Conversation No. 37-93.

36
Conversation No. 878-7.

37
Conversation No. 878-14.

38
Associated Press, “Oilman’s Donation Returned,”
The Washington Post
, March 10, 1973, A-1.

39
Strachan Senate testimony, 6 SSC 2455-2456.

40
Liddy,
Will
, 238. Liddy reconstructed his account almost a decade after the fact, and I believe he has confused a conversation—which Magruder has consistently reported, in which Mitchell told Liddy his efforts were unsatisfactory—and transposed it coming from Strachan. I think Liddy conflated his meeting in April, in which Strachan gave him instructions from Haldeman to transfer his intelligence gathering operation from Muskie to McGovern.

41
The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on July 18, 1969, just about a year before I arrived at the White House, but I had been told about the Nixon White House activities. Mary Jo Kopechne, an attractive young former worker in Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, was a passenger in the front seat of U.S. senator Teddy Kennedy’s car and was killed when Teddy drove his car off a bridge, apparently drunk, and into a tidal wash channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Teddy escaped from the sinking car as it went under the water, swam to the shore and left the scene, not reporting the accident until some nine hours later, and leaving Mary Jo to die in the vehicle. Given Nixon’s feelings toward the Kennedys in general, and Ted Kennedy in particular, I assumed he was well aware of this Chappaquiddick investigation, if he had not ordered it. But this young aide did not proceed presumptuously with the president of the United States, and he treated my report as a revelation. For an excellent account of this political rivalry, see Christopher Matthews,
Kennedy & Nixon
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

42
Tony Ulasewicz later surfaced and testified before the Senate Watergate committee on July 18, 1973. It was made clear the testimony that day would not focus on the investigative work he had done for Ehrlichman and Caulfield, for Ulasewicz was told “the committee is not going to inquire into that area in any detail at all today.” 6 SSC 2220. In fact, because of what Ulasewicz did know about Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, he was never called to testify publicly about that information; rather, it appears the Democrat-controlled Senate protected their colleague. Decades later Ulasewicz did write about it, and it is devastating information. See Tony Ulasewicz with Stuart A. McKeever,
The President’s Private Eye
(Westport, CT: MACSAM Publishing, 1990), 187–224. Tony had, by that time he wrote the book, also shared some of his knowledge with
New York Times
reporter Philip Taubman, who pulled open part of the Chappaquiddick cover-up in a March 12, 1980, account, “Gaps Found in Chappaquiddick Phone Data,” a lengthy front-page story reported by Robert Pear and Jo Thomas; Kennedy was at the time challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy stonewalled about Chappaquiddick to his death, making his last comments accepting responsibility (but not guilt, nor providing all the facts) in his final memoir, Edward M. Kennedy,
True Compass
(New York: Twelve, 2009), 288–93. Nonetheless, a number of carefully documented books make clear that Kennedy and his enablers obstructed justice during the inquiries into what occurred at Chappaquiddick. For what it is worth, I have always been convinced that Kennedy stayed behind the scenes during Watergate because he feared what the Nixon White House might know, which could reopen this matter. It must also be noted that, given what Tony Ulasewicz, Jack Caulfield and John Ehrlichman did know about Chappaquiddick, it is surprising that Nixon did not make this bit of Senate and Kennedy hypocrisy a part of his public defense.

43
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Gray Hearing Calls Nixon Aide,”
The Washington Post
, March 14, 1973, A-1.

44
Conversation No. 37-99.

45
Conversation No. 419-20.

46
Conversation No. 879-5.

47
Conversation No. 419-23.

48
Conversation No. 37-108.

49
Conversation No. 37-109.

50
Conversation No. 37-116.

51
Nixon news conference, March 15, 1973, at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=4142.

52
Conversation No. 880-3.

53
Conversation No. 880-6.

54
Conversation No. 880-18.

55
Conversation No. 880-24.

March 16 to 20, 1973

1
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 881-3.

2
Conversation No. 881-4.

3
Conversation No. 881-7.

4
Conversation No. 420-11.

5
Conversation No. 881-8.

6
The only conversation with me that Nixon can be referring to took place in the Oval Office that morning between 10:34
A.M.
and 11:10
A.M.
(Conversation No. 881-3), but I can find no reference to Nixon telling me to tell Baker that he had “a record of this conversation,” and had he done so, it would have clearly suggested to me that he recorded conversations, which had not yet dawned on me, nor was Ehrlichman aware of this fact when Nixon made this reference to him. It is also possible he was referring to the record kept of all his office visits, which did not, however, include a record of Baker’s visit.

