The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (117 page)

30
Conversation No. 918-6.

31
Conversation No. 918-14.

32
Petersen, paraphrasing the ruling of Supreme Court justice Byron White, in
Murphy v. Waterfront Commission
, 378 US 52 (1964), addresses the problem of state versus federal immunity. He said: “It becomes a much more difficult problem when you’re in the same jurisdiction, the federal jurisdiction.” He noted, “If you anticipate that Congress granted X immunity and it was in a televised hearing and all over the front page, and then the prosecutor tries to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that his evidence overlapping was independently arrived at. It’s a tremendous—” At this point Nixon cut Petersen off, asking if I had immunity from the Senate, but Petersen did not know, explaining that, if I did, all they could do was hold it up for thirty days. What Charlie Shaffer was doing in insisting I get immunity from the Senate (regardless of my willingness to testify without it) was to protect my options by giving me full constitutional protection. Shaffer was building for me the case that Oliver North would have a decade and a half later. See
U.S. v. North
, 910 F2d 843 (1990). Oliver North sought to, and did, beat the rap. That was not my goal. Charlie laid out my options before I decided to plead guilty to my involvement in the cover-up conspiracy. I did not fully appreciate Charlie’s genius at the time, but he had a far stronger case than North, and I’m sure would have enjoyed writing new law. I rejected the option for several reasons, all of almost equal importance: (1) It would have been an expensive and time-consuming undertaking, and given the climate of the time, I did not think anyone involved in Watergate could get a dispassionate judicial ruling. (2) Had I gone this route I would have delayed the prosecution of Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell, if not have allowed them to walk free, since I was the key witness against them. To protect themselves these men had all lied about virtually everything, and dishonestly blamed me, while shoveling false and misleading information to discredit me. No way I was going to give them and their dishonesty a pass. (3) I truly wanted to end Watergate and get on with my life, and I felt the only way to do it was a full and honest accounting of the facts. Had I decided to fight the government, rather than assist, that would not have happened. When all was said and done, I had no regrets for the decision I made to plead guilty, for I was guilty. I had not gone to the White House to get involved in a criminal conspiracy, but that was what had happened.

33
Conversation No. 918-15.

34
Conversation No. 919-7.

35
White House press briefing No. 1740, 12:22
P.M.
, EDT, at the White House with Ron Ziegler, May 16, 1973.

36
Conversation No. 46-75.

37
Conversation No. 46-77.

38
Conversation No. 919-15.

39
Conversation No. 919-32.

40
See, e.g., Conversation No. 920-3 (Haig and Buzhardt, 4:55–5:22
P.M.
), Conversation No. 920-4 (Haig, 5:22–5:25
P.M.
), Conversation No. 920-6 (Ziegler, 5:25–5:31
P.M.
), Conversation No. 920-9 (Buzhardt, 5:39–5:53
P.M.
), Conversation No. 920-11 (Haig, Ziegler and Buzhardt, 5:53–6:11
P.M.
), Conversation No. 920-13 (Haig and Buzhardt, 8:45–9:33
P.M.
) and Conversation. No. 46-88 (Ziegler, 9:53–9:59
P.M.
).

41
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Vast GOP Undercover Operation Originated 1969: Watergate Was Part of Elaborate Undercover Campaign,”
The Washington Post
, May 17, 1973, A-1. See also Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward,
All the President’s Men
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), 316–19.

42
Conversation No. 921-8.

43
Conversation No. 921-13.

44
The reason I placed a copy of the 1970 proposed intelligence plans, which Nixon had approved but Hoover had rejected, in a safe-deposit box was because when I broke rank I was not sure
anyone would believe that the Nixon White House operated outside the law, and this was document proof. This plan called for electronic surveillance (illegal), spies, overt mail covers (legal but controversial pictures of envelopes), covert mail covers (illegal opening and copying of both an envelope and its contents) and surreptitious entries (illegal burglaries).