7
William M. Blair, “G.O.P. Officially Switches Convention to Miami Beach,”
New York Times,
May 6, 1972, 13.

8
Conversation No. 37-132.

9
Conversation No. 37-134.

10
Conversation No. 882-10.

11
Conversation No. 882-12.

12
Conversation No. 883-5.

13
Conversation No. 420-24.

14
John W. Dean,
Blind Ambition: The White House Years
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 191–93.

15
Dean Senate testimony, 3 Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC) 997.

16
Dean,
Blind Ambition
, 192.

17
See Senate testimony of John Dean, 3 SSC 974-976.

18
Conversation No. 37-162.

19
Ehrlichman telephone call to Dean, 7 SSC 2950-51.

20
Conversation No. 884-3.

21
Conversation No. 37-164.

22
Conversation No. 884-7.

23
Conversation No. 37-166.

24
Conversation No. 884-17.

25
See Senate testimony of John Dean, 3 SSC 997 and 1252.

26
Conversation No. 884-23.

27
Conversation No. 885-1.

28
On the surface, Ehrlichman brushed off the Hunt blackmail, for he was prepared to simply deny any involvement. Bud Krogh was not prepared to lie about it, however. This was a potential problem for Ehrlichman. Bud Krogh learned of Hunt’s demands from me on March 20, 1973, and he called Ehrlichman, who told him Mitchell was responsible for the “care and feeding” of Howard Hunt. On March 21, 1973, Krogh met with Ehrlichman in his office; Ehrlichman told Krogh that if Hunt “blew the lid” off the Ellsberg operation they could say
that Hunt and Liddy were on “a frolic of their own.” Krogh told Ehrlichman that that was untrue, for they had been authorized. Ehrlichman told Krogh that Mitchell was coming to the White House the next day, March 22, 1973, and Krogh should do nothing until Ehrlichman had spoken with Mitchell. On March 22, 1973, Ehrlichman telephoned Krogh and told him, “Hunt was stable [and] now was the time to hang tough.” Testimony of Egil Krogh,
U.S. v. Mitchell et al.
(November 22, 1974) 7653–81.

29
Conversation No. 885-7.

30
And I only knew what I had picked up in casual conversations from Mitchell and Magruder regarding the Watergate break-in and from Liddy and Ehrlichman regarding the Ellsberg break-in; I did not know what, if anything, Haldeman had done after I reported to him that I had heard Liddy’s pitch for an illegal political intelligence gathering operation in Mitchell’s office in late January and early February 1972. I discovered when working on this book that, contrary to my testimony, I had reported to him twice about this, based on his office records. It had been when I reported to him the second time that I thought I had turned it off by pouring cold water on Liddy’s plans, literally ending the discussion by insulting Liddy and Magruder for raising the matter with Mitchell, then the attorney general.

31
Conversation Nos. 37-175, 37-176.

March 21 to 23, 1973

1
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 886-7.

2
As revealed by the recorded conversations, the president’s daily diary (PDD) is incorrect on the times and people with whom the president met on the morning of March 21, 1973.

3
Conversation No. 886-8.

4
I had conflated two meetings I had with Haldeman about Liddy’s plans. The two meetings in Mitchell’s office occurred on January 27 and February 4, 1972. While working on this book I discovered that Haldeman’s office diary schedule shows I met with him on February 1, 1972, where I first reported on Liddy’s plans, and Haldeman’s negative reaction is what had emboldened me to blow up the second meeting, when I heard more of the same. When speaking to the president, and later testifying, I recalled telling Haldeman that I had turned off the Liddy plans. Based on Haldeman’s office diary schedule, that appears to have occurred on February 8, 1972, either before or after a staff meeting in Haldeman’s office. Although he quibbled about the dates, Haldeman later testified that he recalled my reporting having turned off Liddy’s plans at the February 4 meeting. See Haldeman Senate testimony, 8 Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (SSC) 3034–35. However, during a March 27, 1973, conversation, Haldeman acknowledged that I warned him about Liddy’s plan and that it had been dropped.