45
Conversation No. 438-15.

46
Conversation No. 46-105.

47
Conversation No. 46-107.

48
Conversation No. 46-109.

49
Conversation No. 46-111.

50
Conversation No. 46-113.

51
Conversation No. 922-7.

52
Conversation No. 922-14.

53
Conversation No. 437-11.

54
Conversation No. 437-19.

55
Conversation No. 437-26.

56
Conversation No. 46-116.

57
Conversation No. 923-2.

58
Conversation No. 923-5.

59
Conversation No. 167-4.

60
Conversation No. 167-6.

61
Conversation No. 167-7.

62
Conversation No. 167-10.

63
Conversation No. 167-25.

64
Conversation No. 167-27.

65
Conversation No. 167-29.

66
Conversation No. 46-120.

67
Conversation No. 924-2.

68
This number would appear to include people at the reelection committee who otherwise might have reentered the Nixon administration in the second term.

69
Bud Krogh would later tell me, and testify under oath, that after the Ellsberg break-in they realized they had a serious problem with Liddy and had to get him out of the White House as soon as possible. When the opportunity at the reelection committee arose, Krogh and Ehrlichman thought it perfect, and a place where Liddy could not get in trouble. As Krogh later wrote, after he cleared Liddy going to the CRP with Ehrlichman, who spoke with Mitchell, Liddy went to the CRP. Krogh says, “I called Magruder and told him that Liddy would require close supervision. I did not go into any details, which I regret, but I did indicate that close monitoring of Liddy’s activities would be important.” Egil “Bud” Krogh with Matthew Krogh,
Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons from the White House
(New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 120.

70
Conversation No. 439-2.

71
Conversation No. 46-123.

72
See, e.g. Conversation No. 439-11 (Haig, 12:40–1:10
P.M.
), Conversation No. 439-19 (Haig and Ziegler, 3:40–4:25
P.M.
), Conversation No. 439-21 (Ziegler and Buzhardt, 4:26–4:40
P.M.
), Conversation No. 439-22 (Haig and Ziegler, 4:55–5:25
P.M.
), Conversation No. 46-132 (Ziegler, 5:28–5:29
P.M.
), Conversation No. 439-29 (Buzhardt, 5:40–5:55
P.M.
).

73
Conversation No. 439-21.

74
Conversation No. 46-135.

75
Conversation No. 925-3.

76
Conversation No. 46-138.

77
Conversation No. 438-27.

78
Conversation No. 440-3.

79
For the May 22, 1973, statement (along with related presidential documents): www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3855.

80
John W. Dean,
Blind Ambition: The White House Years
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 294–95.

81
Nixon’s claim that he “took no part in” the cover-up is clearly more limited than his being “aware of,” but once he entered the cover-up conspiracy, he never truly left it, so he was actually taking part from that time. The earliest clear example of his taking part is found in his conversations with Haldeman on June 23, 1973, in which he authorized the use of the CIA to cut off the FBI’s investigation in Conversation No. 741-2 and Conversation No. 343-36. But Nixon was also very aware of, and taking part in, a cover-up when approving (thus suborning) Magruder’s perjury in the mid-July Conversation No. 747-14, Conversation No. 348-10, Conversation No. 748-7, Conversation No. 349-12 and Conversation No. 197-17. The House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry spelled out in Article I of their bill of impeachment nine distinctive ploys Nixon had personally relied upon to cover up. But this matter is not even debatable, for Nixon admitted in his memoir that he had been involved in the cover up. See Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978),
850–51.

82
Nixon tendered inchoate offers of clemency to Magruder in Conversation No. 428-19 and me in Conversation No. 38-37, and then to Haig for Haldeman and Ehrlichman in Conversation No. 922–7, but as used here he is referring to the original seven Watergate defendants, and he clearly gave Colson an offer to pass along to Howard Hunt on January 5 and 8, 1973, in Conversation Nos. 394-3 and 394-7, and Conversation No. 394-21, and he certainly understood what he had done in Conversation No. 424-10 when talking with Haldeman; see also Haldeman,
Diaries
, 594.

83
On August 1, 1972, Haldeman told Nixon that taking care of the Watergate defendants was “a costly exercise” and Nixon told him that that was what money was for, and he raised the issue of bribery in passing, in Conversation No. 758-11. On December 10, 1972, Nixon discussed with Haldeman whether Dorothy Hunt was carrying “payoff” money, in Conversation No. 384-4. On March 2, 1973, Haldeman discussed the role of Tom Pappas in providing cash for Mitchell to use with the Watergate defendants, and on March 7, 1973, when Nixon met with Pappas (Conversation No. 871-5). And following my March 21, 1973, conversation with Nixon, he asked Rose Mary Woods how much cash she had in a secret fund, in Conversation No. 886-18, because he was looking for the $1 million to pay the Watergate defendants.

84
The claim that he did not authorize the use of the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation was established as untrue in his June 23, 1972, conversations with Haldeman: Conversation Nos. 741-2, 741-10 and 343-46.

85
Nixon falsely claimed in his April 30, 1973, statement that he started his investigation on March 21, 1973. However, I told him about the Ellsberg break-in on March 17 in Conversation No. 882-12.

86
Suffice it to say that the Senate Select Committee on Campaign Practices (Senate Watergate committee) included several hundred pages in their final report (June 1974) spelling out in great detail Nixon’s illegal and improper campaign practices and finance. Samples of Nixon’s campaigning techniques are found in his embrace of the dirty campaigning of Donald Segretti, which he did not find seriously troubling at all: For example, Conversation No. 795-1, Conversation No. 366-6, Conversation No. 830-6 and Conversation No. 878-14. Nixon’s requesting the Haldeman use of the Secret Service, while protecting McGovern, to obtain information about him in Conversation No. 750-13. Nixon’s demanding of an Internal Revenue tax audit of Larry O’Brien in Conversation No. 758-11 and Conversation No. 760-9 was illegal, not to mention his endorsing the use of the IRS in going after McGovern campaign contributors in the latter conversation. See the Final Report, Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, U.S, Senate (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), Chapter 2: Campain Practices, 107–214, Chapter 3: Uses of Incumbency, Reponsiveness Program, 361–442, and Chapter 4: Campgain Finance, 445–563.

May 23 to July 16, 1973

1
That I had become Nixon’s arch enemy became increasingly apparent in the conversation that follow, then in the public speeches up to his resignation. After leaving office he purportedly gave his postpresidency assistant Monica Crowley his take on me: “He was a traitor and a liar and out for himself from the beginning. He was the one who was feeding me lies about what was going on. And there I was acting based on what he told me. He had a personal stake in covering up the facts, and I didn’t know that at the time.” Monica Crowley,
Nixon in Winter: His Final Revelations About Diplomacy, Watergate, and Life Out of the Arena
(New York: Random House, 1998), 297. Note: The Crowley book, if correct, and there are questions about its accuracy, indicates that Nixon never did understand the facts, nor did he make any effort to do so. But the effort to discredit me, and the truth as set forth in the extensive record of Watergate, has continued long after Nixon passed. A small group of Watergate revisionists have sought to rewrite history by ignoring the record, while reinventing it to suit their needs, ranging from scholars with a serious “confirmation bias” to conspiracy theory entrepreneurs twisting history for money. Sadly, but not surprisingly, no group has done more to try to distort this history than the Nixon Foundation, which is still in the control of former Nixon aides who are avowed Nixon apologists.

2
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Conversation No. 962-2 (Ziegler, May 23, 1973); Conversation No. 440-65 (Haldeman, May 29, 1973).

3
Conversation No. 168-30 (Ziegler, June 3, 1973).

4
Conversation No. 962-4 (Haig, May 23, 1973).

5
Conversation No. 39-104 (Buzhardt, June 6, 1973).

6
Conversation No. 962-2 (Ziegler, May 23, 1973).

7
Conversation No. 441-23 (Buzhardt, June 5, 1973).

8
Conversation No. 962-4 (Haig, May 23, 1973); Conversation No. 929-7 (Rogers, May 29, 1973); Conversation No. 440-65 (Haldeman, May 29, 1973).

9
Conversation No. 39-37 (Ziegler, June 3, 1973).

10
Conversation No. 441-23 (Buzhardt, June 5, 1973).

11
Conversation No. 441-35 (Buzhardt, June 7, 1973).

12
Conversation No. 962-2 (Ziegler, May 23, 1973).

13
Ibid.

14
Conversation No. 962-4 (Haig, May 23, 1973).